Ss Perpetua & Felicity
We hear quite a lot about ‘inclusive’ churches, and we’ve commented here about this. Now that refers to churches here and now, part of what the 1662 Book of Common Prayer calls ‘the Church Militant here in earth.’ But what about the ‘Church Triumphant’ in heaven!
Well some fundamentalist christians would have us believe heaven is a rather exclusive place, and also when we look at Calendars of Saints of churches we could be forgiven for thinking the church triumphant isn’t very inclusive. So many of the saints are western, white and single and there seem to be more men than women. And what about LGBT saints? (And, by the way, and more contentiously, what about saints of non christian faiths, do we honour them, or do we remain christian ‘in house’?)
If we look in the lists of saints we will find many that would help balance. There are many varied folk among them, and some have been rather sidelined in our less credulous days.
Ss Polyeuct & Nearchos
Fr Chris has recently encouraged us to redress the balance a little. Let’s honour LGBT saints. Of course, terms such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans are modern and understandings have changed. Nevertheless people looking at saints lives have identified many who fit these categories. (A suggested list is given here.) We’ve already drawn attention to some cross dressing saints here.
To be an inclusive church on earth means we will also wish to celebrate good role models in the saints. Part of this celebration will also involve placing images of LGBT saints in our churches.
Anyone care to fund such a one for St Chrysostom’s!
St Chrysostom's Church News and Views 
And here is a different perspective on LGBT saints!
St. Perpetua was married and had a baby. Her servant was St Felicity. They were not great sinners. They were great saints. There are no such thing as an LGBT Saint. Either you are converted from your Mortal Sins or you are not. Same for any sinner. Either you repent of offending God and others or you try to get your sins validated by your own revisionist history. Don’t insult the saints with your calumny.
It has been important to me to honour the LGBT saints. Being LGBT is a holy thing. All are created in God’s image, and therefore we know more about God through LGBT people
What does it mean to be a saint? The Apostle Paul addresses all of his readers as saints, as those sanctified by Christ for lives of holiness; and in Christ he tells us there is neither slave or free, Jew or Greek, male or female: we are all one. Straight, gay or anywhere in between we are beloved of God: let us then set aside such differences and celebrate the universal sainthood God grants us in Christ! Thanks be to God for ALL the saints, for all who live in love and faithfulness, whatever their gender or orientation.
Thank you for doing this! LGBT saints are important to me and many others. Do you have a litany naming the LGBT saints? I would love to know what kind of liturgy you will use on All Saints Day. I write about LGBT saints at Jesusinlove.org and am preparing this year’s material for All Saints now.
You might enjoy my reflection on “Why we need LGBT saints:
http://jesusinlove.blogspot.com/2011/11/all-saints-day-why-we-need-lgbt-saints.html
You have some broken links. Could you fix them, please?
No broken links detected in the post – just checked….