November 13, 2008 by PD.

This just in by e-mail from Andrea Szeredy:

One day, the Catholics of the world realized that they far outnumbered all the other kinds of Christians.

“Look,” they said “There’s over 1.1 billion of us. There’s only 16 million Southern Baptists, 12 million Mormons, 5 million Lutherans… Let’s use our numbers to change some things.”

So they used their voting power and passed laws all over. These laws said that only Catholics were allowed to call themselves ‘Christians’. Only the Catholic Bible could call itself ‘the Bible’.

And only Catholics could refer to Jesus by that name. The law required all the other Churches to use different, more generic names. This law was appropriately called the ‘Defense of Christianity Act’.

Of course, this was met with outrage. Non-Catholic Christians around the world rose up in protest, saying “How dare you! We worship the same God, and our Churches are just as good as yours, if not better! We won’t be treated as second-class Christians!”

And the Catholics responded, “But you’re not really Christians at all, don’t you see? We have a tradition that goes back more than 2000 years unbroken right to Jesus. We’re the real Christians. You guys have only been around for a few hundred years, and you’re changing our ancient traditions. You even took some books out of the Old Testament of the Bible! You rip apart the Bible and expect people to call you Christian. You make Jesus sick.”

The others said “But what does this have to do with you? It doesn’t affect your lives. You don’t have to read our Bible or come to our Churches. Our worship has nothing to do with you!”

The Catholics said “Of course it does. When you call yourselves ‘Christian’, it cheapens the word ‘Christian’, and that takes away from us. Why, if you have equal access to the word ‘Christianity’, then our schools will be forced to tell children that it’s just as good to be a Baptist or a Lutheran as a Catholic!”

The others replied “But we ARE Christians! We follow the teachings of Jesus! How is that any different than you?”

The Catholics smiled sadly and shook their heads. “Christ intended there to be one holy apostolic Church, which He Himself founded on Saint Peter. It’s in the Bible. What you have is just not the same. Besides — what’s wrong with the term ‘Middle-Eastern Special Carpenter Followers’? You can still have your ‘Official Religious Storybook’, just don’t call it ‘the Bible’. You get all the same rights as we do. Oh, and by the way — since your marriages aren’t

performed in a real Christian church, we’re dissolving those, too. You’ll have to settle for a civil union.”

The others said “That’s discrimination! You can’t treat us differently just because we have a different religion!”

The Catholics said “Don’t be silly. You have exactly the same rights we do. Just like any person, you have the right to be Baptized Catholic, so that you call call yourselves Christians and get

married. See how it all works? Now stop complaining, or we’ll pass a law against that.” Then the Catholics looked at each other and smiled. “Isn’t it nice to outnumber minorities?” they said to each other.

And they all lived together in their new ‘equality’.

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

October 16, 2008 by PD.

16 October 2008

Prop 8: Limit on Marriage (and on the rights of LGBT persons)

PCU OPPOSES this measure.  [Quoted completely from the Progressing Christians Uniting website.]

Summary:  Eliminates the existing right of same-sex couples to be legally married in the State of California. Effectively voids the 2008 California Supreme Court ruling affirming marriage equality under the equal protection provisions of the state constitution.

Commentary: As everyone knows, the Republican-appointed justices on the California Supreme Court issued a very carefully-reasoned decision earlier this year in which they explained why denying same sex couples the right to marry violates the state constitution’sequal rights guarantee. In the words of Chief Justice Ronald George: ” An individual’s sexual orientation—like a person’s race or gender—does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold rights.”  The justices took special care to point out how their affirmation of equal marriage for same-sex couples in no way violates the freedom of religion.  No clergyperson and no house of worship would ever be obligated to perform or host a same-sex marriage service.

In fact, Prop 8 itself would violate religious freedom by allowing one religious viewpoint concerning marriage to trump every other viewpoint. In a way that is reminiscent of the worst of human history, Prop 8 would single out just one group within the population—LGBT people—as specifically “less than” by denying them the many civil benefits that are conferred by a valid marriage license.

Prop 8 would trash the California Constitution’s bedrock principle of equal protection for the sake of gratifying the anti-gay prejudice of just one subset of state voters.  Pushing a constitutional amendment to deny equal rights is reckless beyond belief.  Americans were not asked to vote for or against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision forty years ago to overturn vicious anti-miscegenation laws.  But because we are being asked to vote now to uphold or reject the single best-reasoned anti-discrimination ruling of any court in recent memory, we must answer history’s call and decisively reject Prop 8’s legalized bigotry.

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

September 23, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

It is high wedding season for the lesbian and gay couples in California. We’ve had several months now to get weddings planned and guests invited. So I am very busy, doing several weddings per week from now until election day November 4. (Do I need to remind anyone to vote NO on Proposition 8?)

But our national churchbody, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is apparently rattling its sabers about gay marriage. The word has leaked out that the top national official who is responsible for interpreting the ELCA’s constitution between biennial churchwide assemblies is saying that ELCA pastors in California (and Massachusetts I presume) should not be performing the legal ceremonies even if they preside over “blessings.” He (it always seems to be a he) is interpreting the rules by making a real stretch of logic that because our pre-existing guiding social statements about marriage and family see a marriage as two of opposite genders that pastors, who have pledged to obey the rules should not be presiding over gay and lesbian marriages. According to sources I heard yesterday, he is even suggesting that a pastor who performs a gay or lesbian wedding could be subject to disciplinary charges — even to the extent of being removed from the professional roster.

It is a stretch because the pre-existing documents did not even contemplate the possibility of legalized same-sex marriage. It is a stretch because he is suggesting that broad social statements must control and limit every individual pastoral act on the local level. It is a stretch because he leaves no wiggle room for the individual’s conscience. It is a stretch because he is trying to keep his juridical rubber-band around a world which is rapidly changing.

It is beyond me why he would want to take the ELCA down the road which is so rocky and pitted and filled with land-mines that have endangered the United Methodist Church, the United Presbyterian Church and the Episcopal Church.

Why he would want to take the path of conservative control, when the ELCA is in very close and significant agreements with the United Church of Christ, is equally beyond me. The United Church of Christ is much more open-minded about gay/lesbian marriage and the presence of gay and lesbian people in its membership and professional ministry. In recent years that national body has produced and broadcast some amazing television ads that use the slogan ”God is Still Speaking.”

In other words, the book is not closed on the will of God.  God speaks in our changing world. We should be listening to and discerning what the word of God is for our changing world.

But apparently high-ranking ELCA officials believe that God is not still speaking, or that the pre-existing documents written more than 20 years ago have the last word. I think it may be closer to the truth that the ELCA is not listening, but God is still speaking.

In the meantime, I am conducting marriages, invoking the blessing of Almighty God with confidence that God is present wherever love is lifted up and where commitments are made and kept.

On Sunday afternoon, I presided over the wedding ceremony for two men who have been partnered for 16 years. One of them is in a wheel chair now, and could not even stand to recite his vow of love and fidelity for life to the younger man who had pushed him down the aisle and whose tears streamed down his cheek. So that partner knelt beside the wheel chair for them to exchange their vows in front of the altar of our church.

Go ahead, mister high-ranking official: Try to tell God not to be present in that sacred moment. Try to tell me that I should not announce the unconditional love and blessing of God on these two brave men. Try to tell me I am in violation of 20 year-old documents which I pledged to uphold, or that I could be subject to discipline for signing a document which certifies that these two men have freely and without coercion decided to accept responsibility for one another for the rest of their lives. But while you are trying to tell me this stuff, I can scarcely hear you, because I am listening for a voice which is louder than yours. God is still speaking.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

August 7, 2008 by PD.

Lutherans and Catholics remain far apart on many religious issues, and the reality of same-sex marriage in California is proving to be yet another one of those issues.

On August 1, the Catholic Bishops in California endorsed Proposition 8 — the proposed constitutional amendment that would take away civil rights form gay and lesbian people which the Supreme Court has established.  it was not enough for the Catholic Bishops to oppose same-sex marriage on theological principle — according to their medieval theology which includes the teaching that marriage is a sacrament — but no, they had to actually endorse the right-wing efforts to deny civil rights and roll them back.

So the Catholic Church in California contributes to the muddle which has been created by other “Religious Reich” folks — ripping into the wall of separation between church and state.  The Catholic leaders in California are trying to tear this wall down, by imposing fundamentalist, medieval Roman Catholic views of marriage on all citizens of this state.

Lutherans have so far avoided such bad politics and bad theology.  The three ELCA Lutheran Bishops in California have issued advisory letters to their pastors which discuss and wrestle with the issue of same-sex marriage, but they remained silent about Proposition 8.  In addition, the Lutheran Office of Public Policy has decided to take no position on Proposition 8, even after a face-to-face discussion with one of the Lutheran bishops.

While the national ELCA Bishops in 1996 said that marriage is between a man and a woman, it was indeed only that, when the statement was drafted.  Such a statement is of course no longer accurate, because “gay marriage” does indeed exist, whether Christians like it or not.

Interestingly, the most conservative of California’s three Lutheran bishops, the Rev. Murray Fink in Orange County, took the trouble to cited Martin Luther’s views of marriage, in his advisory letter.  Finck, who was present at the LOPP Policy Council meeting on July 26, said in his letter,

From the time of the Reformation, Lutherans have regarded marriage primarily as a civil matter. Martin Luther said, “Marriage is outside the church, is a civil matter, and therefore should belong to the government” (Table Talk No. 4716, Luther’s Works, Volume 54 [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967]).

So Lutherans divide with Catholics on marriage precisely where they did in the Reformation era 500 years ago.  Although Luther supported the Christian family, and was himself proably what we would classify as “homophobic” today (he repeatedly condemned the “vile practices” which were going on in monasteries at the time without explaining them), he believed that ultimately civil marriage was irrelevant to the church and its Gospel.  He believed priests should be able to get married — which at the time was against the law. 

In 1519 three priests decided to take Luther’s views seriously, and informed him they were about to be married (to women).  He struggled at first with whether or not to participate by preaching for the nuptial mass.  Only several years later Luther himself decided to marry, still in defiance of Roman Catholic canon law but protected from civil penalties only by the power of local German princes who believed Luther was right and the Catholic church was wrong.

Our own bishop here in Los Angeles, Rev. Dean Nelson, has asked his clergy to inform him and discuss the pastoral conditions in their parishes before performing any same-gender weddings.  While this is a far cry from banning the pastoral participation in such marriages, Nelson’s careful and conservative word to his clergy may be having a chilling effect on some pastors in his jurisdiction.  Personally, I am not in his jurisdiction or under his authority.  His office considers my pulpit to be “vacant” and did not even send me his letter of cautious guidance until it was requested.

I have, of course, performed numerous “blessings” or “holy unions” (without the knowledge or the permission of the ELCA), over the last 20 years.  I have done so with absolute confidence in God’s blessing of these relationships.  But now that same-sex marriage is a reality in California (and Massachusetts, Canada and other European countries), I find it kind of fun that the first actual wedding of two lesbians I conducted, on June 17 in West Hollywood, was of two Roman Catholic women who are very much in love.  They are now happily married in the sight of God and in the records of the State of California.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

June 26, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Catholic Church Denounces Move By Cuba To Support LGBT Rights
by The Associated Press

Posted: June 25, 2008 - 8:00 am ET

(Havana) Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church is protesting the communist government’s growing support of gay rights, including a daylong event raising awareness against homophobia and a law allowing sex-change operations.

“Respect for the homosexual person, yes,” said an editorial Tuesday in Palabra Nueva, the monthly magazine of the Archdiocese of Havana. “Promotion of homosexuality, no.”

The editorial signed by magazine director Orlando Marquez referred to activities held May 17 by Cuba’s Sex Education Center, which is directed by Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raul Castro.

The headline for this story from Associated Press caught my eye and freaked me out.

Apparently the Roman Catholic Church —anywhere in the world— is determined to be the last surviving entity which is rabidly anti-homosexual, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that it cannot understand human life, will not grow or change when the Holy Spirit is clearly calling to it, and does not model itself on the compassion and understanding of Jesus.

Isn’t it enough that the Roman Catholic Church in this country has stonewalled virtually every effort to root out clerical abuses, especially child molestation (of both girls and boys), has spent the contents of its offering plates to pay attorneys to defend an indefensible cover-up of corrupt clergy?  Isn’t it enough that Pope Benedict XVI has tld all other Christians in the world that they simply aren’t the church (and by implication cannot be saved) because they are not under his personal authority?  Isn’t it enough that the American Catholic Church —one of the more open-minded pockets in the Roman Cahtolic Church worldwide— has put its energy and money into fighting even the most rudimentary protections for LGBT people under the law?

In another overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the Czech Republic, the right wing is still trying to block or harass all efforts to hold a gay pride parade.  According to 365Gay.Com (read it here) yesterday the government banned anti-gay rallies that ultra-right wing groups were trying to hold simultaneously with a pride march in Brno, Moravia.  While the Czech Republic, release from the iron grip of socialism has gotten quite liberal about gay people, it is safe to say the underlying Catholic culture is trying to mobilize against gay rights.  Sadly, hwoever, the churches in Prague are just about as empty as everywhere else in Europe, illustrating how totally out of touch the church is with the 21st century.

What is really appalling/amusing (can those things be said in the same breath?)  is that the Castro regime is itself so backward that it is already fundamentally homophobic.  For years it has only compounded the inherent homophobia/hypocrisy found throughout Latin America.  Yet when it finally decides that it needs to address public policy issues concerning homosexuality in a more honest and just manner, here the Roman Catholic Archdiocese is essentially protesting such justice and in effect calling for continued repression.

In 1981 we sponsored four Cuban refugees in this country, three of them gay men.  I learned first-hand of Castro’s anti-gay policies.  And I learned first-hand that Cuban men typically deny being gay as long as they are the so-called “active” sex partner rather than “passive.”  

At the worst of the Marxist repression, Cuban gay men could be imprisoned merely for being effeminate.  One of the four was extremely effeminate and had been in prison before eing released by Fidel and kicked out of the country directly into an American refugee camp.  His boyfriend, who pleased with us to get him out of the refugee camp, considered himself not to be homosexual because, he said, he was always on top.

No issue, apparently, is too big to prevent denial, hypocrisy or just plain bull!  Alas, the church proves again that it will never willingly step over the line against the surrounding culture.  If Latin America is homophobic, the then church somehow believes it must defend and protect that cultural bigotry. 

Faked picture labeled “Gay Fidel” from this site

 But when society has moved on —and I think this gesture on the part of Raul Castro’s regime indicates that even Cuban society is moving on—why does the church have to drag its feet even more?

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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June 24, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

NATIONAL BRIEFING | NEW ENGLAND

Maine: Group Abandons Gay Law Campaign
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 20, 2008

A group has abandoned a campaign to overturn a state law protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination. The group, the Christian
Civic League of Maine [emphasis added], said it had failed to gain the support needed to continue. The proposal would have repealed protections in employment, housing, public accommodation, credit and education. It would also have affirmed a state law restricting marriages to one man and one woman, ensured that only one unmarried person or one married couple jointly could adopt a person, prohibited clerks from issuing marriage licenses to persons of the same sex, and prohibited municipalities from licensing civil unions.  California and Massachusetts are the only states to legalize same-sex marriage; a handful of others allow civil unions or domestic partnerships among same-sex couples.

I certainly didn’t have to single out the Roman Catholic Church.  After all, it has gotten into bed, as it were, with the Religious Reich. 

But why is it that the Christian Church feels it must not only weigh in on matters deemed to have moral significance, but constantly attempt to play a controlling role in setting public policy?  It seems clear enough that behind many conservative views or even more ultra-conservative voices who back and fund the repeated incursions across the line which seaprates church and state.

I have long felt that the best witness to admirable ethical standards that any Christ can make is to live an ethical life oneself, and let one’s own actions speak louder than words.  This is why I am appalled at the behavior of the Roman Catholic Church in this country in its efforts to deny civil rights to gay people when its own actions have included flouting the law and ignoring the high moral standards in the law which protects children from sexual molestation. 

If you do not believe that abortion is morally acceptable, then don’t have an abortion.  If you feel that homosexuality is immoral, then don’t be homosexual (especially if you insist that homosexuality is a matter of “choice.”).  If same-sex marriage is morally wrong, then don’t marry someone of your gender. 

Every time one of these measures comes up (and thank God that one in Maine is going down again) it claims to be protecting something.  But the homophobia is unmistakable because it usually seeks to shame and punish someone else!  That would be like promoting high academic achievement in schools not by publishing an honor roll but by paddling those who got D’s and F’s on their report card.

Mayor John Baldacci and family.  Hmmm. The homophobia of the Christian Civic League of Maine is scarcely hard to document.  Their web site entry for March 5, 2005 loudly chastises Governor John Baldacci attempts to add [protection for] “sexual orientation” to Maine’s civil rights law, and virtually rants about the “gay agenda”:

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Homophobia, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Rights, Health, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

April 12, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

My friend Roberta was ordained to today. It’s a start.

A well educated, mature woman, with a theology degree and a Ph. D., Roberta became Roman Catholic and sought her theological education at a time, fresh after Vatican II, when thousands of women thought that the Roman Catholic Church was going to start ordaining women to the priesthood any day now. In the meantime, Robert is a writer, teacher, and professional mediator.

Forty years after Vatican II, she’s still waiting, of course. I can’t help wondering if we are now all waiting for the present Pope to die for things to finally change, or for the church itself to die. Hmm.

Today Roberta was ordained as a Deacon, not a Priest— in the American Catholic Church, one of those independent churchbodies that traces their line back to the Old Catholics who broke with Rome in 1870 over last-straw dogmas which they would not accept: papal infallibility and the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, etc.

Roberta was ordained in our Lutheran parish sanctuary, of course. Welcome, my friend to the original “old” Catholics – the churches of the Reformation, who have been waiting 500 years for reconciliation.

We have little to brag about, of course. We didn’t start ordaining women to the ministry in this country until 1970. It’s almost as if Vatican II made more of an impression on us than on the Roman Catholics. At any rate, 38 years is a long time to wait for ordination.

As desperately as the whole church of Christ needs servants and ministers, it continues to find ways to drag its feet. My friend Scott, an ELCA heterosexual seminary graduate, waited about two years for a call and ordination to serve a congregation. What as wrong with him? Is he chopped liver? And in the meantime, dozens of congregations in our geographic area are dragging their feet, unable to work the process to select and to call a Pastor. Why? Scott wanted a call very much, and continued to be a servant of the church in a non-ordained position while he was waiting. On hold, as it were.

“Your Call is important to us. Please hold.” This seems to be the church’s message to its seminary graduates.

Then I got to thinking: Was there something wrong with this guy? I mean, did he fail some key courses? Does he have an attitude problem? Is he a closeted heretic? Why are they overlooking him? I finally asked him one day at a clergy gathering face-to-face, “Whom did you piss off?”

“That’s what I’m beginning to wonder,” he said with a sad chuckle in his voice.

Women routinely have to wait a long time to get the Call. And for their second call (if— God forbid—they should ever want or have to move on to a new opportunity to serve), there are “on hold” for a very long time.

It’s especially true of course for lesbian and gay, bisexual and transgender students and graduates and pastors. The institutional church has spent the same forty years ditzing around with its LGBT children.

“Are we welcome in the church, or not?”

“Well, yes, sorta,” they tell us.

“We have faith, and we have been loyal to a fault to an institution which really doesn’t know what to do with us, so are we welcome to participate fully in the life of the church or not?”

“Well, yes.”

“Does that participation include professional ministry, under Call, as ordained servants of the servants of God?

“Hello?”

“Your Call is important to us. Please continue to hold.”

It really isn’t a matter of whether the church will ever finish studying us, like butterflies pinned under glass. It is a matter of whether the church of Christ will ever get on with its mission to follow Jesus, serve people, and move on to new and exciting opportunities. But sadly, the institutional church seems to be incapable—institutionally—of carrying out real ministry and stepping up to anything new.

So here’s to you, Deacon Roberta. Congratulations!!

She has selected her area of missional concentration as a Diaconate for Spirituality and the Arts in the Los Feliz area of Hollywood/Los Angeles. I don’t think it’s been tried before, and of course there’s no money for it, but knowing Roberta, it will happen. Like thousands of women, minorities, lesbian and gay people, renegades and troublemakers within the body of Christ, she has the vision while the whole church seems to be blind. You go, Roberta!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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April 8, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

The Good News of Christ’s reconciling mission in the world has been unbelievably snagged in the nonsense of papal counter-reforms. His Bavarianess, Pope Benedict XVI is trying to rip out of the Catholic cloth all the tailoring which was sewn by the Vatican II reformers two generations ago. The Latin Mass is back—strongly encouraged by Benedict. Apparently continuity with the irrelevant past into an irrelevant future is more important than the participation of the faithful.

And now even his choice of liturgical vestments is going retro. An opinion piece, “Papal Dress Code“, —by former altar boy and senior editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times, Michael McGough —ventures into the world of papal vestments which Benedict prefers and likely will model when he comes to the United States later this month.

In trying to find suitable graphics with Google, I have followed the threads into an arcane world of medieval repristinators who, like sleeping dogs, should probably be left to their own dreams.

(Above) Here you see Benedict celebrating mass with an enormous host (I guess everything papal can be super-sized), surrounded by attendants dressed in what appear to be clear plastic raincoats. Hmmm.  A blog comment identifies these as “Shantung silk.” What would Jesus wear?

If you want to peek further, there are sites and blogs such as “Save the Liturgy Save the World“ which devolves quickly from believing that the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life (okay, I can’t disagree), to stating that violations of rubrics, like a pebble tossed in a pond, create spiritual ripples in the Church and the world!

Violation of rubrics? Does anybody but the gay boys in the Sacristy remember what rubrics are? They are the little ceremonial notes, usually written in red ink, which ride along with liturgical rites in those big, dusty altar missals, to help the ministers perform the services “decently and in order.”

Rubrics are like stage directions for a play—lines which the actors don’t deliver but must remember (”cross to stage left, waving right arm and shouting …”). But apparently for some faithful believers, violations of these stage directions are tantamount to irreverence and cause spiritual ripples felt around the world.

Is it any wonder that bumper stickers (which are also seen everywhere, at least everywhere around my world) poke such fun, “Jesus Save Me from your followers!”? Is it any wonder that the Barna Group research says today’s young adults admire Jesus and avoid the Church?  (see also: “Spirituality: Do We Look Like Jesus?“)

Could it be because the Church takes its eyes off of its Lord and starts gazing at its own embroidered navel? I was frankly aghast last year to see a photo of Cardinal Mahoney washing the feet of his disciples on Maundy Thursday in full liturgical vestments,

after having read the same Gospel passage he did, where Jesus took off his outer vestments and simply tied a towel around his waist (John 13:3–4). Can’t we serve Christ with humility, boys?

I say these things not to beat up on traditional Roman Catholics, or to put the Pope down for his three-times-head height miters, but to call the true church to repentance and faith in the Christ who empowers us to serve God by serving others, not serving ourselves. I myself wear a chasuble for the Eucharist. But I remember the good counsel I received more than 30 years ago about the reform of Christian worship practices – there are three criteria which should not be out of balance with one another: historic precedent, ecumenical consensus and contemporary need. Benedict has apparently decided to blow off the latter two.

I have always tried to keep my high church tendencies in check (”must control the wrist of death”), and only recently have allowed a little more elaboration and festive stuff in our parish worship because of the large number of recovering catholics in our community. But at the same time I am committed to proclaiming Gospel, not navel, and to prayer from the heart, and to serving the community around us with compassion and humility. If anything causes spiritual ripples in the world, it ought to be the deeds by which we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoners, and proclaim liberty to the oppressed. Benedict, would you care to join us?

But who am I? I am only the voice of a heretic (demoted from “separated brethren” under Vatican II) who belongs to a nearly 500 year old movement (the Evangelical Lutheran Church) that the present pope does not consider to be a church.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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March 31, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

The honor of your presence is requested by his Grace

The Most Rev. Robert Mary Clement, Archbishop of the American Catholic Church

at the Archbishop John Darcy Noble Center

to Celebrate the ordination of Roberta Morris to the Diaconate

Saturday, April 12, 2008 1 p.m.

Hollywood Lutheran Church 1733 N. New Hampshire Blvd., Los Angeles

Join us for Dr. Roberta Morris’ ordination and the inauguration of this LGBT-friendly ministry with the arts community in the Hollywood/ Los Feliz/Silver Lake area, across from Barnsdall Art Park.

Dr. Morris trained for this ministry, obtaining her Masters of Divinity from St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, and her Doctorate in Philosophy at York University. She has worked as a writer, university chaplain, instructor, director of religious education, mediator and peace activist.

As a deacon with the American Catholic Church, she will work ecumenically in a LGBT friendly environment to support the spiritual lives of artists and other members of our community.

Come celebrate the Ordination Mass with us.  Reception follows 

RSVP 323-668-0008

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March 28, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I am in the midst of preparing for a gay wedding, the joining of two lives together at the heart—a wedding at which, along with friends and families, I will bless God for the gift of love which two men have found in one another.

This is heresy to the world’s conservative Christians, and it is troubling to those who are out in the middle on this spectrum of love and hate.  As I mentioned recently, we are not considered to even be Christian in the eyes of the right wing (the “religious reich”).

Who or what is a “Christian”?

Dr. Rembert Truluck offers a simple suggestion in his essay, “A Gay Christian Response to Southern Baptists”:  a Christian is one who is Christ-like.  Truluck is not picking on the Southern Baptists.  He has the credentials to take them on as an insider, not an outsider.  He received his Doctor of Theology degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky; he was a Southern Baptist pastor, and even served as a writer of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Lessons for six years.

So when Dr. Truluck suggests that “Southern Baptists ceased to be Christian (Christ-like)” it is worth paying attention to his reasoning.

This is not a stretch, but fundamentally good Bible study: Jesus began his teaching and healing ministry by including people who had previously been left out by his faith tradition. In Luke 4:18–19, we see that Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth, his boyhood home.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Curiously, the passage goes on to say that “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.”  Meaning that people were watching, and wondering what he meant to imply.  From the very outset, there were those who held Jesus in suspicion because he included people whom others excluded from their faith communities.

Jesus went on to welcome women into circles reserved for men, to praise Samaritans who were hated by Jews, to preach tolerance for the leper, the foreigner, and the eunuch (a sexual misfit if ever there was one).

“Jesus in the Gospels defined his ministry by those he included that previously had been left out,” says Dr. Truluck. “When the people rejected the inclusive message of Jesus, he left town. When Southern Baptists defined themselves by who they left out (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people) in changing the bylaws of the Southern Baptist Convention to exclude any church that accepted openly gay and lesbian members, Southern Baptists ceased to be Christian (Christ-like).”

When I first read this I almost whistled out loud—as if to say that was a brave or even dangerous comment to be so critical of the second-largest Christian body in the U.S., and one that must still believe it has hegemony in political circles.  But as an insider, Truluck is entitled to be severe with that denomination.  More importantly, he is right that one important definition of who is a Christian, or what is Christian behavior, is to make the comparison with Christ and his behavior.  If Christ included those whom others exclude or “preclude” (the ELCA), they are at variance with Jesus Christ.

Of course (if you could ever have a civil discussion with them!), the conservatives would argue that Jesus never included homosexuals.

But that becomes a matter of heated debate over the “dangerous memories” (Dr. Theodore Jennings, The Man Jesus Loved), and somewhat obscure passages of the New Testament.  [See Joe Perez’s review of Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.]

It can be fiercely argued that Jesus and the Beloved Disciple were not gay (John 13:21–26; 19:25–27; 21:20–24); that Cleopas and his companion sharing a home in the village of Emmaus (Luke 24:13–32) were not gay, that the centurion and his pais (lad or boy; Matthew 8:5–13) were not gay. It can also be fiercely—and responsibly—argued that those of us who are LGBT are given clues in these places in the Gospels to “read between the lines”: Jesus means include us, too, who formerly were excluded.

It is not merely a little “side issue” of no particular importance, to include LGBT people, if we see that Jesus defined his ministry and his Gospel by those he included who had been excluded before. In fact, his inclusion is fundamental, central and of the highest importance to what it means to be Christ-like.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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