Your call is important to us. Please hold.

April 12, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

My friend Roberta was ordained to today. It’s a start.

A well educated, mature woman, with a theology degree and a Ph. D., Roberta became Roman Catholic and sought her theological education at a time, fresh after Vatican II, when thousands of women thought that the Roman Catholic Church was going to start ordaining women to the priesthood any day now. In the meantime, Robert is a writer, teacher, and professional mediator.

Forty years after Vatican II, she’s still waiting, of course. I can’t help wondering if we are now all waiting for the present Pope to die for things to finally change, or for the church itself to die. Hmm.

Today Roberta was ordained as a Deacon, not a Priest— in the American Catholic Church, one of those independent churchbodies that traces their line back to the Old Catholics who broke with Rome in 1870 over last-straw dogmas which they would not accept: papal infallibility and the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, etc.

Roberta was ordained in our Lutheran parish sanctuary, of course. Welcome, my friend to the original “old” Catholics – the churches of the Reformation, who have been waiting 500 years for reconciliation.

We have little to brag about, of course. We didn’t start ordaining women to the ministry in this country until 1970. It’s almost as if Vatican II made more of an impression on us than on the Roman Catholics. At any rate, 38 years is a long time to wait for ordination.

As desperately as the whole church of Christ needs servants and ministers, it continues to find ways to drag its feet. My friend Scott, an ELCA heterosexual seminary graduate, waited about two years for a call and ordination to serve a congregation. What as wrong with him? Is he chopped liver? And in the meantime, dozens of congregations in our geographic area are dragging their feet, unable to work the process to select and to call a Pastor. Why? Scott wanted a call very much, and continued to be a servant of the church in a non-ordained position while he was waiting. On hold, as it were.

“Your Call is important to us. Please hold.” This seems to be the church’s message to its seminary graduates.

Then I got to thinking: Was there something wrong with this guy? I mean, did he fail some key courses? Does he have an attitude problem? Is he a closeted heretic? Why are they overlooking him? I finally asked him one day at a clergy gathering face-to-face, “Whom did you piss off?”

“That’s what I’m beginning to wonder,” he said with a sad chuckle in his voice.

Women routinely have to wait a long time to get the Call. And for their second call (if— God forbid—they should ever want or have to move on to a new opportunity to serve), there are “on hold” for a very long time.

It’s especially true of course for lesbian and gay, bisexual and transgender students and graduates and pastors. The institutional church has spent the same forty years ditzing around with its LGBT children.

“Are we welcome in the church, or not?”

“Well, yes, sorta,” they tell us.

“We have faith, and we have been loyal to a fault to an institution which really doesn’t know what to do with us, so are we welcome to participate fully in the life of the church or not?”

“Well, yes.”

“Does that participation include professional ministry, under Call, as ordained servants of the servants of God?

“Hello?”

“Your Call is important to us. Please continue to hold.”

It really isn’t a matter of whether the church will ever finish studying us, like butterflies pinned under glass. It is a matter of whether the church of Christ will ever get on with its mission to follow Jesus, serve people, and move on to new and exciting opportunities. But sadly, the institutional church seems to be incapable—institutionally—of carrying out real ministry and stepping up to anything new.

So here’s to you, Deacon Roberta. Congratulations!!

She has selected her area of missional concentration as a Diaconate for Spirituality and the Arts in the Los Feliz area of Hollywood/Los Angeles. I don’t think it’s been tried before, and of course there’s no money for it, but knowing Roberta, it will happen. Like thousands of women, minorities, lesbian and gay people, renegades and troublemakers within the body of Christ, she has the vision while the whole church seems to be blind. You go, Roberta!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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What would Jesus wear? (Hint: John 13:3-4)

April 8, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

The Good News of Christ’s reconciling mission in the world has been unbelievably snagged in the nonsense of papal counter-reforms. His Bavarianess, Pope Benedict XVI is trying to rip out of the Catholic cloth all the tailoring which was sewn by the Vatican II reformers two generations ago. The Latin Mass is back—strongly encouraged by Benedict. Apparently continuity with the irrelevant past into an irrelevant future is more important than the participation of the faithful.

And now even his choice of liturgical vestments is going retro. An opinion piece, “Papal Dress Code“, —by former altar boy and senior editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times, Michael McGough —ventures into the world of papal vestments which Benedict prefers and likely will model when he comes to the United States later this month.

 

In trying to find suitable graphics with Google, I have followed the threads into an arcane world of medieval repristinators who, like sleeping dogs, should probably be left to their own dreams.

(Above) Here you see Benedict celebrating mass with an enormous host (I guess everything papal can be super-sized), surrounded by attendants dressed in what appear to be clear plastic raincoats. Hmmm.  A blog comment identifies these as “Shantung silk.” What would Jesus wear?

