Archive for July, 2009

Do we take the Bible literally?

Friday, July 31st, 2009

I got to thinking about Biblical literalism again, and the pain, fear, suffering and bull___ it leaves in its wake. No, I didn’t grow up with that monkey on my back (although I am sure the pastor of the church where I went to Sunday school and catechism probably had it on his back). But literalism is such a crazy issue, since many true-blue Christians think they want to buy into it, even while they ignore it, or manipulate it to hurt others.

Biblical literalists want to stick gay people with the sinfulness of homosexuality, for example, even though no one, literally, knows what arsenokoites and malakos mean in the original Greek. Whatever they mean, it is not “homosexuals” as we understand that idea now. We could argue for days I think.

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So, take long hair, then. According to the New Testament, men aren’t suppose to wear long hair, but women are, because of the angels. I am not making this up. It’s literally true, if the Bible is literally true. In 1 Corinthians 11:14, Paul says, unconditionally, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him . . .?” Never mind that Christians ever since have assumed that Jesus himself wore long hair. Michelangelo put long hair on God the Father in the Sistine Chapel. Old Testament heroes such as Sampson wore long hair. And even St. Paul, a few verses before that passage, urges the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” Christ, the guy with the long hair. Yeah, right.

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Warner Sallmen’s portrait of Christ was all the rage in the 1930s. Richard Hook’s surfer-dude portrait of Christ was all the rage in the 1970s, especially among evangelicals.

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So literalism (Paul’s advice) can be ignored when they want to ignore it, and especially if you’re a born again surfer dude.

After I wrote the blog about the Brandon McInerney murder trial, I realized how futile it is to quote Matthew 26:52 when it comes to Christians toting guns. Jesus, after all, said “all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Jesus, literally, never mentions guns, so they must be okay for Christians to wield. They weren’t invented until the Middle Ages, after all, so violence-loving “Christians” can dodge the bullet—they can safely claim that there’s nothing in the Bible against Christians owning and using guns.

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(At least McInerney didn’t have long hair. That would be degrading, according to St. Paul, who never condemned guns but did condemn arsenokoitai and malakoi and long hair.)

This is a clear case of using Biblical literalism narrowly in order to hide behind it. If something isn’t expressly forbidden in the Bible, then it is permissible.

The great gun control debate isn’t the first time, of course, that Christians have gotten into bed with evil and violence, weapons, or earthly power. The Christian church has a shameful history of using earthly cruelty to enforce the boundaries of the kingdom of heaven. Biblical literalism is only one weapon in its arsenal.

But people who were raised on the comfort food of biblical literalism have a hard time changing their diet, even if it isn’t good for them. When Christian gay apologists first started trying to create “wiggle room” in the 1970s, they tried to argue their way with literalism. In Genesis 19 (the Sodom and Gomorrah story), for example, there were tortured arguments about the meaning of the Hebrew word in 19:5: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” Lot, the host, urges the evil townsmen “do not act so wickedly.”

In other places, “to know” meant in the Biblical sense, to have sexual relations with, as in Genesis 4:1, “Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain.” But fundamentalists refused to see the truth behind the euphemism because they hid behind literalism. The truth, of course, is that in this place “know” really means “gang rape.” “… so that we may gang rape them,” an understanding which makes much more sense when read in light of the amazing parallel story in Judges 19, where the wicked townsmen are also told not to behave so wickedly, but then offered the hosts two daughters to ravish (19:24) and even the guest’s female concubine, who was raped all night long (19:25).

Betty Bowers, by the way, has a wonderful take on Biblical marriage from a literal interpretation’s point of view. Especially see the section on marriage between a woman and her rapist. Literalism has an answer for everything, after all. But when are we going to step away from it once and for all?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, History, Public Affairs, Violence | No Comments »

What kind of Nation does this make?

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Rachel Maddow made a comment in passing the other night in another context, but she used a phrase which has stuck with me. Referring to other commentators (I think it was Rush Limbaugh on the Crowley/Gates/Obama story), she said that people “stoke indignation.”

