October 31, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Well, today is Reformation Day in the Lutheran Calendar — the other fun thing to observe besides Halloween festivities. On October 31, 1517 our intrepid and brash leader, Dr. Martin Luther touched off a firestorm in Europe by daring to challenge local church officials to debate him over the matter of selling indulgences. Using the church door as a bulletin board (the custom of the day), Luther posted 95 theses or points for debate.

Sounds like no big deal, except that to church authorities it was a sign of a major confrontation. And, with the printing press having been invented only a few years before, Luther’s ideas spread all over Europe almost instantly.

Fast forward to the 490^th Anniversary of the Reformation. Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries is born, the love-child of Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries and the Extraordinary Candidacy Project. These two pieces of the movement to open the Lutheran churches in the U.S. to the full participation of LGBT people–not only in the pews but in the pulpits–decided last February that they could be more effective if they combined their witness and resources. 

So today ELM is born, by “virtually” nailing its theological statement to the door of the internet. How Luther-an can you get?  (Go ahead:  knock on the red door.)

News of this audacious step will travel all over the Lutheran church and be picked up by people who watch the continuing conflict between Christians and sexual minorities. How it plays out is in the hands of the Holy Spirit, of course (Acts 5:38–39).

Cynics may take this as a step toward breaking with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, after it’s churchwide assembly failed last August to revise or liberalize its anti-gay personnel policies. The compromise measure which passed that Assembly was to urge synods and bishops to refrain or at least restrain their discipline against congregations which choose to knowingly call (hire) a non-celibate gay or lesbian pastor, or act to official ordain them.

But Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries is not a separatist movement like that racking the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican communion. ELM is a consolidation of ongoing efforts not to break from the church but to be the church by raising funds to do real ministry, and calling qualified and committed individuals to carry out specific ministries.

If anything, it will be the homophobic, right-wing ultra-conservatives who will attempt to pick up their marbles and leave the game, but not the LGBT Lutherans. This is not because we, or “the liberals” have taken over the ELCA. Far from it, as the August Assembly votes clearly reveal. No, the LGBT Lutherans are “staying put” within the larger church for very clear reasons.

Being ultra-conservative is, after all, a matter of choice. Being homophobic is under one’s willful control. One chooses to fear and hate gay and lesbian people. One chooses to read scripture in a rejective, punitive way, rather than in a reconciling, healing and compassionate way. But for millions of gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, one’s sexuality is not a choice. It’s a given. It is discerned over time, discovered and wrestled with until each person learns self-esteem, and makes peace with the emotional, physical and spiritual dimensions of his or her God-given personhood. The reason that LGBT people are “staying put” in this churchbody is that we are most often born into it, grow up in its graceful embrace, are nurtured by its proclamation of Gospel not laced with shame or hatred, and respond to the invitation of Christ to lay down our heavy burdens (Matthew 11:28–30).

Many conservatives at the Chicago ELCA Assembly hoped that, if discipline is being refrained from or restrained during this period of discernment (the ELCA’s Social Statement on human Sexuality is due out in less than 2 years), the “liberal” wing of the church would also refrain from calling and ordaining more LGBT candidates to ministry. This is the same issue which the ultra-conservatives in the Anglican communion (led by African fundamentalist power-brokers such as Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria) have tried to force on the Episcopal Church in the U.S.: don’t consecrate any more gay bishops!! Or else!!

We await the response of the ELCA and other Lutheran church bodies in the U.S. and around the world about the birth of ELM. There might be some “or else” conditions, but they cannot fall upon ELM itself or those of us who are on its professional Roster as pastors and candidates for ministry. The immediate reason is that the big bad churchbody had already kicked out many of the pastors who are rostered with ELM, or foreclosed ordination for seminarians who came out as lesbian/gay, bisexual or transgender.

But the bigger reason is grounded in the Word. Martin Luther and his movement defended themselves before the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 by staying grounded in the Word.

And Peter and John defended the brash actions which they and Jesus’ other disciples were taking by laying it out just as clear to their critics: “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to bey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19–20)

Posted in LGBT Christian, Fundamentalism, Living by Grace, History, Ministry, Coming Out, ELCA | Print | 1 Comment »

October 29, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

A member of our congregation called me last week, trying to think quickly of someone to call for help. A friend of his who is 18, really a recent acquaintance, had just come out to his parents, and was kicked out of the house. As of last week, he was sleeping at another friend’s house (what www.doubletongued.org describes as “couch homelessness”).

My first question was whether this young man was depressed or even slightly suicidal. Where to live and how to make up with your parents can come later. The first thing is to preserve his life and remind him that being kicked out is only a temporary disaster.

While I was on the phone, I began looking for other contacts, including—here in Los Angeles—the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center and especially Youth Services (the Jeff Griffith Youth Center. Especially see this page on youth homelessness.

Kids always suspect their parent make stupid decisions. This seems to be the proof of it, when a parent says they love you and want the best for you, and then get hostile and angry when you tell the truth. Remember, parents are human too and they screw up.

Look at it this way: Coming out is a sign of your growing maturity and wisdom. But at least trying to anticipate and understand your parents’ thinking is an equally big sign of maturity and wisdom. If they have already rejected you, you are now facing two very big and important things.

First is your day-to-day survival. Thank God there are some resources out there.

Second is your ability to forgive your parents for failing to understand and kicking you out, — so be prepared to wait awhile for them to come around.

What if parents never come around? Human life is filled with tragedies, and this is one of them.

A few other quick and notable contacts:

1. The Human Rights Campaign has a “Coming Out Project”. You can download this 23-page resource guide.
2. Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) also has resources. Visit this short list of hotlines to offer you support.

A Google search for “coming out to parents” generated 16,300,000 hits. If you’re having an emergency, I don’t think you have time to surf all that. But you should find a real live human being you can trust to talk and to support you.  If you’re thinking about coming out, then I do recommend that you plan it, and learn what you’re getting into before you set things in motion. One good resource is Mary V. Borhek’s book, Coming Out to Parents: A Two-Way Survival Guide for Lesbians and Gay Men and Their Parents, which you can get from www.Amazon.com here. It costs $14.04 but they have used copies for less.  Some more quick thoughts:

• Don’t be a loner.
• Ask for respect from others you tell your story to.
• Expect support you can trust.
• Forget “drama” if you are rejected (regret, anger, depression). You will not be rejected by everybody.
• Make new friends if your friends reject you.

If necessary, find new parents! I don’t say this to be funny. I have known many people who adopted other parents that cared for them, people who just understood right away and didn’t reject them. Family relationships are wonderful, if they’re wonderful. But if they are not, the biological family is not the only family there is.  Make a family.  Seek a family. Invest your love and respect and trust in other people until you form a new family.

And don’t leave God out of your family. Like a wise grandparent (when your parent doesn’t understand), God does accept you and loves you as you are. If you don’t believe this, or have heard otherwise, contact me right away.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 27, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I think this is attributed to Mark Twain: “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand which worry me. It’s the part of the Bible I do understand that worry me.”

