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Archive for August, 2009

Go figure!

Friday, August 28th, 2009

The news is amazing, but who has time to comment on all of it. I’ve just added a category to stuff this stuff, and you can read it, roll your eyes, comment to Indwelling, or as they say a lot out west, “whatever . . . .”

Today, in the “U” department, courtesy of 365Gay from Associated Press :

Uruguay, a small country in South American which has been infamous for decades for dark right-wing politics :

Uruguay lawmakers OK gay adoption

By The Associated Press
08.28.2009 8:40am EDT

(Montevido, Uruguay) Lawmakers in Uruguay have approved a bill allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt.

Despite opposition from Uruguay’s Roman Catholic Church and some of the political opposition, the 99-seat Chamber or Representatives on Thursday passed the bill 40-13, with the remaining members absent.

It goes next to the Senate, which approved an earlier version of the bill in July but must now vote again on modifications. If it becomes law, Uruguay would be the first country in Latin American to allow adoption by gay and lesbian couples.

The law supported by socialist President Tabare Vazquez’s Broad Front coalition, which has already legalized gay civil unions and ended a ban on homosexuals in the armed forces.

Utah, a large state in the Western United States, not noted for its open minds, clear reasoning or progressive views of anything.

Utah governor: No special rights for gay people

By The Associated Press
08.27.2009 5:14pm EDT

(Salt Lake City) Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday that discriminating against gay people shouldn’t be illegal, although he would prefer it if everyone were treated with respect. In his most definitive comments yet on gay rights, Herbert told reporters he doesn’t believe sexual orientation should be a protected class in the way that race, gender and religion are.

“We don’t have to have a rule for everybody to do the right thing. We ought to just do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do and we don’t have to have a law that punishes us if we don’t,” Herbert said in his first monthly KUED news conference.

In Utah, it is legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender. The gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah has been trying to change state law for several years but has always been rebuffed by the Republican-controlled Legislature. Last year, the group got Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman’s support for extending some rights to gay people, although none of the bills it backed became law. Huntsman resigned earlier this month to become U.S. ambassador to China, leaving Herbert, who was lieutenant governor, in charge of the state until a special election in 2010.

Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public policy director, said Herbert’s comments show he doesn’t understand how prevalent discrimination is against gay and transgender people in Utah.

“I agree that we ought to be able to just do the right thing. Unfortunately, the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission makes it clear that not all employers are doing the right thing,” he said, referencing a city report released earlier this summer that said discrimination was rampant.

Salt Lake City is considering an anti-discrimination ordinance, but conservative state lawmakers already are eyeing passage of a state law that would trump it.

Herbert reserved judgment on the ordinance until he’s had a chance to read it, but said he doesn’t like the idea of protected classes in general.

“Where do you stop? I mean that’s the problem going down that slippery road. Pretty soon we’re going to have a special law for blue-eyed blondes … or people who are losing their hair a little bit,” Herbert said. “There’s some support for about anything we put out there. I’m just saying we end up getting bogged down sometimes with the minutiae of things that government has really no role to be involved in.”

Carlson said he wants to arrange a meeting with Herbert to help him understand the problems gay Utahns face.

“We don’t have an epidemic of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people getting fired or evicted. We do have a situation where gay and transgender people are being evicted and losing their jobs, not for job performance, but because they’re gay or transgender,” he said.

Apparently Uruguay is more progressive than either Utah or Florida. Note the following from day before yesterday:

Fla. gay adoption ban goes to state appeals court

By The Associated Press
08.26.2009 8:58am EDT

(Miami) Florida’s strict ban on adoptions by gay people is going before a state appeals court.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Gill, calls Florida’s gay adoption ban the broadest such law in the nation.

Posted in Go figure!, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | No Comments »

“Shut up” becomes open wide, oh my.

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Now Jericho was shut up inside and out because of the Israelites; no one came out and no one went in. • The LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with its king and soldiers. • You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. Thus you shall do for six days, • with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets. • When they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and all the people shall charge straight ahead.” — Joshua 6:1–5

This week is a milestone of sorts. Tuesday I observed, with very mixed feelings, the 35^th anniversary of my ordination into the Lutheran ministry. In 1974 it was unimaginable how my life would unfold. In 2009 it is almost unimaginable how different that world was, and what happened in those years.

If anyone then had tried to predict that by now I would be happily married and my man would be standing by me to cut the cake—openly, in front of a supportive Lutheran congregation—I would not have believed it.

I certainly would have hoped so, thinking then with youthful naivete that our generation was going to change the world. We set out to do so, of course. But looking back over three and a half decades, it is obvious that our generation also tried to stop change. Idealism, pragmatism, and inertia belong to all generations.

Yet the biggest surprise came in the last week before this personal anniversary. With the ELCA’s decision to lift its outright ban against lesbian/gay clergy, the wall of resistance has simply collapsed. Goodsoil and the cooperative GLBT-positive movements which have circled the ELCA since 1988 have sent up a great short, the wall has fallen down flat, and now . .. do we charge straight ahead? Is it our next goal to enter, pillage, rape and destroy?

For 35 years I have heard the outcry of reactionary and homophobic Christians, seen their hand-wringing, and worked behind the scenes to chip mortar out of the wall of their resistance. They are still of the mind (people like Solid Rock, CORE, Word Alone, etc.) that our purpose is to destroy the faith itself.

Nothing could be more wrong. If we (myself included) had wanted to destroy the Lutheran church or the Christian church, we could have done that more easily the way millions of others have done: as soon as you’re old enough that your parents don’t make you go to Sunday School and church, you run for the nearest exit and don’t look back. If we had wanted to destroy our “Christian society,” we wouldn’t need to go through the trauma and drama of being lesbian or gay. We could have just gotten married and raised the next generation of kids with no values whatever. Church and society can be destroyed with indifference, and anomie.

To be honest, the illustration from Joshua is not totally on target, for the LGBT people who have now succeeded, with the Lord’s power, in flattening a wall of resistance, have done it from within—by marching around and around inside the walls. We are not outsiders clamoring to get in. We are insiders—from infancy, childhood, baptism, confirmation, youth groups on—who did not exit, did not run, but stayed in this church, “shut up inside and out” because we have heard the Gospel’s truth and sensed the power of God even in this buttoned-down institution.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Coming Out, ELCA, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace, Ministry | No Comments »

Missouri Synod weighs in on gay clergy.

Monday, August 24th, 2009

First, this tidbit from KXMB CBS, in Bismarck, ND (with video?): “Update on the latest in religion news:”

“MINNEAPOLIS (AP) The president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has told members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that their votes on gay issues will have negative consequences.”The Reverend Gerald Kieschnick (KEESH’-nik) addressed the churchwide assembly of the ELCA a day after its delegates lifted a ban on partnered gays and lesbians serving as clergy.

