September 15, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

In order to write for a blog, you also have to read blogs. I have found a number of theological blogs (more about which later). Some have very thoughtful people writing them. Others are scarey. It set me thinking about the geographic spectrum of thought in the U.S. of A.

I scoured my hard drive to find these maps again.

First, look carefully at the states that went Democratic or Republican in the last presidential election. Then look carefully at the states (or territories) that were free or slave before the Civil War.

(By the way, I did not verify this information, but who would attempt to falsify what could be verified from public records? I received it in an e-mail three years ago. The e-mail source at lower right of the slavery map is not really legible, so I’m passing it along with all the usual disclaimers.)

By and large the correlation of Red States = Slave States and Blue States = Free States is astonishing. The only significant variation from 1860 to 2004 are Indiana and Ohio.

I do not pass judgment on anybody. But I cannot help feeling as if there are two (or more) United States of Americas. These two entities seem to be vastly different from one another, not only in culture but in attitudes, not only experience but persuasions. The languages, the cuisine, the demographics are hugely different. I am sure a competent analyst of census data would find hundreds of interesting differences between the Mountain/Southern states and the Northern/Coastal states.  In terms of understanding and applying the Christian faith, I am repeatedly amazed how different we are, especially in that the Mountain/Southern states still seem to have, hold and reinforce an explicit Christian culture (however they see it).  But many of the blue states, especially the coastal ones, live in a much more heterodox world milieu that would not even dream of maintaining or enforcing a Christian culture.

Several years ago I was chatting with a church friend, an actress (well, wouldn’t you know). She said she and her husband had lived in Florida before coming to California.  I commented respectfully that Florida has many beautiful places. “Yes,” she said, “but I’ve met more interesting people in an elevator in California than any of my friends in Florida.”

One of these days, I will devise a rating system for the blogs I encounter, from radical left to looney right. Then as far as possible I will try to locate them geographically on either of the above maps. It should be revealing.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Environment, Faith, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

September 14, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The passage of AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, for the second time in two years happened in Sacramento with little notice.  But Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Equality California have done it again!  (Leno spoke to a good selection of priests, ministers and rabbis two years ago in our church about the bill, and was warmly received.) 

Now we all hold our breath to see if the Governor will veto it again. What’s wrong with this picture?  Perhaps the real reason there was little fireworks or ballistic missiles is because the opponents fully expect the Governor to veto it.

The number of people who support equal marriage (equally open to same-gender couples as well as heterosexual couples) keeps rising in every poll, even though the forces of right wing conservativism rant against it (including James Dobson, who said it will lead to a man marrying his donkey). Those who cannot yet imagine, or stomach, the idea of two people of the same gender being joined in marriage either suffer from the “ick factor” about homosexuality in general, or they have confused legal rights with sacred traditions.

Most of the advocates for equal marriage just want the legal rights it conveys, and they will happily leave it to religious institutions to protect their own sacred rites. (More on this in a future blog.) The Marriage Bill would do this by expressly stating that no church or minister can be required to perform same-gender marriages.

The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce has issued a statement urging Governor Schwarzenegger to sign the bill. He has already promised to veto it out of his conviction (?) that neither courts nor legislatures should have a role in deciding in favor of same-gender marriage; only the people should decide, according to Schwarzenegger.

The people are the most likely to be prejudiced, and the most likely to bite him if he sides with the Legislature. But now that Schwarzenegger is not in the good graces of either the Democrats or the Republicans in Sacramento, who cares?  As Governor, Arnold has no real political future left, since he can’t run for President of the United States, but after Ronald Reagan and Arnold, aren’t we through with actors anyway?

Yes, I suppose he could run for the U.S. Senate, but after Jessie Ventura and Arnold, aren’t we through with body builders? Why can’t we just have a leader instead of a sensational personality running for office?

The Los Angeles Times has reduced its coverage of religious news to two areas: the constant stream of news about lawyers making money off of the victims of priestly sexual abuse (so they are twice abused), and the little  “Beliefs” article on page B2 each Saturday.

His holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was in town last month and spoke to about 300 people in West Los Angeles, and he answered questions from the audience and elicited a lot of laughs while he was at it. According to the Times (I can’t link this August 18 article, you’d have to pay $3.95 to get the full text now):

Another woman asked how politicians can be made more spiritual. “I’m looking for advisors on this,” he replied.

“I thought you had answers for everything,” she said.

“Unfortunately, not for this one.” Still more laughs.

After a pause, he added that politicians feel as powerless as anyone. “We think the politician is creating the problem,” he said. “Really, it is the whole system.”

Shankar is right on that aspect, but there is a simpler answer to how politicians might be more spiritual.  The answer is found in whom we elect. If we elected people who are spiritual as our politicians, then politicians would be more spiritual. Yes, the pressures of politics can suck the spiritual life out of decent human beings. Perhaps at one time even Governor Schwarzenegger was a decent human being.

But too many people who are not spiritual, and who have no spiritual or even altruistic motivations, run for public office. They play the ruthless game of politics even to get into office, so don’t blame “the whole system” for sucking the life out of them. They suck the life out of the system. And then, when an issue like equal marriage comes along, the system is not prepared to even consider what the right thing to do might be, but only how one power block or one constituency might be played off against another.

