We have questions.

June 11, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The gradual tipping of Christian attitudes about LGBT people is seen by the ultra-conservative as the eroding of the Christian faith and the ultimate slippery slope.

I have repeatedly tried to remind Christians that “The Christian Faith” is our faith about Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the redemption of the whole world in light of the Cross. There is no article of faith in any of the great Creeds of the church which talks about sex. Period. No view of human sexuality is embedded in our faith.

Yes, there are references galore in the Bible (both Testaments), but if we are honest the Bible is in a constant state of being re-evaluated , reinterpreted and re-thought. It is not because we are wandering down a slippery slope, but because as life goes on new questions arise.

Nearly twenty years ago when the ELCA was trying to get a new sexuality study written (and oh Lord what a disaster that process turned out to be!), I got an invitation through the one openly gay and openly lesbian members of the task force, to speak to the whole study commission in Chicago. I was able to present the theological insights which have been bubbling up from Lutherans Concerned/North America for more than three decades.

In my address, that night, I reiterated a saying that had been given to me (source unknown):

“The theologian’s first task is to answer the questions. The second task is to question the answers. But the third task is to question the questions.”

One seminary professor scoffed ferociously at me before the whole room full of task force members, as if to ridicule the idea that questions of Christian faith and life are always subject to re-examination.

Unless we live in an autocratic system, all questions are always open to revision. To a great extent, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy remain closed systems, because they have given authoritative status to ancient answers, and implicitly have limited themselves only to ancient questions. Similarly, other Christians seem to be stuck in the 16^th century Reformation, or in the 19^th Century revival experiences. Which, ironically, is not what ancient Christians did, because they faced many new questions and continued to search, pray and rethink how they responded in faith to these new questions. For example, whether to fully welcome the Gentiles into the company of Jesus was a new question which could not be dodged.

We don’t live in ancient times, and modern questions simply come up by themselves without anyone’s “failure,” manipulation or willful heresy. The sooner the living Christians today realize that we are the only disciples of Christ who are around, the better. The Holy Spirit is with us to guide us, because we are the faithful who are living now, and the truth and practice of the Christian faith always hinges on the faithful who are living, not on those who have passed on. Although we can partially be guided by former questions and the faithful of former times who tried to respond to their questions, we cannot be limited to living in a world which, bluntly, does not exist any longer.

And if the Holy Spirit is alive and dwelling with us, as Jesus promised, the Spirit is our contemporary. We will not hear the Spirit simply echoing ancient answers to contemporary questions.

I trust the Spirit, and I experience the presence of the Holy Spirit, in respecting our questions, even though I realize some Christians are obsessed with our agenda. I can’t speak for everyone else in the LGBTQ/Christian movement, but my agenda is to let contemporary questions come to light so that the Holy Spirit may guide us into all truth. And in my faith journey, Truth is not just a book full of ancient content, ancient answers. Truth is a process, a way of discerning, a way of faithfully responding in the Spirit to the questions of people who are seeking today, now, in our living world.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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