August 31, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The heat these August days has been oppressive in Los Angeles.  I suppose they would seem normal in St. Louis or New Orleans, but not here.  It is someone else’s weather delivered here by accident.

Or, it is the “new normal”, or global warming, present indicative?  The only ones who are still in denial about global warming seem to be the president’s men–the ones who ignore the signs of the times and change the subject:  the Kyoto accord would cost American jobs; there are terrorists out there; the scientific evidence is not all in; etc.

The evidence, however, keeps coming in, day after week after month after year.  At what point does one deem it to be a preponderance of evidence sufficient to convict us.  We are destroying our planet without pause.  We are harvesting it, killing it, exterminating it, clearing it, burning it, strip-mining it, paving over it as if we have a spare planet in the trunk.

And we are destructive seemingly without a thought.  Increasingly, the United States stands alone on every environmental issue you could name.  We are the last to teach ourselves efficiency, restraint, or innovation on things that would preserve life, spare the planet, and have our generation leave a much small footprint on the sacred wilderness.

I still think it was President Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, who set the theological tone for interior policy.  I could be wrong, of course. A couple of years ago, conservative blog Power Line took commentator Bill Moyers to task for reminding us of what James Watt  thought.  Moyers summarized:

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan’s first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, “after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.”  Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn’t know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious.

Power Line goes on to document that Moyers and Grist misinterpreted or distorted Watt’s views.  Yet I remember these views being talked about 20 years ago in connection with Watt.  If he indeed was a closet environmentalist, that slipped by many of us in Reagan’s first term.  I don’t keep a news clipping file on every fool we have suffered in high places, so I could be wrong.  But I clearly remember feeling a sense of outrage about Watt over and over and over from reading the daily news.

Even if Watt was never so irresponsible, the view is emblematic of a Christian faith which cherry-picks the issues it thinks are vitally important for public policy.  Conservative in my bedroom, prodigal in my national parks.

Let’s suppose that no Christian actually holds the view, that we are free to “use up” the earth in this generation and not be stewardship of creation for the future because Jesus will be returning soon anyway.  Even if that were true, where do legislators–who are clearly and verifiably backed by conservative religious money– get their values?

Could it be the same place the rest of us get our shoddy values?  The values that value my own life at the expense of others, and my generation at the expense of future generations?  The values that put my pleasures, my prosperities, my comforts, my titillations ahead of the survival and security and safety of others on this planet? What were we thinking when we allowed our country to become so polarized about issues with obvious moral content?  Is it completely impossible to suppose that Christians of all slants, and people of all faith traditions could agree that this planet needs tender loving care?

And that even if the evidence isn’t final on whether humans are causing global warming and destroying life forms left and right, we already know without a doubt that there is too much filth in our air, our water, our land fills  and toxic waste dumps; that we Americans use up 100 times as many natural resources per person than our neighbors on this planet; that there is no god out there who is pleased by our wasteful and destructive ways.

Whether global warming is ready for the concluding arguments leading to conviction, many people are ready to believe that it is a fitting karma that this generation of Americans is beginning to suffer for its destructive ways.  For those of you who are still in your 20s, it is entirely possible that the American way of life will have completely crashed and burned before you attempt to draw your first retirement check.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 30, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Wayne Besen, who is an experienced, very thoughtful writer on public affairs, and author of Anything But Straight about the ex-gay phenomenon, has already convicted Senator Larry Craig in his commentary, “Looking for Love on the Sly.” (Read it now, because his column at www.365gay.com is apparently not archived.) He assumes that Craig was in fact cruising for a momentary sexual hook-up, and goes on to ask bluntly:

“How many of these incidents will it take before America realizes that the family values crowd is a big, fat fraud? They are a batch of moralizing molesters, pious pervs, closeted creeps and values voyeurs. It is time the right just closes shop and stops pointing fingers - because we have no idea where those sticky fingers have been.”

Yesterday I had several conversations with parishioners about the Senator Craig episode, after posting my views two days ago.  Some felt it was a pathetic example of hypocrisy (and so personally convicted him without a trial).

A portion of the police report about Senator Craig’s lewd conduct

One spoke very intelligently about police “entrapment” – what this undercover officer does is within the law but catches people in such a way that, although they are not necessarily “innocent” it still destroys careers, families, and lives. If such undercover operations are meant to protect public morals, even what is within the law for a vice officer to do, in this person’s opinion, it is a punishment out of proportion to the “crime.”

Besen’s truthful observation is that “one has to be quite desperate and pathetic to try to find his man in the can —especially with the advent of the Internet, which can deliver a pick-up faster than a pizza.”

I never got my own point made last night, that regarding this particular public restroom where Senator Craig was arrested, there had been complaints about sexual solicitation. The room has a reputation. Therefore the officer assigned had a duty. In other words, it was not the officer’s own initiative to go and try to catch some homosexual for the sport of it.

Over potluck dinner, more opinions emerged from other parishioners. One gay man simply named Senator Craig as worthy of our prayers. We pray for all manner of things and diversity of people before our Bible Study. I don’t remember ever before being asked to pray for someone arrested in a men’s room trap.

But I guess even my commenting about Senator Craig implies a prayerful concern: for him and his family; for social conservatives and liberals and radicals; for all who have suffered irreparable harm because of public morality yoked with private hypocrisy; for all people who cannot face their inner conflicts, and for those whose inner conflicts lead to inappropriate, embarrassing and even criminal behaviors. God, have mercy.

Will Senator Larry Craig run for re-election in November 2008? He has a strongly conservative base in Idaho. He has supported the Federal Marriage Amendment, argued against federal hate crimes legislation adding protection for LGBT people. He backed Idaho’s anti-gay marriage amendment. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Senator Craig has even refused to promise that his own office would not discriminate against LGBT people.

Whether he runs again partly will depend on how his version of the men’s room scene (his excuses) play out within the United States Senate.

Will the Senate’s ethics review process help him sweep the whole thing under the rug? Or are Senate Republicans concerned enough about their corporate survival in the next election that he will be encouraged to step down now so another Republican can fill his shoes quickly, before this incident becomes yet another campaign issue for which the whole party must answer?

According to Daily Quote, Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) has said “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 29, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

“Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.” This just in from Live Science, posted Auust 27.  The Live Science article is sharing news of the publication of a schlarly paper in the Journal of Modern History.

The question I have here is whether author Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University knows of the work of the late Dr. John Boswell, or is dependent upon his work, Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe [New, York,Villard Books, 1994].   The “making of brothers” as Boswell called it, or “affrèrement” as Tulchin gives the French, is not exactly news.  Boswell found evidence of same-sex blessing ceremonies, not in burial vaults, but in liturgical manuals and altar missals used for Christian services, from as early as the 4th century to as late as the 14th century, and from Paris in the west to as far east as Jerusalem.

Boswell, who was an amazing scholar, spoke here in West Hollywood more than 20 years ago before he published his complete findings.  I was in the audience.  I took notes, came home and transcribed them carefully.  This was news then, and I lapped up every detail I could jot. 

If the Live Science report is correct, Dr. Tulchin’s contribution will add to this scholarly work, and make it more comfortable for sentient beings to  accept the idea that gay couples have been around for a very long time.  Not all human beings are intellectually honest, of course, and they don’t want to know.  Boswell related, in the same presentation, that (the late) Rev. Jerry Falwell was asked what he thought of Boswell’s ground-breaking research published by the University of Chicago in 1980, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century.  Falwell ducked answering by saying he was not aware of the book.  Dr. Boswell dryly remarked, “That’s very interesting, because I personally mailed him a copy.”

The “affrèrement” or making of brothers apparently was some kind of ritualized and recognized act in which two men swore fidelity to one another.  Some anthropologists discount the homosexual aspect of this because they have documented brotherhood ceremonies in primitive cultures around the world.   Perhaps it is another sign that much of human sexuality is ambiguous in meaning.  Sexual expression (acts) is always open to interpretation even within the sanctity of each marriage bed.

At what point does a brotherly relationship between two un-related males become a lover relationship?  Is brotherhood a euphemism — or can it be in some situations and not in others?  Would gay brothers tell anthropologists precisely what their relationship means to each other? 

Over the centuries gay people have had to be very creative to find ways not only to express their love and sensuality, but also to artfully conceal it from those who simply do not wish to know about it, or cannot accept it.

But I may have to wait to get my questions answered.  The Journal of Modern History is a quarterly, subscription-only scholarly journal.  The September 2007 issue is not yet available on their web site (even though this story is all over the net).  Dr. Tulchin is listed as Assistant Professor in the History/ Philosophy Department on the website for Shippensburg University.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 29, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I began journaling some years ago–actually in the 80s. Daily, I took a small spiral-bound notebook with me to lunch and I wrote, much of it about what it means to be gay and Christian—and to hold those together in a world that wants them to be ripped apart.  When it got full, I started numbering the notebooks.  I still have them.  It was a neat and tidy way to accumulate my thoughts and at least have them down. But as PCs got better and better, it became so much better to jot down things at the keyboard. I found that my rate of speed on a keyboard was about equal to my rate of speed in the brain. Handwriting is too slow.

But as each successive hard drive filled up (and when I changed jobs), keeping track of what I had written became more problematic. I lost things, or at least misplaced them electronically for long periods of time. I couldn’t keep them organized. Worse, through the mischief of electronic demons, pieces of files became scattered on the hard drive, creating fragments of thought ripped out of their context, or enthusiastic ideas now cut off from their conclusions. The naughty hard drive became the land fill of thought, like dementia for the organized mind.

The blog is today’s journal. I am experimenting with it as my own form of organization, under key topics which are important to me. Plus, it allows me to link to other people, ideas, computers, and to my own mind in a way which creates new insight through the effort to find and make links.

Searching my hard drive for material I have treated, I see that five years ago I did a lot of idea-collecting and writing about coming out from a Christian perspective. Entire books could be written on this. (Have been written?)

What set me thinking was a bit of research David Plummer mentions in One of the Boys [p207].  Stay with me here. He says,  

“Coming out” is often described as part of gay identity formation. The “coming-out” process . . . appears to be constituted because of homophobia and, as such, testifies to the power and pervasiveness of homophobia. As Garnets and colleagues wrote, “coming out becomes a process of reclaiming disowned or devalued parts of the self, and developing an identity into which one’s sexuality is well-integrated” (Garnets, Herek, and Levy, 1993: 583). [boldface added] . . . Once again, the relevance of the “closet” for this research is that it is a place to hide and is constructed by homophobia.

“Reclaiming disowned or devalued parts of the self.” There is a link here to the spiritual work of recovery, whether from substance abuse, shame, a dysfunctional family history, or internalized homophobia.

It is like my old hard drive, with fragments and pieces of files, and the new enthusiasm of developments in one’s life, cut off from its conclusions. Thoughts are lost. Sanity is lost. The links to other human beings are cut off. The closet is a place of solitary confinement as much as supposed safety.

Coming out is the reclaiming of lost or devalued parts of myself.  This is actually why I started keeping a journal in the 80s and now a blog in the 00s.  To reclaim pieces of myself which were disowned or devalued.  And distorted by fear and shame.  To come out is to re-order my dignity as a human being, and to reconnect what had been scattered or chopped up and discarded by homophobia.

Presbyterian author Chris Glaser, in Coming Out to God: Prayers for Lesbians, Gay Men, Their Families and Friends (Westminster, John Knox Press, 1991) has a wonderful prayer about the closet. It’s on the “Prayers of Others” page.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 28, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has been arrested for lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport men’s room. To me that sounds like homosexual conduct, although the news reports aren’t yet using that word. The arresting officer said the Senator was tapping his foot in a stall next to his — and giving other signals he was soliciting sexual contact. Craig denies he did anything wrong.  If you must, the police report was released by the Washington Post; there is more here than what meets the eye with which the senator sees the incident.

Here we go again, with officials in high and influential positions being revealed or revealing themselves as hypocritical and morally compromised. Depending on your political persuasions, you may rejoice or become defensive.