If you want to peek further, there are sites and blogs such as “Save the Liturgy Save the World“ which devolves quickly from believing that the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life (okay, I can’t disagree), to stating that violations of rubrics, like a pebble tossed in a pond, create spiritual ripples in the Church and the world!

Violation of rubrics? Does anybody but the gay boys in the Sacristy remember what rubrics are? They are the little ceremonial notes, usually written in red ink, which ride along with liturgical rites in those big, dusty altar missals, to help the ministers perform the services “decently and in order.”

 

Rubrics are like stage directions for a play—lines which the actors don’t deliver but must remember (”cross to stage left, waving right arm and shouting …”). But apparently for some faithful believers, violations of these stage directions are tantamount to irreverence and cause spiritual ripples felt around the world.

Is it any wonder that bumper stickers (which are also seen everywhere, at least everywhere around my world) poke such fun, “Jesus Save Me from your followers!”? Is it any wonder that the Barna Group research says today’s young adults admire Jesus and avoid the Church?  (see also: “Spirituality: Do We Look Like Jesus?“)

Could it be because the Church takes its eyes off of its Lord and starts gazing at its own embroidered navel? I was frankly aghast last year to see a photo of Cardinal Mahoney washing the feet of his disciples on Maundy Thursday in full liturgical vestments,

 

after having read the same Gospel passage he did, where Jesus took off his outer vestments and simply tied a towel around his waist (John 13:3–4). Can’t we serve Christ with humility, boys?

I say these things not to beat up on traditional Roman Catholics, or to put the Pope down for his three-times-head height miters, but to call the true church to repentance and faith in the Christ who empowers us to serve God by serving others, not serving ourselves. I myself wear a chasuble for the Eucharist. But I remember the good counsel I received more than 30 years ago about the reform of Christian worship practices – there are three criteria which should not be out of balance with one another: historic precedent, ecumenical consensus and contemporary need. Benedict has apparently decided to blow off the latter two.

I have always tried to keep my high church tendencies in check (”must control the wrist of death”), and only recently have allowed a little more elaboration and festive stuff in our parish worship because of the large number of recovering catholics in our community. But at the same time I am committed to proclaiming Gospel, not navel, and to prayer from the heart, and to serving the community around us with compassion and humility. If anything causes spiritual ripples in the world, it ought to be the deeds by which we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoners, and proclaim liberty to the oppressed. Benedict, would you care to join us?

But who am I? I am only the voice of a heretic (demoted from “separated brethren” under Vatican II) who belongs to a nearly 500 year old movement (the Evangelical Lutheran Church) that the present pope does not consider to be a church.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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The hope that is within me.

April 7, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Dedicated to the memory of Marc Anthon Reilly

Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. —1 Peter 3:15–16, KJV

In the 1980s, Marc came to our small gatherings in an upper room of a church that was uneasy about our being there.  But we talked and talked, as he asked questions and I scrambled to frame potential answers about faith and sexuality, love and ethics.  We challenged each other, and I especially needed that, to better understand my own struggle to keep faith.

When my friend Marc died of AIDS in 1989, I inherited some of his own books, among them a Bible given to him by his family on his birthday, October 14, years before.  Recently, I needed an open Bible for the main photo for my new site site, www.gaycatechism.net (a soft-covered Bible that would flop open for a pleasing picture), and I picked up Marc’s Bible quite randomly from my bookshelf.  The flyleaf was inscribed:

Dear Marc:

This Book contains the Word of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.

Its doctrines are holy, its precepts immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be saved, and practice it to be holy.

It contains Light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.  Christ is its grand object, our good its design, and the Glory of God its end.

It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.

Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully.  It is given to you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and will be remembered forever!

In Christ, With our deepest love, Mom & Dad

I met them briefly at the end of Marc’s funeral, knowing from his prior warning that they would likely be judgmental.  Most of us shrug off such momentary meetings at funerals, but I was the preacher for that service, and I had done my best to proclaim pure, unadulterated Gospel to everyone present:  to a congregation that had long since gotten over its antipathy to gay and lesbian people, and had become a “Reconciling in Christ” congregation; and to these parents whom none of the rest of us knew, except that Marc had told us they did not accept his homosexuality and probably believed God was punishing him with AIDS.

So, in reading this inscription page, apparently in Mom’s handwriting, I came face to face with what my friend had felt in his own struggle both to live as a beloved child of God and to die an untimely death comforted by friends but estranged from his parents.