Stoke is a word seldom used these days. From www.dictionary.com: 

stoke [stohk]

–verb (used with object)  1. to poke, stir up, and feed (a fire).  2. to tend the fire of (a furnace, esp. one used with a boiler to generate steam for an engine); supply with fuel.

stoke 1660 (implied in stoker), “to feed and stir up a fire in a fireplace,” from Du. stoken “to stoke,” from M.Du. stoken “to poke, thrust,” related to stoc “stick, stump,” from P.Gmc. *stok-, variant of *stik-, *stek- “pierce, prick” (see stick (v.)). Stoked “enthusiastic” first recorded 1902; revived in surfer slang 1963.I love the reference to surfer slang, but Maddow’s use is more serious. And this on indignation:  

in·dig·na·tion [in dig'ney shuhn] 

– noun.  Strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting, or base; righteous anger.[Origin: 1325–75; ME indignacio(u)n < L indignation- (s. of indignatio), equiv. to indignat(us) ptp. of indignari to be indignant, take offense + -ion- -ion; see indignant ]

So this implies that the taking of offense or holding righteous anger and outrage, etc., must be stirred up or fed like a fire to keep it alive. Otherwise, people flame out and tempers cool off by themselves.As much as I enjoy the poking of one political force by another (preferably my side poking the other side), the phrase “stoking indignation” explains a lot of the supposed outrage in our culture/nation/world. One wonders what all of our public commentators, spokespersons, and self-appointed moralizers and critics hope to create by being “stoked” and trying to supply fuel to everyone else. Fred Phelps stokes the indignation of those who don’t like homosexuality, for example. His extremism gives support to others who take offense and don’t see their own offense as unreasonable because there is this minister guy who is even more shocked, shocked, shocked at the tolerance of homosexuals in America. But his church in Topeka, I understand, consists almost entirely of his own extended family members. His stoking doesn’t seem to find much fuel in Topeka or anywhere else.Is not this the agenda of Archbishop Peter Akinola in Nigeria who is still stoked, still outraged six years after the consecration of a gay Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire. Akinola has done everything possible to “stoke indignation” in the worldwide Anglican communion.And the right-wing Lutherans such as Solid Rock and Word Alone pretty much do the same. The Word Alone newsletter, which comes to me unsolicited, attempts to stoke indignation by offering news and analysis of everything they believe should stir up the faithful to righteous anger.

Herman Otten played this role, beginning with the Missouri Synod Lutherans, for decades in his tabloid Christian News. My friend Howard Erickson, who was instrumental in launching Lutherans Concerned for Gay People (now Lutherans Concerned/North America) in 1974, loved to bait Otten by mailing him copies of The Gay Lutheran, which Otten would not merely quote in his news tabloid but reproduce the entire front page of the mimeographed newsletter, in its entirety hoping to “stoke indignation” among fellow Missouri Synod Lutherans.

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“I always put the complete mailing address right on the front,” says Erickson, “because I suspected many closeted pastors and lay people who received Otten’s newspaper would hear about Lutherans Concerned and be able to contact us easily.” (The first three issues of “The Gay Lutheran” by the way are reproduced in their entirety on the LC/Los Angeles web site. More will be added when I have time to scan them.)

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Stoking indignation is hardly new. A thousand years ago Peter Damien (above; a saint and doctor of the Catholic Church) wrote a little treatise, The Book of Gomorrah, by which he meant to expose the terrible homosexual practices among Catholic clerics, and sent the work directly to Pope Leo IX. Leo responded with praise and approval for the work (“About these thins, since you have written what seemed best to you, moved by holy indignation . . .”) and commendation for Damien (” . . . for it is greater to instruct by deed than by word”), suggesting politely that he keep up the good work. The late John Boswell’s (below) groundbreaking study in 1980, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, pointed out that Pope Leo IX basically shelved Damien’s holy indignation and did nothing about the homosexuals among the ranks of clergy.

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Hmmm.

Apparently indignation is not always stoked successfully. We can only hope that our modern stokers would take up surf boards and stop trying to turn America into one enormous Indig-Nation.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, ELCA, History, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs | 1 Comment »

Who should be on trial?

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

I am really angry all over again as Brandon McInerney is on trial for the murder of Lawrence King. Brandon is charged with shooting King at point blank range twice in the back of his head in their eighth grade English class on February 12, 2008.

McInerney’s defense is sexual harassment, because King apparently had a crush on the younger McInerney.

What has made the headlines recently is that McInerney, who was 14 at the time he allegedly shot the 15 year-old King, is that the accused killer is being tried as an adult. To me, trying him under the rules of adult courts is irrelevant and of course will only elicit a spectrum of views about the juvenile justice system. What angers me is that when a juvenile is accused of such a gross capital offense, it is really his parents who should be on trial. And our so-called justice system makes no provision for literally holding the parents of a minor responsible for the criminal behavior of their child.

In the Los Angeles Times article in Tuesday’s paper, it is revealed that the 14 year-old was handling a .22 caliber revolver. Where did he get it?

“Another witness testified that the detectives found a cache of weapons in an unlocked closet at McInerney’s home.

“The weapons reportedly belonged to his grandfather, William McInerney Sr.

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“Ammunition, an instructional DVD called ‘Shooting in Realistic Environments’ [available used from Amazon for as little as $6.25!] and drawings of swastikas were found in a bedroom that the defendant shared with an older brother stationed in Iraq, investigators said.”

If this evidence is true, the family and the household environment are the true “smoking gun” in the murder of a gay teenager. It is not the simple question, “Where were his parents?” but “What kind of values were being taught and what kind of parental control was being practiced in this Oxnard, California household? The internet could be named as an accomplice here, since any kid could put together the six dollars and a quarter to buy the training DVD.  Life is cheap.  So, apparently, is death.

In an undated Queerty story, “we learn this disturbing fact about the killer of eighth grader Lawrence King: He boasted proudly of having guns at his house, just in case, on the off chance he wanted to kill someone, he could.”  (See: “Boy accused of killing gay classmate bragged he had guns at home, police say,” July 20, 2009.)

When I Google the phrase “teaching kids to shoot guns” I get “about 1, 490,000″ hits. Some of them are on the negative side of the issue. Many, probably most, of them are on the side of literally teaching kids to shoot guns. The NRA has a page on “Safety Information for Parents”.  Gee, great!  The parents of Brandon McInerney hardly need to worry now about teaching their son safety information. If convicted of first degree murder, he will be behind bars for a long time. Apparently the crime was pre-meditated, by the way, because he had bragged to other school chums that he was going to kill King.  No one at the school took him seriously. But why didn’t his family take it seriously, since they had to know about the instructional DVD and the swastikas?

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Another cool site is at www.christiangunowner.com (screen capture above) where a true oxymoron is this guy’s motto: “Christian first American second gun owner third.” In the first place, Jesus tells us to put down our weapons. “All who take the sword will die by the sword,” Matthew 26:52. I don’t think there’s any wiggle room for this. The sword is the ancient equivalent of today’s handgun. How any Christian can rationalize keeping, using and teaching their kids to shoot guns in realistic environments (not on a firing range) is an unconscionable abuse of Christian ethics. No, the news accounts don’t reveal whether or not the McInerney family was a Christian church-going family—I am not holding my breath to find out. But if Christian people and Christian churches refuse to teach rightly and control the extremist behavior of their members, then I say leave it to the government to hold the adults responsible for the criminal behavior of their children.

This is way bigger than a gay/straight thing, although it is an especially deep sadness that juvenile murders involve a teenage gay kid who barely had begun to understand himself as gay or learn how to behave appropriately as an “out” teenager.

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And the fuzzy line in ethics and law over trying a juvenile as an adult only illustrates the fuzziness of our culture that cannot decide whether to be ethical, to have concerns, to have limits, or to say “whatever…” to virtually every moral question. On the Amazon page selling the DVD on how to shoot “in realistic environments,” for example, is another add for Kinder Care Learning Centers. Do child care centers now offer to teach kids to shoot guns? Is this okay in our society, that to express affection for someone of the same sex is still not okay (apparently labeled as sexual harassment by McInerney’s defense attorney, because he was “humiliated” by King’s affection), but it is okay to train children to kill one another.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Coming Out, Public Affairs, Violence | No Comments »

Fear of wrath vs. faith in lovingkindness.