Those of us who simply want to be protected by legal rights which are fair, equal and just have little power to fight the politicians—except our spirituality.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

September 13, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Recently I wrote a post for this blog about grace that went beyond what it means to be “saved by grace.” We are redeemed for God’s sake, so we can “live by grace.” I made a few suggestions what that might means for us, but I’ve been reflecting on it ever since.

To live by God’s grace we need to imagine the world which grace creates, and inhabit that world.

The whole basis of Christian ethics in the first centuries was to encourage Christians to live nobly – to live as redeemed people who are worthy of the gift they have received through the Cross. “Worthiness” was not a proof of merit by which they earned Gods’ love, but an indication that the gift of the Spirit as alive in them and working through them to transform the world.

We “live into” the future that God promises – not constantly deferring our vision of God’s redemptive power to the “next world” or an after-life or heavenly place that few people really believe anymore. “Heaven” may turn out to be only a metaphor, or it may well come to pass in God’s time. But we are called to live the redemption that is offered us, as disciples. (For St. John, eternal life means the life which begins when we call Jesus Lord, and that life is not even interrupted by death, but goes on.)

In the pious words of a beloved hymn (modernized text): “Rise up, O saints of God, from vain ambitions turn; Christ rose triumphant that your hearts with nobler zeal might burn.” The writer goes on to say Christians must offer hope to a world engulfed in despair, redress the consequences of sin through justice, help the weak, and heal the creation. You decide where you fit in, and what you can accomplish. But it is your mission to rise up, set aside the petty, and live out God’s redemption.

A similar theme was in a recent Gospel passage form Luke 14 “Take up your cross,” Jesus said, “and follow me.” But in order to have our hands free (!), we need to lay down the baggage that we clutch so tight. In order to follow Christ, we have to actually put down the remote control, get off the sofa and move.

What Jesus has in mind is that we scuttle our attachments to the world’s goods. Materialism holds us back from living nobly, or from living for any purpose except to collect more and more stuff in life (with a period adjustment by holding garage sales!).

It is difficult to comprehend how different the world was when he spoke. The average person today in 21^st Century America must have 1000 times the possessions which they did. How can we lay these down — how can we insist that the world’s 1 billion Christians (at least nominally) should lay down their goods, take up the cross and follow? It would trigger a world-wide depression of apocalyptic proportions!

Yet laying down baggage is fundamental to a change of heart, to spiritual awakening, and to living by grace. If the world’s Christians would take seriously the call to follow, and take seriously the promise of God’s grace, we could trigger a world-wide spiritual renewal of unimaginable proportions.

Some wise person once said, “The biggest battles we ever fight are inside our own heads.” I know that is the battleground for me. Nothing else in my inert life ever budges if I don’t get it thought through in my head.

So says St. Paul, ”For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”  (Romans 6:14).

The primary front in my personal war is the struggle to trust the promises of God and to live with the confidence (read: faith) that they are true and powerful and effective. If all Christians truly sought to live out God’s promises, we would have the power, in the Spirit, to redeem the world. If only we can put down the remote control, set aside “vain ambitions” and move out. If you believe God’s promises are true, then you decide where you fit into this holy work. It’s your inner battle.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Faith, Living by Grace, Spirituality, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

September 12, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

[Listen to this!]

I just got a phone call from an acquaintance of the church who used to periodically stop by and “look after” the two homeless people who lived in our parking lot. (They are still around our neighborhood, but no longer in the parking lot). She was concerned, because they had disappeared today. I assured her it was temporary. They will be back with the rolling cart within 24 hours.

It prompted a longer conversation, however, for this lady and I to talk about the problems of homeless people in general and this couple in particular. I brought her up to speed on the number of attempts we have made to get this couple into one of the shelters and the programs that stand ready to help them. They just won’t go.

But the situation underscores the truth that these individuals are free and independent human beings. No one can force them to go into a shelter if they are still considered mentally competent to make their own decisions. In truth, they do have mental “issues,” but I think they would be evaluated by any qualified professional as still being able to make their own decisions. The down side is that they make bad decisions. The current bad decision this summer was to pass up offers of shelter and shower in order to remain free and unfettered on the sidewalk.

All manners of life’s problems grow in the soil of bad decisions freely made.  Alcoholism doesn’t usually start as a drinking problem. Alcohol just irrigates life’s many other problems (pre-existing conditions!), rather than washing them away.  Substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors, prostitution, poverty, crime, fraud and racketeering, and downward-spiraling nutrition and health, etc., all come from making bad decisions. Theologian and best-selling author John Bradshaw  (Healing the Shame That Binds You, Homecoming, Bradshaw on the Family) finds shame growing in this soil as well.  Psychologist Nathaniel Brandon (The Disowned Self, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem) knows what poor self-esteem does to contribute to the same list of tragic failures.

