# Open and Affirming **Summary.** Open and Affirming (ONA) is the United Church of Christ's designation for congregations that have formally covenanted to welcome and fully include LGBTQ+ people in every part of church life — membership, leadership, ordination, marriage, and the sacraments. A congregation becomes ONA by study, discernment, and an adopted public covenant, not by informal goodwill. The label marks affirmation as a settled theological commitment rather than a contested policy. Within this wiki it is the concrete, congregational form of the LGBTQ+-inclusion commitment named in [[Progressive Christianity]]. --- ## What it is - **A covenant, not a mood.** An ONA congregation votes on and publishes a Covenant of Welcome and Affirmation. The process is deliberate: education, conversation, and a congregational decision. St. John's UCC reaffirms its covenant on Open and Affirming Sunday. (Source: [[2026-06-28-st-johns-ucc-ruth-new-life-open-and-affirming|St John's UCC — Ruth: New Life / Open and Affirming Sunday]]) - **A UCC denominational program.** ONA is coordinated through the UCC Open and Affirming Coalition. The Coalition produces worship resources used across member congregations — for example Rev. Derek A. Terry's liturgy *We Shall Not Be Moved! Rooted in Love, Justice, and Affirmation*, which supplied the full order of worship at St. John's UCC on 28 June 2026. (Source: [[2026-06-28-st-johns-ucc-ruth-new-life-open-and-affirming|St John's UCC — Ruth: New Life / Open and Affirming Sunday]]) - **Often dated to Pride / Stonewall.** Congregations frequently hold Open and Affirming Sunday in June, and pointedly on the 28 June Stonewall anniversary, tying the church covenant to the wider LGBTQ+ movement's history. ## Liturgical theology Three theological moves recur in ONA worship, drawn from the Terry liturgy as used at St. John's: 1. **Affirmation as truth-claim.** Queer and trans identity is named as "the truth of who God made us to be" — God-given, to be defended, not merely tolerated. 2. **Specific, institutional confession.** ONA liturgy confesses "the harm done in [God's] name, especially to LGBTQ+ people: the exclusion, shame, silence, and fear." Repentance is concrete and corporate, not generic. 3. **Peace reframed as justice.** "The peace of Christ is not fragile politeness. It is the fierce peace of justice, truth, and love." > [!quote] > "God does not ask us to sacrifice our *beloved-ness* in order to be faithful." > — *We Shall Not Be Moved!*, Assurance of Grace (Source: [[2026-06-28-st-johns-ucc-ruth-new-life-open-and-affirming|St John's UCC — Ruth: New Life / Open and Affirming Sunday]]) ## Hermeneutics ONA preaching tends to read inclusion as the trajectory of Scripture rather than a departure from it. The 28 June 2026 service is a clear example: Ruth 4 (the Moabite outsider drawn into the covenant line to David) and the Magnificat's reversal (Luke 1:46-55) are read as the Bible's own logic of welcome for the marginalized. This is the "scripture as inspired, not inerrant" and "justice as gospel" hermeneutic catalogued under [[Progressive Christianity]], applied to sexuality and gender. ## Contrast within the broader tradition > [!contradiction] Affirming vs. "welcoming but not affirming" > **Open and Affirming (UCC):** LGBTQ+ people are fully included in leadership, ordination, marriage, and sacrament; same-sex relationships and trans identity are blessed, not merely permitted. > **"Welcoming but not affirming" (much of evangelicalism):** LGBTQ+ people may attend and belong socially, but leadership, marriage, and ordination are withheld, and same-sex relationships are treated as sin. > The disagreement turns on whether affirmation is a faithful reading of Scripture or a capitulation to culture — the same hermeneutical fault line that runs through [[Progressive Christianity]] and many [[Deconstruction]] journeys. ## Role in the wiki ONA is the wiki's first sustained node on queer-affirming ecclesiology and the congregational counterpart to the patriarchal/complementarian gender theology tracked on the Christian-nationalism side. It connects [[St. John's UCC Chambersburg]]'s identity to [[Progressive Christianity]], [[United Church of Christ]] polity, and [[Inclusive Language Hymnody]]. ## A mainline-official second witness Sen. Chris Coons describes the same commitment from outside the UCC, across the mainline: Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches posting "you are loved, you are welcome" with a pride flag "not just one month of a year," and "love thy neighbor, no exceptions" that "includes the LGBT community." His caveat is the ONA warning in different words — "that has to be more than just a brief proclamation. We have to do the work" — the covenant-not-a-mood point restated as lived practice. He locates the opposing "religion is about … defining and controlling sexuality" frame in the 1980s Moral Majority, and reads a [[Pope Leo XIV]] emphasis-shift as loosening (not changing) Catholic exclusion. (Source: [[2026-07-05-unbelief-coons-faith-and-politics|Sen. Chris Coons on Christian Nationalism and Faith in Politics (Unbelief)]]) > [!question] Open question > Now built from two sources — the St. John's congregational liturgy and Coons's cross-mainline account — but both are affirming voices describing practice. The page still lacks the argumentative core: the six "clobber passages," the marriage-theology debate, the trans-specific theology, and a contrasting "welcoming but not affirming / side B" primary source read on its own terms. A third source engaging the exegesis directly would move this from *what ONA is* to *why the traditions divide*.