A Way Forward for Discernment in Congregations: LGBTQ+ Inclusion Discernment
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This work is well-written and carefully conceived. There are some areas (comments in the attached) where the authors may be somewhat unclear about demoninational structures, or where comments may need more context, especially for a theological / religious studies audience (for example, clear separation between the Jesus movement and the early church in examples). These concerns to do imperil the study, but clarifying them will help remove a barrier to consideration from some readers.
Another issue which the authors might consider is how they want to respond to commentary in their quoted participant responses. While it is laudable that they are writing without a clear "side" for how congregations should respond, when they are citing someone saying something that is itself potentially inflammatory, that might need context. I'm thinking particularly of the participant who claims that some other congregants' children "changed the sexual orientation that they were born with" which is unlikely to be how the people concerned would define their own experience.
On a smaller note, the formatting of block quotations and in several other places is inconsistent. Some editorial work is required (notes flagging some of this in the attached)
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your careful reading and recommendations. I have made most of the recommended changes. Your recommendations and these changes strengthen the article. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a very well-written and important paper on the discernment process for congregations considering LGBTQ+ inclusion. I only have a couple of minor suggestions.
I suggest the authors either change the term or use quotation marks around the term “homosexuality” if they are using it in a historical context, since the it is considered offensive.
It seemed that some of the items listed in the conclusions were not included in the results or discussion sections. Perhaps I missed this. I encourage the authors to clearly list the results, utilize the discussion section to compare those results to existing literature and make other connections, and then use the conclusion section to summarize the findings (not to list new information).
Author Response
Thank you so much for your careful reading, your words of affirmation, and your suggestions. I considered carefully putting quotation marks around the word homosexuality as I absolutely agree with you that the term is outdated and often experienced as pejorative. The word is only used when specifically discussing the language and viewpoints of authors in the literature and in one case a quotation by a participant. The literature inclusions include citations of the dates of the work. My hope is that readers will recognize that that was the language of that time. If you feel strongly that they will not and that quotation marks will make that clear, please let me know and I'll make that change.
I also carefully considered and discussed with the second author your second recommendation around the findings, discussion, and conclusions. Our intent was to report the findings and then use the discussion to contextualize those results and discuss implications of them. So, the conclusions were actually intended to be new information, i.e. our conclusions based on the experience, findings and implications of findings for the congregations. We would like to leave that building of information as is. Thank you for the recommendation which helped us really think through what we were trying to achieve. We are certainly willing to have more conversation about this, particularly if we have misunderstood your recommendation. Thank you again.