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Novelist and teacher Don Belton, in the anthology “Wrestling with the Angel” [Brian Bouldrey, ed.; New York: Riverhead Books, 1995] writes of growing up under the holiness requirements of his father’s faith. Modern Pharisaism seems to have sprouted continually in many places in the Christian world, even though the New Testament makes it clear that Jesus put all that stuff to rest. Belton tells of his experiences and impressions, not theological arguments or doctrines, as his father’s rigid views came down to the family level.

“There was a way to speak to adults, my father taught me. A way to ask. A way to speak on the telephone. A way to eat. To be excused from the table. To stand. To sit. To behave when company came. A way to play so as not to disrupt the entire house. So as not to get my clothes dirty. Not a right and wrong way. There was one way: the way my father taught me. I was constantly corrected and reproved. I was rehearsed in his rules. I was policed and inspected. This color socks only goes with that color trousers. Use this fork for salad and that fork for meat. Only girls laugh: tee hee. Boys must laugh: ha ha. I took my rest at my precise bedtime, and my day began at exactly the same hour each morning. My evening and morning prayers were meticulously recited like incantations for an easy sentence in the prison of my father’s house. I was not allowed to break a ruler—ever. There was always something to say I was sorry for, something for which I knew I would never be entirely forgiven. Even at an early age, I learned to keep my sins secret.”

People who believe they have reached perfection through keeping rules will also likely believe they have attained holiness or righteousness the same way. How easy it is to transfer this rigid obsession with control and perfection to or from the world of religion. “My father’s house” could as well be the house of the heavenly God, in which, if we even hope to live there, we may not break any rule—ever.

Belton implies this transference.

“As far back as I can remember, I was carried back and forth to church, by my father and various other relatives. I was taken back and forth as though I were receiving treatments for a persistent ailment. During my childhood, we attended various churches, all of them Black and all of them Sanctified Holiness.”

I can’t speak for this particular denomination (a useful essay by Harold Raser’s can be found here), but its history can apparently be traced to the years before and after the Civil War among Christians for whom “sanctification” and “holiness” became not merely an obsession but a defining doctrine. These would be the polar opposite of my own heritage in faith, in which God’s grace, not our perfection, is the defining doctrine. For the one, the fear of God’s wrath tips the scale in favor of strict human obedience. For the other, faith in God’s lovingkindness tips the scale the other direction. Each view can find supporting verses in Scripture. Any of us could say “My Bible can beat up your Bible.”

Last week someone was telling me about a similar sanctified strain of Christian belief where a very pious and faithful father was kicked out of the congregation because his son had gotten into some kind of trouble. The father was not fit for the kingdom of God, it was reasoned, if he can’t control his own son. But I can’t help thinking about the Prodigal Father in Luke 15 who waited for his delinquent son to come home. What did the neighbors think about him? Would they have kicked him out of the synagogue?

Belton goes on to recount his own growing spiritual and carnal awareness as a gay man, but he neglects to say if he ran from the Sanctified Holiness church or if they expelled him. Since I have experience with that—I too have been expelled from a church (for pastoring while gay)—I find myself now playing the role of the waiting father for other LGBT people.

Sanctification and holiness are seductive doctrines. “Be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect.” The Sermon on the Mount sets the bar high. But when a church defines itself by holiness, it attracts people who tend to be extremists and perfectionists, who look down on everyone else as not being the genuine article, the true Christian. But is it not also the genuine article to pray with simplicity and reliance upon grace, “God be merciful to me, a sinner”?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Coming Out, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Faith, Fundamentalism | No Comments »

The Episcopal Church approves blessing same-gender unions.

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

This news release is from Phil Soucy of Lutherans Concerned.  It gives you some immediate information, if not the nuances or implications for the future.

“Lutherans Concerned/North America celebrates the decision of the U.S. Episcopal Church at its triennial General Convention to approve the blessing of some same-gender lifelong, committed relationships. The change in policy was passed yesterday, July 17, 2009, the last day of the 10-day meeting.

