Blows me away.

June 15, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Wayne Besen makes, as usual, some excellent points is his column critiquing the Ex-Gay industries, especially Exodus International and Focus on the Family. (See: “What’s Their Point?” What they spread as love is narrowly focused not to love the homosexual they supposedly want to help, but only themselves.

Besen, who is Jewish and I believe not particularly religious, nonetheless has the integrity and intelligence to question whether the religious motivation of Ex-Gay ministries is genuine. He reminds us that if the Christian faith wants to spread the love of God, they are doing a strange job of it by alienating tens of thousands of LGBT people, not only from “evangelical Christianity” but from religion in general.

For every guilt-ridden homosexual who temporarily falls under their spell, they lose hundreds, if not thousands, of gay people who view their conversion program as intolerant. If your ministry causes many gay people to write off not just Christianity, but all religion, by what measurement can you consider your evangelizing a success?

If these ministries want to love homosexuals and save them from a homosexual life-style, more often they drive young people to depression, abject despair, and suicide. Despair often contributes to self-destructive behaviors as well, so Besen cites a recent Emory University Study suggesting a link between banning same-sex marriage and HIV infection rates! (News: Georgia Political & Policy Digest; Emory News Release.)

Is this what a loving God would really want? A lot of guilt-ridden, repentant, dead homosexuals? For once I am glad that someone form outside the Christian community can publish a critical look at the Ex-Gay expression of beliefs and tell them directly, “you are not being persuasive.”

It reminds me of the scene in Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You, in which the good sister carefully determines that one of her former catechism students, who was homosexual, had gone to confession for his sins and not done any other same-sex acts since his last confession.

GARY. Yes, Sister?  SISTER. You still believe what you do with Jeff is wrong, don’t you? I mean, you still confess it in confession, don’t you?  GARY. Well I don’t really think it’s wrong, but I’m not sure, so I do still tell it in confession.  SISTER. When did you last go to confession?   ALOYSIUS. This morning actually. I was going to be playing Saint Joseph and all.  SISTER. And you haven’t sinned since then, have you?  GARY. No, sister. (Sister shoots him dead.)SISTER. (Triumphantly.)  I’ve sent him to heaven! Christopher Durang’s play was screamingly funny, but when I saw it live in Los Angeles years ago, I also remember that my chest was pounding when Sister Mary pulled out her revolver. There is something just too real about homophobic hatred even when it is disguised as love or prayer or good intentions.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Homophobia, Gay Catechism, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Doctrine, LGBT Rights, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

I thought you should know.

May 31, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I just had an interesting conversation this evening, at a Lutherans Concerned/Los Angeles reception/happy hour with a young woman enrolled in seminary. The subject we stayed on for a few minutes was “coming out.”

I don’t get around to this very often in this blog any more, even though I identified it two years ago as a subject worth blogging about —especially for Christians who are sometimes deeply conflicted about being lesbian/gay and Christian. Most of my conversations are with people who are already out, or at least partially out ~ somewhat open about their sexuality even if they’re selective about how they’ve shared it with. It kind of spooks me when I meet someone new who is only recently coming out to self or others. It’s hard to imagine any more that closeted people are still, well, in their closets. As time goes by, kids come out at earlier and earlier ages, so that a completely open gay boy of 13 or 14 is not unheard of. In contrast, when I was that age, it was homosexuality that seemed to be unheard of, and I was into my college years before I had the freedom and furtiveness to search the campus library for any information about it.

The young woman told me that she had come to her local Lutheran church directly from another church. She had been highly regarded there, apparently, and about to be elected or appointed as an officer of that congregation when (it sounded almost like an afterthought) she felt that full disclosure would be important. So she met with key people and said something like, “I just thought you should know,” that is, that she has a female partner of a number of years, etc.

They apparently didn’t take it well, hadn’t imagined it, and told her immediately that she couldn’t be an officer of their congregation, and in fact couldn’t even serve on a committee. But she could still come to church. That lasted about two weeks before she left and found a welcoming, LGBT-positive Lutheran church in the same neighborhood.

As in the church she left behind, there are hundreds—thousands of churches that still have closeted lesbian/gay members (some young, some not young at all) who must watch their backs and whose pastors and fellow parishioners probably don’t suspect they are lesbian, gay, etc. How can this be? I wonder if it happens because the self-righteous and un-welcoming churches must somehow assume that the general public has heard their zero-tolerance policy clearly enough not to attempt to come in or try to infiltrate. They must be shocked, shocked, to discover a Lesbian has sneaked past the gates. But what about the very young teenager who was born into a Christian congregation, only to discover their true inner sexuality 13 or 14 years later.

What was remarkable to me was that we had this conversation now, in 2009, rather than 1989 or 1979. Is this kind of secrecy/fear or rejection/exclusion really still going on in 2009?

You bet it is. The young woman reminded me of a Lutheran parish, I think in Minnesota, that after being a Reconciling in Christ (welcoming) congregation for a time, voted to bail out of the program: they actually decided to become unwelcoming. And to my mind the only reason that can still happen in this century is because the kids growing up there are afraid to come out.

How can I talk to kids, for example, who are14 or 15 years old about being Christian and lesbian or gay, or bisexual/transgender, etc., when they probably don’t know how to talk about it, or how to meet anybody like themselves to talk to? The internet of course—places like this blog—is a door that is wide open for kids who may be uncertain, intimidated, scared or, God forbid, already abused or severely punished because they tried to come out or to get truthful information.

Twenty years ago, Lutherans Concerned periodically sent out mailings to every Lutheran congregation in our region. Sometimes we included a simple poster, with our phone number in very big type.

665-LCLA

We imagined a scared kid who didn’t dare let on to anybody that s/he wanted to know more about being lesbian or gay. Maybe the secretary of the church would allow the poster to be put up on a bulletin board. And maybe these kids would see it, and without revealing even a nonchalant interest in it, could see the number from across the room and memorize the phone number.

Yes, we did get a few calls like that, but the young person on the other end of the phone line was too scared to give us a full name or an address to send more information or a monthly newsletter.

Enter the internet, and the information is all here and nobody has to give names at all if you don’t want to, and even a 14 year-old Christian kid knows how to surf the web and then delete your browsing history so other users of the computer won’t have a clue where you’ve been cruising. Of course, getting good information and advice on coming out doesn’t take away the frustrating, painful, risky work of actually coming out.

If you are that kid, remember: (1) God loves you as you are (2) don’t panic; (3) the love and truth of the Gospel is much bigger and more powerful than all the little narrow minds in your local church; (4) you’re only a teenager for a short time, so you will have greater and greater freedom to explore and express your real self as you grow; (5) Google for help, for answers, for advice and for trustworthy counsel (and I don’t mean Twitter or Craig’s List or chat rooms!); (6) if necessary, delete your browser’s history; (7) trust your own inner feelings and experiences because the Holy Spirit may be speaking to your heart and guiding you to do the right thing for your life.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in "The Closet", Gay Catechism, LGBT Christian, Coming Out, ELCA | Print | 1 Comment »

Break down the door before you suffocate!

