Gay Grace. The Sequential Rise of Homosexuality Acceptance in Swiss and US Congregations

Drawing on the National Congregations Study in Switzerland and the United States, this talk traces how local congregations came to accept lesbian and gay individuals over the past decade. In both countries, congregations followed the same ordered sequence. They first admitted lesbian and gay people as members, and only later opened leadership roles to them. The two countries diverged in one respect. Many US congregations reverted to more restrictive positions, while Swiss congregations rarely reversed course. The talk reads this difference as the two countries occupying different points along one shared trajectory toward inclusion.

Jeremy Senn is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), where he works with Prof. Dr. Jörg Stolz. His thesis, Sacred sequences. How Swiss religious congregations change, examines organizational change in religious congregations using the National Congregations Study Switzerland (NCSS), the first nationally representative survey of congregations in Europe to offer repeated data over time. He was principally responsible for conducting its second wave. His research focuses on religious diversity, gender equality, and the inclusion of sexual minorities in congregations.