The birth of joy in a season of darkness.

December 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A church member called me this morning from the Midwest, where she had gone for Christmas, to report that her nephew was killed yesterday on a highway in Texas. It has abruptly changed her holiday plans as she and her family now drive down to Texas for a funeral the day after Christmas.

Our parish has suffered five deaths in the extended family during this December, beginning with the loss of our pastor emeritus Harry Durkee on December 2, who had served from 1960–1991.

I am mindful that my mother lost her father in December also. Years later her mother succumbed to cancer on Christmas Night. The holiday season seems especially unfair as a time of joy to be taken away by the cruelty of death.  Even as I do my final preparations for Christmas Eve, I cannot shake the sadness of so much death and loss.

We modern people are wimps when it comes to dealing with the reality of death and grief. They are hard, but they are also bracketed by love and grace, and resolved only in a life of faith. I used to think it strange that St. Thomas and St. Stephen were memorialized on the church’s calendar during the days surrounding Christmas. But perhaps it is the wisdom of centuries of faithfulness that Christians offer up to God in prayer. We are certain that God’s gift to us cannot be undone by the meanness or the unfairness of sudden and untimely death.

What better time to remember those we have loved who have lived in faith, than in the very season when we also proclaim a holy birth among us – the coming of Jesus into our world of darkness and sorrow?

Jaroslav Vaja captured the essence of this in his Christmas hymntext, “Before the Marvel of This Night”. In his imaginative poem, the angels before God speak to one another as they prepare to “tear the sky apart with light” and come down to announce the birth of Christ and peace:

The love that we have always known,
our constant joy and endless light,
now to the  oveless world be shown,
now break upon its deathly night.
Into one song compress the love
that rules our universe above:
sing love, sing love, sing God is love.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Gay Catechism, Doctrine, Faith, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

Letters from prison.

December 21, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

This week I am trying to send out a few Christmas cards — I have essentially given up on that gracious communication with the bulk of our friends, because I get weighed down with everything else, more and more, as Christmas approaches. But I am writing now to several inmates in California prisons, to men who have written to our church from time to time. These men (all men, so far) have written because of one of our own community who is doing time now for a parole violation, and he has told other inmates that, yes, there is a church in Los Angeles which welcomes gay people. So, although the communication is a bit “stiff” in prison letters because every word going out and coming in is pre-read by prison staff, I can only assume that the guys writing to us are probably gay.

A couple of weeks ago, one of them wrote from Kern County. He isn’t ready to tell me what he did that got him convicted, or even how long he is in prison for. But he says this is his first time in prison, and it’s December and I realize he will spend Christmas in a cell.

“Since my imprisonment I have become ever stronger in Jesus Christ and God and church and hold my Christian beliefs even more dear to my heart than ever before.

“What I need: is someone — some church– and some church members to help me and take me under their wings and into their church and allow me to prove myself as a person, as a fellow church member and child of God.”

This young man’s plea is as clear as any I have ever heard. It seems risky for upstanding church-goers to be concerned about convicts who will have to prove themselves in order to be accepted again in society. But as to being a child of God, he has no need of proof. The church is the community of those who put their faith in Christ. Regardless of the division of people into categories—Jew or Greek, male and female, young or old, imprisoned or free, LGBT or straight, there are no subcategories for the children of God.

How can I be so sure of that? Because each of us is made a child not by something we do or accomplish, or avoid doing, or even repent, but by the gracious act of God alone. We are God’s children just because God says so. It’s about love, not “Brownie points,” sexual conformity, or the lack of a criminal record. It’s about a love so strong that nothing can tear us away from it.

In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul agonizes about all of the things in life (he mentions “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” as examples) that may conspire to cause pain, failure, regret or worry, but then he says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I am open-hearted enough to read his phrases very broadly, where he says “in all these things” and especially “things present nor things to come (like our modern world). Can we not see that, if Paul were writing today, he might have mentioned other examples: “poverty, racism, gangs, homophobia or sexual orientation, divorce, unemployment, drugs or alcohol, obesity, health problems or gun violence,” and still come to the same conclusion: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

To my friends in prison: may God keep watch with you at Christmas, knowing that not even bars and walls can separate us from the love which is given to us freely. Keep the faith you have in God’s gracious acceptance. And may the people of God keep faith with you!

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Homophobia, Gay Catechism, Violence, Doctrine, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs, Living by Grace, Faith, Recovery | Print | No Comments »

Tell Minnesota about your life and faith.

November 25, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

My friend Steve just tipped me off to an informal survey which Minnesota Public Radio is conducting about reactions to the ELCA’s August 2009 decision to allow same-gender-partnered clergy in its ranks. In recent days more than a thousand people have expressed their opinion to MPR’s Public Insight Network. Here is how the network summarizes it:

“Of the people who wrote to us, most said they haven’t considered leaving the church over the ELCA’s stance allowing people in committed same-gender relationships to be pastors. In fact, many were concerned that we are giving too much attention to those who want to leave, rather than focusing on the story that most individuals and churches plan to stay with the ELCA. Some wrote to say that this change will bring them back to the church, or keep them from leaving.”

Here is the link to add your name and commentary. Or click on the graphic.

Of the 1,100 people who have written responses, MPR says that 150 are clergy (15%). So I decided to add my “two cents” to their survey:

“I am one who never left the church, not during college years, not even when I came out as a gay man. In seminary, I was deeply conflicted until I gained the spiritual maturity to see that the Gospel was speaking to me with the good news that it is not my achievements nor my self-denial which earned me God’s favor. It is pure grace.

“I began to serve the Church as an ordained pastor–at first closeted, over time less closeted, more outspoken. When the church pushed me off its clergy roster in 1991 I remained faithful anyway. In 2004 I was called back to ministry, by a courageous Lutheran congregation willing to ignore the rules, and specifically to do outreach with gay and lesbian people. I remain in ministry with Hollywood Lutheran Church in an increasingly diverse local community. We are grieved that other powerful and fearful churches threaten to pull out of the ELCA (God bless them wherever they come to rest). As for me and our parish, we continue to give thanks to God for courage, compassion, and open-hearted ministry wherever it springs up. And we believe the Holy Spirit speaks to all through these things.”

Obviously I could say a lot more. This is probably the most condensed form (in 200 words) I have ever told my story and explained my faith.

The hardest to explain briefly is my growing confidence that what has happened in the ELCA, over the last number of years which reached its dramatic conclusion last August, powerfully illustrates the work of the Spirit among us as we try to arrive at truth. It is not the absence of 100 or so congregations which are voting to exit, or the larger number of those congregations who are retaliating against the ELCA by withholding funds, which will change the course of the church to follow Christ more closely. It is the growing number of congregations, pastors and individuals who act courageously, pray fervently, offer hospitality to LGBT people and reserve judgment, and gradually come to see their role in the larger ministry of grace and healing which the whole Christian Church has been given. Regardless of threats of schism, we absolutely must use the courage God gave us to do what is right, continue ministry, speak honestly and lovingly, and not hide in closets of fear or uncertainty.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Faith, LGBT Christian, "The Closet", Living by Grace, Public Affairs, Ministry, Coming Out, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Berlin: let your light so shine.

November 10, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

“You are the light of the world. . . .No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others. . . .” —Matthew 5

This week’s news includes the 20^th anniversary of the Berlin Wall, and I keenly remember the events as the world rapidly changed in the late 80s— early 90s.

When my spouse and I went to Berlin 10 years ago on a concert trip with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, we walked through the Brandenburg Gate easier than you could a turn-stile in an amusement park. We saw the thin bronze strip laid into the asphalt streets signifying where the famous Wall had stood.

Last night you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard an NPR story about what led up to the break-through and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It began with peaceful street demonstrations not in Berlin, but in Leipzig on September 4, 1989. What NPR said was that a Lutheran pastor, Christian Fuhrer, the pastor of St. Nicholas Church, known as “Nikolai Kirche” at the crossroads of two main streets on the main square in Leipzig, began holding Monday night “peace prayer” services, and they began to draw people from all over the city.

Within a few weeks, each time the parishioners spilled out into the Leipzig Karl Marx Square, they took their prayers and candles with them and began to keep a public vigil for peace. Before many Mondays went by, it was thousands of people carrying candles from the church, in non-violent protests against the government.

The STASI, the state police, held back, unwilling to cause a massacre. One of them later said “we were prepared for anything” that the crowds might do. But we were not prepared for prayers and candles.

Nikolai Kirche   ~   Montagsdemonstration

Pastor Fuhrer’s peace prayers drew a crowd of 10,000, and within weeks, 70,000—this in a city of half a million. By October 16, the Monday night crowd had swelled to 120,000, and the following week, to more than 300,000.

The most interesting note I found in the story of the Monday night demonstrations was this quote, from a cabaret artist Bernd-Lutz Lange, who said, “There was no head of the revolution. The head was the Nikolaikirche and the body the centre of the city. There was only one leadership: Monday, 5 P.M., the Nikolaikirche.”

My point is very simple and direct:  Never, never, never underestimate the power of one person, or one church, to make a huge difference in the world.

Within the first month of the peaceable demonstrations in Leipzig, Western Germany television was reporting what was happening. Viewers in East Germany learned of the candlelight marches, and Pastor Fuhrer’s vigils began to happen in other Easter German cities.

The context in which the first Monday night prayers for peace started was a mood of either resignation or hopelessness. This one Lutheran Pastor could not have dreamed that he would launch a movement to bring down the German Democratic Republic. But he did what he could do, and the people of Leipzig knew from the witness of this one church that the Lutheran Church supported their yearning for change.

“You are the light of the world.” Jesus tells us to put our lights up and out there like a lamp on a stand. “In the same way, let your light shine before others.” That light may be a candle. But it almost always includes other forms of courage, determination, sacrifice, strength and risk. If we are not stuck in a mood of resignation or hopelessness or powerlessness, any one of us has the ability to change the world.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Bible & Interpretation, Faith, Public Affairs, PRAYERS, Ministry | 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 »

Mr. Fundamentalist and the Theology of Scarcity.

September 30, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

How hard our righteous sense of judgment dies.

After another wild and intense Bible Study tonight, I drove home just now thinking to write about one of the guys who attends who is steeped in fundamentalist rhetoric. At times, he is so judgmental that it irritates many of the others. (He has been fed at a different theological trough, so to speak, for most of his life, and can quote Scripture—or at least approximate it—freely and frequently. But it seems that he has concentrated his search of the Scriptures on what is the most judgmental.

We get 12 to 15 people each week for food, prayer and study, and right now we’re working through Paul’s Letter to the Romans—a very intense and heavy book for after-dinner conversation. But hey, somebody else suggested it!

Several weeks ago, we got heated over whether —even with God’s divine forbearance and love— we can be certain that some people are going to burn in hell. Hey, I didn’t bring that up either, he did! The phrases “get to heaven” and “go to hell” seem to be a constant staple in his faith diet.

So over and over (and tonight was no exception) I keep bringing up illustrations of God’s awesome grace to fill in the heart and the soul of Paul’s more juridical arguments about justification. One of my favorites is the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), where the Father figure treats both sons generously—both the one who was long on obedience but short on tolerance, and the younger one who has foolhardy and then sorrowful when he came to his senses out of sheer desperation.

Another favorite is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20), who work varying lengths of the day from as much as 12 hours down to merely 1 hour, but all receive the same wage from the landowner. When there is grumbling, the employer (the God figure) says to those grumblers who worked through the heat of the day, “Do you begrudge my generosity?”

These are both illustrations of God’s grace, but they also bring to light the fundamental human trait of resentment. Scholar are quick to tell us that both parables have a deeper level of interpretation as contrasting the Jews (long obedient and faithful) and the Gentiles (lawless johnny-come-lateleys).

So in the Bible Study, even as I try to affirm what people are saying and thinking, I am always seeking ways to re-channel fundamentalist judgmentalism that wants to be certain God is sending disobedient sinners to eternal damnation. After all, they say, its right here in black and white in the Bible.

As if the parables Jesus told are not also “in black and white”? What is it about our righteous sense of judgment that we will go to great lengths to track down and then lift up the judgmental stuff in the Bible, and then soft-pedal the forgiving, grace-filled forbearance of God? Do we have some profoundly human need, in comparing ourselves against others, to put them down (condemn to hell) in order to lift ourselves up?

Tonight, Mr. Fundamentalist quarreled a little against the parable of the laborers by insisting that in heaven different people would get bigger or smaller rewards based on their deeds in this life. The immediate outcry and groaning from others surprised even me! “Oh brother! No, you’ve got it wrong. That’s irrelevant! Where does it say that? For pity’s sake!”

Christian entitlement fits hand-in-glove with Christian judgmentalism. Both are stuck in the idea that God’s grace is scarce, limited, and that in order for “good” people to receive it, it must be withheld from “bad” people.

Both the parables I mentioned say otherwise. Before the thundering waterfall of God’s gracious and generous love I stand with open hands. I will not receive much if I make my hands into fists. I must have open hands. And I will not receive more by shoving my brother or sister aside. In fact, we are never justified in trying to keep one another away from this constant, bountiful supply of God’s grace. Paul says in Romans that we are justified entirely and only as a gift, received by faith. It is not a reward, but a gift. there is no deserving, no entitlement, no wages at the end of the day. And those who receive the most are probably the most aware of this flood of grace.

But those who think they have earned it, and that it is due them and not to others, have probably received the least. For when our hearts close against others, it is as if we were trying to capture the whole of the waterfall with our fists.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Faith, Living by Grace | Print | No Comments »

The institutional and the theological high ground.

September 24, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

This summer has been a tipping point for the ELCA, the largest of the Lutheran churchbodies in the United States. Somehow, while many observers weren’t paying much attention, but the Holy Spirit was near, this largely Midwestern-based Protestant church slipped from the conservative column to the liberal. Its actions in Assembly a month ago in Minneapolis are still being weighed and measured for significance.

Yesterday, Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson (who is also the President of the Lutheran World Federation) issued a “pastoral letter” on the tipping point — what he thinks about how Lutherans should feel about the major change in the ELCA’s view of same-gender relationships and lesbian/gay clergy.

For review, there was no official prior policy against same-gender relationships. No Lutheran pastor has been defrocked or disciplined by the ELCA for officiating at a lesbian wedding. Not so for the Presbyterians and the Methodists, who have drawn their line in the sand way to the right of the Lutherans.

But there was an official policy against rostering (ordaining, commissioning or hiring) out lesbian and gay clergy who are in same-gender relationships.

And there was no policy to forbid gay or lesbian persons from being clergy if they promised to be celibate forever, although the defacto rule is that any congregation that blanched at the thought of a homosexual pastor with a same-sex spouse would have blanched at the thought of a celibate homosexual pastor, too.

You can read Hanson’s pastoral letter on my other web site where I store bigger documents. In it, he takes the institutional high ground, and at times is almost eloquent in reminding the denomination that we have a mission to accomplish and we are only hurting ourselves and our mission if we get into a schism over lesbian/gay clergy.

For the record, the schism will proceed as previously scheduled. Hanson’s letter is not likely to convince anybody to change their mind. But the schism will be small—perhaps 100–200 congregations may bolt, out of a total of nearly 10,000 congregations.

But it still hurts when people we thought understood the Gospel as well as Lutherans do decide to say “we’re out of here,” like where Paul says, “the eye cannot say to the hand, `I have no need of you.’” (1 Corinthians 12:14–27)

Hanson reminds the church that Lutherans have always deftly distinguished Law and Gospel, what he says Martin Luther called “the highest art among Christians.” To make this important distinction and apply each appropriately is in fact nothing less than interpreting the Scriptures rather than shooting them from a gun at a social issue.

My turn: Hanson speaks in generalities, but I would have been a bit more specific, in reminding the whole church that heterosexuality is neither Law nor Gospel. The Christian Church long ago gave up trying to make “be fruitful and multiply” into a commandment that must be obeyed by all believers in Jesus. Heterosexual love, or sexual expression, or even reproduction, cannot be commandments, as Jesus and Paul both made clear.

But neither is heterosexuality Gospel. No one will be saved or redeemed or put on God’s right side by heterosexuality. No one earns a heavenly mansion by virtue of heterosexual behavior. We are saved by grace (Romans 3:23–24; Ephesians 2:4), regardless of Paul’s curious take on women being saved by bearing children. He even says, in 1 Corinthians 7:16, that a woman or man might save the unbelieving spouse —salvation by marriage?  But his broadest theme, over and over, is that we are saved by grace alone.  Sex, sexual orientation, sexual expression, are not part of the equation at all.

I have continued to say this wherever possible: the ELCA’s ~ or the Episcopal Church’s ~ action to open its doors and its ministry fully to LGBT people is not a departure from traditional or correct Christian doctrine because human sexuality, in all of its perplexing diversity, is not part of Christian doctrine. Christian doctrine is about Jesus Christ and what he has done. It is not about us and what we have done, whether sublime or perverse. No one, whether Jew or Greek, circumcised or uncircumcised, heterosexual or homosexual, “has a leg up” before God.

Yes, I know the conservative rant to the contrary. But it is a hopeless stretch to insist that any one or another specific sexual behavior is a sin which disqualifies one from God’s love – and yes, you can find Bible verses to attempt to so insist – because there are other Bible verses that blow that thesis away!  Jesus said “Anyone who comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37); and “Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life” (John 6:47).  There is just no extra credit for being heterosexual.  There are millions of people of faith out there who are not heterosexual. They have come to Jesus and they believe in his message of hope and grace. Regardless of what a congregation or an entire churchbody may say, Jesus will not drive them away, but because they have put their faith in God’s grace through Jesus Christ, they have eternal life.

Moreover, since no one is without sin (Romans 3:23), no one, including no heterosexual has the right to cast the first stone.

No one has the right to judge.

No one.

Just say No, when homophobic people start to rant that they are now being driven out of the church. No, they are walking away all by themselves.  They are doing, or preparing to do, what millions of LGBT Christians have not done, even when our churches would not welcome us if we were open. We remained faithful to Christ and to his church. Now we rejoice that the ELCA is being faithful to us. If others cannot accept that, perhaps they never did understand the Gospel after all.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Gay Catechism, "The Closet", Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Ministry, Faith, LGBT Christian, ELCA | Print | 1 Comment »

Missouri Synod weighs in on gay clergy.

August 24, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

The view from the middle of Sunset Boulevard.

August 23, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where Religion Doesn’t Hurt.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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I lift your names prayerfully.

August 21, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

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

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

From the ELCA news release late today:

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

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

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Recap of the 4 resolutions on Ministry Policies:

In the order considered today and voted upon . . .

Resolution # For/Against Total Votes Cast Percentage of Majority

3                      771 – 230                  1001                    77%

1                       619 – 402                 1021                     60%

2                        559 – 451                 1010                     55%

4                       667 – 307                   974                     69%

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

The Biblical Issue in Three Parts: Part Three

August 6, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

This is the third and concluding part of the discussion of Acts 15, continuing from yesterday.

What do I mean by “internal evidence”? I mean these obscure references in the “short list” of four commandments which are themselves now quite obsolete. Christians gave up even minimal imitation of kosher laws long ago.