“The resolution passed also included directions to the church leadership to develop liturgies for the rites of blessing. Characterized in the press as carefully worded, the resolution did not change the stated definition that a marriage is between a man and a woman. The rites called for will be taken up at the next General Convention in 3 years.

“In the meantime, the resolution said that bishops, “particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church.” Same-gender unions are now legal in six states in the U.S.

“Emily Eastwood said, ‘On the heels of declaring that all orders of ministry including that of bishop are open to LGBT members of the Episcopal church, Episcopalians have also provided the blessing of unions of faithful, mutually supportive, committed members, and required the development of religious services that honor their commitment to each other. This is both a decisive action worthy of the followers of Christ and a long-awaited recognition that LGBT people are children of God and have always been a part of the wondrous diversity of God’s creation. Our prayer is that the Spirit will continue her work in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America so that in our August churchwide assembly similar-spirited result will come to fruition.’”

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Ministry | No Comments »

Episcopals and Lutherans dialogue on the same issues.

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. is going on this week in Anaheim, California. They have their hands full of controversy this year, as a number of congregations and an entire diocese have tried to leave the Episcopal Church because they are still upset that Gene Robinson was elected and consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire six years ago. Underlying this controversy, to a degree, is the fact that some conservative Episcopalians still haven’t gotten over the ordination of women two generations ago.

On Monday, the Bishops voted 99 to 45 (with two abstentions) to affirm the calling to ministry of gay men and lesbians in committed relationships. Lay delegates (House of Deputies) adopted a nearly identical statement earlier. A final version is expected to be adopted before the convention closes Friday.

All this in spite of pressure from other Anglican bodies around the world to back down on liberal gay issues and sustain a “moratorium” on consecrating any more homosexuals as bishops— and the hand-wringing and misgivings of the Archbishop of Canterbury who is trying to keep this worldwide Anglican communion together on his watch.

(Is it fair to ask as an aside: what good is a “moratorium” against more homosexual bishops when there are several sitting bishops who could be outed or just come out that would probably give Nigeria’s Archbishop Peter Akinola a terminal heart attack?)

While many other Christian entities will watch the Episcopal Church carefully, this vote will undoubtedly be noted by the voting members (delegates) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Churchwide Assembly next month in Minneapolis, whether positively or negatively. I expect to be there as a registered visitor, not a voting member.

The ELCA and the Episcopal Church U.S.A. have had a relationship of full communion for the last ten years, since the adoption of “Called to Common Mission.” The ELCA’s own statement on ecumenical relations and full communion quotes Article VII of the Augsburg Confession of 1530, “For the true unity of the church it is enough to agree concerning the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments.”

The ELCA has full communion agreements not only with the Episcopal Church, but with the Moravian Church, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA and the Reformed Church in America. Our church body does not even begin to have the same mind about all aspects of church life, doctrine and theology, or the same mind about controversial issues which the churches all face. We have very different histories, different resources, different burdens, different insights from the one Holy Spirit of God.

On matters of human sexuality, the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church are more to the left of the ELCA and the Moravian, Presbyterian and Reformed churches are very much to the right. What is important is that, from individual congregations right up to the national and international level, we continue to affirm our agreement in proclaiming the Gospel and carrying out the commands of Jesus Christ regarding the Sacraments. If we are anchored in the same place on the same key foundational parts of our faith, there should be no worry about any other issue becoming divisive. If another issue becomes divisive, either at a congregational level or the national level, that is evidence that such an issue is supplanting the Gospel itself as the defining measure of faith and unity. For this to happen, someone or some group has to be forcefully pushing the Gospel aside and placing this issue onto center stage, And that would be evidence that the individuals who cry the loudest about disaster, controversy, or controversy are allowing themselves to be sidetracked from the mission of every Christian—to proclaim the Good News of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, and to let that grace shape their lives as living testimonies.

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Peter Akinola and Martyn Minns

This probably sounds naive on my part, but I firmly believe that we should just watch who screams the loudest about disunity, division and disfellowship, and they will be the ones who are pushing, pulling and jerking the rest of the church around trying to fulfill their own prophecy of dissent and disunity. One of the people to watch, for example, is Rev. Martyn Minns, who was also quoted in this morning’s Los Angeles Times story on the General Convention. N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham, England is another right-wing voice who writes today on the coming schism. Check out the full article here, but be prepared to sputter at his dismissive, conservative reasoning.

For years now I have been covertly grateful that I am not Episcopal and I don’t have a dog in their fight. But now that the gloves are off, and our two general conventions are scarcely a month apart and facing the same issues, it is time to stand with the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and admit that we are in this together.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, ELCA, History, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, Ministry, Uncategorized | No Comments »

On lust, love, and 100 guests.

Monday, July 13th, 2009

We had dinner last night with friends—a couple for whom I performed the marriage ceremony last summer. Although they have been together for something like 14 years, they will celebrate their first anniversary of legal marriage in a few weeks.

Of course we got to talking about the significance of the California Supreme Court’s decision to allow Proposition 8 to stand (therefore, same-sex marriages are not valid nor recognized) but affirming that Proposition 8 does not nullify the 18,000+ couples same-sex marriages in 2008 (therefore both valid and recognized).

Even if the Roman Catholic Church has eliminated Limbo as a place between heaven and hell, the California Supreme Court has recreated Limbo as the place to consign already-married same-sex couples.

And even while we’re watching the early skirmishes in federal court over both

Proposition 8 and DOMA, it looks as if the outcome of neither of those cases could possibly affect the 36,000 + of us who are legally marriage lesbian or gay couples. Limbo.

For some crazy reason, my mind ratcheted back to a conversation with another friend 25 years ago. He had come out to his (Lutheran) pastor in St. Louis, Missouri, and even though the man was kind and not harshly judgmental, his view was that there is no such thing as genuine love between two persons of the same gender. Only lust. Therefore, this pastor could argue that St. Paul’s condemnation of lust (Romans 1:24, tied to his condemnation of same-sex passion several verses later) could withstand any arguments from his own writings in 1 Corinthians 13 and elsewhere about the supremacy of love. Yes, the Bible upholds love and Christian ethics based on love, but since homosexual desire is merely lust, it is not entitled to any “loophole.” At least so goes the argument as I remember it being relayed to me.

Mostly I just shake my head in sadness that anti-gay critics will go to such lengths to rationalize their rejection of us and our different expression of love. Real speak: in the minds of some heterosexuals same-sex love couldn’t possible be love because they can’t imagine loving someone of the same sex. But call it lust and the necessary rationalizations fall neatly into place so that they reject lesbians and gay men.

According to www.dictionary.com:

lust

–noun

1. intense sexual desire or appetite.

2. uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness.

3. a passionate or overmastering desire or craving (usually fol. by for): a lust for power.

4. ardent enthusiasm; zest; relish: an enviable lust for life.

5. Obsolete. a. pleasure or delight. b. desire; inclination; wish. 

–verb (used without object)

6. to have intense sexual desire.

7. to have a yearning or desire; have a strong or excessive craving (often fol. by for or after).

Thinking about my own life and my spouse of 33 years and that of our friends—spouses for 14 years— it seems ludicrous to dismiss these lifelong relationships as “lust.” Between us, we’ve lived through major life changes, serious illnesses and injuries, change or loss of jobs, the AIDS pandemic, elder care, financial catastrophes, and an awakening consciousness of our own mortality. We have been through what many couples go through, and whether you want to use the “love” word or not, in God’s truth these lives are about fidelity, trust, sacrifice, commitment and constancy. No, the word “lust” just doesn’t fit any of that.

Lust, it seems to me, is a distracting hunger for something you don’t have and would sure like to get. Lust applies more to a televangelist or a politician who takes strange measures to arrange for tricks or affairs–even the Jimmy Carter variety (see the Playboy interview, 1976). At its lower levels lust is an energizer that lures most of us in our youth to play the dating and mating game. We hunger for acceptance, touch, warmth, companionship, fun and flesh. Lust dims with age, if it is not completely extinguished by the reality of having to get up early in the morning and needing to get a decent night’s sleep.

Yes, lust can become a preoccupation, an obsession, that drives some people to make bad judgments, to “hike the Appalachian Trail” or for some tragic individuals to power a mid-life crisis speeding down the road, and maybe to crash into a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting. Yes, lust exists, but no, the gender of one’s life partner does not really have anything to do with it.

Back at the restaurant table last night, we got to reminiscing about our friends wedding last July. One of them got a little weepy remembering not so much the vows they exchanged as a couple, but the questions which I had asked the 100 guests.

“Families, friends, and all who are gathered here with Name and Name, will you support and care for them, sustain them in times of trouble, give thanks with them in times of joy, honor the bonds of their covenant, and affirm the love of God reflected in their life together? If so, answer, ‘We will.’

“And, in your many different paths of life, I ask each of you to reflect and to offer your pledge: will you promise to spread tolerance and acceptance, peace and goodwill among all people, so that you help to make the world safe for love, for diversity, for courage, and for commitment you witness here today? If so, answer, ‘We will.’”

It was the loud “We will!” responses that these men heard from their families and friends that brought some tears last night.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, Recovery, Sex, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Bloggers stay on topic: same-sex marriage.

Friday, July 10th, 2009

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has come out with its new report on the Same Sex Marriage Debate. The complete report is online in several major segments (screens) but I don’t see a link to download the thing in its entirety. Cut and paste only?

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In the fine print for other resources at the bottom is a tidbit worth blogging about: that same-sex marriage continues to dominate the blogs out there. According to Pew on June 4, “Over the past two months, one issue has emerged as the leading catalyst for online conversation. While debates over harsh interrogation methods and the economic crisis have repeatedly attracted interest in the social media, the subject of gay marriage has bubbled up again and again, in a debate often missing from the mainstream media.”

I have myself worried that I was giving too much attention to the issue, but I’ve not been alone. And all this is not without reason. The news of changing status for same-sex marriage has continued to bubble up in Vermont, Maine, New York, Iowa, California and New Hampshire. . . . Iowa?

The Pew Forum study simply points to the disparity between news in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. “The intense social media focus on same-sex marriage stands in stark contrast to mainstream press attention. Over the past two months [April–May 2009] the topic generated 11% of the links in the blogosphere but filled just 1% of the newshole in the traditional media.” Except for talk of the California Supremes upholding Proposition 8, the blog conversation, according to Pew, has been overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage.

The summer isn’t over, folks.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

A congressional lapse in our favor.

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

From yesterday’s news ~

Out-of-state gay marriages now recognized in D.C.

By Jennifer Vanasco, editor in chief, 365gay.com • 07.07.2009 10:07am EDT

“As of 12:01 this morning, gays and lesbians who are married in Iowa, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine or Vermont now also have their marriages recognized in Washington, D.C.

“The D.C. City Council approved the measure last month, but it was subject to a 30-day Congressional review period. Since Congress took no action, gay and lesbian marriages performed legally in other states are now legal in D.C. as well.  No same-sex marriages, however, are recognized by the Federal government.”

Read the whole story here

Well that’s precisely why California marriage limbo must change. the editor in chief of a major news outlet didn’t even think to include the legal same-sex marriages in California in her review of the new D.C. statute. It may be (right now) limited to about 18,000 same-sex couples who married in 2008 before Proposition 8 put the lid on it, but the California Supreme Court has ruled that those marriages are legal. Therefore they should be recognized in the District of Columbia.

What is up for grabs under the current status of Proposition 8 is what it actually means to have a marriage be “valid” and “recognized.”

Even more up for grabs is where our Democratically-controlled Congress is going. If they tacitly let the D.C. statute take effect, it means they are recognizing the right of state jurisdictions to recognize gay marriage. So why on earth are they allowing DOMA to stand? Even allowing this District of Columbia measure to become law could be used against individual legislators on the campaign trail. Is this part of their strategy— to see if this permissive Congressional review lapse will cost them anything in the midterm elections, and if not then they might get up and do something for us, instead of just not doing something further against us?

— Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Repent? Or get over it?

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Church of England bishop says gays should ‘repent’

Associated Press • 07.06.2009 11:30am EDT

(London) A senior Church of England bishop has angered gay-rights campaigners by saying homosexuals should repent.  Archbishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the Bible defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He said the church welcomed gay people, “but we want them to repent and be changed.” Nazir-Ali is a leading member of the conservative wing of the global Anglican Communion, which is riven by divisions over homosexuality and the ordination of women. . . .  He was quoted as saying that people who depart from traditional Biblical teaching “don’t share the same faith.”

(Read the whole story here)

My comments

Here we go again! From ancient times the Christian church has had creedal statements to define what its faith really is. Three historic creeds come to mind, known as the Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian Creed. I have written about the Nicene Creed in the past, for example: May 19, 2008; also December 9, 2007.

No doubt many local preachers, priests and pastors (myself included) can get caught up in the moment and say things which are quite arbitrary, or unnecessary, or even stupid. After all we’re all human and we try to speak to contemporary issues as things happen. But I find it remarkable that an archbishop should exhibit such irresponsible ignorance or get caught up in such momentary, knee-jerk opinions.

Gay or straight, lesbian or trans, closeted or activist, if we are Christian we share the same faith in Jesus Christ. No formal creed of the Christian faith has ever had a statement about sexuality or gender in it. Clearly, Christians do not put faith in sex or sexuality. We put faith in God. We put faith in Jesus Christ, not our understanding, or somebody else’s understanding, of sex and human sexuality.

This may be the journalist’s phrase in the story above, not the archbishop’s, but I need to voice my thoughts about the phrase “traditional Biblical teaching.” The “traditional Biblical teaching” which Nazir-Ali apparently thinks some Christians are departing from reflect a “condemn-first-ask-questions-later” attitude about the Bible’s clobber passages. Yes, we are well aware that the Bible has a handful of passages often used to condemn homosexual behavior. But for most of Christian history these were not flashpoints, they were not interpreted in other times the way they are now, and most importantly they do not constitute a “Biblical teaching.” The clobber passages (Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:26–27 , 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10) are a loose collection of ideas written by different authors, centuries or even millennia apart, which embed cultural prejudices if not personal bigotries about certain practicies. They do not form a whole or uniform doctrine of human sexuality. In some cases it is not entirely clear what is meant at all. Some additional passages, occasionally cited, such as Deuteronomy 23:17 and Jude 1:6-7, are completely irrelevant to the discussion. Even the famous “Sodom and Gomorrah” passage in Genesis 19 could be quite irrelevant since what it appears to condemn is attempted gang rape, not sexual attraction or making love.

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It appears to me that this archbishop, among others, has just caved in to bumper-sticker thinking—the kind of thought that is so shallow it can be reduced to a slogan: “God said, I believe it, that settles it.” In fact, you can order this very slogan and glue it to your car!

More importantly, “the Christian faith” by definition is the faith that Christians hold, not the faith that some authoritative leader says we must hold. What gives the Nicene Creed its authority, for example, is not that it was formally adopted in the 4th century by a council of bishops but that it has been recited and accepted by millions of Christians world-wide ever since.

This particular archbishop should be gracious enough to admit that not all Christians agree about either the meaning or the significance of this handful of passages about sexual behaviors. If we don’t share the same faith, in his view, perhaps it is because he is trying to add on to the historic Christian confession of faith a narrowly interpreted conservative view of human sexuality — trying to make his attitudes about sex into an article of faith.

For example, in the Athanasian Creed (a statement which is also quite narrow and that I personally do not like), there is this key language: “Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all else, hold the true Christian faith.” It goes on to spell out the true Christian faith in 40-some lines, all of which explain what Christians are to believe about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and their inter-relationship, and none of which define or spell out one word about human sin, or human sexuality, or homosexuality. As dated or triumphalistic as this historic statement seems now, it sticks to the core content of what it means to be Christian: to cling to the faith we hold in common, not our opinions about sex.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Faith, LGBT Christian, Sex | No Comments »