March 31, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

The honor of your presence is requested by his Grace

The Most Rev. Robert Mary Clement, Archbishop of the American Catholic Church

at the Archbishop John Darcy Noble Center

to Celebrate the ordination of Roberta Morris to the Diaconate

Saturday, April 12, 2008 1 p.m.

Hollywood Lutheran Church 1733 N. New Hampshire Blvd., Los Angeles

Join us for Dr. Roberta Morris’ ordination and the inauguration of this LGBT-friendly ministry with the arts community in the Hollywood/ Los Feliz/Silver Lake area, across from Barnsdall Art Park.

Dr. Morris trained for this ministry, obtaining her Masters of Divinity from St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, and her Doctorate in Philosophy at York University. She has worked as a writer, university chaplain, instructor, director of religious education, mediator and peace activist.

As a deacon with the American Catholic Church, she will work ecumenically in a LGBT friendly environment to support the spiritual lives of artists and other members of our community.

Come celebrate the Ordination Mass with us.  Reception follows 

RSVP 323-668-0008

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, Hollywood, Spirituality, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

March 29, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I confess I have too many books, so much so that I don’t know what I have any more, or where I have them. But occasionally there is the delight of finding a book I had forgotten, or don’t remember at all.

And so during this Easter week there was the serendipity when a slim volume by Thomas Merton fell into my hand while searching for something else. Merton’s refreshing and timeless 1975 essay He Is Risen opened me again to the theme of living by grace and relying on the promises of God.

Graphic:  www.trinitystores.com

Merton offers a reflection on Galatians 5:1,

“where Paul rebukes the Christian converts for still thinking that certain legal observances were still necessary for them: as if they could not be saved without being circumcised. The Galatian converts were tempted to something that we might describe today as religious overkill. They wanted to make absolutely sure that everything was completely taken care of.. So they not only adopted the Christian faith but all the ritual practices of Judaism as well. Thus, if Christianity turned out to be not good enough, they would still be covered by Jewish observance.”

Garrison Keillor has quipped that “Lutherans believe they are saved by grace, but think it best to ring a covered dish just in case.” So we fall in the same column as the Galatians — trying to cover our bets, and take out insurance on salvation. Lutherans are not the only ones. All flavors of Baptists and all Catholics are stuck in this as well.

This is more than an idle comparison with the ancient Galatians. Christians who do this stand under the same admonition of St. Paul: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” It means many Christians do not trust in the promises of the Gospel, but believe that they must at least try to earn God’s love. They do this through using the Law of Moses like a club over one another, and by adding to that Law with strict rules not found in the Bible (like not drinking and not dancing, for example).

Paul’s admonition is to the point: Stand firm; do not submit again to the yoke of slavery” (which somebody else thinks should be placed on you). Don’t give in to legalism, because if you do, you are negating the promises of Christ, and “Christ will be of no benefit to you.” The apostle’s immediate circumstance was the issue of circumcision as a sign of obedience and conformity to the covenant of Moses, but that doesn’t mean that circumcision is the only yoke of slavery which “religious overkill” can try to impose.

It is clearer to me all the time that the apostles’ writings show that they themselves were slow to wake up to the implications of their own inspired words. In Acts, St. Peter is recorded as saying, Truly I understand that God shows no partiality,” but he had to learn that lesson, with regard to the Gentiles, over and over. St. Paul carries the torch for Christian freedom, but still repeats rules and requirements that should have no binding place in the Christian faith. Why, because God in Christ has granted us the ultimate freedom from religious overkill—from rules of obedience and conformity. We are bound only to the rule of Christ, the New Commandment laid down on the night before he died: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

For sexual minorities, finding the right ethics for our lives is still our assignment. We must test and weigh and reflect what it means not to conform to social norms which are normal for 90% of the population but impossible for us, and still be obedient to the law of love. The law of Moses is no help, so 99% of the televangelists and radio preachers who love to dissect virtually every obscure verse in the Old Testament in order to accuse us should just give it a rest! The sexual ethics of the Old Covenant simply cannot be taken at face value, even by heterosexuals. Christians must rethink all moral questions in the light of Christian freedom and the grace of God.