Internal to the Christian church we decided that avoiding what has been strangled (the manner in which animals were killed and prepared as food) or meat which has not been drained of its blood (Leviticus 17:15) was not a defining doctrine of the Christian faith. Thankfully, we are again more aware that as stewards of God’s creation we should be concerned for the humane treatment of animals, including animals which are raised for slaughter for human food. But nowhere do I see Christians damning one another over the inhumane or humane treatment of animals, or citing the Bible as the final word.

But external to the Christian church, another of these minimum prohibitions has also become quite irrelevant. To my knowledge, there are no meats being sold in the supermarkets today which have already been ritually sacrificed to pagan gods. I think that sort of went out with ancient paganism, and even today’s neo-pagans (oh my!) haven’t re-relevantized Acts 15:20, 29.

Now, how do we have conversation with those sisters and brothers who don’t approach Scripture, or approach Acts 15, the way we do? Often their method of biblical interpretation is far less sophisticated: if you can flip and point to it somewhere in the Bible, you can use it. In other words, if you can read it and quote it, you can slap it on somebody and insist “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”

There is where I look back to some of the testimony in Acts 15 again. I’ve quoted Peter’s testimony previously in this blog. It is important, because he is speaking directly to other Christians who had opposing points of view. They were the so-called Judaizers, those who insisted that for a Gentile to become a Christian he must first become a Jew and take upon himself all the commandments of Judaism including the commandment that he be circumcised.

^{7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. 8 And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; 9 and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. 10 Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 11 On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”}Simon Peter, like Bishop Rogness in the St. Paul Area Synod of the ELCA, is acknowledging that he sees the work of the Holy Spirit in the deeds and wonders of the church. Peter saw the work of the Spirit in the faith and life of Gentile believers who had come to Christ. Bishop Rogness saw the work of the Spirit in congregations led by lesbian or gay pastors (and drawing into Christ’s body LGBT people of faith).Clearly, this steps beyond the relatively simple issues of what the Bible says and what it means. This steps into the area of trusting that God is alive and present today, that we Christians who are living today are entrusted not only with the content of faith—the doctrine which everybody from Peter Akinola to Fred Phelps to Gene Robinson all say they believe and want to preserve—but with the witness of faith lived in the presence of the living Spirit of God.Clearly, the Bible does not settle all questions of Christian faith. It contains all we need, however, to ask the relevant questions of Christian faith. And it provides guidance for answering them, not final answers.

It has been said a million times or so (I have lost count, actually) that the only way people change their minds about LGBT people is when they meet them and come to know them. This works first among families, when a gay son or a lesbian daughter shares his or her discernment of sexual orientation. Then tears are shed and words are said, some of which are regretted later. But finally people come around and realize that loves makes a family, not gender. The family regains the son or daughter it thought it would have to kick out the door. And what is lost is prejudice and homophobia.

This could also be said of the Christian family. The only way Christians will change their minds about LGBT people is when they meet them and come to know them. Lesbians, gay men, bisexual persons and most recently those who are transitioning from male to female or female to male, have come forward to be honest and tell their stories and also express their abiding faith in God’s grace. And like Simon Peter, and Peter Rogness, the church really finds that it must re-open its arms to its own—because the Bible tells us that this is the way Christ wills it to be.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Sex, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Ministry, Faith, LGBT Christian, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

The Biblical Issue in Three Parts: Part Two

August 5, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Friends, we are still in Acts 15, continuing from yesterday. The third part appears tomorrow.

James was serving as the presiding elder of the church, in much the same position as Bishop Rogness or any other bishop. He expressed not his opinion but his decision, based on the testimony brought to him that God had done many signs and wonders among the Gentiles—among people whom other strict conservative Christians considered reprehensible and outside the grace of God. James references both the Scripture (Simeon and the prophets) and the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the immediate context of this decision. In drafting the letter which communicates this apostolic decision, James and the other apostles said this:

^{23 “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24 Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, 25 we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”}Please note: “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” This is the amazing confidence —apostolic certainty of faith—that the church has the authority from Christ himself to relax the rules and lighten the load, to “impose no further burden” than the essentials. Out are the complete 613 mitzvot or commandments of the Torah. All that is left are four essentials.The “essentials” of course don’t seem to make sense to us now. The human story moves on. The essentials in their day were to avoid foods that had been offered as sacrifices to idols, from blood, from what has been strangled — these seem to be hold-overs from kosher food law — and from fornication (in Greek, porneia).

This last is serious because it makes the “short list” of four things which Gentile believers should avoid. It is the only one of the four which has anything to do with sexuality, by the way. Problem is, we can’t say with absolute certainty what the early church meant by porneia, except we get the English word “porn” from it. It probably refers to prostitution or to sexual relationships which break the marital covenant, that is, infidelity. The notes in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible NRSV (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003) says that fornication “likely refers to marriage with a close relative.” Incest, in other words.

“Conservative” Christians and fundamentalists, however, liberally expand their sense of what “fornication” means to include far more than what is meant in the original Greek New Testament. They include everything they want to condemn.

And for our purposes here, this is the sticking point: Does fornication also mean sex between two persons of the same sex because it is outside of heterosexual marriage? Is the intent here, in this key passage, to draw strict boundaries and remove all “wiggle room,” to build a wall or draw a line in the sand, to declare a “culture war” against anything that steps over the line? Obviously, conservatives and fundamentalists have drawn that line, and they insist that the Bible backs them up.

But the clear message in Acts 15 is that James’ decision, and the guidance of all the apostles in reaching this decision, was not to build walls but to tear them down, not to draw a line in the sand or declare a war, not to exclude but to include any people of faith (Gentiles) who had been very rigidly excluded by the religious rigors which the apostles are consciously abandoning.

I repeat part of the quote from Bishop Peter Rogness: “There are some who will simply say Leviticus calls homosexuality an abomination and that ends it. The problem with that, of course is that that reasoning would have most of us sinning because of wearing clothes with mixed threads or eating unclean foods or all the other things the Leviticus Holiness Codes condemn. Yet some of Leviticus we still take very seriously. So interpretation is involved.”

Catch the final phrase here: “So interpretation is involved.” Christians of the Lutheran Reformation have always been conscious that in order to be faithful to Scripture we must continually interpret that Scripture in the light of a changing world. The interpretive issue on the human sexuality and homosexuality question mostly comes down to two different questions to pose after reading and analyzing Acts 15.

1. Does the decision reached by this Jerusalem council give Christians a new final answer to our moral questions under the Law of Moses in particular and the teachings of the Bible in general? Or,

2. Does the process used by this Jerusalem council give Christians a model and a set of tools by which we are to draw our own conclusions and offer our own guidance for lives of faith in our times?

Clearly, we know that Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are not the final word from the Christian Bible on sexuality (these anti-same-sex rules are part of the 613 commandments or mitzvot of Judaism, and they did not make James’ short list). But we must together wrestle with whether or not Acts 15 is the final answer, sort of a “replacement commandment,” or a new approach to finding our own answers on moral questions.

It is pretty clear that I think the second is the correct interpretation. I say this not because it is self-serving, or because the Levitical laws and their threat of capital punishment is thereby set aside (they are already set aside for Christians either way you want to read Acts 15). I say this because the internal evidence of James’ decision reveals to us that all Christians must be prepared to hear testimony, listen for the guidance Holy Spirit, be surprised when a changing world invites a changing faith response on the part of Christ’s followers, which can easily have tectonic implications equal to the decision which stopped the practice of circumcision and set aside the commandments in the first century church.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Part Two appears tomorrow.

Posted in Doctrine, Sex, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Ministry, Faith, LGBT Christian, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

The Biblical Issue in Three Parts. Part One.

August 4, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The following three blogs are lengthy because I took the freedom and opportunity to finish something I had started—to address those conservative Christians who are not merely opposed to homosexuality but passionately angry about the presence of gay and lesbian people in the Church, and who insist that they cannot reconcile because we have very different understandings of the authority of Holy Scripture. I am also posting these essays on my Gay Catechism web site.

Kudos to ELCA Bishop Peter Rogness for his report to his St. Paul Area Synod Assembly in May. The full text just appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of the Network Letter (Lutheran Network for Inclusive Vision), and on line at the Synod web site. It is six pages, but worth reading all of it. 

Rogness’ main subject is to express his own views, values and teaching in response to the proposed ELCA Sexuality statement and particularly to the proposed changes to Lutheran policy which still currently tries to exclude LGBT people from the ranks of its clergy.

More and more, people are saying what the big fight in the Christian church about sexuality is over is really how we read scripture.

I quote only Rogness’ summary of Biblical issues in the context of what conservatives insist is clearly condemned in the Bible.

“People are right to take Scripture seriously in this conversation; we wouldn’t be Lutherans with integrity if we didn’t.

“There are some who will simply say Leviticus calls homosexuality an abomination and that ends it. The problem with that, of course is that that reasoning would have most of us sinning because of wearing clothes with mixed threads or eating unclean foods or all the other things the Leviticus Holiness Codes condemn. Yet some of Leviticus we still take very seriously. So interpretation is involved.

“We begin with the basic question of whether what we speak of today—faithful, lifelong relationships between two persons of the same gender—is what the few biblical references are speaking to, and the answer is, probably not. We probably understand some things about sexual orientation differently today. But that doesn’t mean the Bible is irrelevant on this matter, or has no guidance to offer. . .

“This leads us to a point where, … very astute, committed, biblically-grounded scholars can come to different conclusions. The Bible clearly holds marriage between a man and a woman as a holy estate. It also holds before us the value of trusting and loving care for one another in families—and in all other relationships. And then it’s left to us, with humility, to recognize Paul’s words that “now we see in a mirror dimly,” [1 Corinthians 13:12] and, faithful to what we know of God revealed in Scripture, to make our best judgment.”

I wish there was room to include Rogness’ entire report. He is deliberate and thorough in working through the logic of agreeing with the ELCA Task Force recommendations on ministry policies to allow partnered lesbian or gay persons to serve as clergy of the church—a somewhat different conclusion (but a liveable one) that that of the Episcopal Church’s general convention two weeks ago.

Rogness’ thinking has obviously been affected by his own pastoral experience with the clergy and congregations of his synod. “In St. Paul and Minneapolis, we have several congregations where openly gay or lesbian persons, trained and gifted for ministry, have served because their congregations called them to serve,” he writes. “We are prohibited from placing them under call on the [clergy] roster. But anyone who is familiar with that ministry can’t dispute that something good is happening there.”

I am somewhat familiar with one of them, Reformation-St. Paul Lutheran Church in St. Paul, MN. With countless other dear friends in the movement, I was there for the extraordinary (extra ordinem = without the permission of the Bishop) ordination of Pastor Anita Hill, an extraordinary pastor and leader.

Rogness’ reference to her ministry closely parallels the experience in the early church when controversy threatened to tear the tiny community of Christ’s followers apart over whether or not to accept Gentile believers into full communion with Jewish believers without these converts having to first submit to circumcision (dear Lord, is it always about sex?). In Acts 15 we have the direct report of that first “Church Council” meeting:

^{1 Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. 3 So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”}Remember the Brick Testament? I talked about this chapter most recently on April 29. It is one of the premier texts we have on how disagreements in the church of Christ ought to be approached. ^{12 “The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13 After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. 15 This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,16 ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up,17 so that all other peoples may seek the Lord — even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called.}Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things ¹⁸ known from long ago.’

19 Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, ²⁰ but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Part Two appears tomorrow.

Posted in Doctrine, Sex, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Ministry, Faith, LGBT Christian, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Fear of wrath vs. faith in lovingkindness.

July 21, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

Belton implies this transference.

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

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

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

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

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

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Repent? Or get over it?

July 7, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Church of England bishop says gays should ‘repent’

Associated Press • 07.06.2009 11:30am EDT

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

(Read the whole story here)

My comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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