{"id":354608,"date":"2017-09-19T07:26:09","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T07:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=354608"},"modified":"2017-11-10T11:18:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T11:18:56","slug":"two-pastors-in-love-and-only-god-knows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=354608","title":{"rendered":"Two pastors in love, and only God knows"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pastor Twanna Gause stepped out of a limousine amid the whir of cameras outside the New Vision Full Gospel Baptist Church in East Orange, N.J.<\/p>\n

Dressed in an off-white wedding gown and veil that sparkled in the cascading sunshine, she carried a bouquet of white roses and lilies, hugged several guests, then parted a sea of well-wishers on the way to her best friend, Pastor Vanessa Brown, who stood waiting at the altar in a cream-colored long coat called a sherwani and gold Punjabi jutti shoes.<\/p>\n

The church doors opened, allowing the faint strains of \u201cYou Are So Beautiful\u201d to float on the hot August air. Pastor Gause stepped inside, where she was greeted by Bishops Levi Richards and Eugene Gathers, both of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s our spiritual daughter,\u201d Bishop Richards said.<\/p>\n

Both men walked Ms. Gause down the aisle, a role she had initially hoped would be accepted by her father, the Rev. Sam Gause Sr., a Pentecostal minister who lives in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Gause, citing \u201cdifferences in theological beliefs,\u201d refused his daughter\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father would not come here because he does not believe in same-sex marriage,\u201d Ms. Gause said. \u201cHe told me the devil tricked me into this, and that if we had been married in biblical times, we would have been stoned to death.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Gause, who helped raise four other daughters and a son before divorcing their mother, Cathy Dodson, in 1996, held steadfast in his decision.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTwanna very well knows I\u2019m not for that kind of lifestyle,\u201d he said by phone in a calm and stern tone several days after the wedding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that God wanted us to procreate through a natural process, and by no means am I happy about this because it is unnatural,\u201d he said. \u201cI look at homosexuality as a mental disorder. If I start to tell you that I am an elephant, and start to behave as an elephant, that\u2019s my choice, I choose to become an elephant. But you would probably choose to call a mental institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gause, long affiliated with the Center of Hope Church of God in Christ in Riverdale, Ga., said he had no immediate plans to contact his daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will talk to her at some point, I suppose, if she calls me, but I will not initiate the call,\u201d he said. \u201cI do have some words for her that she needs to hear. I\u2019m not going to condemn her or judge her because I don\u2019t have that authority, but judgment has already been established by God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Brown, 46, and Ms. Gause, 45, both pastors of Rivers of Living Water United Church of Christ, which has locations in Newark and New York, heard much softer words on their wedding day while holding hands before the Rev. Dr. Yvette Flunder, the presiding bishop of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, who read from the First Epistle to the Corinthians.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove is patient, love is kind. … Love hopes and endures all things,\u201d Bishop Flunder read, as amens and hallelujahs rang out from some the 200-plus guests who flocked to celebrate a love that has endured for nearly three decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwanna and I go way, way back,\u201d Ms. Brown said.<\/p>\n

Once upon an Amazing Grace, two choir girls met at a church in Jersey City, and before one of them could clear her throat to sing, she thought she had already caught a glimpse of heaven.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was like, \u2018Oh wow, what in the world, who\u2019s that, she\u2019s beautiful,\u2019\u201d recalled Ms. Gause, who was then a 16-year-old living in Paterson, N.J. \u201cI immediately felt this kind of strange, warm feeling wash over me, and though I had not yet spoken a word to her, I could see myself loving this woman forever. My head was just spinning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Brown, then 18 and living in New York, was not struck by the same thunderbolt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was oblivious as to how Twanna was feeling,\u201d Ms. Brown said. \u201cI looked at her as this adorable, skinny little girl who I initially thought was so much younger than me, and I had no idea that she liked me in any way other than as a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Gause, who said she was hoping for a connection, was crushed. \u201cThough it broke my heart, I never said a word about my true feelings for Vanessa because I didn\u2019t want it to hurt our friendship,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I never said a word to my father because he was so strict, I knew he wouldn\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both grew up in religious families \u2014 \u201cWe didn\u2019t hang on street corners, go to clubs or do drugs, none of that,\u201d Ms. Gause said. But they spent time together at events sponsored by the Hiya Fellowship of the Saviour Church in Jersey City and at LaGree Baptist Church in Harlem, which were linked through a minister who served both congregations.<\/p>\n

Their friendship continued to blossom until the day in 1990 when Ms. Gause called Ms. Brown to say that her father was moving the family to Atlanta.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was devastated,\u201d Ms. Brown said. \u201cTwanna had become my best friend in the whole world, I didn\u2019t know what I would do without her.\u201d<\/p>\n

They kept in touch, and Ms. Gause moved back to Paterson in 1994, and became engaged to a man there, breaking it off in less than a year and returning to Atlanta, where she toured with a gospel choir and worked as a cosmetologist.<\/p>\n

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The lifestyle newsletter from the Styles, Travel and Food sections, offering the latest trends to news you can use.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u201cThat relationship just didn\u2019t seem right,\u201d Ms. Gause said. \u201cPlus I still had Vanessa on my mind.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n

But Ms. Brown, who was by then working as a producer and talent coordinator for \u201cAmateur Night\u201d at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, had married a man in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I was still in love with Vanessa, I never told her it should have been me,\u201d said Ms. Gause, who did not attend the wedding. \u201cBut I knew for sure it shouldn\u2019t have been him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time, and not much of it, proved Ms. Gause right. By May 2005, five months after it began, Ms. Brown\u2019s first marriage was over. \u201cI should have listened to Twanna,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Later that year, Ms. Brown invited Ms. Gause to give a guest sermon at Oasis of Love, a church in Harlem where she served as an associate pastor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to dinner and started catching up and talking about our lives,\u201d Ms. Brown said. \u201cTwanna seemed so much more mature than I remembered her, and she was very sound in her preaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time, Ms. Gause began to express her true feelings, and Ms. Brown began seeing her old friend through \u201ca different set of eyes,\u201d as she put it.<\/p>\n

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After dinner, they strolled through Ms. Brown\u2019s Harlem neighborhood until they came to the brownstone where she lived. They walked up a short flight of stairs, and Ms. Brown reached for a key to open the front door. As she attempted to turn the lock, her hand was suddenly covered by Ms. Gause\u2019s. Ms. Brown turned to find Ms. Gause gazing at her. No words were spoken, though each knew what was coming next.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had waited a long time to kiss me, and I knew this was it,\u201d Ms. Brown said. \u201cI was so nervous. My heart started racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Ms. Gause, it was heaven-sent, and nearly 30 years in the making. \u201cIt was a wonderful, wonderful kiss,\u201d she said. \u201cWell worth the wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

They began dating long distance, and during a visit to Atlanta in 2006, Ms. Gause introduced Ms. Brown to her father. She told him she was a friend with no elaboration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t quite ready to tell him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Ms. Gause was ready. She and Ms. Brown, in Atlanta to attend a religious conference, arranged a family meeting at the home of Ms. Gause\u2019s mother, who also lives in Atlanta, to tell them that they were together.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father didn\u2019t take it too well,\u201d Ms. Gause said.<\/p>\n

Indeed, they were still in Atlanta two days later, when Mr. Gause, carrying a large King James Version of the Bible, confronted them in the lobby of the hotel where the conference was being held.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe slammed the Bible down on a table and said to us, \u2018Did you all read this book?\u2019\u201d Ms. Gause said. \u201cHe was furious.\u201d<\/p>\n

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During his recent phone conversation, Mr. Gause said he had actually stormed the hotel \u201cto confront their pastor over theological beliefs, but he never showed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gause also made it clear that the passing of time has not healed any wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have a conscience,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is through that conscience that we hear from our creator as to what is right and what is wrong, and if God did not want us to procreate, then why didn\u2019t he just create billions of people with no gender at all? He must have had a reason for doing what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gause, who owned a company in Atlanta that made signs, said: \u201cIt was a mistake that her mother even went to the wedding. Had she rejected outright that kind of behavior, and become the lovable person that my daughter was in search of, perhaps Twanna would have had a different idea about that kind of thing, and not gone elsewhere to seek love.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about Mr. Gause\u2019s absence at the wedding reception, an elegant affair at il Tulipano in Cedar Grove, N.J., Bishop Richards said simply: \u201cGod has a way of honoring us when others won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Dodson, who spent most of the evening chatting with Ms. Brown\u2019s mother, Mary Ellen Brown, did not mince words when talking about her ex-husband\u2019s refusal to attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has no right to judge them,\u201d she said. \u201cI tried to get him to come here tonight but it was a losing battle. He asked me why I would even bother showing up, and I said to him, \u2018All you need to remember is that Twanna is my daughter, and I love her, and I have her back no matter what she does, and that\u2019s why I\u2019ll be there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Brown, who graduated from New York Theological Seminary in May, and Ms. Gause, who graduated from Essex County Community College with an associate\u2019s degree in social science and is now studying for a bachelor\u2019s in social work at Rutgers, are moving forward with their lives, \u201cwith or without my father\u2019s blessings,\u201d Ms. Gause said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, I still love him,\u201d she said. \u201cI still call him on birthdays and holidays and special occasions, though he never picks up the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe one day he will realize that nothing has really changed with me except for the fact that I’ve found my perfect soul mate, and he\u2019ll feel like talking to me again,\u201d she said. \u201cBut no matter what my daddy says about me or what he thinks of me, he knows down deep, deep inside that I\u2019ll always be his little girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: Nytimes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor Twanna Gause stepped out of a limousine amid the whir of cameras outside the New Vision Full Gospel Baptist Church in East Orange, N.J. Dressed in an off-white wedding gown and veil that sparkled in the cascading sunshine, she carried a bouquet of white roses and lilies, hugged several guests, then parted a sea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[354],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=354608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=354608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=354608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=354608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}