Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Chapter One ‘After crying to Jesus we started this church’
- Chapter Two ‘Finding a voice’: Research, archives, and my role as researcher
- Chapter Three ‘Somebodyness within the body of everybodyness’: Healing as a metaphor for reconciling conflicting identities
- Chapter Four Healing as metaphor: ‘The Dream’ and ‘Healing’
- Chapter Five ‘Guys, until Friday!’: Practising and performing gender in the HUMCC
- Chapter Six ‘The most special child in my house’: Coming out to parents and family
- Chapter Seven ‘Through your family we are given a son’: Two events demonstrating family and kinship in the HUMCC
- Chapter Eight ‘It takes faith to make a church’: Gay and lesbian Christian proselytising in the HUMCC
- Chapter Nine ‘This is not a club’: The founding of the Durban branch of the HUMCC
- Chapter Ten ‘The small flock that God has given me’: The death and funeral of Reverend Tsietsi Thandekiso
- Postscript ‘Entertaining God and the ancestors’: The HUMCC from 1996 to the present
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter Nine - ‘This is not a club’: The founding of the Durban branch of the HUMCC
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Chapter One ‘After crying to Jesus we started this church’
- Chapter Two ‘Finding a voice’: Research, archives, and my role as researcher
- Chapter Three ‘Somebodyness within the body of everybodyness’: Healing as a metaphor for reconciling conflicting identities
- Chapter Four Healing as metaphor: ‘The Dream’ and ‘Healing’
- Chapter Five ‘Guys, until Friday!’: Practising and performing gender in the HUMCC
- Chapter Six ‘The most special child in my house’: Coming out to parents and family
- Chapter Seven ‘Through your family we are given a son’: Two events demonstrating family and kinship in the HUMCC
- Chapter Eight ‘It takes faith to make a church’: Gay and lesbian Christian proselytising in the HUMCC
- Chapter Nine ‘This is not a club’: The founding of the Durban branch of the HUMCC
- Chapter Ten ‘The small flock that God has given me’: The death and funeral of Reverend Tsietsi Thandekiso
- Postscript ‘Entertaining God and the ancestors’: The HUMCC from 1996 to the present
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The force of condemnation, the persistent argument that homosexuality is un-Christian, placed a burden on the fledgling HUMCC to prove otherwise. One manifestation of this was the emphasis placed on the growth and expansion of the church.
Growth and expansion would in itself demonstrate the workings of the Holy Spirit within the HUMCC. The proselytising function of the HUMCC was thus regarded as particularly important by the church hierarchy. There was ongoing work to establish branches in Durban and Kimberley. The idea of expanding to other metropolitan centres including Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Pietersburg were also mentioned at various times. If the vision of the board of the HUMCC had materialised, the church would have had a presence in six out of South Africa's nine provinces. As it turned out, except for Durban, no formal branches were established in these other provinces. But the ideas themselves, as dreams, goals, and aspirations, emphasised the importance placed on the missionary function of the HUMCC. It was a vision of establishing national influence. As the founding church, the Johannesburg branch had a particularly significant role to play in realising at least a small part of this dream.
A number of sermons addressed this issue. The Johannesburg congregation was encouraged not to regard the HUMCC as a comfortable place where they could cocoon themselves from the outside world. Instead, the recurring message was: engage within the gay and lesbian community and beyond. Again, the image used to express the dream of expansion and development was that of the first Pentecost. The small band of early Christians who were treated with hostility and scepticism, but who were the bearers of an important message, was used both as a metaphor for the humble origins of the HUMCC and for its contested position within other formal religions. Other Biblical stories with a similar theme were also used to reinforce the idea of a persecuted minority who were nevertheless bearers of an important, divinely inspired message.
On 4 June 1995, Pastor Moema delivered a sermon on the topic of prayer, based on the idea that prayer was a prerequisite to making the church grow and become an ‘effective part of the body of Christ’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Above the SkylineReverend Tsietsi Thandekiso and the founding of an African gay church, pp. 153 - 164Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2015