It is especially painful that Christian fundamentalists have gotten into bed, as it were, with right-wing politics of privilege and money. Says Merton:

“This spirit of overkill is characteristic of the Christian who is afraid to be simply a Christian in the world of our time. He is not content with faith in the Risen Christ, nor content with the grace and love of Christ. He wants the comfort and justification of being on the side of wealth and power. In some cases, Christianity becomes literally the religion of overkill, the religion in which you prove your fidelity to Christ by your willingness to destroy his enemies ten times over.”

For lesbian and gay Christians, the greatest enemies are within. Too many of us have killed ourselves – either literally or emotionally in order to fight back our conflicted feelings. We have not trusted the grace and love of the Risen Christ and have tried to design a religion with Christ as a mere figurehead and our own rigorous accomplishments as the main ingredient. No, says St. Paul. Stop it. “You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth? Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.” Religious overkill did not originate with Christ, but comes from a corrupting influence. Watch out, St. Paul says. Don’t buy into it. In fact, he is so upset with those who have shoved the Law back into the envelop of Grace that he actually curses them (and thanks to God that the NRSV restores an accurate translation here of Galatians 5:12); speaking about the pro-circumcision saboteurs, “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!” instead of Christians who are free, and who live by grace! the one who calls us–Christ– calls us knowing we are LGBT, justified by grace, freed by the cross, and obedient only to the law of love. Christ is risen, Alleluia! Live by grace!!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

March 28, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I am in the midst of preparing for a gay wedding, the joining of two lives together at the heart—a wedding at which, along with friends and families, I will bless God for the gift of love which two men have found in one another.

This is heresy to the world’s conservative Christians, and it is troubling to those who are out in the middle on this spectrum of love and hate.  As I mentioned recently, we are not considered to even be Christian in the eyes of the right wing (the “religious reich”).

Who or what is a “Christian”?

Dr. Rembert Truluck offers a simple suggestion in his essay, “A Gay Christian Response to Southern Baptists”:  a Christian is one who is Christ-like.  Truluck is not picking on the Southern Baptists.  He has the credentials to take them on as an insider, not an outsider.  He received his Doctor of Theology degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky; he was a Southern Baptist pastor, and even served as a writer of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Lessons for six years.

So when Dr. Truluck suggests that “Southern Baptists ceased to be Christian (Christ-like)” it is worth paying attention to his reasoning.

This is not a stretch, but fundamentally good Bible study: Jesus began his teaching and healing ministry by including people who had previously been left out by his faith tradition. In Luke 4:18–19, we see that Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth, his boyhood home.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Curiously, the passage goes on to say that “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.”  Meaning that people were watching, and wondering what he meant to imply.  From the very outset, there were those who held Jesus in suspicion because he included people whom others excluded from their faith communities.

Jesus went on to welcome women into circles reserved for men, to praise Samaritans who were hated by Jews, to preach tolerance for the leper, the foreigner, and the eunuch (a sexual misfit if ever there was one).

“Jesus in the Gospels defined his ministry by those he included that previously had been left out,” says Dr. Truluck. “When the people rejected the inclusive message of Jesus, he left town. When Southern Baptists defined themselves by who they left out (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people) in changing the bylaws of the Southern Baptist Convention to exclude any church that accepted openly gay and lesbian members, Southern Baptists ceased to be Christian (Christ-like).”

When I first read this I almost whistled out loud—as if to say that was a brave or even dangerous comment to be so critical of the second-largest Christian body in the U.S., and one that must still believe it has hegemony in political circles.  But as an insider, Truluck is entitled to be severe with that denomination.  More importantly, he is right that one important definition of who is a Christian, or what is Christian behavior, is to make the comparison with Christ and his behavior.  If Christ included those whom others exclude or “preclude” (the ELCA), they are at variance with Jesus Christ.

Of course (if you could ever have a civil discussion with them!), the conservatives would argue that Jesus never included homosexuals.

But that becomes a matter of heated debate over the “dangerous memories” (Dr. Theodore Jennings, The Man Jesus Loved), and somewhat obscure passages of the New Testament.  [See Joe Perez’s review of Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.]

It can be fiercely argued that Jesus and the Beloved Disciple were not gay (John 13:21–26; 19:25–27; 21:20–24); that Cleopas and his companion sharing a home in the village of Emmaus (Luke 24:13–32) were not gay, that the centurion and his pais (lad or boy; Matthew 8:5–13) were not gay. It can also be fiercely—and responsibly—argued that those of us who are LGBT are given clues in these places in the Gospels to “read between the lines”: Jesus means include us, too, who formerly were excluded.

It is not merely a little “side issue” of no particular importance, to include LGBT people, if we see that Jesus defined his ministry and his Gospel by those he included who had been excluded before. In fact, his inclusion is fundamental, central and of the highest importance to what it means to be Christ-like.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

March 27, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

It is funny–to me–that Christians can get into such arguments about whether one can be gay and Christian, or lesbian and Christian, etc.  Those on the religious extreme right insist that it is impossible, as if to be who we are as human beings is contrary to Christian teaching.  This religious right is not made up only of “Narrow Baptists” in the American “Bible Belt.”  It also includes other fundamentalists, such as Archbishop Peter Akinola of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, who has made it his personal mission to split that worldwide church communion down the middle over homosexuality.

But there have to be some standards, they say, some benchmarks.  They feel that there is a “slippery slope” or a complete sell-out of Christian doctrine if we invite homosexuals in the door.

Aside from the obvious fact that we are already in the door because we were baptized as young people and accepted the faith and have never departed from it, there is something fundamentally wrong with their reasoning.  Let’s take a look:

Christian teaching is first and foremost teaching about Jesus Christ.  It is teaching about God’s gracious redemption of the human race for the sake of Jesus Christ.  It is teaching about the Good News that Jesus died upon the cross in order to reconcile God and humanity.

If there is a standard or a benchmark, it would be the Nicene Creed, which was finalized in the 4^th Century.  This is the same creed that I used to bring some clarity to whether former presidential candidate Mitt Romney is really a Christian.  I didn’t do that on the basis of whether Mitt Romney is a person of great integrity, and lives a clean life.  I did it on the basis of whether Mitt Romney confesses the faith which all Christians have confessed in the defining doctrines which have never changed since the 4^th Century.

A Creed is a concise statement of what a person or a group believes.  The essential thing about this defining document of the Christian faith is that it states what Christians believe about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit, the Christian Church and the sacraments.

It does not state what our opinions are about each other. It does not enumerate sins.  It does not set admission standards except this faith in God and Jesus Christ.  It does not include a doctrine about the Holy Bible, so as to whether the Bible is to be taken literally or figuratively in different spots, whether every word of the Bible is binding upon all Christians forever, the Nicene Creed doesn’t even go there.  And most importantly, it makes no statement about human sexuality.

Is the argument over homosexuality really an argument of the Bible vs. the Creed?  Those who are extreme right-wing Christians insist that the Bible trumps everything else.  Yet the Bible, even more than the historic Creeds and other dogmatic statements and teaching, must be subject to study and interpretation.  And the Bible itself must ultimately take the back seat to the authority of Jesus Christ.  (”All authority has been given to me…”, Matthew 28:18; “You search the Scriptures…”, John 5:39)

Since at least the year 381 a.d., the Nicene Creed has been the statement which gave Christians unity.  It formed the Church’s catholicity by defining a common faith in God and in the work of Jesus Christ.  It did not attempt to settle all matters, least of all, human sexuality.  After all, we put our faith in Christ, not in sexuality:  not in heterosexuality or homosexuality, bisexuality or asexuality.