The Bible has a lot of stuff that is a real turn-off. Millions of people avoid them by never opening its cover. For those of a religious bent, especially the conservative religious, there are many things found in this ancient book which are indeed worrisome. Because a conservative point of view stands on the principle that every word in the Bible is inspired by God and must be believed and obeyed.

I will admit it’s that principle that worries me, because it creates trouble, burdens consciences, and broadcasts prejudice. The same principle is found, by the way, in Judaism and Islam.

Last week a group of Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars met in Bel-Air (in a neutral hotel) to tackle worrisome parts of the Bible, the New Testament and the Koran, and to question the conservative principle itself.

I’m a little irked that I wasn’t invited to at least listen to these scholars present and discuss together. In her October 20 story, the Los Angeles Times’ Connie Kang didn’t explain who—besides the scholars who reported and lectured—got invited. Oh well, maybe next year (in Germany, 2008) or in Jerusalem (2009)!

Gay people have known about texts of terror for generations, since there is a small handful of Old and New Testament (only six, or arguably only five) passages that are used to condemn us. Conservatives enjoy using those passages, apparently, because they enjoy condemning others.

If you can stomach what that Topeka, Kansas guy thinks, check out his web site.  Phelps has done us all a favor to carefully do the research about terrible texts. In the paper “”God Loves Everyone” - The Greatest Lie Ever Told” (available in its entire 94 page length in PDF format), apparently some 701 passages are quoted to prove that God does indeed not love everybody!

I’ve had a taste of all that bile before. (I think they teach it in Bile College!) But I’m much more interested now when reputable scholars, none of them from Topeka, Kansas, gather to openly discuss together the stuff in which Christian scriptures appear to reject Muslims and Jews, and Muslim Scriptures appear to warn against Jews and Christians, etc. The conference, put together by the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding of Sacred Heart University, highlighted the need to understand the social and historical context of the ancient texts which are so inflammatory against others.

I suppose it goes without saying that general religious intolerance—such as that between Jews and Muslims and Christians—is the wide seed-bed in which specific intolerance takes root and grows—such as hatred and damnation of homosexuals among Christians, or anti-Jewish Muslim sentiments, or for that matter, the Sunni/Shiite bitterness being fought out in Iraq now.

Truthfully, I constantly raise the questions this conference apparently posed publicly, so I could have been a very interested participant. Even if I hold that every word of the Old and New Testaments, for example, are inspired, am I required to apply every word to my life and my world? Even if these great Scriptures of three world religious have much wonderful spiritual insight, am I required not to move beyond those ancient insights? In other words, if they raise important spiritual questions for the human race, do they also foreclose on any further discussion.

Jesus for example wrestled with the texts of the Hebrews Scriptures of his day. “You have heard it said,… “but I say to you.” In his allegorical tussle with Satan, the devil quotes Scripture too, “It is written…” But does what is written end all discussion?

The scholars thought not, and encouraged ongoing dialog about these very issues — especially as the Scriptures of the three faiths can easily be used to condemn the other two.

The Times article quotes Jerry Campbell, President of Claremont School of Theology. “God is challenging us to take the idea of troubling texts to the next level, to begin a new conversation across faiths and throughout the world, with the goal of realizing God’s own hope that all God’s creation may learn to live harmoniously together.”

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that guy in Topeka Kansas couldn’t disagree more. He doesn’t want anybody to live harmoniously together. If you like check out his companion sites, godhatesamerica, godhatescanada, godhatessweden, americaisdoomed, etc.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 18, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Windows Vista is on the market. But all reports I’m hearing — not product reviews, but comments from the people who actually use a computer, not just test it for pay— is that it’s terrible. It has enough bugs for the exterminator to put his kids through college on it.

So I’m in the market for an older operating system — one that is maybe “trite and true” but at least I’ll know what I can get out of it and expect from it in order to get through my day without crashing.

The original “Windows XP”: The Greek letters Chi Rho
are an abbreviation for “Christ.”

I’d never thought of religious faith as an “operating system” before, but maybe it’s a metaphor we can use. Twenty-six year-olds were born the same year as IBM gave birth to the PC. In that time, operating systems have come and gone like fads. One or two have stood the test of time (although cosmically-speaking, 26 years is a pretty short period of time). It may be that Linux will one day eclipse Windows.

Is the Christian faith a faith I can live by (operate with, function with)? Or is Christ about to be eclipsed by — well, by what? Or is it the trite but true “operating system”with which my life hums along?

At least I know what it can do. It reassures me that, through God’s amazing grace I am in sync with the universe, because a loving God has created it and sustains it. I can download God’s power, energy, and healing any time I need it. I can e-mail God any time, and I won’t get a Daemon message telling me my prayers didn’t go through.

 The interactive Christian “system” invites me to do things for others as a way of responding to God’s grace— things which aren’t impossible processing tasks that will crash my own system.  And it has a fantastic manual! 

The Christ Operating System Manual

I just need to spread the good news about Christ, my operating system, through deeds of compassion, love and an occasional sacrifice. Most Christians spend more on worthless computer upgrades every year than they spend on supporting the work of Christ, even though it gets better results, so yes, I could be more generous.

But when I run into the error messages of life, they can all be forgiven. Even the “blue screen of death” – when you get those fatal errors in front of your eyes and that sickening feeling in your stomach — dissolves in the trust that Jesus is preparing a place for us (”in my father’s house”). In this great future life, there will be no crashes, no freezes, no validation codes, service packs, no required upgrades that actually make things worse, no fear of losing virtually everything I have put into my life.

Maybe I shouldn’t push the analogy too far, though.

But what if Christ really is being supplanted by another “operating system,” something newer and very cool? Before I buy, I would want to know that it’s more than Hype 1.0, that it really can do more than run its own demonstration loops in “virtual” (imitation) reality. Is there an Emerging Church operating system which has anything really new or improved in it? Should I look into the Wiccans or Neo-Pagans, into Islam or Baha’i? Can I try before I buy? After all, do they handle any of the suffering, cruelty, greed or violence of this world any better than Christ does?

Will the scripts or applets of these other operating systems work with the hardware of my life — my finite limitations, disappointments, failures, and occasional disasters? Will they run reliably within the constraints of my place in the world: culture, language, history. Will they work, with very little time, in an environment surrounded by crazies, loonies and predatory drivers whose operating systems run like a doomed video game?

I think I’ll just stay with Christ, my current operating system. When I boot up my life each morning, I see the Cross, not an animated GIF or gimmick trying to get my attention and my credit card number. I send an e-mail to thank God for another day, and for the peace, love, forgiveness and hope which are integrated seamlessly into my life. And at the end of the day, I realize that everything that I did could not have happened at all without Christ.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 16, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

According to www.doubletongued.org, October 16 is Dictionary Day, celebrating the 249^th birthday of Noah Webster. “The proper way to celebrate that is to stand on street corners reading your favorite dictionary entries to passersby. Lexicographers no longer carry out the airing of grievances: too many people were hurt by being whacked up side the head with Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.”

This is a whole world that had escaped me until recently, when I read “Coming to Terms” by Steve Pinker in the Los Angeles Times Opinion section (Sunday September 30). It annoys me that I can’t easily link you to the article, but the Times tries to charge over the internet for every article older than today’s edition. Anyway, the America Dialect Society led me to Double-Tongued Dictionary: ” A Lexicon of fringe English, focusing on slang, jargon and new words.”

With more than 1250 entries of new words, mostly slanglish, I have culled some of the ones dealing with religion, for your edification and amusement.

apatheism, n. the attitude of not caring about religion or whether there is a God. Etymological Note: apa(th)y + -theism.

bark mitzvah, n. a (13th birthday) party held for a dog. Editorial Note: Usually jocular. The event itself usually has few, if any, serious religious components and are less coyly known simply as cat mitzvahs and dog mitzvahs. In many cases, the 13th birthday is figured in dog years, usually said to be a ratio of seven dog years for every one human year. Etymological Note: From bark ‘the onomatopoeic sound a dog is said to make’ + bar mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony for a boy’s arrival at the age of manhood and religious responsibility, or bat mitzvah, the equivalent ceremony for a girl.

bleeding deacon, n. a person who believes himself indispensable to a group, esp. a person who becomes so over-involved in a group’s internal management, policies, or politics as to lose sight of its larger goals; (hence) a person with a negative, moralizing character, who acts like the sole source of wisdom. Editorial Note: Most cites are connected to Alcoholics Anonymous or to similar 12-step programs. The historical information in the 1998 and 1999 cites is not verified.

blessing way, n. a spiritual ceremony or gathering celebrating a woman’s pregnancy. Also blessingway. Editorial Note: The tone, content, and intent of a blessing way can vary greatly, but generally, the event involves songs, food, and the giving of gifts and good wishes to the mother. In less spiritual practice, a blessing way is similar to a baby shower and is held for a pregnancy other than a woman’s first. Etymological Note: As described in the citations dated 1932 and 1970, and in the second 1993 citation, this specific and specialized use of the term “blessing way” probably comes from the Navajo, who also use the Blessing Way ritual for other purposes: for those who are going away, for those who have returned, for those about to undertake an important task, etc.

fundagelical, n. a fundamentalist or evangelical Christian; a person who evangelizes or espouses fundamentalist beliefs for any cause. Also adj. Subjects: English, United States, Religion, Derogatory Editorial Note: Usually derogatory. Etymological Note: fundamentalist + evangelical.

gay church, n. jocularly, a gym. Editorial Note: Popularized by, if not originated by, the American television sitcom Will & Grace. Occasionally, in various nonce uses as in the 2004 citation, the term is applied to other places or activities stereotypically associated with homosexuals.

godbag, n. a person who espouses or promotes a religion, especially in politics or the public sphere. Editorial Note: A different “god bag” is a device for relieving psychological burdens: it is a receptacle that holds pieces of paper on which one has described one’s troubles. The 2001 citation is probably an unrelated nonce usage, as the writer has used the word “God” to replace obscenities throughout the post. Etymological Note: Perhaps patterned after “windbag,” “dirtbag,” “douchebag,” or “scumbag.”

God breeze, n. a commonplace epiphany or revelation (attributed to divine influence). Editorial Note: A similar word is theopneusty, meaning “divine inspiration” and coming from the Greek word for “God” and “breathe.” Etymological Note: According to several non-authoritative sources, perhaps originally a translation of the Hebrew for “holy ghost.”

God wink, n., something taken as evidence that a higher power is at work; a coincidence. Editorial Note: The term was popularized by Squire Rushnell in his 2003 book When God Winks and in his subsequent books.

Jesus year, n. a person’s 33rd year of life. Editorial Note: A similar term is Elvis year ‘a person’s 42nd year of life; the peak year of at which a person or thing peaks in popularity.’ Etymological Note: From the age that Jesus is said to have been when he died.

jubu, n. a Jewish person who maintains Buddhist beliefs or practices. Also Jewbu. Editorial Note: This term was popularized by Rodger Kamenetz through his 1994 book A Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity.

meat tag, n. identifying information such as name, Social Security number, religion, blood type, etc., tattooed on a soldier’s body. Editorial Note: According to the Macquarie Dictionary, in Australia “meat tag” is a colloquial expression for “dog tag” or “identity disc.” The 1977 and 1997 citations below are both Australian.

stained-glass ceiling, n. a barrier to the advancement of women within the hierarchy of a church. Etymological Note: This is a specific form of “glass ceiling,” which is the barrier to advancement of women in any profession. A related term is marble ceiling, which applies to the same situation in politics.

woo-woo, adj. concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. Also n., a person who has mystical or new age beliefs.

Some of this stuff is interesting. I confess that they made me laugh or at least smile. But in terms of new words to add to my vocabulary, I am mostly “apa-linguistic” about them!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 15, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I actually started musing on this three Octobers ago.  It’ not that this post is a “re-run” — the situation itself is a frequent re-run in my life.

There is a strange sensation in being introduced as a minister in a party or circle or crowd which is not a church group. Socially, it can be an odd fit. A flood of thoughts run through me, whether, for example I will be questioned closely, avoided or ignored. I don’t want to be perceived as either the curiosity or the bogey man, nor do I relish being seen as irrelevant.

The curiosity might as easily come from meeting an actuary or molecular biologist or crane operator or violist. We have a vague idea of what these jobs are about. But most of us are not that interested in hearing more about them–least of all a molecular biologist who could, in a matter of seconds, say stuff that is so obscure that it would intimidate or bore us. So it goes with ministers among those who have never been religious.

The bogey man, or monster, image goes along with ministers being super pious, with a high self-image, able to look down on others as if they are morally inferior. It might be fun, for a moment, to feel like one is on a social plane equal to a preacher —meeting one at a party or in a neutral setting– and so not feeling as if one is being looked down upon. But many non-churched people have strong underlying feelings that church-y people are all hypocrites and ministers must therefore be uber-hypocrites. But after a few minutes, the fun sensation is gone, so what’s the point of talking?

This leads, though, to the third situation:  irrelevance. I meet people who know that I am openly gay and permanently partnered. So they are not apt to look upon me as being hypocritical.  (I try very diligently to live what I believe, rather than to pretend to be celibate or single, for example.) But if their perception is that the church itself–in its religiosity and moral condemnation—is stupid, hypocritical, irrelevant—or even as the institution in our society which is most responsible for prudery and bigotry, then perhaps they look at a minister as probably being rather stupid, insincere or misguided in devoting her or his life to such work. When that happens, the molecular biologist or the violist comes off better in a social situation.

Irrelevance happens when people see religious commitment or faith as simply being one choice among many–like one of the entrees from which you can choose at the Chinese fast-food steam table. Protestant, Catholic, Jewish is something like chicken, beef or shrimp. Who cares? Or atheist—isn’t that sort of like vegetarian?

When I meet someone completely non-religious, I may not know at first if s/he is virulently anti-religious, any more than s/he will know at first if I am a prude or a regular guy. But when people peg religious faith as irrelevant, they are deciding that they don’t care to find out any more. From my end, I sometimes enjoy talking with people to find out if they hold any underlying values which I as a Christian might have in common with them. Or, for that matter, if they have any underlying values which shape and direct their lives.

And sadly, I do meet people from time to time that apparently do not have much by way of underlying values. That is, they don’t seem to have any values except perhaps the views and opinions that are shaped in the day-to-day world by what happens to them day by day.  So, for example, if traffic was grueling, their road-rage pours out and they exhibit hatefulness, anger, even prejudice.  But if they won ten bucks in the lottery or got a pretty good performance review, then life is good and people are wonderful.

A lot of folks seem to wade through this life in the shallow end of the pool of values. They can be pleasant enough if what is happening right now is pleasant enough for them.  But what happens when difficulties mount, when money worries or health problems, or real tragedy strikes? What happens in their relationships when the first surprises come, or storms are on the horizon, or ruts develop in the road? Without enduring values, people have little resilience, little depth, little personal strength to cope.  And it is here that we all meet many of the acquaintances in life that we do:  people with too little personal strength who are overwhelmed by this 21^st century.  They are discouraged by challenges rather than enervated by them.  they become as much embittered by the valleys and box canyons of life as they are silly and smug on the peaks.

But if, in casual conversation, I let such personal prejudices slip out, I will be perceived as a hypocrite or stuffy or irrelevant.  Yet, I too have human needs and wants. And if I’m having a conversation with someone whom I have just met socially, is it unfair to want to talk about things which are important to me, although in the most general sense, like “human values”?

Well, all this may be an interesting mental game. But how, after all, does a preacher at a party get past the curiosity, the hypocrisy or the irrelevance?  There is no snap answer.

In the Gospels, Jesus was no stranger to dinner parties, and he sometimes had conversations with strangers that went nowhere. In a few cases, he was able to cut through the superficiality and say something which reached right into the heart of another human being and apparently changed them for life.

I do not claim nor aspire to cut through other people’s superficiality so as to change them for life. Who am I, after all?  In many situations there seems to be both sophistication and superficiality blended like the latest artificial fabric.  In those situations, perhaps all I have to rely upon is the ability to hold my tongue, and to listen.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles 

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October 13, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Did the ninth anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death pass so quietly that even I missed it? Neither the Los Angeles Times nor New York Times had anything to mark the October 12 tragedy.

In the meantime, the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act is still stuck in Congress since it was introduced in March, and even if passed by both houses is expected to get the presidential veto. Could we expect anything more from the man who would veto SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Programs )?

As you might expect, Wikipedia gives us the concise briefing: “The Matthew Shepard Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 or LLEHCPA), HR 1592 is a proposed federal bill that would expand the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”

HR 1592 passed the Houses in amended form on May 3, and was referred to the Senate committee on the Judiciary You can track the bill’s every detail here. For reasons no reasonable person should have to ask, in September the good Senators attached the Matthew Shepard bill to a Defense Department authorization bill. While the Human Rights Campaign praised the Senate action, I am personally put off by one kind of thing being attached to another. I suppose that’s to try and slip something over and the opposition, but I would rather have an important piece of legislation rise or fall on its own merits. Let the opposition vote in favor of hate crimes but voting against a bill to help prevent them. Just let them vote without concealment or deceit. But that’s Congress for you!

Matthew Shepard is not forgotten. There is the Matthew Shepard Foundation which now annually awards “Honors” to important public recipients. His story has been made into a film, there are books. His mother Judy continues to be a force to be reckoned with.

In the meantime, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were convicted of his murdered and are serving two consecutive life sentences. In the meantime, more lesbian, gay and transgender people have been viciously murdered in this country, and more killers are awaiting trial. In the meantime, hatred is still on the rise; Matthew Shepard was murdered by the September 11 disaster which only served to increase fear, distrust and hatred. Gwen Araujo was savagely murdered on October 4, 2002.

(In searching for a photo for this blog, I was surprised when Google found the well-known silhouette of Matthew Shepherd on the Lutherans Concerned/San Francisco web site. Thanks, dear friend Frank Loulan, for your article in 2004!)

When will it end? This coming World AIDS Day, Matthew would have been 31 years old. According to Wikipedia, Matthew “was described by his parents and good close friend from Orlando Florida Frankie J. McGraw, as ‘…an optimistic and accepting young man …[who]… had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person that was very approachable and always looked to new challenges. Matthew had a great passion for equality and always stood up for the acceptance of people’s differences.’”

I cannot imagine the life he could have lived, except for the hatred which took him away from us. Why do we let this happen? We don’t expect Senators to be courageous, but what about ourselves? What is our excuse?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 11, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

20th Anniversary:  National Coming Out Day

For the past 5 years I have been a member of the Extraordinary Candidacy Project (ECP) Roster — a list of clergy and wannabees either removed from the clergy roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) or denied access to that roster by reason of our relationships to our life partners.

At present the ELCA still has an oppressive policy that categorically excludes from ordained service anyone who will not promise a lifetime of sexual celibacy—even though the policy itself is in violation of the historic Lutheran Confessions of the 16^th century which rejected clerical celibacy as a requirement, and against the writings of blessed Martin Luther.

It is not the first time that an individual or a group of people have been excluded from a Christian roster of priests and ministers. Sometimes it is done for clear moral failure. (People want to make that case against us, too.) Most often it is for the underlying violation of an authoritative decision. Luther himself was excommunicated from the church for a variety of reasons, chief of which was that he dared to talk back to the church hierarchy and so undermine their “authority.” The Pope continues to do this to people in the 21^st century as a way of silencing dissent. (More later.)

There is little doubt that the framers of the current ELCA policy excluding gay and lesbian pastors (see Section III. of “Vision and Expectations”) was also a cynical attempt to silence dissent. The generation of highly-placed church-crats which wrote the policy in 1990 were old enough to remember when even the threat of exposure of a lesbian or homosexual was enough to silence them—intimidate them, shame them, and chase them back where they came from (a closet).

To remove an ordained priest or pastor pretty much silences them. They lose their pulpit, their soap box, their career and livelihood. It’s over, folks, for most of them. They move on to other “day jobs.” Many lose faith in the Church entirely.

Only about a century before Luther inflamed a reforming spirit all over Europe, Other would-be reformers were effectively silenced by being disciplined, then stripped of their clerical rank, condemned as heretics, turned over to the secular authorities, and burned at the stake. This happened to William Tyndale and John Hus for the high crime of translating the Holy Scriptures into the language of the people, and encouraging ordinary people to read and understand (interpret) the Scriptures for themselves. As I mentioned in a sermon September 30, I still find it amazing that church “authority” could become so evil as to commit murder for translating the scriptures into the ordinary language of the people when St. Jerome did exactly the same thing 1,000 years earlier by translating the Hebrew and Greek into the “Vulgate” – the common Latin of the time.

Luther, however, survived being silenced. He publically burned the Papal Bull (a fitting image for our time) condemning him, along with the entire code of canon law, and went right on teaching, preaching, and writing. He was and remains extraordinary 500 years later.

What makes our clergy roster in the Extraordinary Candidacy Project extraordinary is that we belong to the generation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Christian clergy who like Luther before us refuse to be silenced. Being dropped, or excluded from the ELCA’s Roster has not gotten rid of us. We’re still here, we’re queer. Get used to it.

Officially, of course, the “extraordinary” word means that we have been ordained extra ordinem, beyond the “ordinary” procedure for calling and ordaining Lutheran pastors with the blessing (the signature on a letter of call) from a Bishop. As of 2007, ELCA Bishops are still not in a position to sign letters of call for LGBT pastors without risking their own removal or discipline. To their credit, some 20 of our 65 bishops showed up at the August 8 eucharist in Chicago at which the Rev. Bradley Schmeling presided and more than 650 people sang, prayed, and called upon the Holy Spirit to bring change to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Change is coming, but we continue ordinations extra ordinem through the authority of Lutheran congregations to call and ordain their own pastors, an inherent right which Luther himself vigorously defended in the 16^th century.

The July 2 decision of a Committee on Appeals of the ELCA to remove Pastor Schmeling from the roster of the church —without ever meeting him or hearing a single word of testimony on his behalf—was a crass and cynical gesture meant to silence him and get him off the pages of our daily newspapers. It isn’t working. Pastor Schmeling is still serving as the beloved pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta.

But perhaps even more extraordinary is that members of the ECP roster aren’t sitting around either grousing about this terrible church policy, or waiting for the policy to change (even though every two years it gets closer to the “tipping point” when it will. This roster of extraordinary pastors is extraordinary because we have gone on with our ministries — with serving people, preaching, teaching, presiding over the sacraments of the church, ministering to those in nursing homes and hospitals and prisons. Many of us reach out to and serve an entire population of wounded or alienated believers whom the larger church has completely ignored. And, we’re raising our own funds, through organizations like Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries, Lutherans Concerned and Wingspan Ministries in Minnesota, to carry on this work.

I am reminded of the saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words.” The Extraordinary Candidacy Project and Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries made the joint decision this past winter to organically join forces, becoming an entity which pulls together at the same pace and in the same direction, to preach the Gospel with or without words. The new entity —not to be seen as a separate church body, but an expression or a movement of the Holy Spirit at work—will be known as “Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries.”

And extraordinary they are. We are not a club representing and protecting the “sanctus quo,” but striving with God’s help to be faithful to a calling which we recognize and validate in one another, and which we pray will one day be understood and validated by the larger church. In the meantime, the ECP pastors jumped the gun on National Coming Out Day (October 11) by taking their “next step” in August when 82 of us came out publicly. Many of these people were gathered prayerfully with the voting members of the ELCA’s “Churchwide Assembly” in Chicago when the photo below was taken.

Photo: Paul Nixdorf

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Catholic matters, "The Closet", LGBT Christian, Coming Out, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

October 10, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The unfortunate turns of events in the Anglican communion over homosexuality are filling entire blogs these days.  My friend Wayne keeps sending me article after article from all corners.  I bet more bytes and pixels have died needlessly on this than over any other current issue.

It was refreshing at least to catch the article from last week’s San Francisco Chronicle in which Matthai Kuruvila reported on the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop speaking at Grace Cathedral.  The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first Presiding Bishop ever elected in the Episcopal Church (at a time when the most recent prior schism is still recent memory—Episcopalians who have never gotten over the ordination of women!), came out in full support of same–sex unions in the church.

The solemnization of the love between two people of the same sex is one of the two major hot-button issues for the entire world Anglican communion, along side the consecration of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

According to Kuruvila’s synopsis of events, “Anglican Communion leaders issued a communique in February for the U.S. Episcopal Church’s bishops to state by September 30 that the church would not authorize rites for same-sex unions or approve gay clergy as bishops. Conservatives viewed it as an ultimatum.”

Above, Jefferts Schori and Robinson 

And apparently Jefferts Schori is willing to call the conservatives’ bluff.

Of course, no one wants to see a worldwide church fellowship disintegrate on his/her our own watch. The reasons why right wing fundamentalist theology still holds such power in the third world while progressive theology is in full force in the United States is a long and complicated story.  It is made especially problematic when Christian thinking wants to say that e are all in this together, that we’re united in spirit, and that we earnestly desire our unity in Christ.  I have said as much previously in this blog.

But one of the forces which dis-integrates such unity is not willful or strident disobedience but the simple fact that we all have different experience.  Entire national expressions of spirituality take on different natures because their corporate experience may differ tremendously from another nation’s Christian experience.  Perhaps experience is to subjective a term.  Think: path, pilgrimage, history.  It is not that the Episcopal Church in the U.S.—or any other denomination in the U.S.—wants to willfully blow off the sensitivities of younger church bodies in Africa or elsewhere.  But we are at different points on our paths in following the word of Christ.

While Jesus prayed for unity and gave the new commandment to love one another, he also relentlessly questioned strident ultimatums and hard-hearted religiosity that condemned people or rejected people.  As Jefferts Schori has said, Jesus “hung with” the people on the margins.  He was fully aware that his perspective brought disunity to Judaism.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

What will Archbishop Rowan Williams, or the rest of the Provinces around the world, do in reaction to the U.S. church’s refusal to walk away from its gay and lesbian members?  One idea keeps popping up. Kuruvila, the Chronicle reporter says, “Some have suggested that the Episcopal Church’s price for noncompliance might be lesser status within the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, the body of churches whose roots are in the Church of England.” [emphasis added]

Lesser status? Go ahead and try, people.  But none of us has any lesser status than anyone else in the church of Jesus Christ.  In Christ “there is neither Jew nor greek, slave nor free, male and female,” wrote St. Paul.  Do the conservatives want chapter and verse from the Bible itself to substantiate that?

We have recently seen a cluster of excommunications of individuals and even communities for not obeying the larger church. But you can’t excommunicate, or put on probation, an entire national church without making the disciplinary process itself look entirely foolish.

The African Anglican backlash is another “culture war” akin to Islamic fundamentalism trying to hold back Coca-Cola or keep their women hidden.  I may partly understand their fear of the loss of their culture, but all I can say is “good luck” to those who angrily resist all change.  I say this not to be flip but because I truly and deeply believe that Jesus was fully engaged in the profound change in the culture of his generation and he would advise us to be fully engaged now. Especially if that engagement means to broaden the reach of grace and the capacity for love and understanding, rather than rejection and fear.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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October 9, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

On this day in 1635 Colonial American Separatist Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for preaching that civil government had no right to interfere in religious affairs. Williams was seeking to establish freedom of worship through the separation of church and state.

(As important an issue as “separation of church and state” is, it’s not what caught my eye here. We’ll come back another time to the Americans United issues.)

Roger Williams stands in the company of those who have been excommunicated. “Kick them out” seems to be the answer for just about everything in our world, especially among Christians (no matter which end of the spectrum they’re on).

A couple of weeks back, the news carried the story of six Catholic nuns in Little Rock, Arkansas excommunicated by the Vatican because they tenacious hold on to their affiliation with a Canadian order of nuns (now described as a sect and also known as “the Army of Mary”). Its founder claims to have had regular visions of the Virgin Mary.  Her order, the Community of the Lady of All Nations, claims that the 86-year-old founder, Marie Paule Giguere is the reincarnation of St. Mary herself.

To which the Vatican’s firm answer is “Kick them out. Kick them all out.” For the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, no one has been excommunicated in 165 years of history. Apparently sticking by your sisters is a really terrible offense.

According to the Catholic News Service, the now-excommunicated Army of Mary was founded in Quebec in 1971 by Giguere, who said she was receiving visions from God.

Catholics don’t have a corner on this market. How many Methodist clergy, like the couageous Jimmy Creech have been disciplined or removed from their pulpits merely for solemnizing a relationship between two lovers of the same sex? “Kick them out.” Playwright and actor Steven Fales, in Confessions of a Mormon Boy, recounts the solemn and cruel manner in which he was excommunicated from the Latter Day Saints because he admitted he was failing in his sincere efforts to become heterosexual.

Excommunication is a rare and drastic act on the part of a community. When the Lutherans kicked Pastor Bradley Schmeling off its Clergy Roster for “ministering while gay,” they didn’t go so far as to excommunicate him. So apparently being gay is a less serious offense to Lutherans than receiving heavenly visions is to Roman Catholics.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says this of excommunication:

The excommunicated person, it is true, does not cease to be a Christian, since his baptism can never be effaced; he can, however, be considered as an exile from Christian society and as non-existent, for a time at least, in the sight of ecclesiastical authority. But such exile can have an end (and the Church desires it), as soon as the offender has given suitable satisfaction. Meanwhile, his status before the Church is that of a stranger. He may not participate in public worship nor receive the Body of Christ or any of the sacraments. Moreover, if he be a cleric, he is forbidden to administer a sacred rite or to exercise an act of spiritual authority. [emphasis added]

The Psalter Hymnal of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (published in 1987) is the only source I’ve ever seen for ritualizing Excommunication. I suppose other Christian groups have such a rite, or their regional offices would come up with one if needed. The Vatican, of course, has a well-developed rationale, and a code of law which governs everything.  Catholic theologians will gladly explain even the rules for having a heavenly vision.

And even though Roman Catholics revere Mother Mary and officially acknowledge the validity of “private visions”, something must be terribly wrong with Sr. Marie Paule Giguere that wasn’t wrong with St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and the visionaries and pilgrims to Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, etc. According to Zephyr, St. Mary has been popping back into this world ever since Saragossa, Spain around 40 a.d. These are just a few of the recognized appearances (sightings?):  Rome, Italy (ca. 352 AD), Walsingham, England (ca. 1061) Prouille, France (1208), Aylesford, England (1251), Czestochowa, Poland (1382), Guadalupe, Mexico (1531), Le Laus (1664), Lavang (1798), Paris, France (1830), Salette (1851), Lourdes (1858), Pontemaine 1870, Knock, Ireland (1879), Fatima (1917), and Medjugore (1981).

Confused? The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops explains it all to you here.

I suspect the reason people are rarely excommunicated from Protestant circles is that an individual tends to eliminate him or herself before the community or group is ready to kick that person out. The Vatican investigated Giguere for six years before she was excommunicated!  Who would sit still for that?

In the Reformed Church rite, there are three formal public Announcements which must be made first, witnessing to prior prayer and admonition of the offender. Then the Excommunication rite consists of a formal announcement, prayer, declaration and exhortation, concluding with another appropriate prayer.   I can tell when I’m not welcome; I don’t think I would be there for that closing prayer.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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October 8, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

This is part 2 of a topic I introduced yesterday, in response to a comment received this week. 

Dumbing Down the Christian Life

It is truly amazing, in reading the Lutheran confessional documents or the writings of Luther, to see the wide array of ancient church “Fathers” cited, and the breadth of biblical ideas discussed.  All of these ancestors in the faith knew the Bible intimately.  They engaged its complex ideas and grandest messages.  They taught themselves the ancient languages in which it was written, and they constantly improved the available text by studying and comparing every known manuscript, and seeking to note and pass on every variation of word and meaning, every nuance that otherwise might be lost through carelessness.

Luther was so convinced of the necessity of the Bible to the faith of the believers that he single-handedly translated its nearly 1,200 chapters into German, and in so doing took inventive strides to craft his own language so that it could express the depth of the biblical word and experience.

With tenacity and faithfulness, as the centuries passed, Christian scholars and leaders made sense of the biblical word by measuring their own spiritual experience against it, weighing their own moral and ethical questions by its scale.  They developed a relationship with the sacred texts so profound that it added to the Bible’s sacredness.

But it is dismaying to see the current wave of Christian energy in our own time doing the opposite.  Too many Christians—preachers and believers alike—engage the Bible with the flimsiest of tools and dig only in its shallows.  Profound theological ideas are being supplanted with sound bytes and bumper sticker theology.

As this dangerous pattern develops, it is becoming clearer that the unwavering zeal which heaps up reverence for the Bible contributes to a dumbness with which its complexity and profundity are reduced to simplistic questions, for which there are pat answers.  Most obviously, an appeal to the idea of “verbal inspiration” actually contributes to the treatment of the Bible as if it were a flip-and-point “manual” for life with the answers printed in the back.

This comes about as human intelligence itself has been subtracted form the entire equation.  “Verbal inspiration”—the view that the Holy Spirit dictated the Bible to its human authors, word for word—makes of those writers imbecilic word processors, as if the presence of God in their own experience, their lives, their struggles in faith, their pilgrimages in life, even their personal encounter with Jesus, played no part whatever in what they wrote down.

It may seen grossly unfair to characterize and criticize this view, since so many Christians today apparently take great comfort in “verbal inspiration.”  But in truth, such piety is their unwitting attempt to “dumb down” the original authors of the Biblical texts to the level of bumper sticker believers today.  As if they, too, do not need to bring their intellect, experience, struggles or pilgrimages to the Scripture, to make sense of the word and make sense of their faith.  Instead they merely “look up” the answers like automatons which the ancient writers, with equal inanimacy, “put down.”

Christians dare not put their trust in current insights or theological statements above their trust in the promises of the Gospel.  The Bible must never be reduced to an “answer book” any more than it should be reduced to a refuge, talisman, shibboleth or weapon.  To fall into any of these abuses is to weaken the Christian faith by reliance upon pat answers, human certainty, and doctrinal or constitutional statements. All of these are not the Gospel of Jesus Christ but the product of human endeavor.

There is more truth contained in a simple confession of faith in Jesus Christ and in the promises of the Gospel than in an absolute confidence in the Bible. The Gospel is complete and unchangeable, but the process of engaging, understanding and interpreting the Bible is an ongoing contribution to the whole Christian faith over two millennia—always incomplete. Our conviction that the Bible is God’s gift is not diminished by the admission that our understanding of it is imperfect and provisional.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 7, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

A comment submitted this week about one of my earlier posts has set me thinking again about my personal reflections on the use and misuse of the Bible.  Having preached a strong sermon recently (September 30) about the authority of the Svcriptures for Christians, I decided that I needed to “dust off” some earlier writings about scriptural abuse and about how the Bible is used by Christians in the debates of our times —espcially in regard to human sexuality and homosexuality.

 This post is in two parts:

A Quick Study on Bible Abuse.  Nothing, it seems, is more central to the whole debate about homosexuality in the world today than the Holy Bible itself. It is quoted, studied, and even shaken at those who disagree with one’s point of view. For some, it is a refuge, a talisman, a shibboleth, a weapon.

In order to bring clarity to the discussion of difficult issues, it is imperative not to misuse the Bible. This is not just rhetoric. Different Christians (and some non-Christians) tend to misuse the Bible in some striking and predictable ways. Here are four of them, and some thoughts on why it’s wrong and who gets hurt.

Refuge - a stronghold or shelter, a place of hiding, a safe place.

The story in Mark’s Gospel (11:15-18) was that the sellers and money lenders in the Temple were using the house of prayer as a “den of thieves”—the retreat to which they disappeared after committing their crime.  Do Christians unknowingly use the Bible as just such a refuge, hiding behind its hard-bound, gold-lettered covers?

Christians who take refuge in the Bible may not think they are leading a double life.  Out in the world, living the lives of sinners, thieves and worse, they live according to the laws of the jungle—every day life, the political and corporate worlds. But in order to be respected, they take refuge in the “laws” of heaven.  “I believe in it,” they will say, but not apply any of its weightier counsel to the ethical issues we all face in daily life.  Just, so, Jesus warned against hypocrites.  His juiciest words are in Matthew 6 (the Sermon on the Mount) and in chapter 23.  For example, Mt. 23:27-28: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you are like whitewashed tombs. . . So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Talisman - a superstitious object, a magical object thought to bring good luck or keep away evil, a charm.

Judges and Presidents lay their right hand upon and solemnly swear by the Bible, hoping its honor and dignity will solemnize their promises.  Families write their family trees into the Bible’s center pages, and keep it handy as a coffee table trophy in case the minister comes to call.  (When opened, the Good Book fairly cracks with newness, because no one actually reads it!)

People who objectify the Bible superstitiously as a holy book are really afraid of it, are completely lost in it, and are more comfortable with mere association.  If prodded to open it, a quick and simple reference to it is the safest: One or two quick quotes from it are all that are needed.  If questioned, these superstitious Christians can say, “but I looked it up.”

Jesus counters this use of religion at John 5:39-40: “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.  Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” In John’s Gospel, the whole point and purpose of the scriptures is to bring people to Christ who grants life, John 20:31:  “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

Shibboleth - a test, intended to search out and trip up anybody who doesn’t pass the test.

In Judges 12:5-6 the word “shibboleth” itself was the test (meaning “ear of corn” at Genesis 41:5-7, Ruth 2:2) or “flood” or “torrent” (Psalm 69:3, 16; Isaiah 27:12). “Shibboleth” was unpronounceable for some people who looked like local people but who were really outsiders.  So an easy way to search out a spy from other parts was to demand that they pronounce the word “shibboleth.”

Says Robert G. Boling in his Anchor Bible commentary on Judges , “I am told that in World War II the Dutch underground was able to screen out German spies by making them pronounce the Dutch city name Scheveningen, which only the Dutch can do properly.”

It is interesting that it was a war between the tribes of Israel that occasioned this wicked test.  Those who said “sibboleth” instead of “shibboleth” were killed immediately.

The Bible is sometimes used as such a test, by one tribe of Christians against another, as a way of sorting out “Bible believers” from “Bible doubters.”  For example, if a suspected person fails to say all the things about the Bible in the precise way, it would identify her or him as not a “true Christian” but a “doubter.” (Ironically, the test is often administered by someone who has mastered and memorized vast passages of the King James Version, and expects to hear the exact same wording back from others.)

The idea of a test of orthodoxy is not new in our generation, of course, but it is equally as vicious in its hatred of those who do not pass the test.  We should remember the true test given to us by our Lord in the form of a commandment—that we love one another.

Just as people have been separated and taken away at gunpoint, so the Bible is used to intimidate, separate or push away those who fear it by those who grip it tightly.

Weapon - a tool with which to attack, harm or kill someone.

Yes, the Bible is sometimes used as a weapon—as if it were cold, hard steel—by cold, hard Christians.  It is small enough to conceal in one’s pocket; it can be shaken, pointed, gripped, and fingered like one fingers a trigger on a gun, in the heat of a lecture, debate or sermon.  The Bible used as a weapon means a Bible which is ready to condemn or damn those who totally disregard it or simply disagree with the person holding it.  For such people, the Bible is a weapon, penal code and penitentiary rolled into one.

“Those who live buy the sword shall die by the sword”  (Matthew 26:52).  Does that mean, literally, just swords—one of the few weapons available in Bible times—or weapons in general?  The point is, if we live by our weapons, they shall overcome us and destroy us.  So, if one uses the Bible like a weapon, by assaulting other human beings with what seem to be its “eternal laws”, for example, destruction awaits the one who does this.  For as St. Paul says, the law only kills, it cannot make alive.

We do not use the Bible like a weapon because everyone gets hurt, and the Gospel is not proclaimed.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 6, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

This is a republication of a meditation I wrote several years ago. 

The Gospels are filled with the stories of Jesus performing miraculous healings. What is most striking in them is his compassion for human need and suffering . He never refused to help anyone, whether they were hungry, or out of their right minds, or burdened with terrible health problems and social stigma, or at the door of death. It all seems so effortless, especially where the individuals or their care-givers and family put great faith in Jesus’ power.

As we read the stories, it is so easy to be captivated by Jesus’ divine power to heal people instantly, to fix what was broken, to reverse birth defects with a word or a touch, or to feed a vast crowd with a few loaves and fishes and a prayer.

It seems that faith is the cornerstone of these miracles. Jesus tells us that, if we have enough faith, we could move mountains–as if it would further the Christian mission to relocate a mountain range or two! Certainly, “mountains” is the metaphor for insurmountable obstacles of any kind. Faith can remove enormous obstacles.

A literal reading of these texts, however, would have us galvanize our faith to the hope of divine intervention or supernatural miracles–the divine equivalent of snap solutions, spontaneous healing, instant messaging, and quick fixes. Unfortunately, our world does not often see such divine intervention in the lives of ordinary, real Christians. Don’t we not have enough faith?

Worse yet, some Christians instill doubt into the minds of other believers by suggesting that, in their church, miracles happen. This subtle prelude to sheep stealing is simply one organization trying to pump up its market share at the expense of a “competitor.” Miraculous cures are extremely rare, not nightly spectacles. And for every one person supposedly healed in miraculous manner, ten people are contributing money because they saw it on TV. The real stealing is the money, of course, and the results are sad. Money winds up in the hands of splashy, colorful and unscrupulous “evangelists,” who are often exposed later by their self-indulgent lifestyles.

We need to refocus our fascination with Jesus away from the supernaturally miraculous and toward the divine compassion. Faith and compassion are brother and sister within the human soul. When faith and compassion are found in a human heart, divine energy is the result. Mountains of obstacles fall away. Lives are saved, or turned around. Demons are chased away, or evaporate. Dragons are slain and evils, confronted with faith and compassion, are beaten back. The hungry are fed—with more than bread and fishes. Lights go on for those who have been blind. And the lost are found, brought back from the pit of self-hatred and the edge of self-destruction. Miracles happen—whether in little side-street churches or big-name, prominent ones, where faith (not gullibility) and compassion (not condescension) move our hearts in the name of Christ to help, to listen, to be present, to walk with and to get our hands dirty to alleviate the suffering of others. If we have faith, and act in faith, then we become the vehicles of God’s miracles today. It may be that the biggest mountain we can move for Christ is the mountain of our own hearts.

You are invited to participate in the regular miracles of compassion, kindness and generosity which change ordinary lives. Put your faith in Jesus Christ, the worker of miracles.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 5, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Yesterday I went to the hospital to see our dear brother Larry, who is close to death. Spiritually he is prepared to surrender his life back to God, trusting always in God’s grace. With other dear friends, we held on to him, prayed with him, and asked him to give us a sign about his desire to continue the invasive treatment that is preserving his fragile hold on life. Finally it was time to say goodbye.

It was with tearful relief that a lady spoke to me, in the elevator when I got on at the 4^th floor. Was I a chaplain or minister? she asked. (Of course, I was dressed in clerical garb with a cross around my neck. You can never hide.)

She was hoping to find a hymn book, she said. Her story tumbled out as we descended the elevator together. On the next floor up, her mother is gravely ill, and has been hospitalized for weeks. Eighty years old, her mother has a favorite hymn, but the daughter cannot remember all the words to it, to comfort her. Mother and daughter are trying very sincerely to remain connected with one another throughout this health trauma, and to stay connected with their spiritual roots. Perhaps they have wandered from the church they once new. It doesn’t matter, really, and I was not going to interrogate her about such things.

I asked her mother’s name. Odette. I offered to bring a spare hymnal to the hospital tomorrow, and also to pray for Odette. I gave her my card, hoping that she will call me, since I didn’t get the room number or the family name.

I am still thinking and praying about these women, and prayer keeps coming up in me. I hope that the daughter does call me. But for now, I am keeping my promise to pray for her mother Odette. And, of course, for our brother Larry, hoping that if it is God’s will to take him, that his death will be like gentle sleep.

We pray to you O Jesus, the divine Healer of the sick and Physician of all souls. We come to you with empty hands but open hearts, asking simply for your mercy and gentle love. You have stood with us and helped us carry the burdens of illness, as we care for our loved ones. Time and time again you have given us the gift of healing.

But now, Lord, we place our worries for our loved ones completely in your hands. We commend to you our brother Larry, and our sister Odette, and humbly ask that you grant these, your servants, the strength and the very breath of life. Assure us, that if this is to be their last hour, is it your will to alleviate their suffering graciously, and that you will receive them into your everlasting arms. Help us to accept your will for them, and for ourselves, with the trust and confidence that you always act for the sake of your great love for all, and that you are with us in our pain, our fear and our sorrow. Amen.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 4, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The October 3 New York Times ran a story about the silencing of the monks in Bangkok over the weekend. The military generals who run Myanmar have awakened to the power of the internet—a power which they fear. So the “government” has simply shut off the internet there. Photographs and reports have come to a sudden stop.

This does have a chilling effect. What is to stop any totalitarian government —at any level — from doing the same? What is to stop any American administration from doing the same?

The internet is the most democratizing “institution” to come along in five hundred years, at least since the invention of moveable type and the printing press in the late 1400s. But like the printing press, it is not really an institution but a technology. The internet depends on the cooperation of thousands of individuals, from hundreds or thousands of institutions, to function as awesomely as it does. And let us not forget that the internet was basically started by the U.S. government.  Isn’t it possible the U.S. government could just as easily stop it?

What is to prevent the entire internet from being destroyed, shut off, dismantled?

People who are critical of the war in Iraq, for example, remind us that you can’t go into a country and just declare that everything is going to be a democracy because you believe democracy is the best.  Even apart from the bloodshed and sectarian violence, democracy is not going to take root in Iraq or Afghanistan any time soon because those peoples lack the basic building blocks of a free and democratic society: universal education, open schools and colleges, libraries, courts, professional organizations and free associations of like-minded persons.  It is not a matter of transplanting them (from another democratic nation), or even planting them from scratch.  They pretty much have to sprout from native roots.

We live in a world which has freedom in one corner and violent repression and enslavement in others.  Like the unseen forces of tectonic plates below the earth’s crust, or the constant tension of high and low atmospheric pressures which produce our weather, there are hidden forces and factors that cause these stark political and institutional disparities.  Entire libraries of books have been written on these subjects—but sadly are probably not available in Afghanistan.

The most obvious “hidden” force is economic.  The first reason there are dangerous people in many parts of the world with an ample supply of weapons is that someone someplace else is making a lot of money manufacturing and peddling them.

The first reason why volatile Islamic societies seem to hate the West is because the West has too much economic power, and has invaded their traditional societies with Western values. Right behind Western economic power is Western cultural hegemony: fast food, music/movies/fashion. And—in the perception of Islamic fundamentalists, right behind those things is rootless and boundless Western morality.

The first reason the West fears and hates Islamic countries is that they have a surfeit of petroleum deposits which the West desperately needs to oil its economic machine.

One could go on and on, just from the pages of the daily newspaper on any given day. Personally, the biggest economic machine which I despise are non-national corporations which are scarcely regulated anymore. Hundreds of them have accumulated much more actual power than entire sovereign nations, at least with regard to the impact they have on ordinary lives.

Think Walmart. Then think that there are hundreds of other corporations that have similar, if lesser, influence on the lives of both producers and consumers across the globe.

Each of us, in our “free” society, has less and less power in the face of gargantuan corporations. We have zero control over what they produce, what it costs, where the materials come from, and who works somewhere in the world to make all this happen.

If we are innovators, we are almost completely helpless to start up something or go up against a major corporation which is already in the field. Think Microsoft. Then think about the dozens (hundreds?) of other software and technology that Microsoft handily snuffed out getting to the top of its mountain. It is no coincidence that the Business section of the Los Angeles Times frequently runs news about Microsoft’s maneuvers to gain greater control over the internet.

Meanwhile, back in Bangkok (or Baghdad or Bangladesh or Bavaria or Banning), what power do individuals, or the more modestly-sized institutions, organizations and associations have against the incredible power of non-national corporations?

Our federal government continues to repeat the same mantra whenever a question of economic justice (a cornerstone of a democratic society) arises: it might cause job losses to do the right thing. Jobs are more important than justice. And isn’t it interesting that Blackwater is in the news these days as a hidden force for violence in Iraq: a contractor, a private “security” firm. Sounds as innocuous as those security companies that place sleepy guards at the front desks of office buildings overnight. There are billions of dollars of economic power flowing in the veins of Blackwater and other “contractors.”

 The private contractors working for the American government in Iraq, incidentally, are not governed by our democratic institutions.  They are not answerable to our courts and our system of justice, even including military law or courts martial.  They are indpeendent contractors, so a contract has been given greater authority that a court. There goes the (democratic) neighborhood!

“It causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.”–Revelation 13:16–17

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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