May 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

 Two frogs are sitting in a pot half full of water on the stove. There are bubbles all around them. “You know, it just doesn’t get any better than this,” said the first one.

“What do you mean? Are you crazy?” said the other. “This water is getting hot. I think we should get outta here.”

“Why are you always so negative?” said the first. “It’s not boiling, after all. It’s only simmering.”

“I can’t believe it! I suppose now you’re going to tell me the pot is half full, not half empty.”

I read an interesting piece yesterday in Instinct magazine, which surprised me. It’s a pretty-boy fashion magazine that catches our eyes but seldom gets read.

Joel Perry’s article”Is There Still a Closet?” is a relatively sympathetic look at those (how few? how many?) sexual minority persons out there who are still hiding. His article is not edgy—he doesn’t contemplate anything as exotic as transgender politician or a bisexual bishop—but he talks about his friend Davis from small town North Carolina who still sings in the church choir and says, “You try not to live a lie; however, you have to cover your tacks well.”

Perry is probably more sympathetic than I might be. Maybe a transgender politician must hide, but a 42-year old medical assistant can get work almost anywhere. Why would he stay where he can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t live? Why would he try to hold his breath for a lifetime because there is no air in the closet? Or maybe in North Carolina?

Or is it that he just doesn’t know how to come out gracefully, or where to begin?

My friend, most of us didn’t start out to be radical activists. But there came a moment when we finally realized that the pain of inaction outweighed the risks of action.

The truth is that coming out is a multi-part test of one’s own inner integrity. You don’t come out only once, but many times to different audiences. The outcome of any of these will vary, depending on how well prepared you are, and what kind of people you trust with your integrity. It can be painful, and it can be relatively easy and enjoyable. depending on how each coming out event unfolds. Typically, my friends report that at least for some —family especially—they already know and were just waiting for them to talk about it.

Another important thing to remember is that the risk and pain are temporary. Once the coming out process is behind you, your life takes different turns. If doors slam shut, others will open. If some friends shun you, you will make other, more genuine friends. If you grow in the process of deciding you must breathe free, you may discover that other people are also able to grow and change their views and opinions. The family, friend or co-worker who is often overheard telling homophobic jokes may actually change his or her tune just because you were honest about yourself.

And the most important thing to remember, if you are a person of faith, is that God already knows your secret. The thunderbolt has not hit you, no matter how long you’ve been hiding your little secret, so many it’s time to reconsider how damning your sexuality really is. Could it be that God knows, and God still loves you? That the all-wise and omniscient God, the one who knows the heart, fully understands and does not condemn you? That grace outweighs condemnation, and love is more important than sin?

Could it be that you’ve been avoiding thinking about God for fear of the consequences, only to realize that God’s Spirit may be your best friend and advocate as you go through the coming out process?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, "The Closet", Homophobia, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

A matter of interpretation.

May 17, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Once a month, I typically preach twice—in the morning before the congregation, and in the afternoon for Lutherans Concerned/Los Angeles. Most of the time, I prepare different things for each, and that was the case today. And because today’s appointed Bible readings from the Common Lectionary were all meaty and substantial, I had a lot of homework to do.

It’s all a matter of interpretation, isn’t it? Different people look at the same Bible and they interpret it differently.

As Christians, we read the words of comfort and encouragement, and interpret them in favor of ourselves. We read the words of warning and judgment, and interpret them as pointing to someone else.

For nearly 35 years we’ve been active in the reconciling work of Lutherans Concerned, and among other things we have said over and over that the “clobber passages” of the Bible are not really talking about gay and lesbian people as understood today. They are talking about inhospitality, cultic prostitution, masculine privilege and idolatry. But straight people—especially straight judgmental people on the religious right look at the same texts and they say, “Aha, it says right here that Adam and Steve are going to hell.”

The translators of the so-called Living Bible looked at Leviticus 18 and 20, and they interpreted the words there to say “homosexuality” is a terrible sin. Look at the liberties they have taken interpreting these passages:

“Homosexuality is absolutely forbidden, for it is an enormous sin.” (Lev. 18:22)

“The penalty for homosexual acts is death to both parties. they have brought it on themselves.” (Lev. 20:13)

Even knowing full well that the idea and the word “homosexuality” didn’t exist in ancient times, these fast-and-loose interpreters used the word “homosexuality.” They interpret the passage to fit people they don’t like, in our times, and disregard the actual issues and behavior of people in ancient times. Of course, it sells Bibles, and for years this kind of interpretation helped to raised a lot of money for political PACS and ballot measures–more than by ranting about the male cult prostitutes in the ancient Near East.

On the positive side, we interpret the message of acceptance and hope in our own favor. We claim, for example, the grace offered to Gentiles without the sticky commandments and rules of obedience which had been laid upon the Jews. When we give greater weight to the words of Jesus (”You have heard it said, … but I say to you…”), we are interpreting the word of God.

In the First Reading today (Sixth Sunday of Easter), Acts 10:44–48 (New Revised Standard Verison), the “circumcised believers” were astonished that the Gospel was getting results with the Gentiles, and that the Holy Spirit fell upon (was bestowed upon) Gentiles—the despised outsiders and foreigners. In other words, the insiders were astonished that God was showing favor to the outsiders. And the outsiders interpreted the message of the Gospel as belonging to them equally.

To build their case, the apostles looked to the only Bible they had—the Hebrew Scriptures, and they found all sorts of passages, which they interpreted as breaking down the barriers of insider/outsider, chosen/not chosen, righteous/unrighteous peoples, and admitting the Gentiles to God’s grace. But the Jews of the apostles’ generation did not interpret those passages in the same way. And they remained exclusive ever since, strictly defining what it means to be a Jew, or not a Jew.  Not accepting Jesus as Messiah. And not budging on what it means to be in God’s good graces.

In the appointed Gospel, John 15:9–17, Jesus is interpreting the Scripture, too. He is interpreting the Commandments by redefining the Ten as a single commandment — the commandment that we love one another. And he interprets the people of God not as the children of Abraham but as all those who obey this commandment.

The apostle Paul broadened this to mean neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, and not male-and-female (Acts 3:28–29). Paul could interpret things this way because he experienced the ever-widening grace of God to all people. So today we interpret this to mean God inclusive love to all—not gay nor straight, bisexual or transgender, but all human beings. When we interpret Scripture, we claim their promises with authority, knowing that God has given the people of God such authority (Matthew 16:19; 18:18).

If Christians have greatly universalized the passages which tell us that God is love (for example: John 3:16, 1 Corinthians 13:1–13; 1 Thess. 1:4–5; Hebrews 6:10; James 1:5; 1 Peter 4:8; 1 John 3:1–24; 4:7–12, 16–21) we have not universalized passages which seem to judge or condemn. Most if not all of them are highly specific—from God’s judgment of Cain (Genesis 4:10–11) to the judgment of the angel of Thyatria (Revelation 2:18–23).

