Lutheran bishop speaks out prayerfully, because “our silence causes you pain.”

October 29, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

I am glad to receive word that even our national Lutheran bishop has joined the “It Gets Better” project. This just came in from Lutherans Concerned/North America:

 

Dear Members and Friends of Lutherans Concerned/North America:

The recent wave of media reports of teen suicides as an apparent result of anti-gay bullying has brought national attention to a matter which has affected LGBT people for generations. Video messages from cultural celebrities such as Lady Gaga, from governmental leaders such as President Obama and Secretary Clinton, and from the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA have provided crucial words of support and hope for millions of vulnerable youth. While anti-LGBT bullying has taken center stage of late, anyone who is perceived as “not like us” can and do become targets of both physical and verbal bullying. It’s vitally important that parents, teachers, elected leaders, and clergy reassure all young people that they are loved and cared for just as they are.

In his video message, Bishop Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, speaks of the “pain and shock” of hearing of young people bullied “for being the people God created them to be.” He says that he knows of the hurt that had been inflicted by the words of some Christian brothers and sisters and also that “our silence” had the power to hurt as well. He reminds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people that they are “beloved children of God,” for whom there is a place in this world and in this church.

To see the video, go to: http://lutheransconcerned.blogspot.com/2010/10/rev-mark-hanson-and-it-gets-better.html

or http://tinyurl.com/BpHanson-on-bullying

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Violence, Bullying, Homophobia, Doctrine, LGBT Christian, Bible & Interpretation, PRAYERS | Print | No Comments »

This bullying thing, writ large.

October 28, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Once our society becomes more aware of the extend of personal bullying and its role in violence and criminal behavior, things would have to get better in this country, right?

I wish that were true.  Many naysayers are found of using the term “slippery slope” to describe moral points of no return. We are afraid of legalizing marijuana, for example, because it may/will lead to harder drugs, etc. Chief William Bratton, when serving the New York Police Department, subscribed to the “broken windows theory” that ignoring trivial things like broken windows in the city leads to the deterioration of entire neighborhoods: vandalism first, then, bigger crimes against property and against people.  In other words, “it gets worse.”

Why, then, do we allow child and adolescent bullying to go unchecked? Is it not a slippery slope for adult aggression, violence and crime?

There is a lot of conversation now about the bullying which has led to the self-hatred on the part of lesbian or gay teenagers which led to them taking their own lives. Another slippery slope that should be corrected, right?

As President Obama says in his It Gets Better Project video: “It breaks my heart. It’s something that just shouldn’t happen in this country. And we’ve got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal right of passage.”

Bullying is a sign of a deeply-rooted psychology of violence. School bullies often go on to become violent criminals as adults. If they are sufficiently motivated not deflect their own rage, it can often come out in resentment, hatred, racism, and those odd and dangerous political views that hold other people in suspicion and try to deprive them of equal rights and equal opportunity in our society.

If bullying were a “right of passage”—or something Jamie Nabozny was told by his high school principal, “boys will be boys”—then theoretically bullies would “grow out if it.” Instead, many “grow into it” and become more violent in their lives.

The story of Jamie Nabozny has just been released: “Bullied” premiered in Washington three weeks ago. Nabozny was a gay teen in small-town Wisconsin who was harassed relentlessly, attacked and even urinated on in the school bathroom. He tried running away from home, attempted suicide, and finally sued his school district and won a $900,000 settlement.

Ironically there is an anti-bullying law in California which has been on the books for seven years, but it has no teeth: no definitions of either bullying or of protected classes of people, and no penalties against schools or educational executives who decline to stop the harassment and violence in their schools. Nabozny’s successful lawsuit should have made a forceful point to all of America’s educational system that one school bully is like a “broken window” in a community, and it will almost always lead to a meaner, less civil, more violent society.

It is interesting to see the letter published in the Ashland, Wisconsin paper this week that shows some progress in local thinking there. Kaylie McCarthy, a 10-th grader there wrote, “Now, I ask the Ashland School Board this: do you choose to accept the mistakes made in the past, to help move on for the future and prove not only to us students, but the entire community, that leadership comes from acceptance? Or do we cover up the mistakes, and halt the progressions that’s been made thus far? As a proud Ashland High School student, all I know is that I look forward to seeing the documentary for myself.”

Looking at the larger society, In my view, the present political climate in America is a form of bullying on steroids—when inexperienced political wannabees think they can buy an election through forceful negative advertising and saturation of our TV channels; when a minority caucus or segment of elected officials think they can demand to have their way or shut the government down in retaliation. And is not war itself the ultimate form of bullying? —when one nation thinks that by intimidation, sheer force and aggression, violence and bloodshed, it can have its way in the world.

We live in a big city, and the bullying that takes place on our streets and highways has also reached a serious, fevered level. I have personally followed drivers in traffic, for example, who barely slowed down in slipping through stop sign after stop sign on the same route. Twice I have had a driver of a truck stop and get out of his vehicle and threaten me verbally for something he didn’t like. (One of those times I was a pedestrian who had yelled out “slow down!”) The slippery slope created by the dangerous, aggressive driver is convincing others to say “everybody does it.”

I doubt, however, that the civic discourse in this country will take that direction in reacting to the tragic suicides of recent weeks, because to see bullying as pervasive in our society would cause a great deal of social self-examination. America is no longer very good at self-examination. Like the playground or locker-room bully, our society tends to blame everything external for our own character flaws. It is always somebody else’s fault: socialists, communists, jihadists, the poor, the wealthy, illegal immigrants, people of color, the homosexuals and their “agenda,” etc.

If any good comes out of the tragic deaths of at least six gay teens this fall, it would be to trigger a serious self-examination of the American way of aggression.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Violence, Bullying, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs, LGBT Rights, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Change. For the better.

October 27, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

I am hopeful that America is not going to let this fall’s tragic rush of gay teen suicides just slide into the past without a deeper understanding of the pain and anguish that LGBT teens are facing. All of us need to do something about it, whether or not we have teen children.

Now this past week, we learn of the suicide of 19-year old Corey Jackson. This is becoming a national emergency.

But I am encouraged by two resources on the web. The one is the “It Gets Better Project“ on Youtube, launched by gay columnist Dan Savage, which features the voices of literally hundreds of Americans who offer their stories and their encouragement to LGBT teens. As of this week, even President Obama has posted his offering. The Human Rights Campaign’s Religion & Faith News” contained a link for Susan Russell’s video (on her personal blog). Rev. Canon Russell is the senior associate priest on the staff of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.

The other is the Make It Better Project, which I just learned about in an e-mail from Robin McGehee, Director of Get Equal, “President Obama, you can make it better,” which was posted yesterday. In it, McGehee shares the letter from Tammy Aaberg, whose son Justin Aaberg took his own life because of bullying. The Make It Better Project is produced by the GSA Network, where you can see young gay/lesbian people offering their experience and encouragement.

On that site, you can watch several video segments, including a 5:00 minute trailer for a new documentary “It’s Elementary” from Ground Spark there are other excellent-looking resources on their site about gender, bullying, family diversity, etc.

Personally, I was moved by the amateur videos on It Gets Better to write my own script, with a little bit of my personal story, but as yet I don’t have the camera to go visual. Work with me, people, and I may wind up on Youtube.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Family, Bullying, Violence, Homophobia, LGBT Rights, LGBT Christian, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Isn’t Christianity about love?

October 22, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

No Bull Productions has just released two parts in a series on Youtube for KAC Media. Months ago, I was interviewed for about an hour for these TV journalism pieces. It is a good treatment of the constant warfare between the right-wing born-again sign-wavers and those of us who are serving in the LGBT/Christian community.

The rejective/punitive crowd feels bound by its interpretation of the Bible to “warn” the rest of us about our “lifestyle.” That we are “playing in the middle of God’s freeway” and our “house is on fire” is about the most reasoned and compassionate thing they can find to explain why they keep it up with the signs and bullhorn at Gay Pride parades. Of course, these local folks—like the lonely man who came to hold up a sign the day I was officially installed as the pastor of my congregation—should not be confused with the wingnut cases in Topeka, Kansas who rant their “God hates fags” creed. (The shock value of that statement wore off about 20 years ago, but they are certainly faithful to their delusion.)

KAC Media tries to reach second-generation Korean-Americans by asking tough social/faithful questions that their parent’s generation don’t want to talk about openly. the second generation also speaks English, and easily crosses over the ethnic divide, so these interviews reflect today’s blend of cultural views of young people of any ethnicity.

These interviews—in the streets and the churches— can be seen in two installments at:

PART 1:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6PqndUJ8P4

PART 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoMbS9B3FoM

Stay tuned. More episodes will be forthcoming, according to Producer Brian Kim.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, wingnuts, Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Fundamentalism, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Is the self-styled “cathedral” in danger?

October 19, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

In an interesting coincidence, right on top of the troubles of Rev. Eddie Long, the “bishop” of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, today we have news that Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The two mega-churches are more than a generation or two apart in developing. Rev. Robert Schuller built the “Crystal Cathedral” starting in 1955 with a rented drive-in movie parking lot. The “Hour of Power” and the power of positive thinking came next. Schuller’s kingdom grew alongside the explosive prosperity of Orange County itself.