“Kieschnick said that decision will hurt relations between the nation’s two largest Lutheran denominations and “cause additional stress and disharmony within the ELCA.” Conservative Evangelical Lutheran congregations won’t be forced to hire gay clergy, but opponents nevertheless warned that straying from Scripture could result in a loss of members and finances.

“Lutheran CORE, a conservative group within the ELCA that fought the gay clergy policy, will hold a convention in Indianapolis next month to review its next steps.” Sound: CUT ..235 (08/23/09)

I’ve been waiting for this since early Saturday — news from the Minneapolis Assembly about what “greetings” the head of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod would bring in light of the ELCA’s assembly actions in the days before.Next I quote from the blog letter from Phil Soucy, Communications Director for Lutherans Concerned/North America:

“‘Greetings’ were brought to the assembly by Reverend Dr. Gerald Kieschnick, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. … The Reverend Dr. did not smile, but began his message by quoting Paul in 2 Corinthians 15: ‘…we implore you, on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. What a blessing it is to know that our sin is forgiven, removed from us as far as the east is from the west because of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on Calvary’s cross…’ . . .”He later quoted from the Kolb-Wengert translation of the Formula of Concord on doctrinal controversy and discord, to wit: ‘…for these controversies are not merely misunderstandings or semantic arguments where someone might think that one group had not sufficiently grasped what the other group was trying to say or that the tensions were based upon only a few specific words of relatively little consequence. Rather, these controversies deal with important and significant matters, and they are of such a nature that the positions of the erring party neither could nor should be tolerated in the church of God, much less be excused or defended. Therefore necessity demands explanation of these disputed articles on the basis of God’s word and reliable writings so that those with a proper Christian understanding could recognize which position regarding the points under dispute is in accord with God’s word and the Christian Augsburg confession and which is not. And so the Christians of good will, who are concerned about the truth, might protect and guard themselves from the errors and corruptions that have appeared among us…’

“His was a serious message of rebuke, delivered somberly and, as he said, ‘…in deep humility with a heavy heart and no desire whatsoever to offend. The decisions by this assembly to grant non-celibate homosexual ministers the privilege of serving as rostered leaders in the ELCA and the affirmation of same-gender unions as pleasing to God will undoubtedly cause additional stress and disharmony within the ELCA. It will also negatively affect the relationships between our two church bodies. The current division between our churches threatens to become a chasm…’”

I am not at all surprised by Dr. K’s grim and humorless chastisement of the ELCA for taking the courageous step of opening the gates to lesbian/gay/partnered clergy. Actually, I chuckled at the line that he said ‘…in deep humility with a heavy heart and no desire whatsoever to offend.” Well, Rev. Dr., you certainly offended a lot of us, then, without desiring to! Neat trick, doubtless grounded in backward thinking if not in passion or desire.This is the very heart of the deep divide which has opened in the last four decades between different groups of Lutherans. The Missouri Synod has become more and more 19^th century in its obsession about perfect agreement in all matters, even if it means continuing to cut all relationships with other Lutherans who differ. Perfect agreement in theology means nothing short of perfect thought control, and LC–MS seems to have achieved it. Kieschnick’s heavy-hearted remarks to the ELCA were not only a rebuke of us, but clearly a warning shot fired at his own churchbody. Don’t even think about raising any new discussions of human sexuality in the LC–MS. It is a settled matter which will not be revisited.

Kieschnick’s remarks, and the severe quotation from the Formula of Concord – which he obviously chose to lift out of its 16^th century context and attempt to apply it in the 21^st century – has all the marks of Missouri’s obsession about sin and evil, lockstep doctrinal conformity, and dire consequences for difference of opinion. Not only is he and his officialdom—to which the LC-MS churchbody has remained captive since J.A.O. Preus’ take-over of the LC-MS in the 1970s—unwilling to have any honest dialogue about where Christians disagree in matters of faith, he has chosen not to respect the deeply-held convictions of other fellow-Lutherans/fellow Christians who hold to those convictions by reason of their own conscience.

In other words, Kieschnick’s and LC–MS’s official interpretation of tough contemporary issues and matters of faith are the only ones which may have validity anywhere in Christendom. Any other point of view, according to his rough application of the quote from a document written in A.D. 1580, “should not be tolerated in the church of God.”

Has Kieschnick forgotten that the dispute back then which the Reformers could not tolerate were disputes with the Roman Catholic Church, not with fellow evangelicals? And has he not noticed that Pope Benedict XVI himself has basically said that all of us — all Lutherans and all Protestants and everybody else who are not under his personal authority are not even a “church” in the proper sense? In effect Kieschnick’s rebuke of the ELCA, a churchbody nearly twice the size of the LC–MS parallels Benedict’s rebuke of all other Christians. In Kieschnick’s case it is utter arrogance masquerading as doctrinal purity. In Benedict’s case it is utter arrogance masquerading as divine authority.

But Kieschnick’s quote is wrong for a more fundamental reason. Read this again, carefully: “Therefore necessity demands explanation of these disputed articles on the basis of God’s word and reliable writings so that those with a proper Christian understanding could recognize which position regarding the points under dispute is in accord with God’s word and the Christian Augsburg confession and which is not.”

Why I find this to be a deeply flawed application of a 440 year old document is that it refers to “these disputed articles”, meaning articles of faith. Do we need to remind Rev. Dr. Kieschnick that the Augsburg Confession (published in 1530) does not even contain an “article of faith” on human sexuality, let alone homosexuality? Should it not be pointed out to him that articles of faith are about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, justification by grace through faith, etc., and not about anthropology, sociology, biology or psychology. Christians do not put our faith in these matters or in our current understandings of any of them, even if we are influenced by them because they change. And when matters of anthropology, sociology, biology or psychology change, our opinions and attitudes change with them.

Strictly speaking, our faith is never in ourselves (gay or straight, Catholic or Lutheran, woman or man, married or single, sinner or saint). But the LC-MS obsession, like other fundamentalist religious obsessions, is that they get to define with exactitude what is sinful and against the will of God and therefore cannot be tolerated in the church of God.

As. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:36, “Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only ones it has reached?” Yes, it’s kind of funny that Paul said that as a rebuke of one congregation with whom he disagreed over allowing women to speak in church, a real issue of faith that also has divided the ELCA and the LC–MS since the 1970s. (Missouri Synod does not ordain women to the ministry, and tries to keep them out of all authoritative positions over men in the church from the local congregation on up.) Their reasoning is as fundamentalist as you can get: they can point to some verses in the Bible that they say with vehement certainty applies to the present times, and because of their own certainty they will not even grant the civility to talk with a sister or brother in Christ who differs in discernment of what applies or doesn’t apply. In doing so they completely bypass and ignore a lot of other Holy Writ that reminds us to listen to one another, to pray for one another, to bear one another’s burdens, and to draw near to Christ rather than searching the scriptures for a proof text. They ignore the divine permission which Christians are given to “bind and loose” even matters which are covered in the Scriptures.

Maybe we will, sadly, look back on 2009 as the year when Christianity definitely began to crack into two irreconcilable camps. Each of us believes that we are reconciled to God, but not by our own achievements, conformity, certainty or doctrinal purity, but purely and solely by grace. Think about that, Rev. Dr.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Environment, Faith, History, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Ministry, Public Affairs | No Comments »

The view from the middle of Sunset Boulevard.

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

Some wisecracker years ago said that “the church is the only army that shoots its own wounded.” As more atrocities from our armed services come to light from both Afghanistan and Iraq, that may not really be true, but you get the point. Christians are not successfully warring against the forces of darkness on behalf of Jesus if we are constantly beating up other Christians. It is no wonder that millions of people today want nothing to do anymore with any church, because they can’t distinguish between good church and bad church.

How can we let them know that we trust in God’s grace, and don’t believe that God is trying to trick us all into stumbling headlong into damnation?

Today I sat at our parish’s booth in the local street fair, Sunset Junction, which has been going on every August for 30 years to build bridges between ethnic groups and across the chasm between straight identities and gay people. The astonishing diversity and I guess even perversity is palpable when watching it point blank from the middle lane of Sunset Boulevard, closed to traffic for 36 hours.

This is the first year that our congregation has put up the effort to get a booth, think up a theme, and take banners, tables, chairs, literature, free giveaways (we ordered New Testaments from the American Bible Society) and ask volunteers to staff 2-hour shifts. The street fair is decidedly a party atmosphere—the music is deafening and a lot of beer is consumed to wash down either Mexican, Salvadoreno or Thai food—and yet it is surprising how many people actually did look at our banner and posters and take home flyers and a New Testament. We even had a real mail box for people to leave written prayer requests, which we will lift up in our parish life this week.

The reason I mention all this is because this afternoon a woman stepped up, and her first question was, “You’re not Missouri Synod, are you?” She had been raised in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and went through a K–8 parochial school in the Chicago suburbs. Now she won’t go near an LC-MS church. “Too many rules,” she said flatly.

Ten minutes hadn’t past since another woman had stopped to stare at our banner, and weigh whether it was worth stopping to talk, before one of us noticed and called out a “Hello” to her. The banner, in addition to our congregation’s name, etc., bears this slogan:

“Where Religion Doesn’t Hurt.”

She told me a heart-breaking story of having been expelled—she used the word excommunicated —from her church eight years ago. She had been publicly humiliated in church for her sin, which I deduced must have been over a marital break-up. Years later, she is still deeply wounded but also still longing for a spiritual community where she will not be tested or questioned about her sins or failings, or pushed out the door.

Clearly, our church is a place where wounds are healed, but people don’t always recognize the different between a church that continues to wound and one that wants to be a place of healing.

It convinces me all the more that Christian ethics are first and foremost a matter of personal discipline and discernment. As a community, our first duty is to stand with someone who is struggling with difficult ethical decisions or choices, and stand with them even in a failure or a mistake, before the community even begins to talk about condoning or not condoning a behavior.

Martin Luther rebelled against Roman Catholic Canon Law. To this day, the Lutheran Church has no such “code” by which a member can be tried or excluded. We hope and expect that each person, guided by the light of the Holy Spirit, will measure him or herself against the Law until it is clear that each person is in need of God’s forgiveness and grace. Once I am thoughtful and clear about my own need for grace, it also becomes clear that I am in no position to judge another. When you have a whole collection of individual Christians who are clear that none of us can play the divine judge (“Let the one who has not sinned cast the first stone,” John 8:7), it ought to temper the temptation of a congregation or a churchbody to condemn anyone, to pass judgment, or to exclude even a single sinner from the community of grace.

What interested me, too, was that both of these women were heterosexual, and weren’t wounded over being lesbian or gay. Yet both of them had felt judged, even condemned, by harsh religiosity that has forgotten the place we all must have before the throne of grace.

Dear sisters, this is not right. This should never happen to you. Please give us a second chance to proclaim the good news, not wallow in the self-righteousness of those who imagine they are “holier than thou.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Faith, Hollywood, Living by Grace, Ministry | No Comments »

I lift your names prayerfully.

Friday, August 21st, 2009

I am still trying to grasp the enormity of this action in Minneapolis today, where one of the major Protestant churches in the United States reached its “tipping point” about the presence of lesbian and gay pastors in its churches, not just lesbian and gay people.

The tipping points, plural, were four resolutions on “Ministry Policies.” (Votes were taken in a different order than originally proposed, so if you’re following these from the original “Recommendation on Ministry Policies” published months ago, the resolutions were addressed today in this order: 3, 1 , 2, 4.) And the tipping points were 77%, 60%, 55% and 69%.

The actions essentially readdressed policy change that came before the prior biennial Assembly in Chicago in 2007, when the vote went ever-so-slightly in favor of the status quo (celibacy as a life sentence for LGBT clergy). Sociologists and historians will chart today’s actions when they write the ful story of how a homophobic society has continually and inexorably liberalized about homosexuality to the degree that every institution in it will eventually find a way to recognize and get in sync with the change.

But because this issue affects me so personally and specifically, I am sort of in a daze right now. Earlier in the day, I met with another gay pastor who has felt compelled to leave the Lutheran ministry, but has been waiting to see whether the ELCA will finally welcome his gifts and his energies. Now I am thinking and feeling—with a kind of stunned quietude—of the efforts and the sacrifices of countless people for nearly 40 years who would have rejoiced to see this day.

Joel, Don, Marc, Bryan, especially, I remember you and salute you in your heavenly place where you can fully know the heart and mind of God while we in this world struggle to discern what is right and where we are being led. Of these friends, the youngest of whom has been gone 14 years, all died of HIV/AIDS. One was a Lutheran pastor, two were seminarians never ordained, and one was a layman of extraordinary faithfulness to a church that had rejected him.

From the ELCA news release late today:

“Allison Guttu of the ELCA Metropolitan New York Synod said, ‘I have seen congregations flourish while engaging these issues; I have seen congregations grow recognizing the gifts of gay and lesbian pastors.’”

Now the church lately begins to recognize the gifts of gay and lesbian pastors, and I thank God for their insight. But I am mindful of the decades (including those long before my time) when the validity of ministry on behalf of sexual minorities was scarcely even thought of. For years and years, gay pastors quietly and often secretly ministered to gay Christians while the institution ignored and despised both. The Word was proclaimed, confessions were offered and absolutions pronounced, the bread and wine were blessed and given, and all of us quietly, faithfully continued to hope for this day.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Recap of the 4 resolutions on Ministry Policies:

In the order considered today and voted upon . . .

Resolution # For/Against Total Votes Cast Percentage of Majority

3 771 – 230 1001 77%

1 619 – 402 1021 60%

2 559 – 451 1010 55%

4 667 – 307 974 69%

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, ELCA, Faith, History, HIV and AIDS, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, Ministry, PRAYERS, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | No Comments »

A mid-day cliff hanger.

Friday, August 21st, 2009

I thought it was all going to be over by now. At 9:15 a.m. (Los Angeles time) two resolutions had passed, by 77% and 60.6% majorities. Two down, two to go. But since I am not in Minneapolis, I am missing the procedural stuff. Apparently the agenda got postponed, ran over-time or something, and now the remaining two resolutions (re: my life, my integrity, my ministry and that of hundreds of others like who are lesbian or gay and partnered or hope to be partnered someday) are dangling from the cliff of Roberts Rules of Order. See the ELCA News Release below.

A thousand people are gathered in a huge room in downtown Minneapolis to politely argue with or attempt to persuade/cajole/manipulate one another into changing their point of view! Truly the ELCA is now in the middle of the road. As I said recently, the UCC and the Episcopal Church are clearly on its left flank. The United Presbyterian Church USA is on its right flank. Our churchbody is in a relationship of full communion with those other Protestant church bodies. And yesterday, the same ELCA Assembly voted 958 to 51 (a 95% majority) to enter into full communion with the United Methodist Church, which is way right of us on human sexuality. Last I checked they were still defrocking even straight Methodist clergy just for participating in a blessing ceremony for two lesbians or two gay men.

The problem of being in the middle of the road, you know, is that you get sidewsiped—from both sides. So as we dangle from the cliff, stay tuned!

—Pastor Dan Hooper

ELCA News Service 09-CWA-32-MRC

August 21, 2009

ELCA Assembly Takes First Steps on Ministry Policies Document

“MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) — Voting members of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are in the middle of taking steps to make it possible for the Lutherans in same-sex relationships to serve as professional leaders in the denomination.”The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 17-23 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. About 2,000 people are participating, including 1,045 ELCA voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly is “God’s work. Our hands.”

“Voting members have begun considering four distinct resolutions Aug. 21, which are designed to change current ELCA policy that requires the denomination’s professional leaders to abstain from “homosexual sexual relationships.”

“The resolutions are contained in a report and recommendation on ministry policies developed by the Task Force for the ELCA Studies on Sexuality.

“A majority vote is required to pass each of the four resolutions.

“With a 771-230 vote, the assembly amended and approved a resolution that states “that in the implementation of any resolutions on ministry policies, the ELCA commit itself to bear one another’s burdens, love the neighbor, and respect the bound consciences of all.”

“With a 619-402 vote, the assembly approved a second resolution that commits the ELCA “to finding ways to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountably life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”

“Prior to considering the two resolutions, voting members defeated a “substitute” motion with a 344-670 vote to strike out all four resolutions and replace it with the following: ‘rostered leadership of this church who are homosexual in their self understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual sexual relations and practicing homosexual persons are precluded from rostered leadership in this church.’ Albert Quie, voting member from the ELCA Minneapolis Synod, made the substitute motion.

“As voting members were considering resolution two, Edward A. Kirst, voting member from the ELCA Northeastern Ohio Synod, made a motion to require a two-thirds vote—instead of a majority—for approving the remaining resolutions. That motion was defeated with a 407-576 vote.

“During the afternoon plenary, voting members will consider the two remaining resolutions—that the denomination find a way for Lutherans in same-sex relationships to serve as ordained ministers and other professional leadership roles in the church, and that the denomination consider a proposal for how it will exercise flexibility within existing structures and practices to allow for Lutherans in same-sex relations to be approved for professional service in the church.”

Information about the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly can be found at http://www.elca.org/assembly on the Web.

For information contact: John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news

ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, ELCA, History, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Ministry, Sex, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Tornado of the Spirit?

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

I had wanted to be there. I had hoped it would be a watershed event, a tipping point in the history of the church, or at least of our church, the Lutheran church.

As many of you know, we couldn’t go this time, primarily because of my spouse’s serious back injury just before Holy Week. (He is recovering well, after a disastrous fall which fractured 7 vertebrae —not 4 as previously stated— and 2 ribs, but after 19 weeks still has to wear a rigid neck and body brace for periods of each day.)

So I am dependent upon the reports of others as to how and when the Spirit is moving among us as the Church is gathered in it formal biennial Assembly in the Mini-Apple.

LC/NA Communications Director Phil Soucy’s e-mails have been most helpful, especially as he colored in details of the day: that while the debate was storming inside the Convention Center on Wednesday about the proposed and amended social statement of the church Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, a real live tornado swept through downtown Minneapolis, violent enough to send order people to the basement.

“And then there was the Scripture text for tonight’s Goodsoil worship service at Central Lutheran Church, across from the Convention Center. Mark 4: 35-41. The story of crossing the Sea of Galilee during which Christ calmed the seas. The story in which it is said that ‘A great windstorm arose…’ And it did.”We had a tornado, with not a lot of warning. The problem with being deep inside a large structure like the Convention Center is that you are completely insulated from what is going on outside. Suddenly there was a shrill lip whistle heard in Goodsoil Central and an authoritative voice said that “no option, you are required to go to the lowest level of the center and stay there. Tornado coming.”"And it did, a real tornado. Came down on 12th Street between the Hilton Gardens we are staying in and Central Lutheran. All the tentage, tables, and chairs of the meal service and Pub that Central Lutheran had been using to support the assembly were pushed down and thrown around. Some of the tables ended up on the roof of the Convention Center. We were hustled to the bottom floor of the Convention Center. The Assembly kept meeting. Guess they thought the Assembly was safe enough where it was. Luckily no one was injured near the Convention Center, and none of debris penetrated the substantial glass on the Center.”

He goes on to recount the “storm” inside the center as amendments to this pivotal document were considered. In the end, amendments which would have weakened the progressive tone of “Gift and Trust” were not adopted. And then the vote was taken.Mind you, under ELCA rules, the Churchwide Assembly is the highest legislative authority — not the bishops or the Church Council. When more than 1,000 voting members (not delegates: they can vote their own conscience independent of the people who elected them) gather and vote, we must say that the Church has spoken. “There was one brief moment when it looked like we were going to move without debate straight through the amendment we were working on to the actual Social Statement and vote without any parliamentary debate at all – just vote on the amendment then just turn right around and vote on the Social Statement, done. The motion was defeated, but it gave everyone a scare.”All the efforts to change the Social Statement to make it reflect a-man-and-a-woman bias, an exclusive bias, were defeated.”The vote apparently was a cliff-hanger of the highest order, and will certainly be recounted in the future either with great joy or with much hand-wringing, depending on which side you’re on. The vote: “The time for debate had to be extended past the scheduled end time to allow for as much debate as had been scheduled. As the additional time was running down, finally a motion was made to call the question. And a vote was had, 676-338.”So: Total ballots cast: 1,014. Needed to pass, a two-thirds super-majority. [Math computation: 1014 x 2 ÷ 3 = 676.] Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust was adopted by a 2/3 or 66.67% majority exactly, or 676 votes. Was this the workings of the Spirit? “Ross Murray [LC/NA Director of Youth, Young Adult, and Family Ministry] said someone asked him if it was a sign from the Holy Spirit that a great wind arose when the question of the Social Statement was taken up in earnest. He said he replied that, yes, it could have been just as much a sign as was the sun coming out when the Social Statement passed.”

My gut instinct is to think, no, this new “Gift and Trust” is not the coming of the Kingdom [sic] of God, nor the collapse of the Berlin Wall or the walls of Jericho. It will not automatically open every door to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer or questioning individual. But it will provide a better theological and theoretical basis for the policies and the ministries of the whole church.

I am emotionally and spiritually unprepared to think much of anything grander about such progress in my church, because I have spent the better part of 35 years listening to negative decisions and action, and more than a truckload of rejective, punitive, and hurtful if not hateful speech. But the Spirit tells me, quietly, to remain open and not to be cynical.

Today’s Assembly action, as reported in an ELCA news release, was that the voting members adopted “implementing resolutions” by a 71% majority vote (695 to 285):

“MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) – Congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have been asked to implement the newly adopted social statement on human sexuality by continuing the study of sexuality, assist members to welcome people who are gay and lesbians, encourage comprehensive sex education programs in public schools, support the church’s work to combat HIV/AIDS and to take the “spirit of this statement” into all appropriate activities.”Most notable among these resolutions reported in the news release: “The resolutions also asked the ELCA’s Board of Pensions to amend its benefit policies to bring them in line with the social statement, presumably to provide benefits for partners of ELCA employees who are in same-gender relationships.”Okay, so maybe Jericho has thrown open a couple of gates after all. Maybe it’s just as well I couldn’t be there. I might have gotten very emotional at that point. Stay tuned.—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in ELCA, History, LGBT Christian, Sex, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Tuesday in Minneapolis.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Here is part of the synopsis of the ELCA Assembly from LC/NA communications director Phil Soucy for Tuesday, August 18:

“The principal activity on the assembly floor was related to the Social Statement on Human Sexuality. First, it was introduced onto the floor of the assembly. Following the introduction, the assembly went into a quasi-Committee of the Whole, for the purpose of having a discussion without the encumbrance of parliamentary procedure. People simply lined up at the microphones labeled Red and Green depending on whether they were against or for the adoption of the Social Statement. The Presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson, using a computer program that kept track of who arrived in the line at the mic when, called on people alternating between against and for until he ran out of time or people to call on.

“More time had to be allocated because things ran late in the morning, and part of the afternoon had to be used to finish out the 60 minutes allotted for this discussion.

“Later that afternoon there was a hearing held on the Social Statement, among other hearings. There was also a hearing before dinner on the Ministry Policies and one after – to allow those who went to the Social Statement hearing to go to one on Ministry Policies.

“I will not bother to tell you the arguments that were made. You are perfectly capable of guessing all of the arguments from both sides. They have been made over and over again. I heard no argument, pro or con, that I had not heard before. That does not mean that the arguments should not be made. They should be.

“It is important to note that the disagreement we have with those opposed to full inclusion is not over the authority of Scripture in the life of the church, or in the life of any member of the church. Scholars disagree on the interpretations of Scripture, and that is something Lutherans can do till the Second Coming. Questioning someone else’s interpretation of Scripture does not constitute an assault on the authority of Scripture.

“In the evening, we held a wonderful event with music provided by Ovation and a panel discussion by the subjects of the DVD sent to all the voting members, “One Baptism, Many Gifts.” The DVD is a picture into the lives of faith of two dedicated lesbian pastors, Katrina Foster and Robyn Hartwig, and an equally dedicated gay candidate for ordination, Javen Swanson, including their families. Copies of the DVD are available from LC/NA for $5, at Goodsoil Central, Room 200, in the Convention Center during the churchwide assembly, and after the assembly from the LC/NA office in St. Paul or online through www.lcna.org.

“Tomorrow brings the parliamentary consideration of the Social Statement and vote for adoption.”

Phil Soucy

Director Communications LC/NA

communications@lcna.org

Posted in ELCA, LGBT Christian, Ministry, Sex | No Comments »

The first hurdle was the biggest.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

As I mentioned recently, the ELCA Assembly’s biggest hurdle right now to openings its gates for lesbian/gay/partnered clergy is whether the recommendation before the Assembly, meeting right now in Minneapolis, will have to be adopted by a 2/3 supermajority or just a simple majority.

The ELCA is certainly not all of the same mind about what to do with LGBT people who are Christians, let alone what to do with LGBT clergy.

The people on the extreme right, shouting “Armageddon” have a plan, of course. Either the homosexuals have to get out or the conservatives have to get out. Pity they won’t be around to here the stories of their own children and grandchildren who come out of their closets as faithful children of God and who need understanding and compassion, not judgment and rejection. Personally, I doubt that these few congregations (perhaps 100 out of 10,000 in the ELCA nationwide) will move to the right and join the Missouri Synod or the Wisconsin Synod, which are more to the right and righter of the ELCA. Those heavily German synods are culturally so stuck in their 19th century roots they refuse to even live in the world that exists today. So if there is a schism, the small break-away group will likely float out there as another tiny sect for a generation or more.

“Not all of the same mind” is of course an understatement. Like many other segments of American society right now, the church is almost evenly divided over homosexuality and its related issues. This is not a simple red-state/blue-state division for the ELCA, either, since the majority of its membership nationally lives in the heartland states, while the majority of the American population lives in the coastal states and large cities.
A less controversial but important ecumenical issue before the Minneapolis Assembly is whether or not to adopt a “full communion” status with the United Methodist Church, a much larger and more conservative church body in America with high percentage of its churches in small towns spread throughout the heartland. What drives the division of the house on sexuality, of course, is what also drives the so-called “culture war”: LGBT people, when they wake up to their sexuality, sexual orientation or gender identity, are less likely to stay on the prairie but take the high road to the nearest big town.

If the ELCA is pretty much divided, it could mean that “the vote” on the Ministry Recommendations could come close to the 50% majority line, and tip either way. But the first hurdle is that change (dropping the present anti-gay policies) not require a 2/3 majority for passage.

So the first, big hurdle? Associated Press reports, through 365Gay.com, “Lutheran gay clergy proposal passes 1st hurdle.”

“(Minneapolis) Leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination prayed for unity Monday as they waded into a weeklong debate over homosexuality and the clergy, while a rule change that would allow people in same-sex relationships to serve cleared its first hurdle.

“The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is meeting this week in Minneapolis, is debating a proposal to allow individual congregations to hire gays and lesbians in committed relationships as clergy. A final vote is not expected until Friday.
“But delegates on Monday rejected a move by critics of the proposal to require approval from a two-thirds supermajority instead of a simple majority when the measure comes to the final vote.
“Supporters of the supermajority said a higher hurdle was needed to signal wide support for what they called a major change in the church’s approach to homosexuality. But the move received support from just 43 percent of the 1,045 voting delegates.
“ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson said earlier in the day that the outcome of the majority versus supermajority vote shouldn’t be seen as strongly indicating the ultimate outcome of the debate.
“The ELCA delegates gathered at the Minneapolis Convention Center also will consider a broader statement on human sexuality, a 34-page document that tries to establish a theological framework for differing views on homosexuality. Critics say it would simply liberalize the ELCA’s attitudes. A vote on that document is scheduled for Wednesday.
“At 4.7 million members and about 10,000 congregations in the United States, the ELCA would be one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance on clergy.
“In 2003, the 2 million-member Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, deepening a long-running rift over homosexuality in the worldwide Anglican Communion and leading to the formation of the more conservative Anglican Church in North America, which claims 100,000 members.”

The sex and culture wars, according to numerous commentators, is triggering a slow but sure realignment of religious beliefs in America. People will get up and switch congregations, or church bodies, until the find a new comfort zone where their beliefs are reinforced and their prejudices not challenged. I left in the last two paragraphs of the AP story to illustrate the size factors in this debate. Stayed tuned on that also!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, ELCA, LGBT Christian, Ministry, Sex, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Global or local, change comes painfully slow.

Monday, August 17th, 2009

The recent brouhaha within the Anglican communion over the Episcopal Church decision to continue liberalizing its views of gay/lesbian clergy is apparently nowhere stronger than in Africa. It has been estimated that within a few years, Africa will be the defacto geographic center of Christendom. Not Rome, not Salt Lake City, not Minneapolis. Hmmm.

I have ranted before about Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola, who is extremely hostile to homosexuality and is leading the fight to splinter up the worldwide Anglican communion over the presence of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. Although the ELCA and the Episcopal Church are in full communion, strictly speaking I don’t have a dog in their fight, so Archbishop Akinola doesn’t frighten me.

So much the global perspective on the culture and sex wars here in America. It is hard to open up and relax a church body in America when it fears to weaken relationships in the ecumenical scene which it has spent generations strengthening.

But what about ordinary people of faith at the local level? Are we chopped liver to the Christian church while bishops and archbishops angrily argue over the doctrine of sex? (Is there even a doctrine of sex?)

This past Sunday, a visitor walked in to worship with us in Hollywood, who identified himself afterward as an ELCA pastor from the adjacent synod who has been out from under his parish call for several years. He spent them getting an advanced degree but is now struggling with the internal faith/vocation issue of whether to seek to return to active ministry or not. He is gay and partnered, among other things.

In our system, you have 3 years to accept another call to a position or you automatically drop off the clergy roster of the ELCA, unless some extension or special circumstances are arranged. The clock is ticking for this gay pastor, as it is for all of us who have spent our careers serving a church that has been hostile to (at best) indifferent to our presence.

This week’s vote in Minneapolis may be helpful or meaningful for him, but the most important thing remains his own sense of discernment. Does he believe he still has a vocation to serve in word and sacrament? Is he willing and able to make enormous sacrifices to serve in Christ’s stead in a world still filled with hatred, fear, phobias, and Christians with feet of clay?

This is the local expression of the sex/culture and faith wars. Who was it (a famous somebody?) that said: “the greatest battles a person will ever fight are inside his own head”?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

“Sex! Schism! Sky is falling! Armageddon! Oh my!”

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

Above, presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, right, leading Assembly worship

I have postponed talking about the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America until the last possible moment, and for good reason. This mother of all Lutheran conventions opens tomorrow in Minneapolis, and with all the religious hype and theological terror of the Book of Revelation, if not the special effects of such apocalypse.

Because sex is on the agenda again, there are conservative voices who have been threatening to start the Armageddon war right there on the prairie. The “sky is falling” flag of Chicken Little is being carried most openly by the Word Alone Network of New Brighton, Minnesota. Their last conservative knee-jerk convention was held in another hotbed of activism, Golden Valley, Minnesota.

“God’s authority is being hijacked in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” wrote Betsy Carlson, the Editor of their Network News in the July-August edition. I thought conservatives still believed that women are to remain silent in the church (1 Corinthians 14:33-35), but I guess they are just as good as casuistry as anybody.

Word Alone officially thinks that the ELCA is “moving toward schism,” much the same as observers of the Anglican /Episcopal Church USA impasse think so. But when a chunk falls off an iceberg into the sea, however, one cannot attribute the split-off to the iceberg. It is not the ELCA which is moving toward or causing a schism, but the little piece of it which has defined its mission around crying: “Sex! Schism! War! Sky is falling! Oh my!”

Seriously, nobody wants to see splits or disunity, but perhaps it would be best, even in God’s compassionate gaze, if the statistically minor group which cannot stand the thought of homosexuals in the larger fellowship would just take themselves and their particular slant on Christian faith elsewhere. God love ‘em, God bless ‘em. They are never going to be happy trying to keep unity, if they’ve spent the better part of the last 8 or 10 years planting the seeds of schism, building their mass mailing lists, raising funds and producing their DVDs filled with alarm.