Legitimate biblical interpretation means knowing when the shoe fits and when it does not. Martin Luther once remarked that the Bible is God’s Word, but in it there are passages where God is not speaking to us, but speaking to someone else. That is probably the best way to be faithful but discerning — to continue to say with the whole church that the Bible is the inspired word of God, but when others try to universalize something they think can be used to condemn us, to faithfully and firmly correct their misinterpretation. It may be God’s Word, and it may be true. But not every word is applicable to every human being. When it come to LGBT Christians, this is probably the most important lesson we must learn for ourselves and faithfully explain to others.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Is there a higher standard?

May 11, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I talked about Christian Baptism recently—and I’m yet undecided whether we still need to divide ourselves on whether we baptize infants or only “believers”– after the age of accountability or decision. Plenty of teens make a decision for Jesus just before their gonads begin to fire, and suddenly the Christian life seems so much less interesting than everything else. I don’t think that is the dividing issue among Christians.

What bothers me (and I will come back to Baptism either here or on the Gay Catechism site), is that Baptism, with its rich symbolism (cleansing, freedom, repentance, turning, light, fire and Spirit, death and life) raises questions about getting in to the Realm of God. Baptism is the gate to the Christian life.

If Baptism is an “entrance exam”, and all Christians pass through it at some point, it is not a filter to keep out Lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender applicants, largely because we are not always aware of our psycho-sexual selves when we are teenagers or before. (It would be an interesting study of Baptist denominations if they are having more trouble over making the decision to be baptized because teens and pre-teens are now more aware of homosexuality than they were a generation ago.)

But it’s obvious that many Christian groups would like to keep LGBT people out, like an insurance company wanting to know if we have a pre-existing condition so they can deny coverage.

Conservative Christians have an answer for everything, so they tell us that we are backsliding, that we have fallen from grace, that we can lose or have lost our salvation, … whatever, as if there is another, higher standard —a sexual standard— or a qualifying exam that LGBT people categorically fail even if we or our parents made a baptismal decision for Christ. “You can’t be gay and be Christian!!” they insist. But we are gay/lesbian/transgender/bisexual and we are Christian. Because the only qualification anyone can have to “be a Christian” is to put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior. Everybody who believes in Jesus and is baptized will be saved (Mark 16:16; Acts 16:31).

(Of course, narrow/strict Christians like to point also to Matthew 3:7–8: ” But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

But “bearing fruit” is not an entrance requirement. Living the Christian life is the result of God’s grace and the believer’s faith through the help of the Holy Spirit. I can’t help wondering if the reason this kind of harsh attitude is used on LGBT people is grounded in the idea that we literally don’t bear fruit (ignoring the pun)– we don’t have kids.

If propagating the Christian faith through biology is “bearing fruit” for the kingdom of God, bringing up one’s own kids in the Christian faith is “low-hanging fruit,” if you ask me. It’s the easy way out to assume that raising a family is a measure of merit.)

But why do some Christians set up another standard, beyond simple faith, to filter out others? Because some folks don’t like Everybody and they can’t stand the idea that Everybody who believes in Jesus could possibly be acceptable to God. If they can set a higher standard than God sets, or than Jesus sets, and make people believe there is such a standard, they can keep out the undesirables, the riff-raff, the minorities (and in our times, that means the sexual minorities).

The Gospel’s standards are not impossibly high. Most important, they are not based on achievement or merit but on faith — especially the faith of those who would have no other merit.

And the shoddy thing, which fundagelicals and ex-gay ministry people seem to practice, is to create a secondary standard, an entrance exam designed for them to pass that others cannot. Let me explain:

Some modern scholars have suggested that today’s homosexual is the Bible’s eunuch, and have drawn connections with Matthew19:12 and sexual orientation. In the Law of Moses, the eunuch is categorically excluded from Israel (Deuteronomy 23:1); i.e., “You can’t be a eunuch and be an Israelite!!” By definition a eunuch cannot sire children, cannot “bear fruit.” Yet Isaiah 56:3–5 argues against the Law of Moses: “For thus says the LORD: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” (Again, ignoring Isaiah’s pun.)

So it is convenient to insist that to really be a Christian you also have to do something which is impossible, that “precludes” a whole category of people from the Christian Club and keeps it pure.

If heterosexuality were really the most important sign of righteousness which God demands of all people, as the Right insists, they are creating a standard which demands virtually nothing from those to whom heterosexuality comes naturally, and categorically lock out sexual minorities. (Sounds a lot like Matthew 23:4 and 13, “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. . . . woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.”)

In effect, they ignore the demand of all disciples to practice self-denial but expect complete self-negation from us. It would be bad enough if the Right pushed these views as mere opinions, but they attempt to give them the authority of God. When I think of all the people who have suffered spiritually, deeply, because of such stuff, it is beyond mere hypocrisy. It is evil.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Watch out for grace!

April 30, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The Daily KOS (thanks for the link, Sarah), has a whole list of wacky readers’ comments about the first days of gay marriages in Iowa. These three jumped out at me:

“straight people don’t want gays to be promiscuous but they don’t want them in a legal committed relationship either…”

Somebody else wrote: “That’s because they don’t want us to exist. Their ideal world doesn’t have gay people in it at all - we’ve all been exterminated. Fortunately, cooler heads are prevailing on this issue. Mostly. “

And somebody else replied: “For people who don’t want us to exist… they certainly think about us a lot.”

They certainly do! The reactionary movement coming from the (mostly Religious) Right seems obsessed with us! For example, the blog at Gay Christian Movement Watch (”Because God has called us to holiness”) is an extensive and persistent rant about homosexuality. The “About” page states that it is “a cutting edge Christian ministry whose mission is to monitor, analyze and publish (MAP) the activities, leaders and public theological positions of the ‘gay christian movement.’”

To me, it may be the cutting edge of a very dull knife.

The blog and other materials there seem to be the work of one man, an African-American in the Atlanta area who touts his escape from homosexuality. He markets his e-book this way: “a man who lived to tell, Touching A Dead Man traces the path of a young boy’s life through childhood rejection, growing up black and COGIC and the pain of his darkest secret: homosexuality. With courage, the book paints a moving portrait of life at its best and worst: sexual violence, longing for fatherly relationship and eventual self destructive living as a gay man.”

Acronym: Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal holiness movement – pretty serious, no-wiggle-room, don’t-screw-up, guilt-rich theology. Yep, that would be a tough place to grow up gay.

Can somebody help DL Foster with the rest? It seems he is a self-made poster child for the ex-gay ministry crowd. I certainly empathize with the other pains and sorrows he may have experienced: childhood rejection, growing up black (in our racist society), sexual violence, longing for fatherly relationship and eventual self destructive living.

But, excuse me, Rev. Foster, none of that stuff is inextricably or directly linked to being gay or lesbian (or bisexual or transgender) and none of it is linked to being LGBT/Christian. I haven’t written my book, yet, but I can share here that I didn’t grow up with childhood rejection. I am of European not African extraction (but I am of parentage tainted enough that Hitler would have hunted me down). I have never been a victim or perpetrator of sexual violence. My relationship with my father was just fine, and with God even better. And I haven’t gone through any self-destructive living, probably because I didn’t have a moralizing, guilt-inducing church to teach me to hate myself, doubt my own good judgment, and obsess about whether I would burn in hell for having my mostly-vanilla flavored hopes and desires to love someone and be loved in return.