Life’s bad decisions play out as both spiritual terrors and physical catastrophes. We cannot separate mind, body and spirit. Is mental illness the cause, or the effect, of so many people living on the streets in Hollywood?

Christians and our churches often fail completely to address these inter-connected problems, whose roots are entangled in everything human.  Christian thought often addresses the “bad decisions” of life with words such as “sin” and “evil.”  But there is great resistance nowadays to hearing these words used to describe realities which are far more complex.  Some of life’s poorest decisions for an individual may properly be labeled as “sinful,” but once those decisions play out, and trigger other unintended consequences, does it matter any more if the cause was sin, or errors in judgment, low self-esteem, victimization, bad breaks, or the prejudices of other people?

As time passes, I find it harder and harder to say that “repentance” is a cure-all for what ails the people of this world. Yet I know that “redemption” continues to describe what God wants for all of us. The answer to life’s bad decisions is God’s good grace, generously poured out.  It is God’s will to love and redeem the world no matter what—the homeless, the addict, those who become trapped in the errors and excesses of sexuality, money, power and other gratifications. God sends us out to bring hope and healing. So get going!

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

This post may also be heard with Windows Media Player here:  audioblog091207.mp3

Posted in Living by Grace, AudioBlog, Health, Public Affairs, Spirituality, Recovery | Print | No Comments »

September 11, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

After writing about the death of Rev. D. James Kennedy yesterday, I begun musing about the passing of the generation of homophobic evangelical leaders. Two of the four heavy hitting homophobes are left: Pat Robertson and James Dobson. Robertson renounced his ministerial status in order to run for President in 1988. Dobson is not and never has been a Christian minister of any kind. Yet the two control much of what America hears about the Christian faith.

Although Robertson is on record with the most outlandish views about virtually everything in the world (examples:  in 2005 he publicly called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; in 2001 he concurred with Falwell that the September 11 attack by Saudi terrorists wa brought on by the ACLU, feminists, abortionists and homosexuals with God’s permission), James Dobson is probably the scarier of the two surviving septuagenarians. He sounds more reasonable to middle Americans and conservative Christians. Dobson is a licensed psychologist, not a minister, but comes from a long line of ordained Nazarenes. (The current Wikipedia article on him seems to be balanced.) Backed by a $150 million annual budget (nearly twice that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s $82 million), Dobson runs a veritable publication and broadcast empire to disseminate his opinions.

Because of his unfettered access to Republican leaders and to broadcast media, he pontificates on virtually everything in American society, including whom he would support for President of the United States. How does he keep his tax exempt status? See, for example, this article in Reason Online from last May in which columnist Jeff Taylor calls Dobson a “small tent Republican.”

(Dobson, you will remember, was once the employer of John Paulk, the “ex-gay” poster-child who, with an “ex-Lesbian” wife at home, backslid his the way into a well-known homosexual bar in Washington, DC., was photographed by TWO’s Wayne Besen and, after this hit the media was finally pushed out of Focus on the Family’s employment.)

Dobson has also espoused views that border on the edge of incredulity, such as saying two years ago on his radio broadcast that legalizing same-gender marriage would set the table for polygamy, lead to daddies marrying little girls and a man marrying his donkey. (That idea from Dobson at least might be a good idea, since it would mean that human beings of similar intelligence would not have to be born out of wedlock.) According to this, Dobson has said: “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy Earth. ”

In his own words: http://mediamatters.org/static/audio/dobson-200510070004.mp3

His thesis (in his book Marriage Under Fire) is that when a judge may rule on the basis of civil rights, it is a flimsier ground on which to base marriage than what Dobson gives as it’s historic grounds: tradition, legal precedent, theology and an overwhelming support of the people. In short, He doesn’t know the history of marriage, let alone Christian marriage and, IMHO, doesn’t want to or need to.  In fact, James Dobson is not qualified as a historian, lawyer, thoelogian or public pollster, yet he uses his non-profit pulpit, Focus on the Family, to take aim against our rights, our relationships, our lives.

But if you really want to be scared, read John W. Whitehead’s interview of Chris Hedges, “Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement?” You thought you knew how bad it was, but Hedges will show you it is far worse than any of us imagined.                                  

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Rights, Ecumenical Issues, History, Public Affairs, Ex-Gay, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

September 10, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

In the second blow to the Religious Reich leadership, Rev. D. James Kennedy died September 5 about a week after retiring from his pulpit at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, at the age of 76 from complications after a heart attack in 2006.  Read the details published by the Baptist Press.

Rev. Jerry Falwell also died unexpectedly on May 15 at the age of 73.

Kennedy, who launched evangelism programs with a political cast from his congregation’s base, was less well-known and less bombastic in personal style. Yet according to some commentators his books and articles created much of the theological framework on which the religious right built its political base.

Between them, Kennedy and Falwell were responsible for an enormous amount of pain to LGBT people and their families, in a misguided belief that Christian faith must reject any and all expressions of same-gender love.

Both men have been praised and cursed. Perhaps one of the gentlest remarks made on the occasion of Falwell’s passing will also be said of Kennedy’s passing: “He’s in a better place.”

