If this is true, CBN has lost it.

October 31, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

Press Release

Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network Warns Americans Of ‘Demonic’ Halloween Candy AU’s Lynn Says Religious Broadcaster Should Send ‘Trick Or Treat’ Goodies Over To His House October 29, 2009 Put aside your fears of swine flu. TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Web site has just issued a bulletin warning Americans of the real threat we face this season: Demons may be lurking in our Halloween candy. In a column on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Web site, writer Kimberly Daniels asserts that “demons” sneak into bags of Halloween candy at grocery stores. “[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches,” Daniels wrote. “I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.” The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, urged Robertson and Daniels to lighten up.

The only thing that amazes me about this is that Pat Robertson has continued to amass a personal fortune (thought to be between $700 million and $1 billion) and a “Christian” war chest that will keep his broadcasting on the air for generations to come.  Why/how can people just send their money to someone, or some thing (CBN) that is so completely out of touch with reality?  See screen capture below:

Okay, we can just shrug and say people are looney.  But the looney people have the cash to spread their hatred, and their mental illness, to millions of other people and to future generations.

By the way, the link above (”a column”) does not work, so I suspect that CBN yanked the column as being too ridiculous.  Or, could it be that Americans United was wrong.  I checked the CBN.com web site’s Search box, and the list of 93 articles by Kimberly Daniels clearly displayed the column mentioned in AU’s news release.  So this isn’t fiction.  But, when I tried to click on the article (marked below with the red arrow), it also comes back saying the article cannot be found.  That confirms it was there, and is no more.

Robertson, by the way, is not a minister. He resigned as one when he ran for President (try not to dwell on that for more than a moment or two or you may go into shock) in the early 90’s.  But his “Christian” Bullcasting keeps on presenting itself as a bona fide expression of Christian thought.

Happy Halloween!

—Dan Hooper

Posted in Go figure!, Fundamentalism, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Get on with repeal or ditch the constitution!

October 30, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Three cheers to Roland Stringfellow’s blog on Unite the Fight’s web site.

Here we are a year later and where do we find ourselves in the fight for marriage equality in California? Two major camps debating on whether to return to the ballot in 2010 or 2012 and we have to ask ourselves the question, “Have we learned from our mistakes?” Are egos and attitudes being altered in order for power to be shared and different voices heard? Has a clear strategy been created and presented? And what about our motivation – are we still angry and humiliated from our loss a year ago that we are planning to return to the polls with revenge? (”I’ll show you who is a second class citizen.”)

Stringfellow writes on behalf of the faith communities in California who are organizing to overturn Proposition 8.

There are many wonderful, hard working individuals who are putting their hearts on the line as they strive to make our world a more accepting and loving place for LGBTQI people and to make marriage equality a reality for us all. If our goal is to repair the divisions that exist in our society as we work for equality, we must examine and ask ourselves, “Do divisions exist within our movement for equality”?I agree with his view that we ought not to be divided over the 2010 vs. 2012 issue. It is an absurd dissipation of energies, and the supposed merits of each idea (get on the next ballot at all costs, or get on the presidential ballot when more liberals turn out) are probably stirred with personality issues that bubble over behind closed doors–even in the LGBT communities.Unfortunately, well-intended internal battles are part of human nature. You may have read or heard that another proposal is out there to completely revamp or replace the California Constitution, which would of course blow away the Proposition 8 language now enshrined by amendment.But even in this, there is division. Repair California is interested in “incremental change”, and filed ballot language yesterday for a measure that would call a limited Constitutional Convention (see press release; ballot language; fact sheet). Meanwhile, California Forward (www.caforward.org) has a different agenda: “fundamental change.” The two groups talk to one another, which is hopeful that there won’t be unnecessary intra-agenda fighting. But what worries me is that Repair California says it won’t touch our issue. What does that mean?

Mark Carlson in the Lutheran Office of Public Policy in Sacramento stated in an e-mail yesterday, “Jim Wunderman, the leader of Repair California, emphasized that the convention would not deal with marriage, abortion, gun control, or prayer in the schools” [italics added]. But the lunatic cesspools of power and money which seek to control those very things have to be drained of their toxic influence. But California Forward, so far, only addresses “fundamental change” in the area of money and budget, not civil rights.

It is all too clear that California is still ruled by several lunatic fringes. Yes, I know, the Religious Reich characterizes us that same way, but we know the truth. And we demonstrate our sanity every time one more of us comes out and tells the truth about our authentic selves, our lives, and our family relationships. Coming out remains the single most powerful tool we have for defeating conservative extremism. It is they who are on the lunatic fringes, because in addition to barrels of cash, they rely on lies, stereotypes fear and paranoia to push their anti-LGBT agenda.

