Will Ex-Gay become an ex-phenom?

November 30, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out is reporting tonight that Exodus international may be on the verge of collapse, for financial reasons—chiefly a bad real estate investment. The hidden story, apparently, is that this “ex gay” ministry has not been able to continue to raise funds effectively enough, and is struggling to repackage or re-brand itself.

In light of the continued shift of some mainline denominations toward full inclusion of sexual minorities, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada a few months ago, and the Presbyterian Church USA a few months before that, it would seem plausible that the donor base for the anti– and ex–gay organizations may be shrinking if not imploding. More and more people who still don’t really “approve” of gay/lesbian folks, are resigning themselves to the shift of contemporary culture, and are less committed to funding every effort to block civil rights or offer alternative psychiatric methods to erase same-gender sexual orientation.

The “ex-gay” movement, characterized by the derisive slogan “Pray Away the Gay” is especially troubled in that its anti–gay message clashes with the core Christian Gospel that proclaims the unconditional love of God for all people. Their only “yes but” to the open-hearted love of God in Christ is to continue to insist that being a sexual minority is a terrible, wicked sin. That view stuck, of course, for generations. But people today are wise enough to realize that 100 years ago, or 500 years ago, everything was a terrible wicked sin. People today see the honest lives of lesbian and gay couples, transgender individuals who are calmly and rationally asking for understanding, and bisexual persons who are “whoring after” both genders. They see ordinary people who have jobs, homes, relationships and contribute enormously to society. They see married same-sex couples in 6 states, and the U.S. military having opened itself to transparency and honesty with regard to the humanity and sexuality of its service personnel.

So characterizing lesbian/gay people as extraordinarily evil, or crying continually that we will all go to hell is about as convincing as a tattered old Fred Phelps sign and a cranky voice behind a megaphone. Fewer and fewer people pay attention.

Read Besen’s entire posting here: http://www.truthwinsout.org/pressreleases/2011/11/20563/ where he also has links to every fact or rumor he cites.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, wingnuts, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Recovery, LGBT Christian, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

Touch us gently.

August 30, 2011 by Dan Hooper.

As many of readers of Indwelling Spirit may realize by now, I scribble little “Notes to Self” and don’t get back to them right away. They clutter my desk and brief case and bedside table. Sometimes, months later, these notes take some deciphering, and as I get back to this blog after many months of being overwhelmed by other responsibilities, I am evaluating some of my own scrawled notes:

 

Each of us probably remembers this feeling from a doctor or dentist visit: We have pain. The “spot” is very sensitive. We know that this needs the attention of a professional, perhaps even a specialist, but we brace ourselves against what might be careless or overzealous medical attention. “Please be gentle!” we scream under our breath just before we are touched, poked, probed —or drilled!

When someone tells me about a pain they are having, or their story of a recent doctor visit, I am thinking, “I know exactly how you feel,” because I have had similar experiences where a pain was deep or sharp and I found myself pleading for gentle treatment.

Spiritually, there is an important parallel here. We may be living with a lot of pain, spiritually. It takes awhile for it to build up to the point where we recognize its symptoms, or are ready to talk about it. Yet we are really reluctant to take our inner emotional/spiritual pain to a specialist—to a counselor, confessor, pastor or spiritual director.

Why do we avoid getting spiritual help when we are in pain?

I suspect that often the reason is that we don’t expect we will be treated gently, either by a counselor/pastor or by God. Many people have experienced so much judgmentalism, rejection, and threats of punishment from religious figures —and told they can expect the same from Almighty God!—that they avoid taking their spiritual symptoms to them.

All of us have been poked, probed, drilled, scolded, and pushed away at some point—at a very sensitive point in our lives—when what we really needed was a gentle touch or a hug, not a lecture, scolding, ultimatum or damnation.

Time and time again this has been especially true for LGBT people. We have symptoms of emotional and spiritual distress. We hurt. It has taken a lot of time for many of us to bring this pain to the surface, and to recognize the symptom of our deep discomfort. We’re not sure of ourselves let alone sure of our relationship to God.

But because of either our own experiences or those of friends, we avoid seeking counsel or guidance for our spiritual lives, because we cannot take any more harsh treatment. Some of us just go on living with the pain rather than seeking a specialist that can help clear it up, because of the risk of spiritual mistreatment or harm. The so-called Ex-Gay campaign, for example, has been unmasked as an effort that subjects gay people to immeasurable pain and mistreatment.

