Defrocked minister turns other cheek

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/schultz/index.ssf?/base/living/1131013855122320.xml&coll=2

Thursday, November 03, 2005
Connie Schultz
Plain Dealer Columnist

What is most remarkable about the Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud is her Christian response to the church that has discarded her.

"I love the Methodist church," she told me Tuesday, only a day after the United Methodist Church's Judicial Council defrocked her because she is openly a lesbian. "Some have urged me to change denominations, to become a minister in a church that accepts gays and lesbians, but I was born into this faith. God makes a way."

Since 1999, Stroud has been an associate minister at First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia. She has been especially involved with the church's young people, a predictable career trajectory for the little girl who grew up talking to God and Jesus about whatever was on her mind. She wrestled the demons of doubt that torment young adults, but Jesus won her heart, she said, because he kept on knocking.

"Each time, Jesus showed up, a living presence on the wrong side of the door where he had no reason to be," she preached on April 27, 2003...