Hopefully, we in the LGBT communities will be energized by what happens at next week’s polls. If marriage equality is set back further by the vote on Question 1 in Maine, for example, it may kick us into taking the reactionary lunatics far more seriously. It has, after all, come to light that the same money bags which financed Proposition 8 are pouring more of their cash into the Main steal-our-rights campaign. On the other hand, if the move to repeal Maine’s marriage rights law fails, it may energize us to claim our self-respect and go back at reversing the damage done by Proposition 8.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Also see: Equality Events; includes Rachel Maddow coverage of Question 1 and interview’s Maine’s Catholic Pro-Marriage Governor (9 minutes).

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

After the eye of the storm.

October 29, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is still passing through a storm of internal discernment and anxiety about the vote taken by the voting members at its August biennial Assembly to liberalize its rules about lesbian/gay clergy. Before that vote was taken, there was a lot of noise and threats. The vote was like the eye at the center of a hurricane. Now the aftermath is playing out in congregations over whether to leave the denomination or not.Congregations who are probably as far away from interacting with lesbian or gay clergy as possible still feel compelled to consider breaking ties with the Church of their heritage. This is always the way it is. A congregation on the North Dakota prairie is in fact not affected or impacted by whether a congregation in urban California or Illinois has a lesbian or gay pastor. But they also have little to no contact with LGBT people. Their own closeted young people probably left town as fast as possible to look for a better life elsewhere, and the families of LGBT people simply don’t want to expose themselves to ridicule or misunderstanding. So these parishes –even larger ones— keep up the pretense that “we don’t have that problem here,” and feel they can’t even send their mission dollars to a denomination that welcomes us. This past Wednesday, I heard our own Bishop report on a few congregations in this Synod which are acting out the same scripts as in the news release below. Here it is harder to believe that an urban Los Angeles congregation could be so naive, or could not have recognized a powerful statistic: if one out of every ten people is lesbian or gay, then one out of every four families has a family member who is lesbian or gay. When a church says “not welcome!” to the larger community, it is putting one fourth of its own families on notice that they must enter the closet with the lesbian or gay family member and stay there.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

ELCA News Service  -  October 29, 2009 09-241-JB

Some ELCA Congregations Vote to Leave or Redirect Funds, Find It’s Not EasyCHICAGO (ELCA)—Throughout the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), leaders and members have responded in a variety of ways to changes in the church’s ministry polices, a decision made by voting members of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. Some members agreed with the decision. Some were opposed. Some weren’t sure how to react. Since the assembly, some ELCA congregations have taken votes to leave the denomination or redirect funds away from the ELCA. Leaders and members in a few such congregations report it’s not always easy to make such choices, and there can be unintended consequences.

The 2009 assembly, which met Aug. 17-23 in Minneapolis, adopted proposals to change ELCA ministry policies. One change makes it possible for Lutherans in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA associates in ministry, clergy, deaconesses and diaconal ministers.

For some ELCA leaders and members, the assembly directive was inconsistent with their understanding of biblical authority. They often repeat the assertion that “the ELCA has left them.” The assembly also adopted by exactly a two-thirds majority a social statement on human sexuality. The statement addressed a wide range of matters related to human sexuality, but a portion of it addressed same gender relationships, causing disagreement among the voting members.

Through Oct. 27, the ELCA Office of the Secretary reports an estimated 50 of the ELCA’s 10,396 congregations have taken first votes to leave the denomination or have scheduled them, nearly all because of the assembly’s actions on sexuality. Five such votes have failed. The estimate is based on reports from synod bishops, said David D. Swartling, ELCA secretary.

Some Vote to Leave the ELCA or Try. Generally congregations that want to leave the ELCA are required to take two votes, at least 90 days apart, and must achieve a two-thirds majority of voting members present for each vote. They are also required to “consult” with the synod bishop between votes to leave. Former Lutheran Church in America congregations and ELCA- established congregations must be granted “synodical approval” before their ELCA membership is terminated. The same approval is needed if the congregation chooses to be independent or relate to a non-Lutheran church body. At Wangen Prairie Lutheran Church, Cannon Falls, Minn., 31 members of the 40-member congregation voted 20-11 to leave but failed to achieve the required two-thirds needed under constitutional rules. That has left the Rev. Joy M. Gonnerman, who serves the congregation half-time, with a difficult situation. And she expects some members to challenge the vote. Gonnerman told the ELCA News Service the congregation narrowly defeated an attempt to leave in 2005, after the churchwide assembly that year declined a proposal to change ministry policies. She said Wangen Prairie’s ELCA membership “has been tenuous at best.”