Often I try to explain to non-gay church people what the significant pastoral and spiritual issues are for LGBT people. Some of these people are sympathetic enough to recognize the prejudice and rejection that lesbian/gay people especially have experienced. But because they are in the sexual majority, not sexual minority, they do not fully understand or fully feel the pain that we talk about.

Yes, there are many other Christian people out there who are not sympathetic at all. They continue to finger the same few “clobber” passages in the Bible, and point to them with a sharpened index finger, like a doctor thumping on a medical manual at the possible diagnosis. And because they are so certain of their allegiance to God as they understand him, they almost aggressively attack the wounded or the hurting with this “immutable” word of the Lord. An old saying expresses this pretty well: The church is the only army that shoots its own wounded.

God does not approach us that way. If anything, God touches all who are in pain, all who have open wounds, more gently. God’s approach to our pain or suffering is an embrace, not a probe or poke or drill. From the Lutheran rite for Confession and Forgiveness (Summer 2011), “As tender as a parent to child, so gentile is God to us. As high as heaven is above the earth, so vast is God’s love for us. As far as east is from west, so far God removes our sin, renewing our lives in Jesus Christ.”

If we would simply look again at even a handful of the stories in the Gospels about how Jesus approached people in pain, we would clearly see this gentle approach: the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well (who had already been married 5 times), the rich young ruler, Nicodemus, Zaccheus, Thomas the Doubter, Judas Iscariot, the soldiers who crucified him, and the thief on the cross.

To be sure, Jesus often does challenge people to put greater trust and faith in him, or to turn their lives around (”Go, and sin no more”). But his spiritual approach is always gentle. I might even speculate that Jesus had heard of the Hippocratic Oath (5^th Century B.C.), to which this classic phrase is often traced: primum non nocere, “first, do no harm.” It certainly calls for reflection for those of us who are spiritual guides, counselors, confessors and pastors, and especially for those who are LGBT people of faith.

I have a definite sense of what God’s gentle touch means. (See my essay, “About Jesus,” for example.) Obviously, a lot of rock-hard conservative clergy and laity wouldn’t agree with me, and they can drill their forefinger into the pages of the Bible to “prove” it. But as I’ve said before, “God’s Word for us is always an invitation, not an ultimatum.” And you can quote me on that.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Fundamentalism, Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Gay Catechism, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace, Ex-Gay, Ministry, Coming Out, Spirituality, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Baptists are far from clear.

June 18, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

On the religious front, a “teachable moment” mysteriously opened up this last week in– of all places–the Southern Baptist Convention’s convention being held this year in Phoenix Arizona, when a coalition of representatives for the LGBT movement met for a half hour with the President of the SBC.

 

Apparently the meeting was “entirely cordial,” but the Baptist President Bryant Wright didn’t budge from his fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out was there, as was Mitchell Gold and Brent Childers of Faith in America and Robin Lunn of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists. The Baptist Press, quoted by Besen, indicates that Wright refused to budge, “saying that Scripture is clear on the issue.” (Any resemblance to Scientology’s use of the word “clear” is coincidental and irrelevant.)

Right there we have a great example of sheer posturing, since any serious theologian in the last 100 years has said that Scripture is not clear about what we now call homosexuality, because the Biblical writers didn’t have any understanding that homosexuality even existed.

(Other things that are “clear,” meaning that they’re in the Bible in black and white, but far from clear, include other sexual matters including polygamy and adultery, marriage and divorce, celibacy and even masturbation.

To his credit, Wright admitted to his own “incredible amount of sin,” and admitted that God loved everybody in the room with him (the homosexuals). But he attempted to mask his rigidity by saying “I hope you all would respect that we’re just seeking to follow Jesus.” Ahem, Mr. Wright: Jesus never condemned adulterers, healed the “boy” (lover) of the centurion, and had his own serious boyfriend, the “beloved disciple.” Sexual wrong-doing or even excess simply didn’t figure highly in Jesus’ message or ministry, but condemning self-righteousness did.

The only thing that is really clear is that the SBC is clear that it is unwilling to re-think its superficial, rigid, lock-step interpretation of theology on sexual matters—and a lot of other matters as well. In short, the SBC answer to the reality that different Christians have come to differing conclusions about human sexuality and homosexuality is that everybody else is wrong.

At least the Southern Baptists were cordial throughout, according to their own press corp. It is was a historic first for some significant gay spokespersons to actually sit face-to-face with an “enemy” leader.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian | Print | No Comments »

The devil doesn’t frighten me.

May 4, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

Be careful what you pray for. We have an interesting legacy of hands-on Bible Study in our parish, complete with all the urgent shouts of differences of opinion. It took us 9 months, for example, to slog through the Gospel of John verse by verse.

And when it ended we took a survey of what people wanted to study next. Guess. People want to study Satan, and tonight was the opening volley of our local war of good against evil.

Of course, we pray constantly for all people, dozens of them by name on Sundays, Wednesday and Thursdays, including those who are suffering from addictions, mental health problems, unemployment, homelessness, you name it.

And tonight three guys walked in who are not part of our “usual crowd,” two of whom I knew from prior episodes and one I’d never seen before. One is a known drug addict who thinks he is serving Jesus by preaching to the wackos on Skid Row but has himself never mastered his addiction to crystal meth. Another is certifiably mentally ill who cannot stop talking and making grimacing faces as if he is digging deep into intellectual turf. And the third turned out to be a raving fundamentalist who wanted to make sure we are a Christian Church before he would sit down, and later admitted he is homeless. This on top of several other “regulars” who tend to dominate, act out or digress into tabloid news, pop psychology or Dan Brown-esque conspiracy theories.

All true Christians, of course, show up for things late, and that meant that our special friends tonight were the first ones there. I was praying next not for the homeless, the addicted or the mentally ill, but for a very fast-acting dose of patience. Jesus, you promise you will never test us with more than we can handle (that is the Bible, isn’t it, however obliquely?), and I don’t think I can handle three at once with special needs.

But we launched the study of Satan with some general observations that people tend to believe stuff about Satan, the devil, evil and human nature that are not grounded in the Bible but mostly shaped by pop culture. In truth, pop culture has always yanked the chains of Christian theology and has been doing it for thousands of years.

We started with a verse-by-verse reading of Genesis 3. As improbable as it is, I had to argue for a mythic reading of this story–a story of talking snakes and the low-hanging fruit of good and evil. People want to believe the story is literally true—fact—because they think that somehow they are honoring the Bible and showing their loyalty as believers. Then the grimacing man asked in all seriousness if scholars have ever researched what kind of tree it was and what kind of fruit Adam and Eve were eating.

Hello? Lord, please show me some mercy. Help me show them that a parable is a story with Truth of far greater significance than the kind of fruit or the talking snake. A parable is not untrue just because it has no historic facts in it. If we obsess about the facts we will likely not be paying attention to the Truth even if it bit us in the heel!

What we will agonize about in coming weeks of course, is whether there is such a creature as Satan, the Devil, as an individual being who is God’s nemesis and truth’s antithesis, who is able to take over the brains and fates of all human beings at will. The idea that the Devil is God’s evil counterpart, with nearly all the same omniscience and omnipotence to inflict suffering, is largely non-scriptural. Such an idea entered into the western pop psychology thousands of years ago as their contemporary answer to the problem of evil in the world and the human aversion to responsibility for ourselves, our lives and relationships, and our world.

It may be a tough sell that Satan is the personification of evil run amok in the world–the aggregate of thousands of frailties, selfish choices, avoidance of spiritual struggle, and indifference to the suffering of others. Evil takes on a life of its own, I keep saying. If, as the homeless man said tonight, we leave an open door, evil will enter. That is not paranoia, but an understanding that evil seeks opportunity like seeds seek a crevice in the earth and water seeks its own level. Think Osama bin Laden, who is his madness and contempt opened every door he could and squandered much of his own $300 million fortune causing untold human suffering.

Where do the mythic and screwball images of the devil in our culture come from?— think of the evil child horror movie genre. Think “The Exorcist” (which grossed over $400 million, the most “successful” horror film ever), or “Rosemary’s Baby” or “The Omen.”

The screwball stuff does not come from the Bible. In my opinion, the Bible does not have an elaborate “doctrine” of Satan, assigning him great supernatural power over humanity for two reasons: (1) it believes that Almighty God is the source of all created things, all good, all power, all blessing, all purpose and all destiny; and (2) it believes that humanity is responsible for our own errors, failures and rebellion against God.

Two quotes to end this reflection, the first from Leo Tolstoy: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

And this from the late M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled, People of the Lie): “The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual–for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.”

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, Violence, Go figure!, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Recovery, History, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

The Religious Reich’s moral pipe bomb.

March 29, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

Well as March runs out, Wayne Besen never misses a thing of interest. He heads up Truth Wins Out, which he started to counter the “Truth Won Out” pray-away-the-gay movement. the graphic is from Besen’s site; you can read it more easily here.

What is so transparent in the Harvard thing here is that Wallnau is trying to position his group or himself in the midst of the public discourse. Commentator Besen calls it red meat rhetoric.

And did we catch the “us who are Christians”? The phrase is not incorrect, but it’s opportunistic. Christians are not all of the same mind. Wallnau has no more moral authority to speak for “us who are Christians” than I do. He apparently wants Harvard University to bunch all LGBT people, abortion, all Muslims and “the financial collapse” in the same pot. “Ain’t it awful?” we used to say. Tsk, tsk.

Transparently, he positions the “us” opposite the “you”: “you remove God from public discourse.” Who is he speaking about here? You who? Obviously in his opportunistic world of us-and-them, the “us who are Christians” are meant to be opposed to the you” of “your homosexual activity, your abortion activity,” and “you” who “removed God from public discourse.”

Nobody has removed God from the public discourse. Almighty God, who is Play-Doh in the hands of demagogues, has never been more in the public discourse. As the partisan right wing tries to make everything there is into a political issue if it can benefit from it, the religious reich tries to make everything there is into a religious issue if it can benefit from it.

Certainly, there are issues of profound importance to America and to all human beings, which deserve public discourse, but which do not directly involve one or another religious view of God. Jesus was wise enough to distinguish between the things that belong to God and the things that belong to Caesar (state), Mark 12:17. There is a moral issue in the abortion debate, for example, that is not directly a religion issue, but Christians have differing views of the moral factors in anyone’s decision to have an abortion. And some people who differ profoundly on religion may be on the same side on abortion, for example.

Wallnau’s “baiting” over Islam is especially odious, because there are some of “us who are Christians” trying to promote serious and responsible dialogue with the adherents of Islam about our views of God, revelation, obedience, morality and peace. But to suggest that “You’ve got Islam invading the United States,” as Wallnau did last fall, is irresponsible and only brings more shame on Christians in America. Red meat rhetoric is the moral equivalent of a pipe bomb, and the religious reich doesn’t seem to give a rip about that.

Worse, these people are extremists even for religious wing-nuts. Besen quotes Rev. Bill Harmon, for example, who states that Leviticus requires “the penalty of death, bareness or excommunication” for adultery, etc. and “any sexual activity other than between husband and wife.” Not sure what bareness means to him, but Rev. Bill apparently hasn’t read the Song of Solomon, where erotic pleasure is beautifully described in some detail, and the lack of an actual marriage in the relationship is unmistakable. And, Rev. Bill, if you would check Matthew 1:18–21, you will see that when Joseph and Mary were betrothed, and he thought she must have committed adultery because she was pregnant, but he understood Leviticus to allow him to break the engagement quietly and not hurt Mary. If this was good enough for Joseph and Mary, why is Rev. Bill Harmon trying to incite the masses and beat the drum for the death penalty for any morality that doesn’t fit his personal preferences?

The quote from Dr. Pat Francis is pure “woo woo religion.” If he weren’t wasting his breath about “false religion” (in a nation which guarantees freedom of religion), maybe he could pay attention to James 1:27: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” In other words, do some actual good for people who carry heavy burdens, and practice self-discipline in the things you think are not right for you. If such people don’t believe in abortion, then don’t have one. If they don’t like homosexuals, then don’t be one. If they don’t like Islam, then don’t convert to Islam.

But as to the “financial collapse,” they’re on their own. Jesus is opposed to serving both God and money anyway, according to Matthew 6:19 and 24. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,” says Jesus. “You cannot serve God and mammon” (money). I know, that won’t go over very well among the economic/political/religious right wing, but then they don’t pay close attention to the Bible anyway. I am sure the Social Transformation Conference will find a way around the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. Such people always have.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

　

　

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White privilege rejects Jesus’ social values.

March 8, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

I’ve been trying to figure out this Tea Party movement since it began catching headlines, but it seems not so much like revolutionaries throwing tea chests into Boston Harbor as much as loose cannons firing on anything. Or is it mostly the same old white conservatives saying, “We’re cheap as ever and we’re not going to pay for it anymore.”

(A conveniently forgotten aspect of the Boston Tea Party is that the rebels who dumped the tea in a protest against taxes had dressed themselves up as “Indians,” in effect to hide their true identities and to scapegoat others.)

Geoff Farrow’s Current Blog has a rambling half hour speech in Wisconsin from filmmaker Michael Moore insisting that America is not broke. According to Moore, “400 people in America have more wealth than one half of the entire population of the United States of America. Those 400 individuals have more wealth than 155,000,000 people do.”

So it’s plausible that the tea party is revealed as the wealthy few agitating not just for no taxation without representation, but no taxation of them, period. Specifically, they are angry about the white privileged class being taxed to support the underprivileged class.

But I have had other nagging suspicions about the motivation of tea partiers. All of this would just be mere political finger-pointing, except that there is a strong religious connection.

The Pew Research Center has released a new study, citing exit polls from last November’s election, that reveal tea partiers as being largely white evangelical Christian Republicans.

“Does the movement draw support across the religious spectrum? Or has the religious right “taken over” the Tea Party, as some commentators have suggested?”A new analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that Tea Party supporters tend to have conservative opinions not just about economic matters, but also about social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In addition, they are much more likely than registered voters as a whole to say that their religion is the most important factor in determining their opinions on these social issues. And they draw disproportionate support from the ranks of white evangelical Protestants.”Reflecting on the research, a sociology professor at Pitzer College in Claremont, Phil Zuckerman (co-authoring with Dan Cady), has characterized the religious/political connection of the tea party is sharper contrast in a Huffington Post article, “Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus.” “White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumbfounding ironies in contemporary American culture.”The irony—which the Pew Forum research would seem to support—is that contemporary American Christianity has become a smorgasbord at which you can choose what you like and ignore the rest. “People look at the content of their religious tradition—its teachings, its creeds, its prophet’s proclamations—and they basically pick and choose what suits their own secular outlook.” So white evangelicals pick only the parts of the New Testament Jesus and that message that makes them feel good, and ignore those things that call for love, compassion and self-sacrifice. “Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one’s money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation’s poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism,” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.”This lays bare the classic distinction between the religion of Jesus (”I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me…) and the religion about Jesus (”praise the Lord! He’s the greatest!”). While Zuckerman’s editorializing analysis pushes the hypocrisy to the extreme, the distinction, the black and white contrast can be stated quite simply: there is nothing in the ethical demands of Jesus in the New Testament that supports the astonishing materialism of our times, and the public squalor/private wealth which this supposedly “Christian” nation now reveals.And for me it confirms a point I’ve been gently bringing up for a long time: because we each have our own political views as well as religious values, it is critical for each of us to understand which is driving which. Do our political views select our religious values, or do our religious values shape our political views? Which one has greater influence on our decisions? Which one is in the driver’s seat?

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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Posted in Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Score one for parody.

March 2, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

He must be dancing a jig tonight, that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that it’s a free-speech country and Phelps can demonstrate his particular brand of hatred at military funerals.

This is two decisions about free speech rights and the First Amendment in two years. the prior one was the idiotic decision that corporations can spend an unlimited amount of cash to sway public opinion and therefore to buy elections.

The Supreme Clout does not mean the highest wisdom, apparently.  But who am I to question free speech?  I am, however, deeply disappointed that only Justice Alito dissented from the majority opinion. Where were our so-called liberal justices on this?  But free speech itself–especially in this day and age of Twitter and Facebook influence over global events—is extremely important even if it can be used by people on the wrong side of virtually every moral issue (as I believe Phelps is).

But I do think that this is still a moral victory for our side, because Phelps and his little tribe of hate-mongering imaginary Christians are pretty exposed out there. Many other Christian preachers and churches have staked out their market share based on their hatred of abortion, homosexuals, you name it. But nobody is joining Phelps on the streets in front of funerals. Nobody else has web sites quite as filled with deranged, Gadhafi-like rambling.  Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps stands pretty much alone.

And I kind of think that when he croaks (or when God’s long-suffering patience is finally exhausted), nobody else is likely to pick up where Phelps leaves off. Maybe because Phelps’ command of irreality has been too sweeping.  It was not enough for him to say God hates fags. He has to say that God hates America for tolerating homosexuals.  God hates Sweden, too.  And God hates Canada.  But that God hates and therefore kills U.S. Marines because America tolerates homosexual expression is a bit more than a “stretch” even for most Christian fundagelicals. At Godhatestheworld.com, Phelps gives you an country-by-country explanation of his godly opinion.

And if Phelps himself is not a living parody on homophobic ministers, other people’s parody is the best revenge. For example, God Hates Figs (It’s in the Bible, read: Mark 11:12–14!—all a matter of interpretation.) And if you have time, check out Hank Moody’s book God Hates Us All. Entertainment, I guess.

 

Enjoy the new irreality in America, thanks to John “W” Roberts, whose sense of justice is certainly a parody all its own.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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Religious Terror: What can I do?

February 25, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

This last link (”not in Iran“) from the previous blog, February 24, 2011, is a very thoughtful piece from 2007 that analyzes the complex forces with Iranian and other Islamic societies. I had not read all of it when I posted the link, but now I have.  Its author, Martin Beck Matustik, who came of age intellectually in then-Czechoslovakia, compares contemporary Islamist Iran to the sheer force of Soviet power in the 1980s, which also tried to hold back every change with all force.

It should be no secret that I stand against violence in all forms, and cannot support the death penalty. More basic, I oppose all forms of religious terror, whether sanctioned by civil law, fundamentalist law, schoolyard bullying, or the pathetic but relentless terror inflicted by Fred Phelps and his mentally deranged ilk.

A friend of mine in the LGBTQ movement here in Los Angeles (with whom I am long overdue to “do lunch”) raised the issue with me that: our society, which talks the talk of protecting its children from violence and abuse, is doing nothing to free any children from religiously-grounded domestic terrorism and abuse in homophobic families. Truthfully, it is equally as chilling as a hanging in Iran to realize that America tolerates another “deathstyle” for homosexual teenagers: suicide.

What are we doing to stop this wave of death (which fundamentalism seems to find more acceptable than abortion)? What am I doing? What are you doing? How can we do more than weep for those who are dying, and reach out to our own neighbors’ kids to turn them from all self-destructive behaviors, show them the way of life, and the joy of being the persons that God has created us?

Certainly, the volunteers of the Trevor Project, the It Gets Better Project, and other anti-suicide efforts are huge in trying to intercept a life spiraling down to death. But it should be Job One for Christians intercept all messages of hate (including self-hate), rejection, and violence wherever they are coming from — and especially when they are being spewed out by homophobes claiming to love Jesus. Christians are not following Jesus when we simply say, “tsk, tsk, how sad” where spiritual/emotional or physical violence is inflicted on others in the name of God. It is the ultimate misuse of religious faith to resign ourselves to the evils around us which harms countless people, especially the young.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Family, Bullying, International, wingnuts, Violence, Fundamentalism, Homophobia, LGBT Christian | Print | No Comments »

In memory of M.A. and A.M.

February 24, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

We easily forget what a terrible cost is paid by individuals who do not hide in fear. Thanks, Michael, for sending me the link on Facebook to this tragic news story. Two Iranian teen boys were hanged for the crime of homosexuality—identified only as M.A. and A.M. but photographed just before their deaths.

This brutal act of course is also meant to shame and intimidate not only all gay people in Iran but also the families of these young guys.

While we are reveling in the news of emerging freedom in Egypt, and the promise of the fall of other despotic regimes, blood is being shed. Lives are being lost in the struggle in Libya. Iraqis are still killing Iraqis because of a millennium-old rivalry. the rest of the Mideast will not see another Velvet Revolution. Definitely not in Iran. And Iran is worse than Libya because it has great strength and more power to hurt greater numbers of people.

I can’t help thinking, of course, that in brutally killing boys, Iran’s obsession with maintaining the purity of Islam as they see it is their way of saying, “WE WILL NOT let anything Western influence our view of reality.”

Ultimately it will not work. Over time, medieval Islam will change or crumble, just like the medieval West has changed—some crumbling, some destroyed through revolution, some adapting and reinterpreting its traditions.

But in the meantime, countless thousands of people will bleed and die. No matter how reasoned my own mental analysis of these moral, cultural and historic issues might be, I cannot wrap my mind around the idea that Allah is pleased with the torture, blood, pain and death of people. Capital punishment is barbaric, no matter where instituted and for what “crime.”

From the Beirut.Indymedia.org article: “According to the website Age of Consent, which monitors such laws around the world, in Iran “Homosexuality is illegal, those charged with love-making are given a choice of four deathstyles: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch.”

Pray for God’s eternal compassion for these young men and countless others.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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Conversation with enemies in Christ.

February 10, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

I feel like I am sitting “behind enemy lines,” writing from the environs of Ft. Myers, Florida. The dominant culture of Bible-believing fundamentalism is everywhere to be seen, in a countryside awash in independent little churches surrounded by big parking lots.

In fact, I am already sweating where we can go to worship this coming Sunday, as an openly gay couple would probably be about as welcome as a fly in your sweet tea.

But the environment underscores the deeply-divided character of American Christianity. Having grown up in the Lutheran fold, I experienced first-hand the arrogance of a fine tradition that really did believe and teach it was “the only true church.” But with the rise of evangelical fundamentalism in the last two generations, I have had more of a taste than I wanted of arrogance coming from the religious right. The reactive and even hateful rejection of progressive denominations (still populated with faithful believers even in declining numbers) by those who push “decision” theology and “born-again” self-congratulatory piety, is annoying at best and deeply painful beyond words. I have often thought that if the only choice in the Christian church of the future were American fundamentalism, I would simply cease to be a practicing Christian.

Fundamentalists should not take this as a sign of my liberal or sinful theological weakness. But I still feel so strongly that fundamentalism is not the true Christian faith, and certainly not a faith I can live by.

But I stand as indicted as anyone. Too many of us are not as concerned about unity of witness and mutual love as we are about being right. And the “other guys” are, of course, not right in my (not-always humble) opinion!

Truth check: If what divides us gathers more power than what unites us as Christians, what divides us has become our idolatry.

God is all powerful. God wills our unity in Christ. We are not seeking

God’s will for the church if we continue to insist that we are right and other Christians are wrong. In other words, dismissing other Christians as wrong is not an answer to the premise that Christians are to be united in love. We cannot simply reject the faith of others as if it is not Christian.

But we are still left with the problem of how to tolerate those other Christians who disagree with us so profoundly. There is little choice, of course, except to be in conversation with people we don’t agree with and–because of the balkanization of the Christian world—don’t really like. I feel as much anguish about this as anybody. Conversation with those who seem to share the same faith but talk about us as if we are enemies, takes nerves of steel and confidence that we have received the grace of God and the guidance of the Spirit—that we are not misled or self-deceived. We must, in short, have absolute faith equal to the absolute faith of those who see the world so differently.

I am not ready to offer any keen new wisdom that resolves all of this, except to look back at my own thoughts about idolatry. If I want to steer clear of idolatry, I must be willing to steer clear of my own certitude or smugness, my own need to be right in every instance, and to put nothing in front of me except the will of God that we all have the same mind and heart as we have in Christ (Cf. John 17:20. Philippians 2:2, 5–11). Yes, it’s a tough assignment, but if the real good news of Christ is to ever reach the people of our times, it will only be if we can “get over ourselves,” turn aside from our own idolatry and do as Christ has asked.

Meanwhile, it’s Thursday and I need to find a place to go to worship on Sunday.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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

My life, my movement, my faith.

February 1, 2011 by Dan Hooper.

Associated Press is running an encouraging story today of new activism relating faith to the LGBT communities. Opening tomorrow in Minneapolis, the annual NGLTF conference will include working groups for people of color and people of faith in the movement for understanding and equality. NPR has the (print) story here. Also see: www.thetaskforce.org.

I am heartened to see that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is counted among the progressive denominations where the movement toward inclusivity and diversity means both ethnic/race issues and sexuality issues. As NPR notes, both the ELCA and the Episcopal Church now ordained openly gay pastors. Sadly, it did not mention that the United Church of Christ also does, and was the first protestant denomination to do so. (The ELCA is “in communion” with both the Episcopal Church and the UCC.)

People and cultures move at very different speeds, of course. We are all familiar with friends who grew up in a very conservative Christian environment —Baptist, Church of God or even Pentecostalists—who are resisting all conversations and studies which could lead to a more enlightened understanding of sexuality. the NPR story mentions a black gay activist who grew up in the Pentecostal fold who laments the distance or disconnect between the LGBT movement and the faith communities. Even more remote is the distance to Islam, as the NPR story notes.

At the bottom of this are the underlying assumptions that a life of faith—any faith—must be a life of conformity to a culturally-centered faith or belief system. That is tough even for Christians who primarily allegiance should be to following Jesus, not to following rules or social mores. Was not Jesus, after all, the ultimate role model for religious non-conformity?

I am living only one life, and I don’t have the opportunity to live two of them by different lights or guides and then compare notes. For better or worse, when I came to discern my sexuality, I decided to try to live the “me” I was dealt in life’s great card game, rather than to fake my life, live a lie, or destroy myself by alcohol, drugs or suicide. My life experience, as part of the LGBT movement, has deeply affected my faith. And while heterosexual conformist Christians may shudder at that thought, and where it might lead (the “slippery slope” of personal experiences and subjective theology), I am still faithful to the Christian faith and life.

As with ethnic and racial minorities, sexual minorities, and other marginalized people (think of those who have been bullied to death, for example) who have lived different lives from ours because of what life dealt to them, everyone needs to heard, everyone has a faith experience that, in some way, will enrich the faith of others.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, Bullying, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, Spirituality, LGBT Christian, Recovery | Print | No Comments »

Jesus is coming. Look busy.

December 13, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Notwithstanding that Christmas is a mere 11 days away, here comes the next cosmic prediction about Jesus’ next coming.

I’m so glad to have it finally settled. We have 171 days left – a little left than half a year to get ready. And all those crazy jokes about Jesus coming back again – to Rome or to Salt Lake. It looks like they are waiting for him first in Nashville, TN. Who knew?

The local paper is keeping its cool about it. You can read their even-handed reporting at: www.tennessean.com/article/20101201/NEWS06/12010350/Nashville-billboards-claim-Jesus-will-return-May-21-2011.

No matter how well intentioned, of course, this is not the first nor the last time someone predicted the arrival of Jesus. But billboards brings it to a whole new low.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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Isn’t Christianity about love?

October 22, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

A Sad Season for Teens

October 11, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Osama bin Jones.

September 11, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Jones deserves the title because he is the latest extremist of the “Christian” faith who is trying to incite global conflict in the same way that Osama bin Laden has done with his plotting.

ObJ wants to make a name for himself. How else to explain his arrogance to think he can lay down an ultimatum for the imam of New York City, ten states away, with an “or else” condition that he will start burning the Muslim holy scriptures?

And it seems ObJ wants to compete for a place in the pantheon of arrogance, hubris and wacko Christianity with people like Fred Phelps—who wasn’t outrageous enough with his God Hates Fags routine and escalated his own rhetoric to God Hates America (for tolerating fags).

Aglow with the joy of knowing I’m right.

People have been sending him death threats, Korans to burn–and, I suspect, contributions, so this looks like quite a gimmick for his own institutional survival. According to the ABC News story, the congregation’s bank recently demanded repayment of their $140,000 mortgage. And also this from the same story: “According to the Gainesville Sun, Alachua County officials revoked part of the church’s tax-exempt status earlier this year, saying portions of the 20-acre campus are used in for-profit businesses. The property is valued at more than $1.6 million, but the 1,700-square-foot taxable portion is worth only $135,000, according to the Gainsville Sun.” ABC gave no link to the Gainsville Sun story.

Perhaps the most laughable thing is that ObJ heads the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville. A dove, I thought, would be a symbol of peace (doves are a very calm bird) as much as a symbol of the Divine Spirit— but ObJ apparently has a pistol strapped to his hip while on church property. And “World Outreach” is quite ambitious for a congregation of about 50 people.

So ObJ is milking his 15 seconds of fame for all its worth. It’s also possible that the feeble-minded wants to become a martyr to his own imaginary god. Meanwhile, local Gainsville Muslims are praying for Jones’ safety. According to this Gainsville Sun article, “‘I pray that nothing happens to him,’ Rizwan Mansoor said at the Hoda Center on Monday.”

This is classic Fundamentalism, of course. Fundamentalism is more than comfortable with religious grand-standing, and in fact seeks it. The fundamentalist Christian movement for more than a century has been trying to draw lines in the sand for what it considers orthodox. Unfortunately for all Christians, the lines they continue to draw are the least defensible lines one could draw—things such as the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, etc.

It isn’t enough to say very strongly that ObJ and I would disagree profoundly on many things. As far as I am concerned, his version of Christian truth has virtually nothing in it that resembles the faith I live by. If he can find chapter and verse from the Christian bible to support the idea of inciting riot, stoking the fires of interreligious and inter-ethnic violence, endangering U.S. troops abroad, I am certain he would have to twist such verses entirely out of reality.

But the underlying issue here deserves to be mentioned. ObJ’s “World Outreach” flock is a charismatic independent non-denominational thing. I call them “Indy-Nondies” for short. While being “non-denominational” is touted as important in this era when mainstream (at least Protestant) denominations seems to be in decline, Indy-Nondies are in fact accountable to no one. Any partly-educated wack job can start his or her own “ministry” and claim some particular trait to emphasize in order to grab “market share” from other churches. People are gullible, and with the media’s help, will be drawn to the latest craze, even in the world of religion.

In the Dove World Outreach case, according to Wikipedia, it was founded in 1985 by Donald O. Northrup of the now-defunct Maranatha Campus Ministries. “Maranatha came under considerable fire during the 1970s and 1980s, largely due to its highly authoritarian structure. There were accusations of MCM being a cult with some former members reporting behavior similar to cults that frequently recruited college students during that time.”

The real cult here is the cult of personality. ObJ’s picture that keeps cropping up on the internet seems to indicate that he doesn’t have any personality, but looks can be deceiving. The fact that ObJ’ name is plastered all over the media but you have to dig to find out anything about his church (it’s web site is simply “under construction”) confirms that ObJ is trying to cultivate his own importance over the mission of his flock.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »