Sanctuary: Queering a Church in the Heartland (Adey Wassink, Katie Imborek, Tom Wassink, Brian McLaren) - A Review

 SANCTUARY: Queering a Church in the Heartland. By Adey Wassink, Katie Imborek, and Tom Wassink. Foreword by Brian McLaren. Canton, MI: Free the Spirit Books, 2024. Xv + 222 pages.

I have led a congregation through a process culminating in the congregation voting to become Open and Affirming. Even in a more progressive Mainline Protestant congregation that wasn’t an easy process. We took our time. While we lost a few members along the way, they were few in number. Our process was aided in part by the presence of gay staff members along with numerous allies. In addition, we could point to the fact that the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), our denomination had voted to support the inclusion of LGBTQ persons. We also brought in David Gushee to speak to the congregation. When taken together we successfully moved to an open and affirming position. Not every church and faith community that seeks to become inclusive of LGBTQ persons has the same kinds of support structures, and yet they feel called to pursue becoming open and affirming.

One such church is known as Sanctuary, and once upon a time, they were part of the Vineyard Movement. In a recently published book titled Sanctuary: Queering a Church in the Heartland, Adey Wassink, Katie Imborek, and Tom Wassink tell the story of that church’s journey to inclusion. As Brian McLaren writes in his Foreword, “They’re telling us honestly about the intimate pain that has been and is still being inflicted on people whose only crime is being sexual” (p. xiv). This journey to inclusion took place within the Vineyard Movement, which is a charismatic/evangelical denomination that has taken a less-than-inclusive view of same-sex relationships and transgender identity. Thus, to take this journey was much more difficult than the one my congregation took. Even if the majority of the congregants supported the move to inclusion, they would have to buck the teachings of their larger community.

The authors of Sanctuary include the pastors of that church, Adey Wassink (herself a pioneer in the Vineyard as an ordained woman pastor) and her husband and co-pastor, Tom Wassink, along with Katie Imborek, a lesbian member of that congregation who was, with her former wife, a leading participant in the journey that led to the congregation voting to be inclusive. It was a decision that ended with the congregation being forced to leave the denomination. The authors tell the story of their journey together, introducing us to different members and participants in the journey. Tom and Adey tell of their emergence out of an evangelicalism that excluded rather than included. It was encounters with gay and lesbian Christians, including Katie, who were seeking to find a safe spiritual home for their families, that contributed to their own change of mind. We learn of their own journeys as they sought to understand their own sexual identities. Much of the book takes place in Iowa City, a university town, that is a hub for LGBTQ persons in Iowa. Tom and Adey moved to Iowa City from Evanston, Illinois, they had been part of a Vineyard church. After they moved to Iowa City for Tom’s job as a psychologist, they not only planted a Vineyard congregation, but they encountered people like Katie who were seeking a spiritual home. These encounters helped change the way Adey and Tom viewed sexual identity. They did so in the context of a denomination that not only deemed LGBTQ persons to be sexually aberrant but were less than welcoming of women pastors. Thus, in the beginning, Adey was told she could be the lead pastor, in practice, but that her husband, Tom, would need to be listed as the senior pastor.

A book like this can prove very helpful to congregations seeking to move toward a more open and inclusive position. They will learn about the kinds of challenges they will face, even if they are in a more supportive denomination. It might be even more difficult now to make this move than it was when my congregation and Sanctuary made that move since we’re witnessing a significant backlash against LGBTQ persons, especially transgender persons.

Sanctuary is a very personal book. The stories are at times raw. However, sometimes this is what we need if we are going to move to a more inclusive vision of the church. Stories like this, including the stories that Adey and Tom tell of their own journey toward an inclusive position, which would lead to the separation from their denomination as well as breaking long-standing relationships, what Adey calls Forever Friends, will prove very helpful. Their story serves as a reminder that not everyone can join the journey to inclusion. This is painful. We see that pain revealed as the three co-authors tell their stories. At the same time, we get to read of people like Katie who found a safe and welcoming home in this evangelical church that with time became both postevangelical and inclusive.

I appreciate the work the authors have put into Sanctuary. They remind us that following pathways like this will not be easy. They let us know that relationships might get severed. We learn as well that when we take journeys like this our theological positions and views of the Bible may very well change, and that in itself can be difficult. I would say that this is a deeply theological journey because it ultimately involves our vision of who God is. The movement from exclusion to inclusion reflects how we view God so that even if a congregation doesn’t place theology front and center, theology plays an important role. So, I highly recommend Sanctuary to the larger church, especially those congregations who have entered the process of becoming Open and Affirming. It can easily be paired with a book such as David Gushee’s Changing Our Mind, also offered by Read the Spirit Books. The good news here is that while Sanctuary, the name the congregation gave to itself after separating from the Vineyard, had to leave its denominational home it found a home among other Vineyard churches that went through the same kinds of journeys. Thus, today they are part of a network called Blue Ocean. But they are also part of a much larger community of congregations that seek to be inclusive and offer safe spaces for LGBTQ persons to worship and fellowship. This is especially important at a time when the backlash is in full force.