“I keep praying for them, keep preaching and keep administering the sacraments,” she said. Gonnerman noted that most of the 11 who voted to stay attend worship regularly, and many of the others don’t. “I find that those so angry about the sexuality issue talk a lot about God, but not much about Jesus.

We (Lutherans) read the Bible through the lens of Jesus,” Gonnerman said. Gonnerman said she focuses on keeping the congregation together. “I work on unity. My goal as pastor is to work on unity and welcome people with their diverse ideas.” In the coming weeks she said she will offer guidance to members and keep in mind that whatever the congregation decides to do “must come from within.”

A similar situation exists at Christ Lutheran Church, Cottonwood, Minn., which voted 74-44 on Oct. 18 to leave the ELCA, but the vote failed to achieve a two-thirds majority. The congregation’s president, Joel C. Dahl, declined to be interviewed by the ELCA News Service, but said in an e-mail message, “I have hopes that after some further education of our congregation, we will vote again in the affirmative to separate from the ELCA and join another Lutheran denomination.” He told the Marshall Independent newspaper that an informational meeting for the congregation is planned sometime next month.

The Rev. James L. Demke, pastor, confirmed that the 600-member congregation will have “more discussion about the issues.”

St. John Lutheran Church, a 1,200-member congregation in Roanoke, Va., voted 342-143 to leave the ELCA Sept. 27, barely achieving the two thirds majority required. The congregation plans to take a second and final vote to leave the denomination Jan. 10, said the Rev. Mark A.

Graham, senior pastor. Graham explained that the congregation has been discussing issues of marriage, family and human sexuality for many years. After the churchwide assembly acted, he and St. John’s two associate pastors recommended to the congregation council that St. John begin the process to leave the ELCA on the grounds that “the ELCA has left traditional biblical teaching.”

It has not been an easy process. Graham expects as many as one-third of the members will leave the congregation. Some have already left. “The last thing I ever expected is to bring a recommendation that would cause conflict and division,” he said in an interview. “I know there are good Christians who disagree with us. It breaks my heart, but we see no other way.”

Even if the pastors had not made their recommendation, Graham believes many members would have left on their own, perhaps more than the one-third St. John expects to lose. “We would have had conflict here either way if we had not taken action,” he said.

And what will happen if St. John fails to achieve a two-thirds majority at its second vote in January? Graham paused when asked that question. He said he will have some decisions to make about his own future in the ELCA.

“We’ve had publicity about this, and it’s not the kind I’m proud of. It’s a hard thing to convince people that were not anti-homosexual. We’re trying to convey a deep love for the Word of God. It breaks my heart that my own denomination would make decisions based on other factors,” he said.

About five congregations have taken two votes to leave the ELCA so far this year, the ELCA secretary reports. Of those, the largest was Community Church of Joy, Glendale, Ariz., which formally left Sept. 27. Only 129 of its 6,800 baptized members were present for the second vote, which was unanimous.

Some Choose to Withhold Funds. Some ELCA congregations, unhappy with the assembly’s actions, have stopped sending funds to support synod and churchwide ministries. The funds are used, for example, “to plant and renew congregations, to raise up and train leaders in seminaries and campus ministries, to send missionaries, to respond to hunger at home and abroad, and to rebuild communities after natural disasters,” said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, in a Sept. 23 letter to the church’s professional leaders.The ELCA Constitution requires the churchwide organization, synods and congregations “to share in the responsibility to develop, implement and strengthen the financial support program of this church.” Similar required language appears in the ELCA’s Model Constitution for Synods and the Model Constitution for Congregations, yet, decisions are being made in some places to direct funds elsewhere.

The congregation council at 250-member Peace Lutheran Church, Rockdale, Texas, suspended its benevolence payments to the ELCA shortly after the congregation’s pastor, the Rev. Janice A. Campbell, returned from the assembly where she was a voting member. Instead, it sent its September funds to support a Lutheran orphanage in Tanzania and will send funds for the remainder of 2009 to a local food bank and Lutheran Disaster Response, a collaborative ministry of the ELCA and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Peace’s annual benevolence is nearly $21,000, according to the 2009 ELCA Yearbook.

Campbell told members from the beginning that she didn’t want anyone to leave, and she urged the congregation members to respond together. Campbell said she is concerned about a member and a family that may leave the congregation. “I don’t want to lose those people. It is important that we listen to one another,” she said.

Some members are talking about joining Lutheran Congregations for Mission in Christ (LCMC), she said. “I don’t know if I’m going with them or not. LCMC is not for me,” she said. Campbell said she has been a strong supporter of the ELCA Southwestern Texas Synod in the past. Global relationships are more valuable to Campbell than is the denomination, she said. In particular Lutherans in Africa have much to teach the ELCA, she said. Campbell said she was not happy that objections to the sexuality proposals voiced by Lutheran churches in Africa were “skimmed over” and not shared with voting members at the assembly.

“I wish there was a way for the ELCA to come to realization that this was a catastrophic (theological) error,” she said of the actions on sexuality. “I will continue to pray for the ELCA, for the synod and for the bishops.”

The congregation council at St. Luke Lutheran Church, Cottage Grove, Minn., made a similar decision. St. Luke’s senior pastor, the Rev. Timothy J. Housholder, a churchwide assembly voting member, declined to be interviewed for this story. But he wrote to his congregation earlier this month that, since the assembly, he had received more than 100 communications, most expressing concern about the decisions. The council redirected remaining 2009 benevolence funds away from the ELCA Saint Paul Area Synod and the churchwide organization, he said, “to allow time for St. Luke to ‘breathe’ and discern what the ELCA’s recent actions mean for us.” Lutheran Social Services and Lutheran World Relief will be sent St. Luke’s funds, Housholder reported. St. Luke has 2,200 baptized members, and gives about $43,000 annually in benevolence funds.

Not all are in agreement. Two members of St. Luke, Rebecca and Alan Holz, wrote to the South Washington County Bulletin newspaper saying that the decision to withhold the funds was made without approval of the church’s members. “My husband and I feel strongly that this act is counter to what St. Luke’s prior statement to the community was of ‘the Welcoming Church,’ and we are deeply disappointed we were not allowed to express our views prior to the council’s decision,” their Oct. 14 letter said.

Member Natalie Seim also wrote the paper’s editor to point out that the council’s vote to begin “discernment” was not shared by all members. The council has scheduled a forum for St. Luke members on Nov. 1.

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 "The Closet", LGBT Christian, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Pope or poacher?

October 25, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

The man who walks in the “shoes of the fisherman” — Pope Benedict¹⁶ —has gone on a major fishing expedition that certainly raises more questions than eyebrows.

It is not surprising that Rome, under Ratzinger’s leadership, should try an opportunistic gesture to collect disaffected Anglicans back to Rome. After all, he doesn’t consider any Christian communion to be the genuine church unless it is under his authority. So it’s not surprising that his gesture of outreach to unhappy Anglicans and Episcopalians in this country fits with his agenda to strengthen and broaden his own personal authority.

But this latest may have the effect of actually weakening his authority, and this is where the surprises come from:

Rome has long has a curious dispensation to allow married Anglican priests (or, theoretically, married Orthodox priests) to come back to Rome and remain married. It seemed n anomaly of history and Canon Law when I first heard of that, since the Roman Catholic Church has enforced clerical celibacy for at least 800 years. (I have hundreds of pages in manuscript form that provide details on that). But this curiosity seemed all but a historical footnote until this latest gesture.

And Benedict is hurting for priests, as they exit the priesthood by old age and death, marriage, therapy or prison. I’ve been told on good authority (but it’s too broad to Google or Snopes this) that one quarter of all Catholic parishes globally have no priest.

But if the Pope wants to welcome married and disaffected Anglican priests back to Rome, with their wives, he has essentially reinforced the point that clerical celibacy is simply a rule of the church and has no real authority in Scripture or dogma. If it is simply a church rule that can be bent or relaxed by the guy who wears the authoritative hat, then why doesn’t he just get rid of the rule and welcome his own married ex-priests back to Catholic altars?

(It is hard enough to admit to a change of mind in public—the media and the opposition will tell you in a New York minute that you are “waffling”— but to change your mind and go against the last 90 Popes or 800 years, whatever, that takes nerves of steel.)

Benedict has also thrown in a bone to the Protestant Reformation by suggesting that disaffected Anglicans can keep their beloved Prayer Book, the very anchor of the Church of England since 1549, and as fiercely defended by Anglicans as the papacy is by Catholics. But if returning Anglicans can bring along their Prayer Book, in the English language, so much for the Roman Missal, the Roman Rite, and all the dogmatic baggage packed into the Mass. In other words, so much for Rome’s unblinking authority.

The third shocker is Benedict’s suggestion that Anglicans who come home to Rome can bring along their own bishops. If he thinks he will be expanding his authority by adding bishops under him, what becomes of Apostolic Succession? And come to think of it, this is backhanded gesture to undercut the authority and insult the person of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. It is as if to say, “since you can’t control your boys any more, I will take them off your hands.” Every Anglican Bishop that returns to Rome is one less Bishop under Canterbury.