What do we make of stuff like this?  LGBTQ people might blame the church, or would blame the parents for this estrangement.  The parents would blame the sin (”love the sinner, hate the sin.”)  The Church would go on studying the issue for another couple of decades, and blame its lack of resources for dragging this out at a snail’s pace.  But what do we make of this?

Personally, I am absolutely sick of hearing about the latest skirmish in the “culture wars” over homosexuality.  But unlike the right-wing person who is equally sick of it, I cannot close my ears or eyes to an unpleasant, tiresome “issue.”  Because I am gay, I must be ready to defend the hope that is within me, and even more, always be vigilant for the possible violence coming at me (whether physical, verbal, psychological, political or judicial) because of the underlying homophobia and hatred, much of it based on this Book.

I don’t formally disagree with the intentions of what Mom wrote to her son —she must have labored over the prose more than a little — but I see within it the smug and pious language of a faith which considers itself so superior to doubt or unbelief.  Why is it that the Christian hope, the Christian Gospel, cannot be proclaimed without this smug, sharp edge in its voice?

“The doom of sinners, . . . [this Book] will be opened at judgment.”  That is the kind of imagery which fundamentalists crave, but which kills relationships, estranges fathers from sons, and launches culture wars.  Can LGBTQ people find words of life here that aren’t dripping with the blood of apocalyptic warnings?  Can heterosexuals love the Lord without constantly arming themselves for a moral Armageddon?

My friend Marc was one of the lucky ones.  He died faithful to a Gospel which his parents did not fully understand, with a degree of honor and respect from the congregation which undoubtedly surprised them.  Through his battle (and his partner’s battle before him) against HIV and AIDS, he did not desert Jesus Christ in a time when cynicism and bitterness could easily have taken him down long before his death.

And thankfully he is not forgotten.  Marc left a small bequest to Lutherans Concerned/Los Angeles to help us carry on our teaching ministry through periodic lectureships.  And his faithfulness left a mark (a marc?) on me that has impelled me to keep teaching, writing and proclaiming the Gospel, without an edge to it.

Thank you, Marc.  I will always remember the gift you gave me through your faith.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in HIV and AIDS, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Faith, LGBT Christian, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

Relearning the Christian faith.

April 6, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

For better or worse I am launching another project that has been lurking in my consciousness and blogosphere for more than a year.  Today, a Gay & Christian Catechism is born (www.gaycatechism.net).

In our times, many lesbian and gay people–or really, sexual minorities of all kinds— know the basic teachings of the Christian faith.  We know about God, the Bible, Jesus, salvation, etc.  We grew up with some religious instruction, in many different Christian denominations.

The Gay Catechism has been written with young adults and adults in mind — to help LGBTQ people who have already come to terms with being a sexual minority person, but now want to come to terms with the Christian faith which has harmed us deeply since we came out to ourselves or others.

For even though many of us had Christian instruction or catechesis as children and teenagers, at some point we walked away from the church and from God.  Some of us even fled from the churches in which we were instructed as children and in which we once had found love, comfort and belonging.

After coming to terms with our sexuality and gender identity, feelings of insecurity, unworthiness, fear or even outright terror simply eclipsed all other aspects of the Christian faith.  In the process of coming to awareness about our sexual orientation or gender identity, and the “coming out” process, it didn’t seem to matter that we had once learned and believed that:

• God is love
• all sins can be forgiven
• we are accepted by God because of God’s grace, not because of our good deeds.

The secondary message which was being taught to us both privately and publicly, was that we are unloved, worthless, and damned.  And this secondary message seemed to erase everything loving, everything good and hopeful and reassuring we had once learned.

Because of this tragedy, two other even worse effects have captivated many sexual minority persons:  many have abandoned all forms of spirituality, thinking that the only thing real is material—wealth, power, pleasure, food, drugs and good times.  And others have simply committed suicide because of the profound suffering they experienced in their spiritually dystonic state:  “God loves everybody, except me.”

From my Mission Statement:

The mission of the Gay Catechism project and this site is to provide a simple framework in which LGBTQ Christians can re-understand their faith with honesty and integrity, and to enable more of God’s children to come home to their faith.

The mission of the Gay Catechism is not to convince hateful, rejective and punitive Christians to change their mind about LGBTQ Christians, although this occasionally happens.  Sadly, most of them have their answers and their answer books, well-rehearsed and cemented into their consciousness so rigidly that they cannot hear a new truth or listen to a different voice.

Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22) and he was speaking about those who were so stuck in spiritual concrete that they could not accept his teaching and follow his lead.  Those who believe that their view of Christ’s teaching is so complete, so perfect, so flawless, are actually in danger of missing his teaching, for he speaks to us in the Bible as a spiritual teacher of enormous openness and flexibility.

