KCET Probes the Nation’s Faith

Pam Walton initially turned down a chance to make a documentary on the struggle of gays and lesbians to become ordained pastors in the theologically torn Lutheran church.

“Like a lot of gay and lesbian people, I didn’t have a lot to do with religion,” the 56-year-old said. “The whole idea of religion turned my stomach.”

But then she met some of the gay Lutheran clergy.

“These people are so devoted to their church that they won’t leave it,” Walton said. “They just can’t. They feel called. If I was in that much pain, I’d just dump the church and forget about it.”

Walton spent three years filming “Call to Witness,” a video documentary that follows three gay or lesbian pastors who--along with their supportive congregations--defied church doctrine prohibiting clergy from having sex outside of traditional marriage.

“The documentary shows the spiritual violence done to gay and lesbian pastors,” said the Rev. Jeff Johnson, an openly gay man who was ordained against the church’s wishes in 1990 in San Francisco. He’s currently a chaplain at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley. Walton “brought out of the closet the shameful effects of this policy of discrimination.”

The hourlong documentary will air tonight at 9 on KCET as part of a three-hour block of faith-related programming.

At 8 p.m., the station will show “Jodie and Mary,” a film about conjoined twins who doctors said would die if they weren’t separated. The parents, knowing that one daughter, Mary, wouldn’t survive the operation, wanted to leave their twins’ fate in God’s hands. A judge ordered the operation. Jodie lived; Mary died. “Tales of Faith” at 10 p.m. is a documentary about the diversity of Christians in the Midwest.

“I’m very interested to see how it works,” director of programming Douglas Chang said of KCET’s rare evening devoted to religion. “The films are really nice complements to each other.”

The pastors interviewed in “Call to Witness”--all presented as likable, intelligent and caring--inject a human element into the abstract debate that’s engulfed many denominations: Should gay and lesbians in committed relationships be allowed to be pastors?

The documentary--which cost $65,000 that Walton raised independently--is shot against the backdrop of Midwestern churches, not exactly the cutting edge of gay activism. It has been shown at film festivals, gay and lesbian events and on television. But the film broadened its impact within the church when Walton and other activists sent a copy this summer to each of the 1,040 delegates who attended the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America held this summer in Indianapolis.

“We asked them to prayerfully look at the video and use it to help them gain an understanding of the whole issue,” said Mari Irvin, former co-chair of national Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries based in San Francisco.

The assembly voted earlier this month to embark on a four-year study on the role of homosexuals in church ministry, a compromise position between keeping and lifting the ban on gay pastors.

“I couldn’t go 15 feet without being recognized” at the conference, said Rev. Anita C. Hill, a lesbian pastor at St. Paul-Reformation Church in St. Paul, Minn., who was featured in the film. “The video has been very helpful with raising the issues of our church by using the pastors’ stories, mine included.”

Especially dramatic is the story of the Rev. Steve Sabin, who told both his Ames, Iowa, congregation and his bishop that he is gay.

“Faith calls us to levels of discomfort not only when we’re dealing with controversy but whenever we’re dealing with the Gospel,” Sabin tells his church members in the film. He now works as a pastor in San Francisco.

Walton followed Sabin, who refused his bishop’s request to resign, through a climatic disciplinary hearing before church officials.

“There’s an increasing kind of bigotry in the Lutheran Church,” said Walton, a Mountain View, Calif., resident who has also produced the award-winning video documentaries “Out in Suburbia” and “Family Values: An American Tragedy.” “Out in Suburbia” won best documentary at the 1989 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and “Family Values” won best documentary at the Austin, Texas, and the Santa Barbara gay and lesbian international film festivals in 1997. “But they are very polite about it. They don’t want to say anything hateful or prejudiced. They do it all with this smiling face.”

Officials at the church’s national headquarters in Chicago declined comment on Walton’s film, saying that they’re concentrating now on starting the study.

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“Jodie and Mary” can be seen tonight at 8 on KCET. “Call to Witness” follows at 9 p.m. with “Talesk of Faith” at 10 p.m.