Astonishingly, Rowan Williams seems content to accept this slap and spin it to sound like ecumenical progress! According to Steve Doughty of the U.K’s Daily Mail Online “Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said it showed that relations between Anglicans and Roman Catholics were closer than ever.” Perhaps Archbishop (”Red Riding Hood”) Williams has mistaken Benedict for his own grandmother?

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, History, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

Just Say Nope!

October 24, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I offer somebody else’s blog and two comments.  i’ll save my comments until after I read some more news stories.  On its face, this is just too fascinating to pass up. — Dan Hooper

Pope Welcomes Disaffected Anglicans

Steve Benen points to the following.

“In a move expected to cause confusion within Anglican and Catholic parishes alike, the Vatican on Tuesday announced it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with the Church of England’s acceptance of women priests and openly gay bishops to join the Catholic Church. A new canonical entity will allow Anglicans ‘to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,’ Cardinal William Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here on Tuesday.”

What it probably means is that married Anglican priests can become married Catholic priests because God knows that priestly celibacy can be thrown overboard when put in service of denying women priesthood or acceptance of gays within the priesthood. Sounds like the patriarchy circling the wagons again.

Posted by Mary at October 24, 2009 09:57 AM | Religion | Technorati links 

Comments

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition… which means Cardinal William Levada is the Grand Inquisitor. How cool is that!

Posted by: JimD at October 25, 2009 10:24 PM

Posted in Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, History | Print | No Comments »

Lasting Peace: the Unsplit Life

October 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

On the train to Riverside today I finally picked up a book I had set aside last July: the anthology “Wrestling with the Angel” [Brian Bouldrey, ed.; New York: Riverhead Books, 1995]. Today I came to Andrew Holleran’s chapter in which he wrestles with Catholic guilt more than any angel.

Holleran (Eric Garber) is a gay novelist and essayist roughly my contemporary in age but far more advanced in finding his voice as an activist. You can Google for a lot about his life and work if you like.

So much of what he writes about religion parallels my own awareness if not experience, and I can’t help wondering if it is more because he was Catholic and I Lutheran that he left most of the faith behind and I never did. Holleran identifies, at least he did in 1995 in “The Sense of Sin” as a “cafeteria Catholic,” taking what he wants from the religious smorgasbord and leaving the rest behind. But his chief insight in his brief autobiography of confession reveals that he could neither abandon his childhood and adolescent Catholic faith nor fully embrace it.

“The sense of Sin is, of course, missing in some people, keen, more keen, keenest in others. When I drew up a list of my own one evening, I was surprised to see that all of mine amounted to sins that did not include homosexual acts themselves but the consequences of hiding them from people who loved and expected more out of me, perhaps than I’d given the world. In other words, I suspected myself of shame, withdrawal, and finally that most classic of Catholic sins, despair. Still, none of them seemed correctable; I hadn’t any more faith in homosexuality’s virtues, really, than I did in the existence of God—though the latter was no something I could bring myself to entirely disbelieve, either.”For me, this no-man’s land, this love-hate experience is what happens when one has absorbed the Religion of Christianity without ever finding a manner in which to live out the Christian Faith. Guilt truly is the gift that goes on giving, and we have good reason to jokingly insist that the Lutheran persuasion is “Catholic Lite: one third less guilt.”As a young writer and preacher I was always more than a bit brash, but taking the longer view now in mid-life and mature years I notice with enormous gratitude that I did not pick up much guilt about sex and sexuality in childhood and adolescence. Lutheran preachers were far too conventional and inhibited even to mention that sexuality exists. There were no warnings or scoldings from Sunday School teachers. Luther’s Small Catechism sticks to the basics of the Christian faith —faith in God and Christ and the Spirit and the Sacraments— rather than building moral fences and trying to provide guidelines to control our daily impulses. So to this day I insist that attitudes about human sexuality and homosexuality cannot, in and of themselves “split the church.” Opening our minds about gay and lesbian people and relationships is not an “abandonment of the historic faith” because, the Lutherans would insist, the true Christian faith does not contain doctrines about sex in the first place.

Holleran’s dilemma is that he cannot live with the dire ultimatums which either Catholicism or fundamentalism presents to him, but he realizes at mid-life that homosexuality and sexual liberalism are not a substitute faith, either. Even as a fallen child of his Church, he sees his sexuality in Catholic vocabulary: “a cross one had to bear.”