Rev. Eddie Long started working with his congregation in 1987, taking it from 300 to 18,000 people in a decade. Although the two ministries have many things in common (pastoral personality cult, prosperity in newly-developing suburbs, vision and ambition in innovation) their troubles now have differences that couldn’t be more black and white.

Long is and serves a megachurch community which is African-American. He is seen as a character-builder and an ethnic pride beacon at a time when upper-middle class African-Americans were settling in upscale suburbs out of Atlanta. As Long’s kingdom expanded, he moved his congregation from Decatur out to a 240-acre campus in Lithonia that boasts a gym and spa, school, bookstore and 10,000-seat “cathedral.” Although he is mentioned with some derogatory comments about the “prosperity gospel” preachers (Joel Osteen in Texas comes to mind), Long was preaching and promoting the better material life to a class of people who have suffered at the bottom of society for generations.

The cross sure looks tiny in this “cathedral”

What is bringing Long to his knees in 2010 is, in part, his own success and ego which built it. He is being sued by four young African American men in his own flock who say he seduced them, with gifts and personal attention, into homosexual acts. Never mind the fact that he has received a $3 million salary and drives a Bentley provided by the church, Long has a lot of explaining to do about the sex thing.

The Schuller enterprise grew up two generations earlier on the strength of its leader’s charismatic personality. As big as the Crystal Cathedral is, it is not large enough for the human ego. Although the elder Robert Schuller was not accused of any sexual impropriety, his overreaching dream in the middle of fast-expanding Orange County are catching up with his successor now. Reuters reported last night that Crystal Cathedral Ministries has debts somewhere near $50 million (others say as high as $100 million)—$36 million of it in the mortgage for their glass box. Although it claims 20 million viewers for its broadcasts, Senior Minister Sheila Schuller Coleman presides over a congregation of a mere 3,000 members where revenues fell 27% in recent years. (Another source says 10,000 members; hmm?) The Daily News reports,

“Church spokesman John Charles said the church owes about $7.5 million to a host of vendors for services such as advertising and providing the use of live animals for Easter and Christmas services. The church was negotiating a payment plan with vendors but several chose to file lawsuits, the church said in a statement.”Financially, the Cathedral is rethinking the way it operates, according to Huffington Post, Now, the church is avoiding credit entirely and spends only the roughly $2 million it receives each month in donations and revenue, [Jim] Penner said. The church still hopes to pay all of the vendors back in full, he said. “What we’re doing now is we’re trying to walk what we preach, we’re paying cash for things as we go,” he said. [Penner is an assistant pastor and executive producer of the “Hour of Power.”]But whatever the bankruptcy protection will mean, ego issues still get in the way. As the New York Times explained last July, Robert Schuller, Sr., finally re-retired at age 83, two years after he had kicked out his son, Robert Schuller Jr. that most said had been groomed to take over for his father. A family feud that should never have happened, except that both the Schuller family and the Christian kingdom that it built can’t conceive of their church without the Schuller name at the top. So daughter Sheila Schuller Coleman will finally be senior pastor, after a year of sharing the limelight with her father, and Robert Sr. remains as the chairman of the CC’s board of directors or consistory.The Los Angeles Times story has a more revealing look at this. While many say the CC’s troubles are due to the recession, two other factors also loom large. One is the conflict of leadership—the power and ego struggle at the top—and the other is the aging of the congregation. Will other mega-churches start to shrivel when the generation that enthusiastically built them up begin to age and die off?Pam’s House Blend (”An Online Magazine in the Reality-Based Community”), by the way, has posts about Schuller and the CC’s attitude about homosexuality. One of them this morning is worth putting here: by: willyed @ Tue Oct 19, 2010 at 09:06:39 AM CDT“Whatever happened… To churches where the pastor knew and had an actual personal relationship with everyone there?  Since salvation is a person matter that does not require a church, the reason you have church is to help people be good Christians and good people in general, to support them, and correct them when they stray from the path. How can this be accomplished in a giant stadium environment where nobody knows who you are. I suspect that if Christ was walking around today he would be horrified by these industrial worship centers.”Here’s my bottom line: using the terms “bishop” and “cathedral” always makes me chuckle when they are self-styled. Rev. Schuller Sr. decided his church was big enough to qualify as a “cathedral.” Rev. Eddie Long allows or encourages his people to call him “bishop.” The terms have a fairly precise meaning among Christians, but neither of these qualifies. A cathedral is where the bishop sits, or presides. A bishop is an overseer, a person in authority over many churches, not one stadium or giant glass box (a glass elephant?). But the very nature of these mega-ministries is that they are independent of all the rest of the Christian world. Schuller is nominally in the Reformed Church of America, but hardly answers to its guidance or authority. The RCA has no bishops and no cathedrals. I can’t help wondering, if the CC still has ties with the RCA, why no one in the parent denomination tried to put the brakes on the CC’s high-spending ways decades ago.And there is no central authority among Baptists churches: local congregation can set the standards for ordination and ministry. Another megachurch, Saddleback Church in southern Orange County, is also a Southern Baptist Convention church: its pastor Rick Warren answers to no one except the community he has built himself. There are differences between Southern Baptist and Missionary Baptist, mostly not of interest except to insiders, which you can sort out here.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

