Rev. John McIver Gage of the Congregational Church of Needham, a United Congregational Church (UCC) affiliate, was happy to talk about Needham’s Pride events this weekend. He said that his passion for work on issues related to sexual and gender identity comes from his personal experience. Gage is a Texas native who has lived most of his adult life in New England. He said, “I was the first openly gay candidate that was ordained out of my area of the UCC in Austin.”
“I would like to make the world a smoother place for people like me who are growing up as part of a sexual minority,” he said.
In furtherance of that objective, on Saturday, June 13, his church and the First Parish Unitarian Universalist are cosponsoring a Needham Has Pride event from 3-5 p.m. The rally starts at the First Parish, followed by a sidewalks march to the Congregational Church’s lawn where there will be games, crafts, food and a story time featuring local drag diva Marge Erin Spread, who is the pastor at the Millis UCC Church.
“We’ve used for several years now a format called Rally, March, Party,” Gage said. “The party on our lawn is very much a kid’s size and shape party.”
“Our focus here is creating, number one, a local event, and number two, one that is accessible, particularly to families with younger kids, or anyone who doesn’t fancy facing the giant crowds downtown,” Gage said. He said that the Needham-based pride event has been scheduled to not overlap with the larger celebration in Boston.
In his opinion, current political trends make the need for the upcoming rally more urgent.
Gage said that a recently released U.S. counter-terrorism strategy lists the transgender community as one of the nation’s top security threats. “We want to raise the joy in this community particularly at this time, particularly this year,” Gage said. “Statistics say that just having just one supportive adult in their life makes a queer or questioning child 40% less likely to attempt suicide.”
Raised in a “faithful family” in Austin, Gage said that he came of age at a time when his family’s Presbyterian church was not ready to accept gay pastors. “Between 1995 and 2000, the Presbyterian Church was going through a very civil war about the ordination of gay folks,” he said. “At that time, we really just thought of it as gay and lesbian folks. We hadn’t learned the whole alphabet yet.”
He said that a colleague suggested trying a different church. “That began my relationship with the United Church of Christ, who welcomed me, and where I got ordained.”
Gage is sympathetic to those who have a hard time keeping track of all the Protestant congregations in town. When Michael Fee called him to the podium to offer spiritual guidance at the beginning of the third night of Town Meeting in May, Gage explained which church he represented, “You might know it as the annex to the post office on Great Plain Avenue.”
He said that while the Unitarian Universalists retained the town’s 1836 Congregational church building as its members shifted religious affiliation in the mid-1800s, the Congregationalists, with a much younger building at the corner of Linden Street and Great Plain Avenue, have a more direct historical link to the original Puritan churches of New England. In contrast to the Unitarians, the Congregationalists have remained trinitarian. Similar to the Unitarians, his congregation’s beliefs have evolved significantly since the days of Cotton Mather. The Puritan Church punished and banished those who did not fit into traditional gender stereotypes, and insisted on conformity. It took about 300 years for the descendants of these Protestant churches to embrace diversity.
Needham’s Congregational church is affiliated with the UCC, but Gage said that many Congregational churches do not have that affiliation. Gage explained that Congregational churches have great autonomy. “In our tradition, the congregation votes on almost everything,” he said.
In Needham, the congregation voted to adopt the UCC’s Open and Affirming doctrine. “That means we are open to and affirming of the full participation and dignity of queer folks in the life of the church and the life of society,” Gage said.
Gage said that there appears to be a long path ahead for the queer community to achieve full dignity and participation in other parts of society, but he hopes to someday “work ourselves out of a job around this.”
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