Candace Chellew is a recovering Southern Baptist. Born as the grand finale of five children to a Southern Baptist minister and his wife, she comes by her need for spiritual recovery and deconstruction honestly.
Chellew literally grew up in the church, playing with her G.I. Joe dolls and Tonka trucks in the sanctuary aisles. Her family was still shocked when she came out as a lesbian years later, despite the obvious clues.
She gave up her faith at age 17, about the same time she entered a career in journalism that would span some 25 years (including a six-year stint at CNN in Atlanta), but despite the allegations of some conservative pundits, the media was not to blame for making her Godless for a brief few years. Instead, Chellew did what so many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people do – she believed the lie that she couldn’t be both a lesbian and a Christian.
She returned to the church in her early 20s, kicking and screaming, at the insistence of her first girlfriend. She describes her first service at a Metropolitan Community Church in Atlanta, Ga., as “coming home.”
Chellew entered seminary in 1998, a couple of years after she founded Whosoever: An Online Magazine for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Christians. The magazine had drawn the attention of many in opposition to GLBT equality in church and society and Chellew sought the tools to answer her critics. What she discovered in seminary was a whole new way to approach the question of homosexuality, gender identity and spirituality and a new way to answer critics that was a lot less stressful.
Chellew graduated from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in 2002 with a Master of Theological Studies degree. She was ordained in 2003 by Gentle Spirit Christian Church in Atlanta, Georgia. In July 2004, she became assistant pastor at Garden of Grace United Church of Christ in Columbia, South Carolina (what was then MCC Columbia). In 2007, she was licensed as a United Church of Christ minister and became associate pastor at Garden of Grace. Chellew is also a spiritual director, trained through the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.
She is now the spiritual director of Jubilee! Circle – an independent, intentional, progressive, inclusive, community of faith in Columbia, SC.
She was an original co-host of Rainbow Radio, the first radio show for GLBT people in South Carolina, when it began in 2005.