Over the years I have felt everything from anguish to anger over the vituperative tone of fundamentalist rhetoric against sexual minorities. This comes not only from my rage at their growing political power in the United States (which shows clear signs of declining again with the disastrous presidency of George “W” Bush), but from a slavish obedience to the letter of the scriptures which also takes the life out of them.

Although less well-known than Falwell, Kennedy suffered no less form hubris in his conviction that he needed to convert the entire nation to his version of Christianity. Both Falwell and Kennedy became completely enamored with broadcasting (Kennedy’s “Coral Ridge Hour” went on the air in 1978), and along with Pat Robertson learned to use their growing media presence and influence to raise vast sums of money in order to perpetuate their starring roles, beginning with a radio microphone and later in front of a television camera.

Many mainstream Christian leaders have never felt that the expenditure of huge amounts of money to get into television broadcasting brought the kind of evangelism results equal to the costs. It remains to be seen if the legacy of Falwell, Kennedy and Robertson (who is 77) will really bear lasting fruit, considering their record of murky and manipulative conservative politics mixed with holier-than-thou works-righteousness.  Robertson, the survivor, is also criticized for his own business dealings which have netted him a personal fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness” - 1 Timothy 6:10

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Fundamentalism, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

September 9, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The New York Times yesterday ran an article on presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s flip-flopping over same-sex marriage.  In 2002 he assured Log Cabin Republicans that he would be their friend and work to prevent discrimination against gay people. Now, he is a torch bearer for a Federal Marriage Amendment which would not only block all states and the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, but also take away the civil rights we already have.

Romney is far from alone, in espousing something which seems quite fictional to me. How anybody can say they don’t discriminate, or are not in favor of discrimination, but also say they are opposed to granting equal marriage rights, is either lunacy or cynical double-speak. But millions of people apparently believe they don’t discriminate, or don’t have prejudices, while they continue to vote against (or elect officials who will vote against) the civil rights of LGBT people.

The double-speak is more likely the case. Conservatives can argue, for example, that they really don’t discriminate, and that lesbian and gay people already have equal marriage rights: we can get married to a person of the opposite sex. They see that as equal because, theoretically, everybody in America has that right – to marry someone of the opposite sex.

It is cynical because they have also incorporated into this logical fiction the idea that what we want is special rights, special treatment, based on our lifestyle or preferences.

As if, for example, everyone in America can enjoy vanilla ice cream, without discrimination. But we insist that we must have chocolate ice cream or we’re being treated unfairly. I use this trivial example because I believe their reasoning trivializes the reality we live every day. We identify as sexual minorities, and know that we do not have civil rights to allow us to live as we understand ourselves to be. They dismiss our argument by insisting that it’s all a matter of choice or preference or lifestyle.

Personally, I really don’t like getting trapped into the “choice” question, especially since some lesbian and gay people openly admit that being lesbian or gay is a choice which they make. Coming out is a deliberate step, a conscious choice, but about something over which I have no choice if I want to live with integrity.  For me, personally, the only choice is to choose between living a lie or living the truth.

So yes, that is a choice, but given the risks of living openly without the safety net of legal protections and civil rights is a cynical choice forced on us by people who are indifferent to the suffering their view cause for other human beings. They have the choice to change their views. I do not really have a choice except to live out the truth of my life.

And although I can partially replicate the protections of law (that come free with legal marriage) by other means such as nuptial agreements, wills, living trusts, durable power of attorney for health care, etc., I cannot replicate the 1,049 rights under federal law which automatically belong to heterosexual marriage couples. Most of all, I cannot secure civil rights, especially in an era where fundamentalist Christian dogma literally rules the federal government.

It is chilling to think that our sitting president, whose administration has been one continuous disaster after another for LGBT people, did not really make anti-gay prejudice part of his campaign promises.  But Mr.  Romney seems to be doing that very thing.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

September 8, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Last spring, a major rift in the world’s Russian Orthodox Churches, which began under Soviet Communism, was officially healed when Metropolitan Laurus, the head of all Russian Orthodox congregations outside Russia, acknowledged the authority of Patriarch Alexei II in a liturgy celebrated in the Cathedral of Jesus Christ the Savior in Moscow.

The rift had begun in 1927 when the Metropolitan in Moscow declared loyalty to the Soviet government. Since the Soviet government no longer exists (and in fact Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was present for this historic event and had played a role in the reunification), it was time to heal the split between the church inside Russia and the congregations outside Russia.

It’s amazing this reunification took place so rapidly in the Orthodox communion. I am mindful of how long it took American Presbyterians to repair their breach after having divided over the issue of slavery in the 19^th century. And of course now we have a potential splintering of the world-wide Anglican communion over the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson by the Episcopal Church in the U.S.

Yesterday I said that the whole church of Christ desperately needs dialog on the matter of sexual minorities in the church. We are all in the church, by invitation of our Lord, yet we endlessly argue about who may have a place at the table. Too many of us are the petulant older brothers in the parable of the prodigal (Luke 15).

The first letter of John counsels us to “test the spirits” to see whether they are from God. Those of us who have a gay spirit and are faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ openly invite others to test our spirit, to see whether we are genuine, “from God.” But over the years we have been working for positive change in the church, we have encountered many spirits that did not meet the test.

The loudest and strongest of these spirits is the spirit of suspicion. I do battle with this spirit when I hold in suspicion any brother or sister that is homophobic or rabidly anti-gay. They, too, may acknowledge that Jesus is Lord even while the fear or despise me. And I pray that they sincerely do battle with the spirit of suspicion, too, as they consider my place in the church. It is suspicion itself that is not “of God.”

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. . . . Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes form God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:1–3, 7.

Suspicion has not been banished completely from the Russian Orthodox church. Apparently some people in the church outside Russia are still suspicious that the church inside Russia was infiltrated by the KGB during the Soviet era. They want a full accounting of this by the present hierarchy in Moscow, but it is not forthcoming. At the same time, the Orthodox church in Russia is flourishing again. There are signs that the Spirit of God is working among Russia’s Christians, even while the spirit of suspicion is still unsettling those outside Russia.

We Lutherans in America would do well to reflect on whether we are listening to the Spirit of God or the spirit of suspicion. I include in the “we” those Lutherans who will not recognize my ministry and insist that the policies of church exclude people like me and hold in suspicion those allies who walk with me.

May the Spirit of God guide us into fruitful dialog.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Faith, Spirituality, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

September 7, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Weeks after the ELCA’s churchwide assembly, I am still having mental arguments with people who spoke there in opposition to reforming the church’s anti-LGBT policy. As different voting members came to the microphones to argue against any change in the policy, it frustrated me over and over when they used manipulative scare tactics.

One speaker made an obvious threat, that “hundreds, if not thousands” of ELCA congregations might leave the church body over this issue.

Speaking from the “left coast of America” all I can say is that we aren’t leaving. We are dedicated to the ministry of Jesus Christ and the mission of the church in our place. If we haven’t “left the church” after 18 years with negative policy, if we haven’t left after being removed from the clergy roster and written off by the hierarchy, we’re not leaving. Period. We’re going to keep on doing our ministry until Jesus comes.

So who are these “hundreds if not thousands of congregations” that might leave if the policy is liberalized?

Aren’t they in fact the “Bible-doubters” who “utterly disregard the Word of God”—a phrase I overheard from the lips of a Lutheran Core spokesperson—? For they certainly disregard the prayer and command of Christ that we all be one, even as Jesus and the Father are one.  They certainly disregard Jesus’ counsel to forgive one another, even up to 70 times 7 times.  They disregard his instruction that they should go first and reconcile with a brother (or sister) before bringing their gift to the altar (that is, before coming into God’s presence). They disregard the teaching of the apostle Paul that “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’”

Whoever they are—these congregations and their organizers, spokespersons and threat-mongers—they seem instead to be saying, “we will pick up our marbles and go home.”

Of course, our home is in the Lord, and when they get home they will still find us there, also at home in the Lord! We aren’t going anywhere.

Sadly, this is an oversize version of a dysfunctional family, in which some family members won’t talk to other family members, even though Mom or Dad sincerely hopes that the rest of the family will get along with each other.

We desperately need dialog in the whole church of Christ. But when bishops like Anglican Primate Peter Akinola in Nigeria throws an international tantrum over Bishop Gene Robinson, or when Lutheran Core or Word Alone or Solid Rock Lutherans count up their marbles and, instead of reconciling with us, they talk about us in order to organize themselves against us or apart from us, I get the feeling that dialog is not going to happen any time soon.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Faith, Spirituality, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

September 6, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The practice of “outing” is controversial, because it seems to break the inherent code of silence that gay and lesbian people have used for their very survival in a hostile society. When “Grey’s Anatomy” actor T. R. Knight came out as gay, it was partly to beat the rush before someone else outed him. Knight’s story was featured in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times.

In recent years a kind of “ethic” has emerged—especially when talking about known public figures—about the use of outing. In the current scandal involving Senator Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), for example, his arrest for solicitation of sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom was only the latest episode of an apparently closeted, double life. Craig has been accused of previous sexual incidents with males.

What made him a target for outing, on sites such as Mike Rogers’ www.BlogActive.com, is that Craig has consistently been a legislative foe of the civil and legal rights the LGBT community are seeking.

 Mike Rogers

Rogers is the subject of a new Washington Post profile, “The Most Feared Man on the Hill?”

 Wayne Besen

Author and commentator Wayne Besen devoted yesterday’s column to Rogers and his list of member of Congress who are ripe for outing. He is rigorous in his research, and was the first to publish the dirty secrets about Ed Schrock (former Virginia congressman), who later decided not to run for re-election; Mark Foley (former Florida congressman); and of course Larry Craig who will obviously not be running for re-election either. (Or, not? Wednesday’s Washington Post reports Craig is reconsidering his own announced resignation!) Rogers’ blog, by the way, reported nearly a year ago meeting with several men who had sexual relations with Larry Craig.

Two things about Rogers apparently generate these political fears.

For one, his sense of integrity leads to an ethic about the practice of outing. From Besen’s daily column:

“When those private lives are in direct conflict with the public policy that these officials espouse, I think it’s fair game that their private lives be brought into this,” Rogers told The Washington Post. “And I have a blog to do that with. Here’s the question: What community is expected to protect its own enemies? Don’t beat up the gay community, and then expect us to protect your secrets and your double life. It’s just not right.”

And the second thing is that Rogers has a list of 33 others like Schrock, Foley and Craig on Capitol Hill: mostly men, mostly Republican (30 of them), and he is carefully researching them. Why is such scandal, or potential scandal, important to me? Not hypocrisy alone – that lasso would draw us all in. I am much more concerned about the gross misuse of the Christian faith as a tool for the manipulation and hurt of other human beings.

People get manipulated and hurt every day. It’s a cruel world out there. But when the Christian faith — a spirituality of love, compassion, and mercy — is willfully used by people in power to manipulate and hurt, I become upset. And I become especially inflamed when those being hurt are gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender. All of us have suffered enough manipulation, shame, hurt, loss of self-esteem, loss of our civil rights. But when a spirituality which can redeem us from the shame and hurt is itself turned into a tool of control and abuse, that is the last straw with me. I cannot control public policy, legislation, court cases or public opinion. But I will try everything, with the simple gifts God has given me, to offer grace, love and truth to our community and defend the true Christian faith from such demonic misuse. Many of the people on the “religious right” or in places of power in Washington, try to identify the Christian faith with strict/conventional/heterosexual moralism to the degree that any variation from their view is condemned.

And here we have members of Congress condemning themselves by their own standards. (Senator Craig, in his public statements, continues to insist he is not gay and never has been–by which statements he means to imply that being gay is shameful and he is above such shame!)

When will the manipulation, hurt, shaming and condemnation stop, in the name of Jesus?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in "The Closet", LGBT Christian, Public Affairs, Spirituality, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

September 5, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

[Listen to this!]

Yesterday afternoon, I raced to E.R. in a nearby hospital, to the bedside of a member of the church. They are doing tests to see if he has had a heart attack. He has been living with HIV for a number of years, but now some of the ailments of old age are also too close for comfort.

We prayed. We talked about God’s grace and purpose for his (long) life, about the gift of healing, about the 42 pills he takes every day, and about his community of support – faithful care-givers who have never given up on him, who are also members of our church community. His own life partner died of AIDS two decades ago. Now he relies on the love and care of his friends.

Care-givers teach me something about faith. Christians place our faith in God, or so we say. Sometimes we pray for more faith, greater faith, deeper faith—as if faith were some kind of repellant that, when sufficiently applied, will keep doubts from stinging us.

Maybe faith is better understood through the eyes and hands and feet of Christian care-givers. People who are sometimes family members and quite often not family members, who are there for a person in need. Week after week, year after year. In them I understand faith, because it is the steadfastness of love that will not quit or even count the cost of remaining in the game.

“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed . . . for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. . .” — Matthew 25:31–46

Faith is not simply agreeing to a set of mental propositions that have been presented without any proof.  Faith in God, and faith in the goodness of God and the grace of God have ample proof, if we need proof in order to hold to those propositions.  The proof is that there are selfless, caring, generous, steadfast people out there, who have decided on their own (or through the inspiration of the Spirit) that they need to be a care-giver for someone because he or she is in need.The proof of God’s existence, and God’s loving-kindness is found in the countless angels who make that love real for someone in need.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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September 4, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

[Listen to this!]

We Lutherans talk a lot about being saved by grace. Usually as if it were some future event. Evangelicals, who don’t emphasize grace as much as decision, think of being saved as a past event. “I got saved. . . when I answered an altar call and asked Jesus to come into my heart.”

Lutherans more correctly could say “we were saved 2,000 years ago when Jesus died for us on the cross.” It is not my decision for Jesus that saved me, but his decision for me.

One cannot say “saved by grace” without acknowledging that this is God’s initiative, through Christ, God’s decision, God’s gracious acceptance of us and all who come to him for Jesus’ sake.

I have often said (only half-jokingly) that I know I am saved because God does not have the heart to throw me away. But believing with all our hearts that we are saved (present tense?) doesn’t finish the thought. The more immediate question is what it means to live by grace, not just believe that one is saved by grace.

For one, you don’t have to watch your back. Narrowly-focused control freaks have overblown the idea that one can “fall from grace.” Yes, I suppose, and one can walk away from it, too. Or walk right by it and never notice it. People who might be at risk of falling from God’s grace usually don’t read theology blogs. What are you worried about? The rest of us need not be preoccupied about our missteps, failures, inadvertent errors or unconfessed sins which might ruin everything with God. To worry that God might have a change of heart and condemn us forever and ever is not to live in the grace which is promised to us. It’s obsessing about the reliability and mechanics of redemption. That’s a waste of time, because God’s word is reliable, and there are no mechanics: we are redeemed, saved, bought back, made righteous simply by the decision and announcement of almighty God. None of that is affected by anything we do or fail to do on our end. Just believe it and accept it.

Go ahead and live joyfully. Why is it that so many Christians live their daily lives like sourpusses? What are they so unhappy about? Have we forgotten that we are in relationship with the God who is Love? Remember that Jesus said, “I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” This doesn’t just mean long life— one long, cheerless, resentful, dour watch until the end comes. You call that life? Living joyfully really does mean living well, richly, fully alive, and worry-free. Living by grace means living a grateful life—filled with the realization that we are wonderfully blessed just to be alive and to be loved. Living by grace means living a generous life—however you do it and in whatever measure, sharing, giving, offering the gift of happiness to anybody else you meet.

Keep your eyes on the horizon. If you’re living by grace, you have a lot to live for. Jesus has redeemed you and then commissioned you to follow him. His mandate is clear – to build for himself a people called form every nation, every background, every former kind of life there is, in order to help him redeem the entire world. You have your work cut out for you. All Christians have this same mandate, so you don’t have to go it alone. Look into the future, imagine the world the way God created it, the way Christ wants it to be. And keep your eyes peeled to find Christ out ahead of you, doing the very things he has invited you to do also. Go ahead, ask yourself: Who would Jesus redeem? Who would Jesus heal? Who would Jesus feed? Who would Jesus forgive?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

[Read Living by Grace, Part 2]

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September 3, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I almost missed a news story last month about a staged gay “kiss-in” in front of the Coliseum in Rome (also carried by the BBC). Apparently hundreds of couples did this to protest the arrest of two men who had kissed there the week before.

It shocked me for very personal reasons. A dozen years ago my partner and I made our first trip to Europe, and flew into Da Vinci airport outside Rome. We had no reservations for the next two and a half weeks, but planned to find a cheap pensione when we arrive. Traveling by train from the airport into the Eternal City, we quickly figured two African-American guys in the same train car as being gay. As we got to talking, we learned they were from New Jersey, but were brothers not boyfriends. They were meeting their third brother in Rome, also gay.

As rookie travelers, we were quite happy to talk with anybody who spoke English. We made plans to meet them in St. Peter’s Square at the obelisk on Wednesday for the papal audience. When we did meet up with these guys, we all acted as if we were long-lost relations or bawdy intimates, kissing and hugging within shouting distance of the bishops and cardinals and 10,000 other people awaiting the appearance of John Paul II.

It never crossed our minds that kissing other males in public would have been a problem in Rome.

A year and a half later and slightly more proficient with guide books and Italian-English phrasebooks, we were in Milan. Happy to discover an actual gay bookstore there, we spent quite a while visiting with a clerk more proficient in English than we were in Italian. Amazed at the openness of a gay book store, he explained that the farther away one gets geographically from the Pope the less of a problem it is to be openly gay.

 I wonder if things are stricter in Rome now because of Pope Benedict XVI than under John Paul II, or if it really is still a geographic thing. Two years ago last April, Benedict condemned efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Spain. Two months later, he slammed gay “pseudo-marriage” during an internal Catholic conference on the family. According to www.boston.com Benedict has continued to be a strong opponent of “gay culture” and same-gender marriage, which is legal in Massachusetts (and quite a distance from the Vatican). The current Pope seems more determined than his predecessor to reject and belittle our relationships, and to silence any church ministries that offer sympathy or support for us.

But when Father Walter Cuenin preached during the Boston gay pride event last year (see same story above) and reminded people “that Jesus was always with those who were often the target of hatred and persecution,” he was treading on thin ice with the Roman hierarchy all the way up to the Vatican. The more firmly a religious truth is held, the less tolerant it can be of any form of dissent. Benedict shows himself as having no sense of humor, and cutting no slack on this issue. As in 16^th century Reformation days, it all comes down to the “authority issue” again.

But his holiness is treading on a thin theology of sex. The Jesus of the Scriptures hardly condemned anybody for sexual sins, and stood with those who were quickly condemned by their self-righteous neighbors. Too many religious leaders, including the Pope, would rather stand by their doctrines than to stand with Jesus. And loudly condemning gays and lesbians is a distraction from his worldwide pedophilia problem. Is it any wonder there are so many “recovering Catholics”?

In the meantime, I am still curious about the news report of the big “kiss-in” at the Coliseum. If the Pope really does have pull with the Roman police, one wonders if this time around it would be the Christians throwing the fags to the lions.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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September 2, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Does God take a day off nowadays, or was it just that First Sabbath, after God had worked so hard for six days to get creation launched?

Labor is something which we all have to do, and all avoid. I don’t want to clean out the garage, for example. Bp. Paul Egertson once explained the traditional division of duties in his marriage, negotiated at the outset many years ago. Shirley would take care of all the inside stuff, and Paul would take care of the outside. The only thing, he admitted, was that Shirley did all the inside stuff every day, while raising six sons. Paul on the other hand, did all the outside stuff when he “got around to it.”

People today are busier than ever, although at what I’m not sure. For one, with more and more people living alone (divorced, widowed, never married, etc.) there is no division of labor in a family unit. A single parent does it all, all the time. And given the state of our economy and our greed, many people work several jobs in an attempt to scotch-tape a living together from several sources.

Yes, our greed plays a role in our exhaustion. Anthropologists tell us that a human being can work enough to provide for all his/her basic human needs with about 2.5 hours of work per day. Our needs met, we are obsessive/compulsive about acquiring stuff we don’t actually need. Don’t agree? Got to have that Hummer to get to work 43 miles away? Got to have that 54″ wide aspect ratio state-of-the-art television? Absolutely got to have it?

That being said, a sabbath rest is both a gift of God (God invented it, after all, Genesis 1), and a commandment: “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” God knows that, if it weren’t a commandment, everybody would disregard its value as a gift. Gift and commandment belong together as a way of ordering life, of letting the rhythms of life function the way they were intended to care and nurture people and all other creatures the way we were intended.

We sometimes employ day laborers around the house, but I insist that we not do so on Sundays. They, after all, should have their day of rest as well, even if I know that they may just go back to the Home Depot parking lot and wait for someone else to hire them. Is life so desperate, either here or in Latin America where dollars earned here will flow, that the poor attempt to work every day?

We have more than a handful of people in our church who work on Sundays, and very rarely come to worship. It’s very hard to reason with them about this; some defensiveness is bound to come up however politely concealed. “Why can’t you talk to your boss, and tell the boss you are a church-going person?” I will say or at least think. “There are probably others who aren’t Christian that could just as easily work the Sunday shift.”

Yes, I know it’s not that easy. But even to have that conversation begins to move us back to the point of saying—claiming—that a sabbath’s rest is God-given. A day off is not part of the largess of our employers or the huge corporations that now rule the world. It is a God-given perk for being human, and one that in the Scriptures was meant to be practiced even for beasts of burden. I wonder, if we let our machines go idle on the sabbath, and let our horsepowers have the day off, couldn’t we even go a long way to slacking off the global warming and a host of other human-made problems.

I also can’t help wondering, what with this huge conservative Christian base in America that wants to cling to traditional values, why they haven’t clamored for laws to allow people to not work on Sundays, or on the religious sabbath of their choice. The current legal/political climate in our nation makes it harder to unionize, harder to talk back to one’s boss, harder to demand or get a living wage, harder to remain human in defiance of the corporate business machine that will do anything to extract ever-higher returns on its equity (a much greedier objective than merely making profits). As the list of things in society which seldom/never take a day off (global financial markets, for example) grows exponentially, human beings are dying for some rest.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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September 1, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Many of you know that I had surgery in June, to remove a cancer in my prostate gland. The full name was laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. After second and third opinions and lots of research, I came to the conclusion that removing the whole gland was my best choice.

As it turned out, the cancer had not spread outside the gland to surrounding tissue, so technically it means I am now cancer-free.

I was diagnosed as having this cancer in February.  After my learning curve leveled out a bit, I chose late June as a time when I could be more or less off my feet for as long as necessary. (It was after the Christopher Street West Pride events and before the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly.)

In a little over four months, I went from not knowing I had a serious health problem to knowing I had cancer to being told that I am a cancer survivor.

None of this has really sunk in. Was it denial, or the steadfast faith that God would “fix” whatever was broken? Bedeviling my psychic and spiritual homework was the fact that throughout those months I felt terrific. The doctors called it asymptomatic. I didn’t feel any different than I did several years ago. I have all the mid-life aches and pains, none of which apparently had anything to do with the one thing that, if left untreated, would kill me. So while I was making major health inquiries and decisions, it was almost like it was on behalf of someone else—some sick person for whom I could have compassion. But me?

And now I am a cancer survivor almost never having been a cancer patient. Friends are still asking (you know, as an aside in a low tone of voice) what kind of treatments I am taking now. Well, folks, I’m not. It apparently is a done deal.

The loss of the prostate gland is, of course, a loss in both the procreational and recreational use of sexuality. Procreational:  I had to sign a consent form indicating that I understand I would be sterile after the surgery.  Recreational:  as a gay man, it obviously affects the quality of sexual expression.  (If you are a male, you have a 1 in 6 chance of developing prostate cancer, but even while you’re having your annual PSA blood test, take comfort in the fact that modern laparoscopic surgery is “nerve sparing.”  You can Google for plenty of information or start with the Prostate Cancer Foundation.)

It obviously affects my sex life.  But I am still alive.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” – Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:25.

Is not life more than food, drink, clothing and sex? For a lot of gay males, the implicit answer is no. Without food and drinks, sex and fashion, what else is there?

But even asking “is not life more?” has the look and feel of a pious platitude. I would be dishonest not to admit that the change (not total loss) of sexual function is unsettling and dismaying.  But as a survivor, I need to hear the implied question as from our Lord himself:  Is not life more than food, drink, clothing and sex?

Like the disease and the surgery, this too needs to “sink in.”  It is not a platitude, after all, when I find myself struggling with, praying about, meditating on a truth that had always seemed to be good advice for somebody else, for situations that had passed me by.  But I too am human, finite, selfish on bad days and thick-headed on good days.  I too need spiritual growth, to equip me to handle the things which life puts before me.  Is not life more?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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