“That one kept thinking in Catholic phrases was, of course, part of the legacy of a Catholic childhood. The gay Catholic operates on two levels, I suspect; on the one hand, he believes it is quite moral to act on his sexual orientation, to form a sexual bond, of whatever duration, with another man; that the antihomosexual tenets of Christianity are parochial, culture-bound, and heterosexual; that the active gay man has acquired, and provided others, a human dimension available uniquely in erotic intimacy; that kindness, beauty, tenderness, love can be experienced only through the medium of another person. On the other, he suspects that he has turned sex into a form of fast-food junk, that he is trapped in a way of life from which there is no escape and no real chance of finding any lasting peace of mind. In other words, this was cognitive dissonance as a way of life.”All that I can counter is that I do not suffer that dissonance and I preach to dismantle its power over others. But my understanding is not to trivialize the core message of Jesus nor to re-Puritanize sexual expression. That I have remained not celibate but monogamous is not because I have struck some self-devised compromise with God or have internalized homophobic guilt about having casual or anonymous sexual experiences. It is because I have experienced the greatest personal and spiritual growth in relationships (one man, one Lord) which are long-lasting and able to grapple with the tension most human beings live with between the superficiality of the flesh and the overwhelming depth of the soul.If all of that is really a cross one has to bear, it is the cross I have chosen not because of a bifurcated life (hiding my sexuality from the church and hiding my faith from the boys at the gay bar), but because of my awareness that I live only one life and will struggle to keep it integrated. If I can live without splitting my life, then maybe the Church can live without splitting itself apart.—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Gay Catechism, Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Faith, LGBT Christian, Fundamentalism, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

Where have we been?

October 22, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Church of Sweden to Conduct Same-Gender Marriage Ceremonies

October 22, 2009 • Phil Soucy, Director Communications LC/NA

This morning the Board of the Lutheran Church of Sweden voted and announced that the church would conduct marriage ceremonies for same-gender couples, using gender-neutral liturgies for both LGBT and heterosexual weddings. The vote of the board of the church was taken at its meeting this morning and is reported as 176-62, with 11 abstentions and 2 absences.

Thirty years ago, Sweden declared homosexuality was not disease. The church has offered blessings for same-gender couples since 2007. In April, Sweden passed a law that granted marriage equality to all. That law went into effect in May.

Some in the Church of Sweden are of the opinion that marriage in the church ought to be reserved for man-woman unions, and argued for that position. Today’s vote ended that debate. The new ruling will go into effect on November 1, 2009. The news amazes even me.  I’ve been watching the European Lutheran churches liberalize much sooner and more completely than the American churches (the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod marching decisively into the past and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod being theologically about where the Taliban is).

European churches started ordaining women as early as World War II ~ for lack of enough males to fill pulpits. The late Swedish theologian Krister Stendahl, who taught for many years at Harvard and then elected Bishop of Stockholm, was an early supporter of the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in church and society. After retiring in 1989 he returned to Harvard and was a keynote speaker for LC/Los Angeles in the 1990s. When I talked with him personally, he was quite open about the fact that he had a lesbian on his episcopal staff in Sweden. Not long after, I received a phone call form Sweden asking for any resources I had on same-sex marriage rites.

In April Sweden became the seventh country in the world to legalize same-gender marriage. In May, the diocese of Stockholm elected a partnered lesbian, Eva Brunne, as bishop. Times have changed, and the church in many places is changing with it.

But I am sure the America Christian scene will go ballistic about this latest. I can hardly wait to hear what that hate-mongering Topeka preacher will say or do. He’s already banned from entering the U.K. ever again. I wonder if the tolerant Swedes will allow him in to protest the lesbian and gay weddings that are set to begin November 1.

It is easy to forget that America is not the center of the debates about LGBT people and the Christian faith. American Christianity has had very different experiences than other one-time Christian nations, and of late, thanks to fundamentalism and the corrosive mixture of religion and politics, American Christians have been dragging their feet for years.

According to Associated Press, “Sweden’s archbishop Anders Wejryd said he was pleased with the decision, while the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights described it as ‘a big step in the right direction.’”

But it still amazes me, and reminds me that those of us who are sexual minority Christians must live into the changing environment in our faith communities. We read the headlines with glee, but remain fearful or completely closeted. Or we go on with life and almost forget that in many quarters we are not as rejected or avoided as we were a decade or two back. If the world’s Christians are indeed loosening up, our emotional homework is to claim the grace we have always believed God has offered to us, and trust the Good News as well as the daily news.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, "The Closet", Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace, LGBT Rights, History | Print | No Comments »

Crocodile tears and sincere prayers.

October 13, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

California church gives up property after diocese split

Associated Press ~ 10.13.2009 10:05am EDT (via 365Gay.com)(Los Angeles) A conservative Los Angeles-area church that broke away from the Episcopal Church over theological differences and the consecration of a gay bishop is giving up its property.  St. Luke’s Anglican Church in La Crescenta is being returned Monday to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. A judge ordered the move, and the state Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

The congregation voted to leave the national church three years ago. The diocese sued to retain the property.   

In his sermon Sunday, the Rev. Rob Holman said fighting for principles is more important than a building.  The congregation has rented a chapel in Glendale and joined the new Anglican Church in North America, which was founded last year by breakaway Episcopal parishes.

 

This is going to sound a bit flippant, but it’s what comes to mind immediately:

A small boy was scolded by his dad for pulling the cat’s tail. “I’m not pulling the cat’s tail,” he said matter-of-factly. “The cat’s doing all the pulling.”

In recent weeks, especially since both the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America took decided turns for the left at their summer general Convention (a.k.a. Assembly), we’ve heard how disenfranchised the conservatives feel, as if they are losing their churchbody, or they are being forced to leave in order to make room for the homosexuals.

Excuse me, but who is doing all the pulling? I have noted this before, but it stands true. When LGBT people were in the persona non grata position, we did not all just cry that we were being rejected and walk away. Thousands of us remained faithful. We kept giving or tithing, preaching, praying, volunteering—and playing the church organ and arranging the altar flowers. We did not, repeated, did not complain that the presence of heterosexuals in the Christian church was forcing us to leave.

If you’re interested in the legal battle, St. Luke’s has posted a page on it.

Compassionate and Understanding One, we pray for those who cry unnecessary tears, and who cannot yet recognize in the changes of this world that your wide embrace includes all people. Forgive us if we have driven others away, and remind us of our mission in Christ to welcome, forgive, and show kindness to any sister or brother who may seem “weaker” in faith. In Christ’s holy name, Amen.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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Systemic change comes to the Lutherans.

October 7, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

We’ve been laboring for fundamental change in the Lutheran church for decades. I personally got involved in the late 1970s, and started serious writing in the mid-1980s. But its still startling to see the results of the work of hundreds of faithful people to lead and guide (not push) their fellow believers to a genuine tipping point.

If you’ve been following the LGBT/clergy debate in the Lutheran or any other denomination, or if you’re just Googling in, you probably have heard that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was not quick to embrace sexual minorities. Officially, it made tentative gestures of welcome more than 15 years ago, but in 1990 it built a fence around the ranks of its ordained clergy.

No matter what we did to try to open up the gate in that fence, all that the ELCA would do is study the issues. I spoke to the first study task force on Human Sexuality in July 1990, for example. The only thing that came out of that months-long study was that, after the director had threats made on her life (we’re talking about a large Protestant church denomination here, folks, they simply withdrew the study documents from further consideration, and waited another decade until the national Assembly (convention)—the ELCA’s highest legislative authority—ordered the church to undertake another study.

In the midst of this, lay people and pastors and one Bishop Emeritus of the church were arrested for blocking the sidewalk with their protest signs at one of the national Assemblies.

The tipping point never came in 2007. Hundreds of us were in Chicago’s Navy Pier as visitors to watch the proceedings, pray for results, and lobby voting members (delegates). But then in Minneapolis this past August, the tipping point was reached. A respectable majority of members in the Assembly voted to lift the restriction against non-celibate lesbian and gay people from being or becoming Pastors of the church.

Two other denominational leaders were immediately enraged, although their warnings were grave and measured, one from President Gerald Kieschnick of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (it figures) and the other from Archbishop Wilton Gregory, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (and that figures, too).

But this week, the real tip finally occurred. At its Bishop’s meeting October 1–6, national church staff people sat down with Bishops and (for the first time ever) with representatives of Lutherans Concerned/North America, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, and Goodsoil to discuss the implementation of the changes which were called for in August.

LC/NA’s Executive Director Emily Eastwood: “We are pleased that at long last we are being talked with, instead of just being talked about.” That is fundamental to the discernment process in which the church has always recognized the power of the Holy Spirit to move the Christian community forward. So even with the threat of continued controversy over its liberalizing decision last August, the ELCA is finally trusting the process which is modeled from the beginning of the Christian church (see Acts 15, again),and talking with the believers who are most affected by decisions being made. This is genuine systemic change.

ELM’s President, Rev. Erik Christensen: “Challenging conversations are ahead of us, but these are the challenging conversations waited for twenty years.”

