Open and Affirming (ONA) is an official designation of congregations and other settings within the United Church of Christ (UCC) denomination affirming the full inclusion of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons (LGBT) in that setting's life and ministry.
The Open and Affirming program is administered by the UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns, which supports congregations and other church settings as they consider adoption of an ONA covenant and maintains the official list of ONA settings. The Coalition encourages UCC congregations, campus ministries, seminaries, regional bodies and other communities to engage their members in serious study of sexual orientation and gender identity and to declare publicly their full welcome and inclusion of LGBT people. With more than 1,000 congregations, the UCC's ONA program is the largest of several LGBT-welcoming church movements in U.S. and Canadian churches.
Read more about Open And Affirming: History, Opposition
Famous quotes containing the words open and, open and/or affirming:
“For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“In the first place, all books that get fairly into the vital air of the world were written by the successful class, by the affirming and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel though they cannot say.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)