Metropolitan Community Church

The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), known denominationally as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), primarily serves lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Christians. The organization was founded in Los Angeles in October 1968 by former Church of God minister Troy Perry. From an initial group of thirteen, the church grew to add four new congregations across the United States within two years. The denomination held its inaugural General Conference in 1970, and in 1972 it began to make contact with LGBT Christian congregations in other countries. The UFMCC currently claims approximately three hundred churches and more than thirty-two thousand members in eighteen countries.

Although Perry's background was solidly Pentecostal, from the beginning his church has attracted people from a wide variety of Christian backgrounds. Early participants had been raised in a number of different churches, ranging from fundamentalist and Pentecostal to Seventh-Day Adventist, mainline Protestant, and Roman Catholic. Denominational beliefs and practices reflect this mixture; although UFMCC bylaws outline a standard Protestant doctrine and most churches follow similar worship procedures, individual congregations vary widely from conservative to metaphysical to charismatic.

The UFMCC sees itself primarily as an organization that offers religious acceptance to LGBT Christians. However, issues of concern for the denomination as a whole reflect the concerns of both the LGBT and American Protestant communities. Although the UFMCC has been campaigning for admission to the National Council of Churches (NCC) since the early 1980s, it has been denied to date because of the objection of some NCC members to its positive stance on homosexuality and transgender identities.

See alsoBelonging, Religious; Church; Freedomof Religion; Lesbianand Gay Rights Movement; New Religious Movements; Religious Communities.

Bibliography

Lukenbill, W. Bernard. "Observations on the Corporate Culture of a Gay and Lesbian Congregation." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37 (1998):440–452.

Perry, Troy, as told to Charles L. Lucas. The Lord Is MyShepherd and He Knows I'm Gay. 1972.

Perry, Troy, with Thomas L. P. Swicegood. Don't BeAfraid Anymore. 1990.

Warner, R. Stephen. "The Metropolitan Community Church and the Gay Agenda: The Power of Pentecostalism and Essentialism." In Sex, Lies, and Sanctity: Religion and Deviance in Contemporary NorthAmerica, edited by Mary Jo Neitz and Marion S. Goldman. 1995.

Wilson, Nancy. Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Jesus, andthe Bible. 1995.

Melissa M. Wilcox