Last February I was invited by the students and their faculty advisors at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, to address the Monday Noon Forum on "The Church's Ministry to the Homosexual." My 40minute address to some 160 students and faculty was followed by searching questions. That a group of seminarians would be concerned enough on this matter of Church-homosexual relations and who also felt they were not finding direction in their regular courses to invite an outside speaker is, indeed, an encouraging note. It has come to my attention since the lecture that it was the most talked about Monday Noon Forum of the academic year and resulted in a special release seven weeks later from the President's office stating his position on homosexuality. There are a few isolated denominational leaders who are concerning themselves with a ministry to the homosexual as it may relate to their specific sphere of concern. Such men as Tom Driver, drama critic of The Christian Century and assistant professor of Theology, Union Seminary, New York City; Roger Hazelton, Dean of the Graduate School of Theology, Oberlin College; Roger L. Shinn, Professor of Applied Christianity at Union Seminary and President of the United Church of Home land Ministries of the United Church of Christ; Herman Reissig, Director of International Relations of the Council of Christian Social Action of the United Church of Christ; Theodore Gill, formerly an editor of The Christian Century and now President of one of your west coast seminaries; Samuel McCrea Cavert, one of the architects of the World Council of Churches. While none of these men, to my knowledge, has blazed any new trails concerning religious" attitudes towards homosexuality each has shown an awareness of the need for intelligent confrontation and called it to the attention of some limited segments of the Church. Listen to what these men are writing:

Dr. Shinn: "It's (Christianity's) heritage has recalled it repeatedly to a mission of protest and transformation...Social ethics requires continually both the enlarging of our minds and the purging of our spirits." pp. 65, 68.

Dr. Cavert: "It (the Church) has to be the defender of the oppressed, of the victims of injustice, and of the down-trodden whenever the dignity and rights of any children of God are denied by the forces of dominant authority and power." p. 205.

Roger Hazelton: "There is great need for the patient building of consensus, the frank encounter of traditions, the willing exposure to the unfamiliar and the hitherto suspected viewpoints." p 242.

The preceding quotations are all found in New Frontiers of Christianity, published by Association Press, 1962.

mattachine REVIEW

Almost each month I learn of another clergyman who has been counselling, or who is willing to counsel, homosexuals. Some of these are unaware that there are other brothers of the cloth doing the same thing. Many are doing so without the knowledge of their superiors or their congregations. Last October eight such Protestant ministers met in New York City for a two day seminar and found the common sharing both educational and spiritual. Yet there are a growing number of isolated clergymen who are ready to counsel spiritually disturbed homosexuals. There is a need for a central clearing house where the names and addresses of such clergy can be made available to the homosexuals or their loved ones. We are not yet at the point where we can take for granted that every minister-priest-rabbi will counsel in this area. To date the Church has accomplished nothing as significant as the law reform group has done in the state of Illinois yet many personal sacrifices are being made by isolated and unknown clergy who seek to minister to homosexuals. Just as there are individual and isolated clergy throughout the country giving direction to spiritually disturbed homosexuals and their loved ones so, too, there are some individual churches engaged in an effect ive ministry to the homosexual. Frequently such ministry is carried on openly by the pastor but goes unrecognized by the heterosexual members of the congregation. Other times the church gains a reputation for ministering to homosexuals but doesn't seek to flee from such reputation. The historic Judson Memorial Church on the south side of Washington Square in Greenwich Village is an example of the latter type. It is most difficult to measure the ramifications engendered by these isolated churche's but one must be grateful for their ministry: silent, unheralded; but effective for individual lives.

The Church is becoming increasingly aware of the world wide problem of over population. The Rev. Thomas Malthus some 164 years ago called the world's attention to what was happening but no one listened seriously. Now in the past ten years we have witnessed a very dramatic tum-about by the Protestant community. A member of my own denomination, Richard Fagley, published "The Population Explosion and, Christian Responsibility" in 1960. The Christian Century and other Protestant journals are giving increasing concern to the demographic revolution. This very month-August, 1962-the national Adult Church School lessons of the 'Methodist Church are spending all four Sundays on this specific problem. As the Church becomes increasingly aware of the social magnitude and theological implications of such rapid human reproduction as is now inundating the earth and searches for moral ways of abating such pending catastrophe it must eventually deal with the