It reminds me of those few but unhappy times when I was having something very ugly going on in my stomach. (If you are faint of heart, skip down a paragraph.) I felt absolutely terrible until my stomach involuntarily forced a vomit. It always amazed me that after that brief and icky moment how much better I felt almost immediately. (The Scriptures are not afraid of such graphic language, incidentally; the word occurs 12 times in the NRSV; cf, Ecclesiasticus 31:21.) I suspect the ELCA will feel considerably better when those within it who cannot stomach gay and lesbian Christians serving Christ in their midst simply eject themselves.

So what is at stake this year are two major things: first, a major teaching or Social Statement on Human Sexuality is up for a vote. So far the ELCA has adopted nine such teaching documents on these topics: abortion, church in society, the death penalty, economic life, education, the environment, health and healthcare, peace and race, ethnicity and culture. “Our Calling in Education” was adopted with a few amendments by the Churchwide Assembly two years ago, but I think I yawned right through the vote. Education is probably more important to society as a whole than individual sexual behavior, but it doesn’t stir the passions (no pun intended).

“Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” is a responsibly prepared social teaching that of course has flaws everywhere. More truthfully than in the past, the entire process that led to its drafting has been transparent about the lack of consensus on controversial matters of sexuality. You can find the proposed statement here, even if it is a bit buried on the ELCA web site.

The 2007 ELCA Assembly heard a progress report on “Gift and Trust” and delegates demanded that the study commission not avoid talking about gay and lesbian people serving as pastors and lay professional leaders, but “directed the task force assigned to develop the social statement on human sexuality to ‘specifically address and make recommendations to the 2009 Churchwide Assembly on changes to any policies that preclude practicing homosexual persons from the rosters of this church.’” the commission also has brought in a Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies, a four-footed beast that will take some careful husbandry to get into the barn. The recommendations include the lifting of the ban against partnered lesbian and gay people from serving as pastors or lay professionals, which would reverse the odious 1990 Vision & Expectations and Guidelines for Discipline which the ELCA’s church council had put into place quickly and furtively to block the ordination of three highly qualified but openly gay seminary graduates. The fourth and final of these recommendations, unfortunately, is a cumbersome 67-lines long and almost defies summary of its 7 “Resolveds.”

The first order of business that concerns us beginning tomorrow is whether or not the these liberalizing recommendations will require a 2/3 majority vote for adoption. That will be a decision about the Rules, which must be agreed upon along with the Agenda. What we have been told, however, is that to require a 2/3 majority for passage would itself require a 2/3 majority vote on such an Assembly rule, so it seems unlikely.

In my deepest safe places of the heart, I know I should be at prayer about these matters. If these recommendations pass this Assembly, the wheels would be put in motion to remove the ban that has kept me off the ELCA clergy roster since 1991. But closer to the surface, I just want it all to be over with quickly. I remain neither hopeful nor optimistic, but I do put my trust in the Holy Spirit. Stay tuned.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, ELCA, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, Ministry, Sex, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Perception and deception, hype and hypocrisy.

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Flipping through some papers I had saved from months ago, I came across a “Naked City” column by Christopher Lisotta from Frontiers Newsmagazine last January—an interview with publicist Howard Bragman, who recently wrote the book on P.R., “Where’s My Fifteen Minutes?”. There was an interesting comment:

Frontiers: “You write PR no longer means “public relations.” What does PR mean?”

Bragman: “PR stands for the concepts of perception and reality. We live in a society where perception has become more important than reality.”

No kidding? But never mind the fact that the advertising and P.R. industry has made this true. We are a nation of plastic, imitation, phoney, lights and mirrors, “truthiness.” I once read the fine print on a 0 calories soft drink can, and it admitted to “artificial imitation flavors” on the ingredients list. Not just imitation flavors, but artificial imitation flavors. How much more phoney could you want? How American!

It is true that “perception” and “reality” are the defining elements in a public world made transparent by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and IP addresses.

When it comes to LGBT people, the reality of our lives still doesn’t really matter to the public. Their perception is that we are weird, sex-crazed, pleasure-loving creatures with no ethics but huge wads of discretionary income. We are muscle-bound girlie men –both gays and lesbians. We all carry the AIDS virus, we hate heterosexual marriage, we all molest children and we are bringing God’s judgment down on America, a nation of “fag enablers.”

That’s the stereotype. That’s the perception. Never mind that we work and pay taxes, that we make decent (and tasteful) homes, raise the best kids, volunteer for everything and donate to all kinds of causes; that we serve our nation both in uniform and in every kind of job and profession. Never mind that we are often care-givers for the elderly and those with HIV.

And never mind that millions of us go to church, for God’s sake. (If it weren’t for gay organists, choir directors and florists, the church would be a dreary and silent box of self-righteous people.)

But the perception is that we shake our naked boobs and butts on pride parade floats, and secretly want to sodomize our neighbor’s pre-teen children.

So how do we change the public’s idiotic perception and derail the lying machine which cranks out hateful speech and packages it as truth? In my view, probably not by hiring P.R. firms. They did that the fight Proposition 8 a year ago, and gay/lesbian coupledom was so sanitized for the public that we ceased to exist.

The best thing any of us can do is to come out—because unlike Hollywood’s movie stars and publicity seekers, we won’t get photos in People magazine. Most of us just come out to friends, families and close neighbors. Since the already know us, we have enormous influence over their perception of other lesbian/gay people and will actually change their perception by bringing it into line with the reality of what they know in our lives.

Bragman talks about clients who come to his firm because they believe their reality is better than the public perception, so they want to improve the perception. There is, in my words, a perception deficit which good publicity and solid integrity can correct.

Not so with “truthiness,” a word minted by friends of the Bush administration. All something needs is the “look and feel” of truth whether or not it is true. In short, public perception is more important than deception of the public. This month’s Advocate, for example, questions whether the LGBT community has been deceived by the Obama administration. Our perception before last November was that he was our hope for solid, systemic change. But have we been deceived, because we’re now seven months into Obama’s 48 months and we have nothing to show for it: not DOMA, not the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and only a gutted Hate Crimes legislation. Of course, Congress is only concerned with the public’s perception, not with systemic change, not with a new reality.

What about people who have a public perception which is better than the reality? You mean like many heterosexuals? Like family values? Bragman calls this “hype.” Like anybody or anything that claims to be the biggest, best, hottest, or most important in the world, for example. Like everybody on Facebook or in those chat rooms and personals.

Frontiers: “What was your perspective as a PR guy on the No on 8 campaign?”

Bragman: “My number one mantra in PR is if you do not define yourself somebody else is going to define you. And you’re not going to be as happy about them defining you as you are about defining yourself. So I think we committed the PR sin of letting our opponents define us. . . ”

My take on being Christian, of course, is that Jesus used to have good PR, good perception. But many of his followers, who puffed themselves up on hype (I would call it hyp-ocrisy), their reality has nearly destroyed his perception by the public.

And my take on being LGBT/Christian is that since countless other (heterosexual) Christians don’t worry too much about integrity and truth (they tell facile lies about us with no qualms), or bringing disgrace on the name of Jesus (think televangelists), it may well be up to us to restore the public perception of what a follower of Jesus Christ is like with traits like: honesty (come out), integrity (not a patchwork, but made of whole cloth), generosity, sacrifice, and the readiness to “turn the other cheek” to false perceptions. For example, Matthew 5:11 from the Beatitudes: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” In other words, walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Coming Out, HIV and AIDS, Hollywood, Homophobia, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Sex | No Comments »

Summer indulgence.

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”– Ecclesiastes 3:1.

And, this being mid-August, it is time in my part of the country to pick figs. We have an enormous old fig tree, and annually we have this tug-of-war, survival-of-the-fastest competition with the squirrels and the crows to see which of God’s creatures get to eat the figs.

So—and this is especially for those of you who look at this blog from time to time and say, “this guy is a total wing nut!” —here is something quite off-topic:

Figs Baked in Liqueur [adapted from www.inmamaskitchen.com]

15-20 ripe figs
½ cup water
1/3 cup Kirschwasser, Grand Marnier or whiskey
2-3 Tbsp. brown sugar
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
tsp. ground nutmeg

Wash figs and cut off stem end just enough to see the fig pulp inside the top. Arrange figs tightly in a baking dish sprayed with non-stick spray. Use more figs if you have can squeeze them in. Pour water and liqueur over figs. Dust with brown sugar.

Bake in a 350 oven for 30-40 minutes until flavors have mingled and alcohol has cooked out but figs have not disintegrated. Remove and dust the tops with cinnamon and nutmeg. To serve warm or cool spoon remaining syrup over figs in individual serving dishes.

Note: For those in recovery, you may of course omit the alcoholic ingredient, and experiment with any other flavoring desired.

—Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Recovery | No Comments »

Are we poking fun because we’re masculinized?

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

This last week I carefully drafted a verbal rebuke of a fellow community activist, for his tasteless and scarcely apologetic put down of a woman with an unusual name. He is one of the countless people I have met in life who “poke fun” at things.

Until Shelley wrote her comment, I had never thought of “poking” as something phallic. But then those with powers and privileges seldom notice what they have and use because to them it seems normal and natural. Shelley tells of the incident in which a 4-year old boy’s first inclination is to poke a helpless, upside-down beetle, rather than rescue it.

I am reminded of the way in which a scientific fact was presented to me several years ago: Scientists have no identified the genetic link or connection to human violence. Those who possess one particular chromosome have been found to be 9 times more violent than those without it. Want to guess? It’s the Y chromosome — those who are biological males.

Stoking indignation (July 25) is perhaps not a uniquely male response, but men have a majority here. Outrage, anger, and violence are characteritic responses from the Y chromosome. When MSNBC runs a blip about Rush Limbaugh’s fringe political views, of course, they love to re-run that video clip showing him jumping up and down at some podium, undoubtedly because his not inconsiderable weight would have created a lot of violent shaking on the platform.

No women are not always better at resolving problems than stoking them. But I keep noticing that women are picking up some of men’s worst habits, including aggression and violence. In my examples, I mentioned three mens: Phelps, Akinola and Otten. But I could have certainly found women who seem to have learned (been socialized) similar behaviors.

Posted in Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, ELCA, Public Affairs | No Comments »

Out of the closet, out of the bottle.

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Thank you to Billy Glover for forwarding the link to this. It is one of the wisest and most cogent arguments presented, not only sympathetic to same-gender marriage, but with serious a serious critique of the failure of opponents to offer anything meaningful. By the end of it, I found myself close to tears.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

A Moral Crossroads For Conservatives: The genie that gay-marriage opponents still hope to stuff back into the bottle is out for good.

by Jonathan Rauch • Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009

Last October, Bill Meezan, my cousin, left his home in Columbus, Ohio, for a business trip to Philadelphia. Bill is the dean of Ohio State University’s College of Social Work, and he travels quite a bit. In Philadelphia, he thought he felt an old cold coming back. Then he developed a nasty cough. On October 31, he went to the hospital.He remembers nothing of that day, but Mike Brittenback recalls sharply how doctors in Philadelphia called him in Columbus to say they suspected pneumonia. Mike, an organist and choirmaster, is Bill’s partner of 30 years. A few hours later that Friday, they called back to confirm the diagnosis. Mike was concerned but not alarmed. At 3 a.m. the next day, the phone woke him up. It was a doctor in Philadelphia. Mike needed to come to Philadelphia immediately. Bill had gone into septic shock and might not survive more than a few hours. . . . National Review has a cover story this month by Maggie Gallagher, a prominent anti-gay-marriage activist, subtitled: “Why Gay Marriage Isn’t Inevitable.” She is right, in a sense. Most states explicitly ban same-sex marriage, often by constitutional amendment, and the country remains deeply divided. The national argument over marriage’s meaning will go on for years to come.

In another sense, however, she is wrong. Never again will America not have gay marriage, and never again will less than a majority favor some kind of legal and social recognition for same-sex couples. The genie that gay-marriage opponents still hope to stuff back into the bottle is out and out for good.

Read the full article: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/st_20090808_9125.php

Maggie Gallagher, by the way, is out to hurt us. While the referenced article above form the National Review is not on line, by another one with her muck-filled views, “Redefinition Revolution: Gay marriage is about more than Adam and Steve”, can be found here.

Posted in "The Closet", Coming Out, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Indwelling Spirit ~ A Blog for LGBTQ Christians

Archive for August, 2009

Go figure!

Uruguay lawmakers OK gay adoption

Utah governor: No special rights for gay people

Fla. gay adoption ban goes to state appeals court

“Shut up” becomes open wide, oh my.

Missouri Synod weighs in on gay clergy.

The view from the middle of Sunset Boulevard.

I lift your names prayerfully.

A mid-day cliff hanger.

Tornado of the Spirit?

Tuesday in Minneapolis.

The first hurdle was the biggest.

Global or local, change comes painfully slow.

“Sex! Schism! Sky is falling! Armageddon! Oh my!”

Perception and deception, hype and hypocrisy.

Summer indulgence.

Are we poking fun because we’re masculinized?

Out of the closet, out of the bottle.

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