Instead of all Foster’s drama, I remained steadfast with Christ, in a church (Lutheran) that totally ignored all sexuality when I was a child, was terrified of it when I was a college student, and has been dancing around homosexuality ever since. I discerned that I was gay (did not choose to be) while in seminary, respectfully stayed in my closet for more than a dozen years, came out gradually, avoided drugs and promiscuity, and met my life partner with whom I am still closer than ever more than three decades later.

“Look! Oh my God, no!  There’s another gay Christian!! I can’t believe it!”

So the implied argument of this minister, who is obsessed with keeping a “watch” on the Gay Christian Movement, is that living the homosexual life is a disaster, which he characterizes as that of a “dead man.” I can’t speak for him, but I can speak for my homosexual life: I have grown emotionally and spiritually. I have found incredible strength, character, love and compassion from all kinds of LGBT people, both religious and not religious, which I believe to be the work of God’s spirit active in our world. I believe that my chance meeting the man with whom I have shared my life, home, and faith was truly a gift from God. And I know, as the Gospel clearly says over and over, that God’s love has been here for me, and for countless Lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender Christians, all along even if we didn’t notice it. I know that we are justified, reconciled, or “saved” not by our good works or by painful or melodramatic episodes of repentance, nor by total sexual abstinence, nor by profound guilt or shame, nor by self-loathing, nor by trying to change our orientation, but only by the grace of God. I will stand by what I read in the New Testament:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— not because of works, lest anyone should boast. . . . But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinance, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thus bringing the hostility to an end.” Ephesians 2:8–9, 13–16

Here’s the core of the “Gay Christian Movement” —and let me paraphrase that passage:

• We claim this grace as being given to us, too, as it is to all Christians and all other human beings.
• It is not our doing—not the accomplishment of any Christian— that we are loved by God for Christ’s sake. So there is no boasting about making the “right” moral choice of heterosexuality (because we know perfectly well that you can’t choose to be heterosexual any more than you can choose to be Lesbian/gay, bisexual or transgender; one can only choose to make peace with our sexuality as one of God’s gifts in our life).
• Heterosexual Christians, especially right-wing conservative ones, may think that we who are not heterosexual are “far off”—wandered, lost, estranged—but we, like they, have been brought near to God. Do you get that? We don’t approach God. God comes our direction in Christ, and brings us near.
• And this is accomplished not through our efforts or our self-denial or self-doubt or self-hatred, but through Christ.
• Many ultra-conservative voices, like Rev. Foster, insist there is a “culture war” ( a thinly veiled view of a religious war, an Armageddon) going on which they must win. But, hello!, Christ is our peace. It’s a done deal. Christ has already ended the culture/religious war for us, making all Christians one.
• He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, so don’t even try to put up another one, okay?
• How did he do this? By abolishing this constant appeal to commandments and ordinances (they only appeal to the commandments and ordinances which they cherry-pick out of the Bible because they self-righteously think they are obeying all those things but we aren’t!).
• There is one new humanity now, folks, not just one new Christianity: there is one new humanity because God, in Christ, unilaterally decided to accept us, love us, and be reconciled with all of us, and bring all this stupid animosity and hostility to an end. The so-called culture war ended on the Cross!

In other words, Reverend, get over it. There are thousands, millions, countless LGBT Christians out there who keep faith with God even while you continue to “watch” what we’re up to! There are countless numbers of us out there who praise God, love Jesus, and do what he commands us to do:  love one another, show compassion and mercy, feed the hungry, visit the sick, welcome the homeless, and go to those in prison. While you are busy “watching” what we’re up to, we simply try to do what Jesus would do.

And when it comes to the Christian lifestyle (yes, that is a lifestyle! a choice!), it really doesn’t matter which gender someone happens to be capable of loving. There is no commandment to “get heterosexual,” Rev. Foster. And while you may think we are called to holiness, I know we are called to faithfulness. We are not justified by any feeble version of “holiness,” yours or ours. We live by grace alone!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Gay Catechism, "The Closet", Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Coming Out, Living by Grace, Faith, LGBT Christian, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

Left, right and Spirit.

April 29, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I am not the only Lutheran parish pastor to blog. (And yes, I admit that I am more of an essayist than a blogger. But when I get started on something, I have to give it a fair run in my mind.) But when I happen to run into blogs being written by other Lutheran clergy – and there are a lot – I am discouraged and annoyed at what I find.

They all seem to be on the religious right-wing. They tend to rant or wring their hands about what’s becoming of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or the loosey-goosey thinking of the Left. I guess I should spend more time just searching for Lutheran blogs, because I can’t believe that I am the most Left-Leaning Liberal Lutheran bLogger out there. (There, the “L word” over and over, without mentioning Lesbian.)

I did come across a Lutheran blog a couple of years ago that had some valid points on other issues, but seemed to be “stuck” on sexuality issues. It was inviting other bloggers to identify themselves and get listed on a bigger blogroll. So I wrote in and asked to be listed as another Lutheran blogger. Never heard from those folks again, so I guess I was on their “lunatic fringe.”

It reminds me of a student at PLTS years ago who was from the (then LCA) Indiana Kentucky Synod. Why he picked Berkeley was beyond me, but we would tease with him a lot about his position on social issues. And back then the issues were drugs, free speech, the war (Vietnam not Iraq even though it seems as if the Iraq war has been going on for generations already), etc. He was courteous about those of us with more liberal attitudes, but was honestly afraid that if he leaned any further toward the center (from the Right) he would be perceived back home as a Commie Pinko (yes, if you are reading this, you might be a Commie Pinko!). And never get a call.

Religion Facts:  A classmate of mine, actually.

(For those of you who are not genetically Lutheran, a Lutheran seminary graduate, no matter how qualified, likeable, intelligent or even straight, will never be ordained if s/he doesn’t receive an actual Letter of Call from a congregation. The Lutherans do not ordain candidates to ministry in general, or without portfolio, but ordain only candidates who are formally called to a real ministry. No play priests here.)

As a consequence of this particular ecclesiology, we tend to come down on the conservative side compared to some other Protestant denominations where you graduate, get ordained and can spout off from any bully pulpit or soap box you can find. Lutheran pastors serve, for the most part, Lutheran congregations. There is a comparatively tiny percentage in specialized ministries and even then typically only after having served in a parish setting for a minimum of three years.

Why I bring that up is because I myself am a pretty conservative Lutheran pastor, no matter how much I may seem to be on the Left Coast of the ELCA. In conscience I truly struggle with issues of public policy and pop culture and constantly try to fit them into my understanding of church tradition, biblical theology, and congregational community life.

There are hundreds, thousands, of subjects I just would never bring up in a sermon, for example. And I suppose this Indwelling Spirit blog is my one outlet otherwise (kind of a “safe harbor on the Left Coast”), even though members of the church are entirely welcome to read what I write.

If I haven’t mentioned this before, the name Indwelling Spirit came to me while in seminary as a name for a collection of liturgical renewal pieces which a group of students were drafting and collecting for daily chapel services. Ever since, it has stuck in me as a reflection on the Early Church’s process of reckoning what to do with controversy and change when individual apostles or deacons simply marched into uncharted territory. The final test was whether or not those who were drawn to the faith had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 5:32, 10:44–48)

The premier text on this experience, which I claim in faith and make it my own is this from Acts 15:8–11, in a speech by the apostle Peter in the Church’s first general Council meeting:

“And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. 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? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

My point is that, like my friend from Kentucky years ago, I am “fringy” only in contrast to reactionary clergy of the Religious Right, who rant about the presence of lesbian/gay people in the church of Christ (but seldom does bisexuality, transgenderism and other sexual minority issues even blip on their radar). To the people I meet in the community around me, and in the LGBT circles of Hollywood, I am orthodox to the point of boredom.

But when I read the scriptures from the fringes, rather than from a position of power and entitlement, I read them differently. The Scriptures are the word of God to me like they are for the conservative Christian, except that the Scriptures radicalize me because they speak to me on the fringe.

In the passage above, who are the “they” of whom Peter speaks? The Gentiles—the outsiders whom the insiders wagged their heads about and ranted that admitting them unconditionally was a slippery slope for the church! The insiders (the New Testament will identify them as “Judaizers”) believed that Gentiles were sinners and that the Law of God could not be relaxed just to accommodate outsiders. This seems amazingly parallel to our experience as [gay and lesbian people]:

“And God, who knows the human heart, testified to gays and lesbians by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. 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? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

You Tube:  The shocking truth about the gay lifestyle.

My right-wing blogger friends would scoff at such a comparison, if not be entirely outraged. After all they would insist gay people choose that lifestyle. But in the great Jew/Gentile debates which wrenched the earliest Christian community, being a Gentile was a matter of “lifestyle.” They were thought to be sinners who should simply quit doing all the disgusting things that Gentiles do, and come under the Law and obey God and get circumcised. It always seems to come down to that particular male anatomical appendage, doesn’t it? And the right wing of the church today never learned what the New Testament teaches about this, so they continue to insist that we need to cut it off in order to please God.

Acts 15: The Brick Testament’s “Great Penis Debate”

And because I see the Scriptures from the margins, from the view of the marginalized, I am considered a lunatic of the left? The Spirit that dwells within me tells me not to trust their view, but to trust my own conscience and to keep reading the Scriptures … and to keep blogging.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Amazing grace, not cheap grace.

April 24, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

In my (frequent) moments of self-doubt, I wonder about whether my stress on grace and unconditional love are swinging the pendulum too far to the other side.  But then, which way should the pendulum swing, anyway? Haven’t we—in both church and society—had too much of pendulum-swinging, of one reformer or strong leader or personality cult person trying to jerk the wheel of the big ship out of the hands of the Holy Spirit and re-chart a course?

Personally I am fed up with pollsters asking their little select sample (subject to error plus or minus 3.0% points) whether this country is going in the right direction or the wrong direction. Why do we have to keep trying to change course when none of us can speak with certainty or authority? And especially in the Christian church, I am put off by such when I think others perceive me as being naive or overly pious when I insist: Jesus Christ has set the course for this church for all time; who are we to think we must constantly wrestle for control or go at each other for taking us “off-course”? If we are following Jesus, how can we get lost?

But I’m also mindful of powerful witnesses like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who cautioned the church about “cheap grace“– pronouncing the love of God and consolation of religion without also calling us to discipleship, without warning believers that there are costs involved in following Jesus. In Bonhoeffer’s case, there was enormous cost—the cost of his life in fighting the greatest evil of the 20^th century.

In my ministry, I am reaching out constantly to people who have not really ever heard grace pronounced at all. Wherever their Christian roots, it seems, all were fertilized with the same burning mixture of fire and brimstone, of dire warnings pointed at them like a shotgun. Where was any “consolation of religion”? They have felt beaten up, criticized, warned, preached at, condemned and completely rejected for failing, or “backsliding, or not measuring up in one way or another, to the high moral standards that some other human being thinks they must reach in order to be loved/saved/accepted/welcomed.

And I have met so many of these people in recent years that maybe I’m overcompensating — confidently announcing the unconditional love of God in Christ for all people.

How can I do that? Didn’t even Jesus put conditions on his own disciples? “If anyone would come after me, let them take up their cross and follow.” How can we pretend to be disciples if we do not take up (carry) a cross just as he did? Even in this Easter season, there is still a cross awaiting all true Christians. And to pretend to belong to Christ otherwise is the ultimate hypocrisy. Right?

The theological problem here is one of directionality. I cannot teach that we must achieve certain prerequisites or conditions before God loves us enough to assure us of our forgiveness. Then discipleship becomes a lifelong qualifying exam, which after all we might fail. But in truth that is more of a description of Islam’s view of the Judgment Day than of the Christian view. The Gospel teaches that

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:16–19)

Is that “cheap grace”? Is that liberal pablum? No, it is the Gospel according to the First Letter of John, which is keenly aware of the struggles and conflicts that ride along with discipleship and acceptance of the Lordship of Jesus.

But if we worry or obsess that we can only approach God through our suffering and the personal cost of discipleship before we have any assurance of love and grace, that is backward.

In fact true discipleship results from our assurance that we have already received grace without qualifying for it—with no inherent right to it, no merit, not even a down-payment. It is God who is willing to risk giving us the grace before discipleship rather than as a reward.

Of course, I am most mindful of this when it comes to the struggle of lesbian and gay people—and more recently bisexual, transgender, queer and every other kind of sexual minority as we may define ourselves—to be heard and to be offered a taste of God’s grace, without first promising to and submitting to personal and emotional and psycho-sexual castration in order to somehow please God. Christians who demand this of other Christians have their theology twisted and they themselves need to be born again again.

In the Gospel I know –and the only one I know is written in the Scriptures that all Christians read, and I especially rely on the writings of the Apostle Paul— there are costs of discipleship, but circumcision is not a requirement in advance. We do not need to cut off our true selves, our sexual or gender identity, our orientation, our very being. We do not need to deny ourselves the very thing that makes us human and in fact that Christ calls us to utilize in proclaiming our discipleship: our ability to love.

In the Gay Catechism I will come back to this, and other matters of sexual ethics, because I know that the early church’s conflict over the requirement of circumcision is probably the best analogy we have today with which to evaluate the anti-gay and anti-sexual requirements which some Christians insist must be imposed on us, or we cannot be saved. But Paul says emphatically,

“Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:2–6)

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Sex, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, History, Living by Grace, LGBT Christian, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

A day of reckoning.

April 19, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I have been dialoguing off-blog with my new Catholic friend Sarah about this “evangelical catholic” thing and the dynamics of Lutherans and Catholics finding a home somewhere. She is wonderfully respectful of her Lutheran friends, and especially of a dear gay friend, who is exploring what it means to leave the Roman priesthood behind and enter the Lutheran ministry as a member of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries roster.

Sarah writes for other blogs and web sites with insight and power. This entry, for example, is from Street Prophets “A C/catholic Response to Prop 8″ (but her article actually tackles questions far beyond that):

“In the Catholic tradition, the priest . . . is acting not as the person of Christ, but as the representative of the community itself. We are an intensely communal people. We are Catholic - universal. Or, in the words of James Joyce, ‘Here comes everybody!’

“Except, it seems, for the queers. [Emphasis added] The Church has never been able to figure out quite what to do with us, other than to engage in more and more contorted explanations that defy logic or common sense about who we ‘homosexuals’ are, and what pastoral responses are appropriate if one might show up in your Church. ‘Please join us, but don’t tell anyone you are here!’ is the current party line. It makes sense to no one, of course.”

It made no sense either to Father Geoff Farrow, who outed himself and resigned his pastorate in Fresno last September over the Catholic Church’s support of Proposition 8. And I think this is where my “un-met” new Catholic friend was coming from in the phone call the other day. He is pained enough by the “don’t tell anyone you are here” contorted view of his life, his existence, his faith-reality, that he feels he cannot go home to the church in which he was raised unless he buys into the pretense.

Clearly, I feel like I am nudging up against questions too big for me to resolve. For a very long time, I have agonized about how best to be pastorally open to, and walk with, wounded Christians from non-Lutheran traditions who even now are wakening to their longing for something deeply spiritual, deeply experiential, deeply personal, yet because of life circumstances have felt (or actually are) cut off from their roots.

Do we remember Steven Fales, author and protagonist of “Confessions of a Mormon Boy” who was excommunicated? And “recovering” Catholics, Baptists-in-exile, and disfellowshipped Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Or, for that matter, poor Ted Haggard, who seems to have turned denial into a new career path?

 

There is undeniable evidence that the rigidity of our spiritual systems continues to wound, harm, and abuse sisters and brothers in Christ who as a result may never return to any “fold” but bitterly denounce all spiritual insight. Yet even with a body of such evidence, the fix, the solution, the way out, the path to walk with them in their pain, often remains clouded and unclear. “Absolutism means never having to say you’re sorry” was the tag line of Rosa Brooks’ article “The Dark Side of Faith” (Zion’s Herald in 2006).

Yet reckoning will come, and I don’t mean the final Day of Judgment. I mean the day when a critical mass of people decide they must move on from the wounded condition of their faithfulness and badly-eroded integrity, and search for a spirituality which genuinely nourishes them. Hopefully, I will be invited to walk with some of them.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, Spirituality, LGBT Christian, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Jesus is not the only one despised and rejected.

April 10, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

About a year ago a young Muslim man came to my office to learn more about the Christian faith. (I blogged about this once before~ June 3, 2008) I was taken by surprise, and thought to myself, “Oh God, where to begin?” But we have several deep conversations. He helped me begin by asking me, “How did Jesus die?”—something which many Muslims have never been told about.

Today is Maundy Thursday. In this Holy Week, Christians recall the events of the final days of Jesus’ life, and especially his betrayal, arrest, mock trial and condemnation to death. Those events are fully told in the Gospels. But in the ancient prophesies, there are a series of “Servant Songs” in the book of Isaiah which Christians have recognized since the earliest times as prophetic of the suffering and death of Jesus.

In reading this passage from Isaiah 53:1–9, I began to imagine some parallels between the rejection and hatred of Jesus and the rejection (and secret suffering) of lesbian, gay or transgender people who also feel despised and hurt —especially young people who don’t have enough perspective on life yet to be able to stand up to homophobia and hatred:

1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?I am going nuts, Lord. How do I know if you are with me or not, because my friends and my family think I am evil and sick, and people say I will go to hell for being gay.

2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

I can feel the hatred in their eyes, because they look at my like I’m some kind of freak. I’m only a teenager, and already my life is a mess!

3 He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

This torture inside of me has been going on for a long time. I just knew I was different since I was a little kid. And no matter how I have tried to be good or to conform or “fit in,” people either disliked me or completely ignored me, like I’m not even a human being.

4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

When they find out you’re queer, the first thing they think is like, “He’s got AIDS! Get away from me you fag!” And, “God is punishing you for being so gay!” Sometimes I have been hit or shoved into the wall. Once they kicked me.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.

They think that by treating me with hate they are somehow better, like “holier-than-thou.” They think that by beating up on me or shouting obscenities, somehow they are more human that I am. Like, the guys are insecure about their masculinity, so they want to hurt me to prove they are “real” men.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

I can’t help it, Lord, but I feel like you have let all this hatred come down on me. I cannot carry this load, Lord. People say you never give us a load we cannot carry, but I can’t carry the load of hatred that has been put on my back.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

So how am I supposed to remain quiet, and be nice to people who talk about me behind my back? Am I supposed to just let them hate me, be cruel, abuse me and kill me like they did to Matthew Shepard and Lawrence King and Gwen Araujo?

8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.  Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

I’ve heard about guys who went to jail “on a morals charge” just because they were gay! And anti-gay violence is getting worse. We are being killed just for being who we are!

9 They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

O God, I feel like I could die. I mean, I feel dead, because people wish I was dead!! Protect me, and help me to not to go crazy. I want to live. you gave me life. Help me to go one living until there is better day, and not to hate those people back because they hate me.  Help me to survive!!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Homophobia, Gay Catechism, Violence, HIV and AIDS, Bible & Interpretation, PRAYERS, Faith, LGBT Christian, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Appealing to common prejudice.

March 15, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

People make fun of the Ten Commandments nowadays. We’ve had our battles over conservatives trying to stick them on a granite monument in court rooms, etc. Make the Law of Moses loom over our daily lives, our justice system, our bedrooms. they get a lot of bad press.

And in these liberal, crazy times, most of us who are open-minded and compassionate seem to think there is little left of value in the Ten Commandments. they have become, literally, the Ten Suggestions. And of course all of us, including all who are religious to any degree, have found our way to work around them. We make ourselves all manner of “wiggle room.”

This past week, the Ten Commandments surfaced in the common ecumenical Lectionary for Sunday readings. I bit the bullet and spoke about them. But it set me thinking whether or not Christians in our time should be about the business of filtering out the heavy stuff and lightening-up the burden of legalism by trivializing these Ten Words (in Hebrew, the Words of God). Or should we start where the Lutheran Reformers started, by acknowledging that the Commandments (and the entire Law) do not save us, but they do convince us of our need for grace. They convict us of our own sin.

Ordinarily I cringe from applying any word of Law to other people’s sins, errors, excesses or missing-the-mark. But one thing jumps up to me as I try to apply the Commandments to our contemporary scene: I find that they still point at what is flawed in us with dead aim.

The Small Catechism published by Mobipocket.com.  How cool is that?

I have written before, for example, about the Eighth Commandment (”you shall not bear false witness”) as something our right-wing Christian people should look at carefully when they make derogatory, misleading or false statements about gay and lesbian people. Luther’s Small Catechism, for example, says this to explain the Eighth Commandment:

We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their refutations. Instead we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.

One cannot help thinking that Fred Phelps could do a little introspection on this. But what of those in the gay community who have engaged indiscriminately in “outing” other LGBT people? Clearly the commandment of God says, we are not to do things which harm others (no matter how tempting and delicious!).

During Lent this time around, it was the Second Commandment which struck me also. and yes, I am thinking too much of other people’s wrongs (not to put others down, but to clear say that I, and other LGBT people, have been disastrously hurt, and I appeal to this Second Commandment in our defense). “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.” Again from Luther’s catechism: 

We are to fear and love God, so that we do not curse, swear, practice magic, lie, or deceive using God’s name, but instead use that very name in every time of need to call on, pray to, praise, and give thanks to God.

(I must yawn in the reference to “magic” ~ as an occasional visitor to the Magic Castle here in Hollywood, knowing that it is all the art of illusionists, but yes there are other sorts, and Martin Luther lived 500 years ago in a more fearful era…). What does it mean to deceive using God’s name?

Am I deceiving others, if I offer them comfort and assurance of God’s unconditional love, when there are hundreds or thousands of conservative preachers who think that the word of God is utterly clear that LGBT people are going to hell? Dare I interpret the Scriptures to say, God’s word for us is grace, for the sake of Christ, and sexual minority persons are recipients of that grace along with every other human being? Or is it the right-wing conservative who is deceiving others?

But after waging this battle within the Christian church for decades, I am tired of being overly polite and self-effacing, allowing the deceiving, negative, hurtful, even murderous word of the Religious Reich to be spoken in the name of God. This is wrong. This is evil. Isn’t it a misuse of God’s name to invoke God in the service of hating people? shaming people? taking people’s rights away?

We’re all used to bad-mouthing attorneys, politicians, and used car salesmen for being dishonest. The finger of God also points at preachers, too, if they use God’s name to condemn, to defame, to bear false witness, to deliberately harm other people (in this case, LGBT people). They think that appealing to common prejudice in their pews will fill their collection plates! We’ve just seen this happen again in the religious right-wing campaign to pass Proposition 8 — people misusing the name of God to sell prejudice to the voters, and bolster stereotypes, bigotry and fear, rather than to less those things.

The bottom line of the commandment is as relevant as ever, once we see that people are being harmed when religion breaches the basic purpose of the commandment and the justice and rightness of God. “Don’t go there,” God says. “You shall not do that!”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Living by Grace | Print | No Comments »

Can we party during Lent?

March 2, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Here we are again in the church’s dark season, the season when we wear a “smudge” on our foreheads to tell the world that Jesus makes us so joyful we beat our breasts and hang our heads with shame and repentance.

I could go one about that, especially since the Gospel tells us not to parade our piety before others but to keep our spiritual disciplines to ourselves, in secret, because God “who sees in secret” will reward us.  (Matthew 6:1-18). 

God forbid that he gets a smduge on the mitre! 

Perhaps the finest parable in the New Testament is that of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, about which I have written perhaps hundreds of pages.  It still astonishes me that in the ecumenical Lectionary used by many denominations today, the Prodigal Son is read only once every 3 years!  How can you set aside the premier story of God’s love for humanity and the need for unity and love in the household of faith for three years at a time?

Today I am working again in earnest on the “Gay Catechism” project I have begun, and it led me back to the Prodigal Son.

Commentators have long pointed out that the parable’s two sons are a more covert teaching about Jews and Gentiles: the Jews are the older brother, the Gentiles the younger and reckless brother who comes home after squandering his inheritance. The point tucked in here is that Jews, or at least Jewish Christians, who were resentful about the sudden presence of Gentiles claiming God’s love and grace, have a huge lesson to learn about God’s unconditional love.

Today, those two groups may well be the welcoming churches and the scolding churches (for want of a better term). Conservative churches not only don’t want to speak to LGBTQ people, they often imagine terrible sins they think LGBTQ people are guilty of, even though it isn’t true. Moreover, they resist celebrating the return of LGBTQ people to the church of Jesus Christ.

(Please temporarily overlook the “sexism” of the parable, because it only mentions males. In fact, whether God is a “father figure” or whether the siblings are male is irrelevant.)

This inexhaustible parable teaches lessons on many levels. When the prodigal son has returned home and is unconditionally welcomed by the father, a party is prepared. The older brother is resistant and resentful “and refused to go in” to the party.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Return of the Prodigal Son

Many conservative corners of the church today refuse to celebrate our presence.  They throw no party for us.  They are angry.  They want to believe that they have a “leg up” on the sinners (whom they claim to love while hating the sin, even though their anger is completely transparent and mocks the very idea of loving the sinner!)  They think their lifelong obedience to strict moral laws ought to have qualified them for a party of their own, and they certainly aren’t going to rejoice with us.

Some of the churches in the middle ground are “struggling” with the presence of lesbian and gay people in their midst, let alone bisexuals, transgender people and God-knows-what-else.  They put out somewhat “conditional” messages of welcome, such as what the ELCA has been doing for nearly 20 years.  And they are not prepared to rejoice with us, thinking that as long as the whole church can’t be of one mind about homosexuality and human sexuality, we had all better be pretty reserved and cautious.

Well, what does Jesus teach in this parable?  What would he say about celebrating the presence of LGBTQ people, on the basis of this parable?

Does the father postpone the party until the older brother has come around?  No!  In truth, even at the risk of disunity in the family, the father commands that the party be started without the older brother, in the hope that he will come to understand why the presence of his brother is a cause for such celebration.

We will never resolve the issues of homosexuality and human sexuality by obsessing about what the Bible says about sex.  That is abundantly clear.  But it is time to look all over the Bible, especially at major teachings such as that contained in Luke 15, to better understand who brothers and sisters of widely differing opinions are expected to get along in the one church.

So this parable is a lesson for the whole church, which must understand that some people in the household of faith are going to celebrate the return and the presence of the “prodigal” even before the rest of the church is ready to come in.  We are not commanded to wait until those who are morally narrow and emotionally resentful can get over their fears and their anger (and their appeal to the father’s authority).

In fact, in Jesus’ teaching as made clear in several places in the Gospels, he repeatedly says that the Jews will come late to the Kingdom of God because they resist allowing others in, even while those others are gladly entering it before them.  Prostitutes and tax collectors in his day.  Bisexuals, transgender people, lesbians and gays and queers, oh my! in our day.

Can we party during Lent? I think it’s safe to bet that we know how to party, even while others are not ready even to talk to us.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Wrong choice, right choice and privilege.

December 20, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I’ve been doing some more thinking about whether LGBT people “choose” their sexuality, and I’ve concluded that when others make that accusation, it’s not even about us, it’s about them.  Here is the entry I’ve added to gaycatechism.net.

Whether being a sexual minority is a choice is going to continue to captivate the public policy debates, the “culture wars” and the anxiety in the churches. For right-wing Christians, “choice” equates with “sin.” To be lesbian or gay or transgender is the “wrong choice.” And to be bisexual seems to prove their point (even if it is a gross misunderstanding of bisexuality).

We should remember that mainstream, conservative rejection of us is not isolated from mainstream conservative rejection of many other things in our changing society.

Fundamental to the persuasion that we have a choice (in this case, about our sexual orientation) is that the supremacist/racist/heterosexist and upwardly-achieving class is that they have made all the right choices in life, which explains and justifies their positions of privilege. It is about them and the superiority of their achievement, lifestyle, ethnic purity, education, marriage and nuclear family. It is “all about them,” and the god they have invented to bless them for making all the good choices.

Seen in that harsh light ~ yes, it is a harsh critique ~ LGBT people are only one category of human beings on which the right wing is inclined to look down. Heterosexual privilege is closely linked with economic privilege and class, with white privilege, conservative Christian privilege, and ultimately political privilege. The key thing for you and I to understand is that we should not have to defend ourselves against the view that we have made a “wrong choice” in our innate sexuality.

Quite the opposite, those who claim all manner of privilege in our society should feel the need to defend their accumulation of privilege. The Bible and the Christian Gospel make it clear that God does not identify with the privileged, but with the poor in spirit, the hungry, and the oppressed.

So says Jesus in the beatitudes which begin his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–12):

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“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. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

And so says Mary in her poem of praise to the Almighty when she hears the announcement by the angel that she will bear a son:

. . . “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. . . .

“He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.”

In our reading of Scripture, we dare to claim the grace and favor of God because we read the Scripture not from the position of privilege, but from the position of oppression. We no longer imagine God to be the Ultimate Control Freak, whose strict moral law tightly controls every aspect of our lives, but the God who rights what is wrong in this world by turning it right-side up: bringing down those people who cling to and rationalize their privilege “in the thoughts of their hearts,” and lifting up those who have been reviled, persecuted and the object of all kinds of evil accusations. 

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

A new “front line” in the “culture wars”

November 24, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I am still working slowly on the materials for an extended Gay Catechism, which I announced last spring. But since that time, the amazing window of light opened for same-gender marriage, and the election, with all its promise and problems, slammed down upon us. Obama is ready to change America (read: undo most of what Bush had done?), but now Proposition 8 has to be fought all over again in the court and the culture.

But the need for the Gay Catechism still tugs at me. I continue to meet people who are surprised that I am a church pastor and openly gay.  Last week we got an extended “hate message” on the church answering service, although the lady who recorded her anti-gay sermon into the telephone probably didn’t think she was being hateful. Every time an LGBT person gets slammed with such stunning and ignorant rejection, however, it is harder to believe that there is anything redeeming about the Christian faith.

What disturbs me most is that the culture war, and the legal war, have very few “front lines.” The lawyers, ours and theirs, prepare their briefs. People sign onto Amicus briefs without ever meeting the authors. Funds are raised by the tens of millions on both sides of them marriage issue, and the demagogues like Dobson and Robertson continue to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from sourpuss Christians who think that we are trying to destroy their faith and their nation, and must be stopped. (As if these two guys in their late 70s are going to save America from homosexuality.)

But on our side, now the blogs and start-up web sites are mounting a powerful campaign to overturn Proposition 8. Even if the California Supreme Court doesn’t see it our way when it finally hears the consolidated cases in March 2009, the battle will be on to reverse Proposition 8 on the 2010 ballot. But either date is a long time to wait to have my marriage recognized.

Where would the “front lines” be? Direct one-on-one conversation with those who disagree. Carl’s work friend who lives in a conservative neighborhood did march across the street to talk to a neighbor with a “Yes on 8″ yard sign, and talked him in to understanding our point of view. That’s a front line. But the lady who left the cranky, self-righteous phone message is no warrior. She didn’t give a name or number because she doesn’t want to listen to our side of the argument. Oh, well.

But now my work on the Gay Catechism has slowed (you can check out some of these materials at www.gaycatechism.net), in part because I have too much passion to fight on all fronts. The sudden movement to stop/block/overturn/invalidate Proposition 8 fired me up again last week to launch the site www.NoOn8Church.org (or www.NoOnH8Church.org). There I am trying to assembly all things godly and strategic in the righteous battle to get ride of this discriminatory law. The site is brand-new, but you will find things like God Talk, Why Yes Won, What’s Next, Money|Politics, Headlines, and Issues & Ideas, including Can I Still Get Married?, Legal Issues, Stop “Protecting” Marriage, etc.

I guess for now the web site is my own, and our church’s, “front line.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Two camps, two Gods?

November 15, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

It seems that Christians are divided into two camps: the first are those that find a gracious God, who is kind and all-loving, merciful, forgiving, and who offers us—purely out of divine grace— life eternal.

And there are those other Christians who find a cranky and rigid deity who has issued divine, immutable commands, who disapproves of the overwhelming majority of human actions and endeavors, and who would certainly condemn everyone to an eternal hell of fire and suffering and pain and sorrow. [And what possible good is that, if in eternity it is already too late to change one’s actions and endeavors? What would be the point? Is it because God wants to see us pay for our sins and errors— committed over four or five or ten decades— forever? If that is the true God, then God is sadistic, and knowing that God would hardly convince me to come near!]

The use of the Bible as the inspired witness to God is out of balance, so that these two camps pick and choose from scripture to create and prop up an image of God to one extreme or the other.

Those who choose the loving God certainly enjoy the freedom and comfort of not feeling condemned or hated. They must certainly a “kind God” for selfish reasons. But it spills over in the generous and liberal attitude toward other people.

My quarrel with those who pick and choose the angry God is that the stretch the biblical word not merely to make the wrath of God large, but also to accommodate a huge portion of their own anger toward other people.

It is tempting to see this wide spectrum of theological difference entirely on the basis of how one regards self and others, to recast or emphasize our view of God on how we first view ourselves and others.

Which God is genuine? Which God is the true God?   Step Three of the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps acknowledges a higher power: “[We] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” I don’t quarrel with that, in principal, since it allows this program a lot of latitude for those of different faith traditions.  But when these faith traditions are increasingly dumbed–down to the degree of two extremes, which God does one believe in, and to which God does one turn one’s life over? If it is “God as we understood him,” but the understanding we have is of an angry, rigid God who hates humanity, then good luck on turning our lives over to God’s care.

As for me, I would rather put my faith in the God who understands me, rather than the other way around.  My understanding is not perfect.  God’s understand is.  When I read the scriptures, I find a God who knows my weakness, yet forgives; a God who patiently waits for me to come to my senses, a God who welcomes, heals, embraces, blesses, feeds, and gives the undeserved gift of eternal life. This God, says the Christian scriptures, is revealed most completely in the life and the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

So while, yes, we can find a lot of stuff in the Bible which speaks of God’s disappointment, scolding, warning and wrath, and which expects us to turn, repent, wake up, clean up our act, straighten up and fly right, and while we may strive with all our hearts to do that, God has the last word. And that “last word” is not laying down the law, but giving us the gospel.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

 [This was started many months ago ~ but in the light of the polarizing climate of Christian behavior in the November election over Proposition 8, it seems fitting to post it now.]

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Gay Catechism, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Spirituality, Living by Grace, Faith, Recovery | Print | No Comments »