“If I can use any of my power or influence to just kind of stand in that gap, then great.” 

“You said it! You said the Ezekiel thing!” I shouted enthusiastically at Madison First Baptist Church’s Reverend Tim Schaefer. I had been interrupting Schaefer throughout our 45-minute interview because I was excited to meet the openly gay Baptist pastor who used the power of his pulpit to not only affirm the LGBTQ+ community, but also the power of his own public comment at the Capitol. He testified against some of the most corrosive state legislation of Wisconsin’s last half a decade. He is a hero, if you ask me. But you are about to meet several heroes on this journey.

Rev. Schaefer told me that he grounds some of his work in the historical foundations of the Baptist faith in the United States, the followers of whom, like many European Protestants, found their way to America as an escape from religious persecution.

Getting to Know Clergy Allies  

I’m not a theologian, but I do run in those circles as the annoying pluralist friend. I love to make controversial exegetical pronouncements about ancient texts. That is probably why I was drawn to write about this particular phenomenon in Madison where a whole fellowship of clergy have consistently shown up to hearings in the Capitol, for years, to testify against bills that dehumanize the LGBTQ+ community. There were the bills to deny preferred pronouns and names, the bills to ban birth record changes, and the bills to deny trans athletes opportunities to compete. At every single hearing you could also see at least a few and sometimes many pastors, necks swathed in clerical collars, sitting with the LGBTQ+ community and publicly supporting their humanity and rights. I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

United Methodist Rev. Illéné  

“I’m a registered lobbyist for the good guys and gals,” quipped Reverend Breanna Illéné.

Rev. Illéné is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and preaches about once a month. However, during the week she serves as the Director of Ecumenical Innovation and Justice Initiatives for the Wisconsin Council of Churches. She’s been with WCC since 2019, but landed her current role in 2023, coinciding with a rash of anti-trans legislation being introduced in the state legislature. And that’s when Rev. Schaefer reached out to her to see what WCC was going to do about it.

Baptist Rev. Schaefer  

Rev. Schaefer was called to Madison from his previous post in Dallas, where he and his congregation were also active in advocacy work. “This is something I’m really passionate about,” Schaefer reflected. “I had done some of this work in seminary. I’d led my congregation to the state capital in Texas, which is a way different experience from doing advocacy at the legislature here.”

Seminary for Rev. Schaefer was a very natural-but-secondary path. He was born in Germany, the son of a United Methodist pastor. His family immigrated to the United States when he was a child, and he experienced some of the challenges of being a first-generation American. “I understand, somewhat, the struggle of immigrants. It’s hard for all immigrants, and yet I’m a white immigrant from a country that isn’t usually targeted. And so I don’t have that layer of added burden, so to speak, that some people might face,” he said.

Growing up, Schaefer would volunteer with others in his church to serve meals and staff shelters as part of the regular rotation of church congregations. Pastoral care came naturally to him, but when he came out in high school, he set that version of himself aside and focused his studies on political science. “Because I was dealing with my sexuality at that time, I didn’t think I would ever be able to be a pastor. There weren’t out pastors at that time,” Schaefer said.

Eventually though, Schaefer found himself at Texas Christian University, pursuing his Master of Divinity degree, along with a degree certificate in Gender and Sexual Justice from Brite Divinity School. In November 2020, Rev. Schaefer moved to Madison to serve as pastor of First Baptist Church. “I love that my congregation is behind this work because they’re a little bit more civically minded and open to engaging in the legislative process,” he said. “They speak their faith values out into the community.”

Wisconsin Council of Churches  

But not every church in the Wisconsin Council of Churches shares the same tenets. WCC represents dozens of Christian traditions, 2,000 churches, and 1,000,000 Christians in Wisconsin. “It’s hard because we have 23 traditions, and they’re not all LGBTQ+ affirming,” Rev. Illéné noted. “But we’ve been watching the world, and the reality is that these bills are harmful. These bills are violent. These bills directly harm trans people, our neighbors. Even holding the hearings is harmful.”

WCC members range from Catholics and Copts to Methodists and Mennonites. However, they do share a few foundational tenets. “Everything we do needs to be written in the policy that our membership has passed,” Rev. Illéné said. “We have a statement on non-violence, and my boss and I determined that it’s pretty clear where we stand, even if a member is not an LGBTQ+ affirming denomination, this is harmful, and you should be against it. Then, we opened it up to our membership and said, ‘Okay, who wants to come?’

Episcopal Rev. Hassett  

“Maybe once I actually got to read my statement [at a hearing],” reflected Rev. Dr. Miranda K. Hassett. “I’ve submitted written testimony other times. But there were also times when I just felt it was important to be there in my collar, just to be in support and be a witness.”

Rev. Hassett has served as Rector of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Madison since 2011. There are seven discipleship practices of faith listed on her church’s website, and the very first one discusses the intentional practice of welcoming. A quote from a church member explains the practice as, “Erring on the side of acceptance, embrace, and loving.”

The Episcopal church has been challenging the status quo over the past few decades and now fully includes the LGBTQ+ community in all aspects of church life, including marriage and ordination. “I think that it’s a church with a strong sense of continued revelation in a way,” Rev. Hassett says of her tradition at large. “It’s a church with a strong sense that we continue to learn and discover how God is at work in the world and how God has been at work in the world.”

That’s also why it wasn’t a hard decision for her to participate in legislative advocacy that supports St. Dunstan’s trans members and neighbors. “There is so much harm. And the hateful language is being shrouded in, couched in, and given cover by religious language and being spouted by people who present themselves as good Christians,” Rev. Hassett lamented. “I do really feel keenly that the necessity and importance of people of faith who are LGBTQ+ affirming, who are specifically trans-affirming, to show up, to be visible, to be vocal, to make it clear that faith and God and the kind of the claims of morality and virtue and righteousness are not all on one side of that conversation; that we also have a voice and have a position, have a groundedness, in the gospel and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit and the church.”

Rev. Illéné agrees. “People don’t expect the progressive tradition to continue in the church despite the fact that history has shown over and over again that this is EXACTLY where the organizing happens.”

Even though the State Assembly has adjourned for the session and the State Senate will follow suit shortly, the work continues, though it looks a bit different. Rev. Illéné will continue tracking bills, hearings, and putting out the call when violent legislation shows up in the dockets.

The Good Work Continues  

Rev. Schaefer will continue to answer the call to testify, but he is also on a quest to decouple religion from policymaking. He and another pastor are co-leading the Wisconsin Coalition for Religious Freedom. In January, the group was officially recognized by the national grassroots organization, Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

Meanwhile, Rev. Hassett is working on connecting with fellow Episcopal parishes to introduce willing congregations in more purple parts of Wisconsin to people who identify as trans—as well as with family and friends of trans individuals. She hopes that hearing fellow Episcopalians talk about their faith and their lives will help them feel more familiar, less fearful, and more welcoming of their trans neighbors.

The world has always been filled with injustice and oppression. Returning back to the book of Ezekiel, God angrily asks the Old Testament prophet who will stand in the gap between the mortal injustices of this world and help him pursue divine justice for those who have been pushed to the margins. Nobody answered that call. But more than two and a half millennia later, the answer in Wisconsin is different, and it’s thanks to the advocates, activists, and clergy who are standing in the gap on behalf of those who would be oppressed.

Katie Rosenberg of Wausau is Our Lives’ editorial board chair. Her advocacy spans time in local elected office, as a marketer for a Fortune 500 organization, and her current work in environmental justice. She holds a master’s in strategic communications from George Washington University and a bachelor’s in philosophy and religious studies from the UW-Stevens Point.