Yet to be discussed, of course, is how the ELCA’s new standards will apply to those of us who have been admitted to the extraordinary (extra ordinem) Lutheran clergy roster, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. After being removed from the ELCA’s roster in 1991, I applied for and was admitted to the extraordinary roster in 2002 (known then as the Extraordinary Candidacy Project). None of us knows yet whether the ELCA’s executives, Bishops and Church Council will move to accept our roster into their roster as a whole, or whether they will expect each one of us to go through the protracted process of applying for certification alone.

I am adopting a wait-and-see attitude on that, because I am disinclined to reapply if I must prove myself again to some credentialing committee. I have been ordained for 35 years, and serving in my present position for more than five years. Yes, we have wait for conversations about the larger church’s ordination standards, but we have also moved forward in mission and ministry without the larger church’s permission or interference because the Gospel and the Spirit are driving the church, not the other way around.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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Not dressed up, and no place to go.

October 1, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I was glad to see my street friend, Eric [ok, not his real name], who showed up at my office door tonight just before Choir practice. He has gained a few pounds, which has taken away that total emaciated look he had a few months ago. Since leaving the streets six months ago, his appearance, demeanor, and interaction have all improved immeasurably. He is now living with a family member (who is gay; he is straight), which is a gigantic victory for those of us who struggled against numerous obstacles to get him off the streets.

As we talked, I found myself thinking how sane he was. And that is not how I viewed this 30–something man just a few month ago. I am beginning to realize how much his previously weird mental state must have been influenced by his “street spouse” of 17 years, a woman who did have some mental issues.

After her death last winter, I brought Eric into the church building and let him camp there for months, until the leadership put its foot down about the bad smell of his clothing—the stuff he had already worn but had not laundered (he kept himself clean enough).

But we had mistaken for mental illness what was only a neighborhood legend— that Eric was afraid to be inside of buildings and that was supposedly why he chose to be homeless all those years.

[And as this came to light, the metaphoric parallel with being homosexual also came to light: if its not a mental illness, then it is a choice. And if people choose to be gay or homeless, then others can easily rationalize their lack of care and compassion. The more I thought about this parallel, the angrier I felt.]

No, it turns out, he was just loyal to and inseparable from his street spouse, and no one would offer them shelter as a couple.

As a pastor in Hollywood, California, I’ve run into this repeatedly. There are all kinds of programs—some run by government agencies, some by churches that get government funding, some by independent evangelical organizations that God alone knows how they are funded.

Many programs, including the warehouse-sized “missions” downtown, all have strict rules. Many of them try to force Christian faith down the throats of the homeless, for example expecting them to get up at 4:30 a.m. for Bible Study before breakfast. Most of these programs have very targeted audiences: they are there for young people, or for drug addicts in recovery, or for kids at risk of slipping into prostitution, etc. Almost all of them are only for individuals, not couples or families.

But Eric and his common-law spouse didn’t fit those criteria. They didn’t have a drug or drinking problem; they were not youths between 18–24; they might not have been classifiable as mentally ill in the clinical sense. They didn’t have HIV or AIDS. Because they didn’t fit any of the categories laid out in each agency’s “needs assessment,” they simply didn’t qualify for anybody’s help.

For five year I kept trying to lift their self-esteem (knowing very well that every night spent on a filthy blanket against a block wall that reeks of urine is lowering their self-esteem). “You deserve more out of life than this,” I said. “You really have to want more out of your lives before you will be able to have more in your lives.”

How do you give the gift of motivation to someone who just wants a hot meal and a real bed? I frequently thought of the man who begged in Acts 3:1–10 and the gift which Peter and John gave to him.

Sadly, motivation came from something else entirely: the death of another homeless man half a block from the church. That fellow, whose name I never learned, was sleeping just behind the end building of a shopping center, in a makeshift shelter of cardboard appliances boxes. Early one morning in complete darkness one of those huge trash trucks simply backed right over the boxes, crushing his skull and killing him instantly.

That was the second death in his street world in two months. Eric, whose street spouse had just died of breast cancer, felt very alone. He became profoundly depressed, but with patient listening on my part he began to open up about his real fears. No, he isn’t afraid of being inside buildings. He is just used to being outside. But, with the tragic death of that nameless, homeless man, Eric was legitimately terrified to remain outside.

The story is not over. I’m not sure this family thing is going to work out, in the long run. The family member he moved in with has his own mental and emotional issues. And there’s the gay thing, about which Eric is not judgmental but not thrilled either. I’m just worried that this three-month reconciliation might unravel, and Eric would again have no place to go.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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