Can one “be a Christian” and be LGBT?  To confess my faith in Christ makes me a Christian, whether or not I fully understand myself, my sexuality, my gender, or my fellow believer. Is that clear?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Faith, Living by Grace, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

March 10, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

One thing I thought I had de facto given up for Lent was blogging. I am overwhelmed with stuff to do, and the extra time for my own reflection has gotten the short end of the deal.

But when I read one of the headlines last Friday which touched a nerve very close to home, I paused to reflect quite a bit. The headline in the Los Angeles Times was the horrifying news that a Palestinian from East Jerusalem entered a Jewish yeshiva (seminary) with an assault rifle and a handgun, and took the lives of eight teenage seminarians before being shot dead by an off-duty army officer and a theological student. Nine more people were also wounded, according to the BBC story.

I still fondly remember my own seminary days, and especially the Library which was really a place of refuge for me as I tried to figure myself out at the age of 22.

According to Haaretz, the seminary’s library floor was covered in blood. Although no one group took credit for the attack at first, Hamas called it heroic and later “flip-flopped.” I call it demonic. This was no suicide killer who could think of himself as a martyr, but he has made defenseless Jewish teenage students into martyrs.

But no one’s hands are clean. We are living in a world grown far more cruel in which every conflict quickly becomes total war. Palestinians see Jewish seminaries of hotbeds of training for the Zionist settlement movement which continues to invade Palestinian territories and make it less and less viable for Palestinians to have a homeland. What do I know? Maybe the Palestinians are right— that theological schools are training grounds of the enemy.

Have we forgotten that the Taliban also operates schools — theological schools for Islam — which the Bush administration identified as the training grounds for terrorists. During the anti-war days in the Vietnam era, American colleges were idealistic hotbeds of resistance. Today’s students in America are far too young to remember the American students who were shot dead by America troops on the campus of Kent State in Ohio. Their martyrdom briefly galvanized the theological schools in Berkeley, and our agitation helped to at least suspend classes for several days in a gesture of shock and remembrance.

I do not doubt there are Westerners or Americans who if it were possible would take violence into Islamic schools with the intention to kill the youth who are studying the Koran. We cannot say, “What is wrong with them?” without also saying “What is wrong with us… the human race?

It seems that every insight leads to a counter-insight, and every point of view to an opposing point of view.  We so quickly divide all reality into “us” and “them.” And once we have “them” defined, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to have “them” in our gun-sights. The Nixon administration so completely and successfully polarized America, that it was no big stretch for the Ohio National Guard troops to see Kent State students as “them,” just as Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s had identified other Americans as “them”—communists and their sympathizers, “pinkos” and perverts.

I do not have a paranoid personality, but at times I suspect— if the present federal Administration were to remain in power much longer—they would eventually come for me, because the cruelty, immorality, greed and dishonesty which has taken over America since 2001 has politicized me as well. I now see too many fellow human beings as “them.” And I confess that my unspoken retort (until this paragraph) is that “they started it”: the fundagelicals, talk-show hosts, defense contractors, Bible-belters, and right-wing politicians (especially those who say thing like “I am not gay” [meaning: “I am not like them“]).

It is my Lenten confession that I too have a lot of trouble seeing every human being as “us” and not writing off the ones I cannot stand as “them.”

I went to the Lutheran seminary in Berkeley, where there was a consortium of schools under the umbrella of the Graduate Theological Union:  six Protestant seminaries and three Catholic ones. We took classes from any of the nine schools as we saw fit.

Wouldn’t it be magnificent if in the aftermath of this terrible bloodshed, in an international city like Jerusalem, there could be a consortium of theological schools, on adjoining campuses, for Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu and other theological students? It would be a powerful witness to all faiths and all the world that we are all “us” and that we have much to learn from one another.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »