RELIGION ON CAMPUS

As a child, she remembered wanting to stick up for people who faced injustice and who society often excluded.

As a college student, she remembered a classmate who came out during a first-year study group. He then relayed what it was like to be gay and Lutheran.

And as a pastor of nearly 25 years, she now stands on the forefront of a local Reconciling in Christ movement aimed at making it clear that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people, and all those in between, are welcome under the faith umbrella.

Rev. Jayne Thompson, University Lutheran Church of the Epiphany (ULCE) pastor, began her service locally in May 2005, having previously served as a campus pastor at Kansas State University for 12 years prior to her arrival in St. Cloud.

With GLBT History and Awareness Month in October and National Coming Out Day Friday, her church stands in a unique position as a voice for the oppressed and as a voice against social injustice.

History

ULCE is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), an organization composed of nine regions, 65 synods (or smaller church districts) and more than 10,500 individual congregations in the United States.

While the ULCE on campus is one of 271 ELCA churches within the Southwestern Minnesota Synod, it stands apart as the only Reconciling in Christ congregation.

It started as a Reconciling in Christ campus ministry in 1986, and just last year conducted a training event for other interested congregations.

Thompson said the church hopes to be a catalyst for conversation among other churches looking to join the movement.

"It is a matter of the Gospel that we welcome people," she said. "I think it is a witness to justice that Jesus welcomed all people, and we would like to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and do the same."

In her own words

Thompson first became aware of GLBT issues after listening to the story of her college classmate. Thompson said she began to understand what it was like to be a GLBT individual, but was still unsure of what the Bible said about homosexuality.

She decided even if she didn't fully understand all the complexities of sexual orientation, she would set about reading and researching the Gospel.

In time, with the help of scripture and the stories of gay and lesbian friends, she developed her own understanding of what it meant to be a Christian and where she believed the Bible stood on homosexuality.

"The Bible was written when people didn't have any comprehension about sexual orientation like we do now," she said. "While he didn't say anything about gay people, he did have a lot to say about including those who society considered outcasts. So, I thought if it wasn't a concern of Jesus, my job