So, here goes.  I will keep updating the new site, adding topics according to an outline I’m developing, with bits from Luther’s Small Catechism, from biblical, contemporary and even secular sources.  I would appreciate your feedback.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, LGBT Christian, Faith | Print | No Comments »

The bigots are gathering signatures again.

April 1, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

The prejudice-mongers are at it again, collecting signatures to put an initiative on the fall ballot in California to permanently deny the possibility of same-gender marriage in this state. They claim, as of April 1, to have 881,000 signatures of the 1.1 million needed. They have three weeks left to make the deadline.

This is no April Fools Joke.

The California initiative frustrates me, primarily because it is such personal issue for me and my partner. We are not looking to destroy anybody else’s marriage, but to protect one another within a personal covenant that has equal protection under the laws of the state and federal government. We have waited for more than four years to see if the California courts would uphold or restore our marriage rights – by declaring that Proposition 22 does not ban same-sex marriage. We’re still waiting for the California Supreme Court decision later this spring after oral arguments were heard March 4.

Our opponents are so-called Christians who see us as a threat to their heterosexual marriages. That is like saying that if we drive a BMW, we are somehow “cheapening” the BMW in our neighbor’s garage; or because we have bought a house in the neighborhood we are trying to destroy the neighborhood.

Our opponents know that their arguments don’t hold water, and their arguments aren’t meant to stand up to scrutiny. All they have to do is to enlist public bigotry, in the hopes that if a majority of voters in California are prejudiced enough, discrimination will be written into the California constitution and deny us our simple right to justice for the rest of our lifetimes.

That would be bad enough if it weren’t for the fact that they peddle their prejudice in the name of Jesus— the one who included everyone and excluded no one.

There is no mechanism in the constitution to give the Supreme Court judicial review over a constitutional amendment. So if a prejudicial law is written into the constitution it will sit there for a generation or more until a sufficient social change makes it possible to repeal the evil. But even a future repeal cannot undo the harm that is done to those of us who simply want some protection from the arbitrary and heartless grinding of social systems. Last week we heard the story of a gay man who first learned that his partner was dead from the evening news broadcast, because the hospital refused to give him information since he wasn’t legally a family member.

Week after week, month after month, these sad and tragic stories continue, not merely because our over-grown and unwieldy government systems actually hurt people, but because all the other systems and entities in society which are required to abide by public policies and laws are powerless in complicity with prejudice. Where this actual prejudice on the part of individuals in decision-making positions (for example, an evil H. R. director in a company), they can easily hide their prejudice behind government regulations which appear to support them. Lawsuits usually force these organizations, corporations and entities to back off from their prejudice, but it is time-consuming and expensive to fight for each right, one at a time, hoping that a court of law will vindicate us and our quest for simple justice and equal rights.

Worse yet, injustice falls more heavily on the poor. Those who have greater means (money) can hire enough attorneys to craft their wills, irrevocable trusts, and other contractual relationships to protect their life partners and secure their assets, in a manner which attempts to replicate the rights of civil marriage without the automatic protection it affords. For those who do not have such means, doing all of this is an impossible burden.

And perhaps worst of all, prejudice seems always to have more money than justice. Right-wing conservative donors with big bank accounts always outnumber open-minded ordinary folks. They seem to always be ready to write big checks. From today’s www.365gay.com news story,

Among the major donors to Protect Marriage are a group of San Diego County businessmen. Developer Doug Manchester alone has contributed $125,000, prompting gays to urge a boycott of his properties. Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.Mission Valley developer Terry Caster has donated $162,500, Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn gave $25,000, and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson has given $50,000, according to state records.It raises a fundamental question of justice with broader implications, but one I’ve never heard anything about: why is it that the initiative process permits signature-gatherers to be paid per signature? This means that big money can buy the votes needed to put something on the ballot which would never get there if it really come up from the grass roots. The initiative process is not voter imitative, but special-interest initiative. LGBT leaders have used this process, too, but I think it should be made much more difficult to get any thing slapped on the ballot because too many screwball things come up in every general election, and an ill-informed electorate is asked to make decisions which affect other people’s lives when they don’t really know the consequences. Lack of information, combined with native prejudice, makes for a bigotry machine which is very hard to stop.What can we do?For one, “decline to sign” any petition put in front of you about gay marriage;

Two, get involved with Equality for All and help the efforts to stop the signature gatherers;

Three, contribute to our side of this issue — even if you don’t have or don’t want a permanent spouse, you still have a stake in this battle because if we lose our chance to secure marriage rights, what other rights will the extremists try to revoke next?

Fourth, keep on coming out—telling your story and being honest about your life, because it is the best tool we have to convince other people in our society that we are not trying to destroy their lives, or values, or marriages, simply to hold our heads up high.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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