Customer Reviews

A Whosoever Church: Welcoming Lesbians and Gay Men into African American Congregations

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A Whosever Church is the latest in Rev. Gary Comstock's series of books dealing with the gay community and religion. Like the others, this book is intelligent, respectful, eminently readable, and thought-provoking. It consists of twenty interviews with prominent African American pastors, from a range of denominations and locations.

As a gay white man, Comstock obviously bears the burden of being an outsider to the communities he studies in this book. His solution is to allow the interviewee to speak for themselves, making this book a collaborative effort of the twenty pastors, gently shaped by Comstock's questions.

While it is somewhat true that the book offers little in terms of earth-shattering ways to make the church more inclusive, it does offer hopeful glimpses and reminders that the church is slowly but surely becoming a safer place for African-American gays and lesbians. The author does a very good job of chronicling the stories of African-American pastors who've moved beyond tolerance or intolerance to a place of affirmation.

Accessible format. Easy to read. Highly informative. A must read for anyone questioning the debate over the tension between sexual orientation and Christianity.

Though well written, this book adds nothing original to the dialogue between relgion and sexuality. Everthing in the book, I suspect we have heard a thousand times already.