Craig is one of the social conservatives who has been standing firmly against our rights and our relationships. Now he joins a distinguished list of political leaders in sexual indiscretions. In an article titled “”Grand Old Perverts” Jeff in Milwaukee last year posted a list of Republican members of Congress who “have been caught with their pants down” in the last 25 years, either having admitted to misconduct, or had allegations substantially corroborated.  His full explanation is here.

In addition to Mark Foley (R-FL) who resigned a year ago after inappropriate contact with a 16-year old congressional page, there were: Robert Barr (R-GA); Robert Bauman (R-MD); Jim Bunn (R-OR); Dan Burton (R-IN); Ken Calvert (R-CA); Charles Canaday (R-FL); Helen Chenowith (R-ID); Duke Cunningham (R-CA); Thomas Evans (R-IN); Newt Gingrich (R-GA); Tim Hutchinson (R-AK and also a Baptist minister); Henry Hyde (R-IL); Bob Livingston (R-LA); Donald Lukens (R-OH); Sue Myrick (R-NC); Robert Packwood (R-OR); John Peterson (R-PA); Don Shorewood (R-PA); John Schmitz (R-CA); Ed Schrock (R-VA); Strom Thurmond (R-SC); and J. C. Watts (R-OK). 

Jeff in Milwaukee didn’t mention (in his 9/06 article) Florida State Rep. Bob Allen, who has fought against LGBT rights in Florida, and was charged with offering $20 to a cop for oral sex in a public washroom in a park in July.

Commentators seldom link these political implosions with the sexual abuse cases in the Roman Catholic priesthood. Or for that matter, the swift vertical fall of Rev. Ted Haggard from both his pulpit and his presidency in the National Association of Evangelicals, after a 3-year relationship with a male prostitute.  (A quick Google search for “evangelists + sex scandal” turned up about 367,000 hits.) 

Moral America is literally awash in sexual scandals cloaked in hypocrisy. These are all closely linked, because in each case, people who have both specific authority and tremendous public influence over others by virtue of their office, are revealed as morally compromised or corrupted. A large number of them were same-sex indiscretions, but not all. None of them deserve their claims to stand on a higher moral ground.

There is one other thing which most of these sexually corrupted members of Congress have in common with members of the Catholic priesthood: they are men. Perhaps if moral conservatives really want to clean up America’s morals, they should propose a federal constitutional amendment that bars all males from running for office or holding positions of authority.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 27, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I’ve been spending more and more time thinking about recovery. (I’m not thinking about the stock market, the housing sector, New Orleans two years after hurricane Katrina, or the White House after Rove and Gonzales.)

Thanks to my friends in recovery from substance abuse or other forms of addiction, and the 12-Step programs which populate our church building each week, I have been thinking a lot about personal recovery.

Alcoholics Anonymous has been called the most powerful spiritual movement of the 20^th century. I had never thought of it as being a spiritual movement — probably because I’d never been exposed to its work, its mission, its people. I didn’t have a drinking problem, so it was something I paid little attention to.

Then I learned that A.A. grew out of the Oxford Group, which came from a couple of visionaries including a Lutheran pastor and missionary. I began to see the tap root of recovery programs was planted deeply in spiritual soil.

And I met Luke – who was running a small, introspective A.A. meeting at church. We would talk far into the night after his Tuesday meeting had concluded. I learned to recognize the signs of an addictive personality within myself. I think he used the term “dry drunk” of himself. After he sobered up he still had all the bad traits: non-responsibility for his own life, blaming others, etc.

It is slowly sinking in to this preacher’s mind that all people suffer from similar, related symptoms. Many people refuse to accept responsibility. Many people blame. Many people distance themselves from intimacy, trust, forgiveness. Many of us are “faking it.”

In the words of the apostle Paul, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) But we need to talk about this stuff, even without the trappings of theology—sin, forgiveness, hell and damnation, heaven and salvation. Those words are useful metaphors to some. But millions of people cannot relate to God-talk who can relate to innate human spirituality, and struggle with where it becomes blocked, wounded, starved.

Recovery programs and 12-Step programs are well-organized. Their sites and literature are all over the internet. The first two steps of A.A. is similar, I guess, to the admission of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:17 ). “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father . . .’”

How hard it is for some of us to come to our senses! Is there such a thing as “Step 0″ in the process? That point before we have come to our senses? When we’re not sure there’s a better way to live? Cynically doubting that tomorrow could be any better than yesterday?

In John’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a sick man (paralyzed for 38 years). The most fascinating thing about this miracle story is that Jesus meets this man stuck at Step 0: he was not quite ready to admit that his illness was an addiction.  He blamed others for his pitiful life circumstances of begging, etc.   Jesus asks him (John 5:6) the fundamental spiritual question that he asks of every human being: “Do you want to be well?”

That is not a no-brainer question. It’s very confronting, very threatening.  It would change your life if you can answer it honestly.  For millions of us who are stuck spiritually, we are not yet convinced we should desire to move on. We have made our beds and they’re comfortable (addictions, broken relationships, cynicism, poverty or even homelessness, dead-end jobs, self-pity). We get by, without ever expecting that life could be much more rewarding, or that today could be infinitely better than yesterday.

But how do we get from Point A to Point B, or from Step 0 to Step 1? Scripture tells us that we are all saved by grace. Think about that one. We are all saved from ourselves, our ruts, our failures, our addictions, our pettiness, our cynicism by grace alone. The more we think about recovering from these things, the more we would name it grace and salvation.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 26, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Today I dusted off a 5-year old article, ”Coming Out:  What it Means, Where to Start, Why it is Important.”  (It’s on my theological site, all 8 pages of it in PDF format, at http://www.danhooper.info/gracepeace.html).

Anyway, it got me thinking whether it really is still important in 2007.  Teens come out so early now you have to wonder if they know what they really feel yet, let alone whether it’s a good strategy at such a young age.  Besides, everybody who’s anybody is already out, right?

I came out selectively in 1970, while in seminary.  By 1979 I was ready to come to National Lutheran Campus Ministry, my new employer, but was advised not to.  Although profoundly hurt, and suddenly unemployed, I was not surprised when I was outed in 1988 and forced to give up my call to a Lutheran congregation in Southern California.  But at that time, nearly 20 years ago, I vowed to myself and my partner that I would never go back into a closet no matter what the consequences.

In all these years, I have talked to countless (well, hundreds) of Christians about coming out.  Some spoke to me privately about their personal agonies.  Others just danced out the door of their closets and were so proud and happy to tell me their stories.  God bless ‘em.

At the recent ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Chicago (August 6-11, 2007), “coming out” took on a whole new meaning.  I had never been to a national assembly before (big deal).  Carl and I had literally just arrived and came up the escalator to the main convention floor when a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times stopped me for an immediate interview.

I came out to her—mostly because we arrived already wearing hand-knitted rainbow scarves.  We had come to Chicago to be totally out and to be present as openly gay Lutheran Christians in service to Christ.  We were also each wearing a glossy, colored button with a rainbow swirl and the number “31” in the center.

“What does the 31 mean?”  she asked me.  “It’s the number of years we have been a couple,” I told her.  We were to repeat this little Q & A numerous times over the next 6 days with a lot of other folks.  Yes, Carl and I have been coming out together for 31 years.  And it still surprises, delights and shocks different people. God bless ‘em.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 25, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I suppose I should be more grateful for the recent action of the ELCA Assembly at Navy Pier in Chicago (August 10). After days of contentious debate and better motions which called for policy change going down to defeat, the voting members agreed to a motion that gives permission to bishops not to annihilate us. Specifically, they are allowed and by implication encouraged to refrain from disciplining LGBT pastors who are in committed, faithful relationships with someone of the same gender, or if they feel they must impose some discipline, then restrain the degree of that discipline.

Discipline, according to the Constitution and Bylaws of the ELCA, can be as light as a letter of admonition, or as nasty as complete removal from the ELCA’s clergy roster. In 2006, Bishop Ron Warren of the Southeast Synod chose the nastier route, by triggering a full-blown church trial on charges he brought against the Rev. Bradley Schmeling, the much-loved Pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta.

After countless weeks of preparations, a lengthy trial (”hearing”) and a double appeal, on July 2 this year Pastor Bradley was removed from the Clergy Roster anyway by a cold and methodical decision of the “Committee on Appeals.” His crime? He has made a life commitment of love and fidelity to another man.

So I suppose we should be grateful that other LGBT pastors may be treated better. But why do I go all “biblical” (the Christian equivalent of “going postal”?) about this? I am reminded that the Apostle Paul was put on trial for his life. At least at every stage, in his “hearing” before Felix, his trial before Festus, and again in his hearing before King Agrippa, Paul was allowed to speak.

Festus discussed Paul’s case at length with Agrippa, explaining what he had said to Paul’s accusers ( Acts 26:16) “I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over anyone before they have faced their accusers and have had an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges.”

Apparently the Roman custom (which in part still forms the basis for legal principles today) is not the custom of the ELCA. The Committee on Appeals summarily condemned Pastor Bradley without ever consulting with him personally or anyone, but making an abstract decision based solely on the transcript of his hearing before the Warren panel.

So I suppose we should feel grateful. This small gesture at Navy Pier reminded me immediately of a church convention some years back when during a panel discussion the late Joel Workin was asked what, exactly did homosexuals want from the church. “For openers,” he said dryly, “take your foot of my neck.”

Workin, who died in 1995, was a gifted young preacher, a credit to the whole ELCA, and a deep and conscientious thinker about the issues facing the church, and did not say this lightly. When he served as editor of the LC/Los Angeles newsletter, he repeatedly had some pithy sayings. It brings a smile for me to imagine what Joel would say about this “bone” which the ELCA voting members have thrown to those of us who are LGBT clergy; we are trying to serve Christ and remain faithful to Christ’s church, but all we have gotten out of the Navy Pier Assembly is a lousy T-shirt that says “Refrain or Restrain.” Swell.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 24, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

A few days ago, I made a crack to someone about a mutual acquaintance. It was a gossipy, he-said-she-said situation. “George doesn’t really care about this at all. He just has opinions,” I said, with cruel accuracy.

But my conscience nagged. The guilty words of the disciples gathered at the Last Supper popped into mind: “Surely, not I , Lord?” (Matthew 26:22) Was I guilty of cruel and hateful words, too, which reveal that I don’t really care, either? Do I just have opinions, rather than compassion?

What is it that legitimizes strongly-held opinions, anyway? And what does it mean to care? There are many things, for example, that I read in the news or hear about in matters of public policy, developments in the neighborhood, etc., on which I have opinions. But nobody wants my opinions, especially if I am not a stakeholder or, as they say, I don’t have a dog in the fight.

Increasingly, we are a society chock-ful of opinionated people. Contentious, litigious, polarized and politicized, balkanized people. I’m not sure where it is all leading, or if our society and world can step back from the edge before we fatally hurt ourselves. But it seems to me it must begin with caring deeply about the things we argue over or offer opinions about.

When and if we can sort out the inner workings of our hearts, we can lay bare what it is we care about, and why. This would go a long way for the larger community not only to hear the little voices who struggle to be heard, but to filter out the big noise-makers whose true motives are hidden behind bluster, dire warnings and implied threats.

This is not tiny stuff I’m thinking of. The poisonous political climate of the country is filled with bluster and implied threats—about every wholesome cause or righteous project—that, for example, ”it will cost thousands of jobs.” A bluster or threat is a way of preventing dialogue, stopping conversation, aborting each promising idea.

(Who says that “jobs” is the ultimate, highest value in our society? Would born-again Republicans defend, say, child pornography because shutting it down could cost thousands of jobs? Are such evils as polluting substances, cheap handguns, pyramid investment scams and Ponzi schemes, and pork-barrel projects all allowed to flourish in this country just because they create or protect jobs?  Is this why term limits are so odious to sitting politicians, because term limits would cost them their jobs?)

Truth, and the full disclosure of our passions, are sadly lacking at every level of society. It is long overdue that people who disagree should first start by revealing their underlying values—what they care about—rather than their opinions–what they’re upset about.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 23, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Jesus had words for those who sought to destroy him.

For the men who physically took his life by nailing him to the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The centurions were simply carrying out orders from a secular government.

But for those who were deeply religious yet constantly sought to silence his teachings, who frequently opposed him or belittled his insights, he had harsher words. “You blind guides, hypocrites.”

The spiritual reading of the texts leads me not to apply harsh words to our opponents in the struggle for understanding and acceptance of LGBT Christians and our place in God’s house, even though Jesus looked upon religious mis-guidance as much more serious. When I reflect, several weeks after the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Chicago, on the bitter and cranky statements coming from Lutheran “CORE” and Word Alone factions, I must only pray this prayer which our Lord has also given us: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”

I do not fear conservative Lutherans.  I grew up with them. I knew no pejorative terms then because, in the old Norwegian mission church in which I grew up, it seemed everybody was pretty conservative.

When I made the first forays into self-discovery as a late teenager, I only began to sense dissonance between the strictly conservative views of church people and my own innate sexuality and gender identity. There was no dissonance between the self I was discovering – bringing to light – and my faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. The gradual sense of dissonance was between myself and other Christians whom I came to realize could not understand the inner discoveries I was making.

Somehow I came through that entire period (probably ages 16 through 26) relatively unscathed. I suffered no terrible period of self-doubt or self-hatred. I was never suicidal. I didn’t internalize society’s homophobia. For a time, perhaps, I must have partitioned my mind to keep the “gay self” and the “Christian self” from harming one another while both were maturing.  Looking back, I credit much of my survival to the fact that, growing up in a Lutheran household and attending Sunday school and worship virtually every week, I did not ever hear a message of bigotry, misunderstanding or hatred about human sexuality or homosexuality.

Part of this was, no doubt, the times. People didn’t talk about such things in the 1960s. But the more important factor was that the pastors and teachers in our church preached the Gospel and led us in faith. They did not use the Bible as a weapon to terrorize anyone. They did not, for whatever reason, latch on to controversial social issues and use them as catapults to launch their own campaign of power and intimidation or money and prosperity. These good men (pastors were only men in those days) didn’t even dream of a radio or TV ministry. But they built a community of spiritual growth, mutual care, and faithful discipleship in the local church where we all gathered weekly. What a gift that was not to have suffered spiritual abuse or religious bigotry in my emerging years.

But what now? After coming out during my seminary years I could no longer partition my mind to protect the gay self from the Christian self. I had to re-integrate what had become segmented. And as I faced this (mostly alone at first) I still held— with deep respect— my memories for the “conservative” Christians who taught me the faith I still hold.

One thing I have learned is that there ought to be no division or dissent between us in matters of faith. We all worship the same God, we all are followers of the same Lord Jesus. We all heed the same call to discipleship, to forgiveness, to stewardship. There is nothing in the ancient Creeds or the Lutheran Confessions (The Book of Concord, 1580) in which LGBT Christians or heterosexual Christians need to argue. We are not spiritual enemies. Our disagreements are disagreements in faith about matters which we face and burdens which we bear. But our disagreements are not in the content of our faith nor in our commitments to remain faithful.

Yet our opponents do not agree with those simple statements. Are they using catapults or weapons? Or are they just “going postal” with their fears and prejudices? I don’t know for sure. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

But what they seem to be making an article of faith —and I say this with misgiving and caution, since one cannot make a new article of faith — is that we who are LGBT Christians are either disregarding the Word of God (as fundamentalists would say, we are “Bible doubters”), that we are deluding ourselves, or clinging to a caricature of true Christian faith.

These and other mis-characterizations have been discussed elsewhere thoroughly. But my concern now is that these splintering groups of Lutherans are trying to elevate their concerns (fears, prejudices) to a level of theological disagreement which the disagreements do not merit.

But am I being arrogant and condescending to suggest that our opponents have done something which needs forgiveness? Do I have a right to say not only that I felt stepped on (”Excuse me!), but sinned against?

Jesus anticipated there would be times like this. He suggested that even brothers and sisters in the community would at times commit wrongs against their siblings. We are instructed to forgive one another as we have been forgiven, to do it 70 x 7 times, and to give pause when we are coming into God’s presence if we realize that our brother or sister has something against us.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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