A Sad Season for Teens

October 11, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Today is National Coming Out Day, and it’s no reason to celebrate this year. Gay teens are dying, and it would have been better by far if they could not be out until they were older and a little better to defend themselves or get away from the hostility of their teen peers or hateful parents.

The suicides of several gay youth in the last several weeks, because of relentless bullying they experience, causes me dismay and deep sadness.

It never seems to end. Fifteen years ago Leroy Aarons published his book Prayers for Bobby about a gay teen —harassed by his own fundamentalist mother about his sinfulness until he jumped off a freeway overpass to his death.

A few years ago, in the film The Bible Tells Me So, which traces the stories of five families trying to cope with the coming out of a gay child, one mother must also cope with the fact that her lack of acceptance of her daughter led to her daughter’s suicide.

If you’re really young and you know you are a sexual minority, where can you hide from the evil, the physical abuse, the taunting and bullying? When public schools have become such dangerous places, where can you run to? Is the church a refuge, where a lesbian or gay teen can feel safe? Not yet.

In the Washington Post recently Debra Haffner, the Executive Director of the Religious Institute, reported a startling figure about gay teens:

“All of us have teens and young adults who are gay or lesbian in our congregations, many who are suffering in silence and are at risk. A study done by my colleagues at the Christian Community, found that 14% of teens in religious communities identify as something other than heterosexual. Almost nine in ten of them have not been open about their sexuality with clergy or other adult leaders in their faith communities. Almost half have not disclosed their sexual orientation to their parents. And nonheterosexual teens who regularly attend religious services were twice as likely as heterosexual teens to have seriously considered suicide. Our young people are dying because we are not speaking out for them.”The 14% figure startled me but doesn’t surprise me, since so many young people, who begin to discern they are “different” or “don’t fit in” with their peers—coming up in Christian households and churches—may be drawn to the genuine message of love and acceptance which the Christian faith has always proclaimed. Gay kids may be more likely to “stick around” seeking that love and acceptance when their heterosexual peers grow bored with the message because they don’t have the same self-doubt or self-esteem issues.Or maybe they used to. When I grew up, the Lutheran Church was so repressed that nobody talked about sex at all, period. I didn’t hear negative messages or positive ones, so I didn’t internalize any homophobia from my church. But today, it seems every evangelical pastor (not really, but it seems so) continually rants about homosexuality, and so the message of love and acceptance has qualifications, “fine print” that clearly excludes the teens who are bright enough to figure themselves out at an early age.Seth Walsh, 13, hung himself. Asher Brown shot himself in the head. Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington bridge into the Hudson. Tyler’s suicide cannot be attributed to bullying, even cyber-bullying, which figured into the tragic deaths of four other teens. Tyler was publicly shamed. But from the dark days decades back when homosexuals were considered a security risk because of the likelihood of blackmail—playing on the same dynamic of shame—bullying, intimidation, blackmail and shame have been almost one continuous spectrum from gray to black. For the love God, this must stop.The church of Jesus must stop promoting homophobia, and stop profiting by selling its own self-righteousness by being vehemently anti-gay. I am glad to say that more and more congregations are becoming open-hearted if not open-minded, realizing that while they may still have huge issues with homosexuality, it is not something for which any teenager should be driven to suicide.

However, as the welcoming movement grows in many Protestant denominations, for too many of them it is a very lame and generic welcome that now includes gay and lesbian people as long as there’s no real risk to the congregation. But there is some risk to openly saying that gay teens are welcome —not the least is the sense of “recruiting” the young to “the gay lifestyle.” The only way the church will get past that one is to work harder at educating their own members and the community around them that recruiting is a dangerous and cruel myth.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Fundamentalism, Bullying, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Ministry, Coming Out, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »