Courier Online is updated twice each week every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. For the latest full content, you can purchase the Claremont Courier newspaper for 75 cents, or subscribe by calling (909) 621-4761.
Contact the COURIER:
1420 N. Claremont Blvd.
Suite 205B
Claremont, CA 91711
 |
|
COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
|
| Pilgrim Place resident and retired minister Henry Hayden works on one of his many watercolor paintings, which will be sold at the upcoming Pilgrim Place Festival in November. Mr. Hayden has also written an essay, which will be published in the upcoming book, Doing Theology at Pilgrim Place. |
A life dedicated in promoting equal rights
“All 6.5 billion of us were created,” Henry Hayden exclaimed, “And not one of us chose our gender or to whom we were born.” With tears in his eyes, Mr. Hayden continued, “There are no second-class people. We are all created equal.”
Mr. Hayden is a retired minister affiliated with the United Church of Christ. He now lives at Pilgrim Place senior community, where he paints daily. Throughout his ministry he worked to promote equal rights and to create inclusive communities. He played a particularly important role in the 1972 ordination of William Johnson, the first homosexual minister.
Mr. Hayden grew up in New England and attended seminary in Berkeley in the 1940s. He spent a summer working with the children of migrant workers and saw the terrible conditions these workers endured.
“I saw people coming down the rows coughing and crying,” Mr. Hayden said. “’Isn’t this bad?’ I asked the boss. He said, ‘Yeah, but we’ll get another bunch next year.”
In New England, Mr. Hayden said, “I never knew an Asian, a Hispanic or a black person.” Berkeley was ethnically very diverse and he was shocked by how bad students were treated.
By 1947, Mr. Hayden graduated from seminary and was working as a Chaplain at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He was shocked that African American students were not allowed to play on the football team or eat in restaurants. So he talked to the football coach and organized restaurant sit-ins. It was then he opened the school’s first NAACP chapter.
Mr. Hayden worked in communities in New Hampshire and Fresno, among others, but one of the most notable experiences of his career occurred after he moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1970. Mr. Hayden was the head minister at a church of about 750 people. His assistant was a young man from Houston named William Johnson. When Mr. Johnson was to be ordained as a minister, he told Mr. Hayden that he was a homosexual.
Mr. Hayden described Mr. Johnson as saying, “I could easily become a minister if I said nothing about who I am, but that’s dishonest and I don’t want to hide.”
Mr. Johnson “came out” to the board of Deacons of the church when he read his paper. According to Mr. Hayden, the end of the paper said, “I dedicate my life to the liberation of oppressed people. As chaplain, I sent 25 boys to ministry, have fought for the rights of women and gay people, of whom I am one.”
Mr. Hayden recalled the gasp that followed this statement. The church board had to vote on whether to pass a recommendation for ordination along to the state council. As the head minister, Mr. Hayden did not vote, but he remembers the head of the board laying the voting slips out on the grand piano.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the head of the board said, “the vote is 15-0.” (story continues below)
 |
|
COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
|
| Watercolor paintings and postcards by Pilgrim Place resident Henry Hayden will be sold at this year’s Pilgrim Place Festival. |
With that, Mr. Hayden’s church sent the recommendation to a council of delegates from all the churches in the area. That council panicked and recommended 2 years of study in human sexuality in each of the area churches.
Mr. Hayden and other activists created a weekly forum in which they looked at sexuality in the Bible. Two years later, in June 1972, area churches once again sent delegates to a council, which would determine whether or not to ordain Mr. Johnson. The event made the national news covered by ABC, NBC, CBS and other prominent news outlets. Mr. Johnson read his paper and answered questions. Then, all non-voters were sent out.
The outcome was about 2 to 1 in Mr. Johnson’s favor. The following Sunday he was ordained.
“Now gay people come over and hug me,” Mr. Hayden said. He often hears stories of people being kicked out of their homes or their schools because of their sexual orientation. In Mr. Hayden’s mind, anyone of us could have been born a different person. This creation is what he describes as the first mystery of the world, and it underlies his conviction that all people are equal.
Mr. Hayden identifies 2 other mysteries: evil and good. Recently, he was leading a meeting when a dog started barking and barking. It turned out that the mailman was coming and the dog was being territorial.
“In my life, I’ve seen people react the same way,” Mr. Hayden said.
After Mr. Johnson was ordained in 1972, Mr. Hayden received over 300 hate letters. Once, he returned home after a birthday dinner with his wife to a ringing phone. Mrs. Hayden answered and heard someone talking about an Anti-Christ and the Devil. She handed the phone to Mr. Hayden and said, “Oh, it’s for you.”
“I don’t know about the origin of evil,” Mr. Hayden said. “The third mystery is that in spite of all this, compassion and love springs up. People like Gandhi and Martin Luther King see a vision.”
Throughout his career, Mr. Hayden’s vision was an inclusive, tolerant community. He worked to build this type of community at each of the many churches where he worked.
Since retiring, Mr. Hayden makes use of his vision in a very different way: he paints. When he first retired, his doctor asked, “What are you going to do now?”
Mr. Hayden recalled that as a child he drew and painted, though he had put it behind him after high school. That night after the doctor’s appointment, he registered for a watercolor class.
“I began to paint at home furiously,” he said. “It became an alternative outlet.”
Mr. Hayden paints mostly landscapes. He uses photographs, which his children often send him, or paints from life. His paintings are sold each year at the Pilgrim Place Festivals, which will be held Friday and Saturday, November 14 and 15.
Mr. Hayden recently wrote an essay about the 3 mysteries of life, which will be published shortly in a book called “Doing Theology at Pilgrim Place.” He certainly has many rich life experiences to draw from.
—Rose Haag
