You can hide your money but not your behind.

January 21, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Well, the Proposition 8 lawsuit in federal court right now is churning up a lot of stuff, and airing a lot of “dirty linen.” What would it be like if all of us had to live our everyday lives “under oath” to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? How much sooner would the Catholic bishops have had to confess they were hiding the real child molesters, for example? but that’s another story.

Mormon Church Aimed to Cover Tracks on Marriage Ban — Directed funds to outside organizationBy Will McCahill| Posted Jan 20, 10 9:45 PM CST

(Newser) – The Mormon church wanted its members to support the 2008 effort to ban same-sex marriage in California, but urged they do it through an outside organization to give the leadership “plausible deniability,” according to documents released today in the Proposition 8 trial in San Francisco. The Catholic church also helped bankroll the operation, an executive says in one email, while the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provided “financial, organizational and management contributions.”Later in today’s session, a Stanford professor testified that although high-profile politicians pay lip service to homosexual issues, “Gays and lesbians do not possess a meaningful degree of political power. They are not able to protect their essential interests.” Though President Obama describes himself as a “fierce advocate” for gay causes, lack of action on the military’s ban on openly gay service members and other issues shows he “is not a reliable ally.”I can corroborate at least part of this. In the wake of the Prop 8 victory in November 2008 I spent several hours pouring over the donor list posted by the state of California, trying to find the contributions of the Mormon Church. Nothing significant turned up, and I was quite surprised. It began to dawn on me and many others that they had covered their behind successfully.It is no coincidence that Catholic and Mormon money funded a large part of the Proposition 8 campaign, however. Both have moral issues of their own they would just as soon hide or at least forget. It seems logical that the best way to distract the public memory from Mormon polygamy or Catholic priestly child molestation is to try to take the “moral high ground” when it comes to marriage.But the “moral high ground” lies quite bare and fallow when a court of law focuses its attention there. The high ground and plausible deniability simply don’t congeal. The moral high ground benefits from transparency, and it is quite obvious that the donors—major and minor—that literally “bought” Proposition 8 for the California Constitution—fear transparency and want their identity concealed as much as possible.Shame! Shame! Shame!

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Go figure!, Catholic matters, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Fundamentalism, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

More weight tipping the scale.

January 12, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

On the heels of the no vote in New Jersey (where they only needed 4 or 5 more votes in the Senate), little by little, the objections to same-gender legal marriage continue to wither in other countries. This past week, the Parliament of Portugal voted to permit gay marriage, according to an Associated Press story.

This unites the Iberian peninsula, because Spain already did this five years ago. Although both are heavily Roman Catholic countries, they have not fallen off into the Atlantic for their left-leaning liberalism! At what point will the international change reach a tipping point for the United States too? Why are we so, well, anal?

Last summer, according to the Huffington Post, Portugal’s highest Constitutional Court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage and rejected a suit by two lesbians, Teresa Pires and Helena Paixao. the high court considered the appeal brought from a lower court, and “the Constitutional Court said in a statement posted on its Web site that the constitution does not state that same-sex marriages must be permitted.”

But catch the prophetic outlook of one of the plaintiffs, which seems to anticipate this week’s shift:

The court said the question before it was not whether the constitution allows same-sex marriages, but whether the constitution compels them to be accepted, which it does not.       Paixao told The Associated Press by telephone she regarded the decision as “a victory” because the split decision demonstrated that attitudes are changing in Portugal. “It shows there’s a change coming. Bit by bit people will come around” and accept gay marriage, she said.www.Change.Org carries Michael Jones’ commentary from last Wednesday, “Portugal, Gay Marriage, and a Visit By Pope Benedict XVI“: Prime Minister Socrates made legalizing gay marriage a big component of his re-election campaign last year. When he won, in September, gay marriage activists saw the marriage equality writing on the wall. By the end of this week, the writing may be all over the country’s laws.       Meanwhile, even the Catholic Church is Portugal is sounding a bit conciliatory. Lisbon’s Catholic Cardinal Patriarch Jose Policarpo weighed in and said that same-sex marriage was “parliament’s responsibility,” and not something that Portugal’s Catholic Church should focus on. Ah, would that this philosophy spill over to the U.S. Catholic Church. Instead of leaving marriage up to state legislators, the U.S. Catholic Church gets involved regularly (hello Maine, hello California, hello New Jersey) in the same-sex marriage debate.

Meanwhile, Australian Catholic Cath News notes that the parliament rejects allowing gay couples to adopt children. And further meanwhile, Aljazeera (!) notes that it was as recently as 1982 that homosexuality was a crime in Portugal. Is there any doubt that we are clamoring to a tipping point when (a) decriminalization to legal marriage is only 28 years apart; (b) Aljezeera news carries an objective news story on this without calling for death to the “infidels”?

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Catholic matters, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Ecumenical Issues, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Good news, religious lunacy.

November 30, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The web newscaster www.365gay.com does a cool job of monitoring AP news releases as well as publishing its own reports. One AP post recently (which I’d missed) is probably the best little tidbit of news I’ve seen in awhile, indicating that there is no smoking gun of gay priests behind the widespread Catholic sex abuse scandal.  Read the story:

Report: Homosexuality no factor in abusive priests 

by The Associated Press • 11.18.2009 9:22am EST

The report, commissioned and financed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to the tune of $2 million, did not find that the homosexual orientation of priests was any predictor of who would be involved in sexual abuse. In spite of a policy coming from the Vatican itself a year or so ago to essentially “weed out” homosexually-oriented candidates for the Catholic priesthood, the behavioralists and criminologists who have extensively studied sexual predation and pedophilia do not find a gay = child molester link.

According to the AP report, Margaret Smith of John Jay College of Criminal Justice reported to the Bishops meeting in Baltimore: “If that [Vatican anti-gay] exclusion were based on the fact that [a gay person] person would be more probable than any other candidate to abuse, we do not find that at this time.”

Also another finding from other reports, that I see as good news, is that clergy sexual abuse cases are on the decline ever since the 1980s. Most of the cases still shaming churches and emptying their coffers stem from abusive behavior in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps the “transparency” and media attention of more recent times is telling pedophiles and sexual opportunists that they won’t be able to hide their behavior as well as they once did.

On the down side, there is nothing on the horizon to suggest that the Roman Catholic Church will any time soon become more realistic about human sexuality in its moral theology. Its rule of celibacy (a rule of the Church, not a Christian doctrine) for clergy and its iniquitizing of any sexual activity outside of a heterosexual-and-procreative context continues to make its moral teaching seem ridiculous in the larger world and puts many Catholic faithful into a hypocritical bind.

Most ridiculous of all (another rule, not dogma) is to continue to ban women from the priesthood while male priests are deserting the ranks of the clergy if not bankrupting the Church. It has been reported that one-fourth of all Catholic parishes world wide have no priest. The numbers who have quit the priesthood to get (heterosexually) married continues to climb. And the molesters, guilty of some 14,000 sexual abuse cases since 1950, have cost the Church an estimated $2.3 billion in the same time period, according to the AP story.

I know that many of the rank-and-file are outraged at by all of this. The expenditure of money alone (yes, a lot of it paid by insurance companies) is appalling and disgusting. You would think the Church would be broke, but somehow it still finds the funds to fight against civil rights for gay and lesbian couples in California and Maine, too. What else can we do but shake our heads in astonishment and resignation to this religious lunacy. — Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Catholic matters, Go figure!, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Public Affairs, LGBT Rights, LGBT Christian, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

We’re here. We’re Christian. Get used to it.

November 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The year 2009 has already been momentous enough in the world of faith, what with both the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church taking decisive left turns on sexuality issues. The Episcopal Church essentially ended its self-imposed moratorium of electing a lesbian/gay bishop, after the existence of out gay Bishop Gene Robinson set the world’s conservative Anglican into a firestorm of indignation.

Then a month later the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America did something almost unthinkable for a mid-America-dominated outfit of good decent folks: it lifted the 20 year old ban on the ordination of partnered lesbian and gay people into the Lutheran ministry. Since that momentous day in August, everybody seemed to threaten to stop talking to the Lutherans, including other Lutherans, Catholics, etc.

Every denomination of Christians knows full well that they already have lesbian and gay clergy in their ranks. But most of them have preferred the continuous hypocrisy of plausible deniability – that they are unaware or even sincerely believe that they do not have lesbian and gay clergy because, well, they don’t allow such a thing. (By the way, the word “plausible” has an interesting history of its own.)

At any rate, the outrage and indignation over the reality of sexual variation even among decent and God-fearing people, is at least the flashpoint for a lot of upheaval in the Christian world.

Upheaval is usually caused by a lot of light material being tossed around by stronger forces. (I imagine the example of, say, a card table full of champagne glasses is upset by a fast-moving house pet.) There is far less upheaval of any sort when something is built on bedrock, and I always thought that the Christian faith was built on bedrock. I was brought up to believe that. More on that later.

But upheaval there is, and many well-respected commentators have been suggesting now for years that what we see emerging is an enormous realignment in the world of religion. Breakaway groups from mainline Protestant denominations, for example, may simply team up and form new unions.

So as the CORE Lutherans announce they are moving ahead to form their own little churchbody, we can’t help wondering if they will eventually converge with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod if that latter can trust their conservatism, or even the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (which is really not evangelical and not Lutheran in my humble opinion).

As a side note, I will watch with enthusiasm mixed with amazement to see how many ELCA congregations actually do go with the CORE movement. My count today on their web site is that 87 congregations are moving in their direction. Keep in mind that somewhere between 300 and 400 ELCA congregations have signed on with the Lutherans Concerned Reconciling in Christ program to publicly welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. So at the moment this doesn’t look like a serious realignment of apocalyptic proportions.

But the this ecumenical thing popped into the news, the so-called Manhattan Declaration which came out three days ago, that attempts to put up a barricade to the enormous social change of recent decades, over the signatures of Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Christians.

(It seems more than a little odd this group would grab the title from the climate change people who in 2008 issued the Manhattan Declaration in Manhattan. This month’s 7-page religious moratorium was actually released in Washington D.C., not New York. I suppose now anybody could just write up his or her own version of truth and issue it under the title “The Holy Bible,” and it would be okay, huh?)

But this seems to fit the pattern of that “strange bedfellow” coalition of Mormons and Roman Catholics who donated huge sums to “defend” heterosexual marriage in California and again in Maine.

Bruce Garrett, of Truth Wins Out has written a cogent piece (”Statement Of Conscience: Just Give Us The Money”) on the Declaration and warns of its blatantly anti-gay political agenda.

Is there a real Christian realignment going on? Realignment is hard to detect for certainty when things change at glacial speed. And you know how the media loves to exaggerate, hence the word “upheaval” when 87 out of 10,000 congregations pick up their marbles and leave the ELCA’s game.

Personally, I doubt that there is a grand realignment that will abide for very long. The Mormon/Catholic alliance over Proposition 8 was a marriage of convenience. Both, as I have said, did their best to take the moral heat off of their own houses (a wild history of plural marriages, and a current pattern of sexually-abusive priests and pedophiles) by amping up their indignation over same-sex marriage.

Even in the current Declaration, there is so little holding Evangelical and Catholics together theologically that I doubt it means a massive or fundamental realignment. There are still plenty of evangelical Christians who think the Pope is Antichrist, for example. And Benedict XVI hasn’t done anything to dispel that age-old antipathy. It was more than amusing to see the Catholic News Agency identify some of the writers who put the Declaration together as including “renowned Evangelical leader Charles Colson.” Charles Colson, of Watergate notoriety? Charles Colson, who wrote “Born Again” in 1976 after serving time in prison for obstruction of justice? Well, I guess so, because he got into bed with ex-Lutheran convert to Roman Catholicism (the late) Richard John Neuhaus to publish “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission” in 1995. (You can get your used copy from Amazon right now for 59¢.)

And I suspect the Orthodox are not about to cave into Roman Papal authority any time soon, especially in light of its astonishing resurgence in post-Soviet Russia. The ecumenism of recent years on that front has Orthodoxy being cordial but not really trusting the Papacy. And Benedict is not likely to suggest parity with the Patriarch. His recent”generous” offer to welcome disaffected Anglicans back into the Roman fold, for example, smacks of canon law machinations: an Anglican bishop can become a Roman priest, keeping his wife but forfeiting his episcopate. Gee thanks, Ben.

If the Christian faith and witness is built on real bedrock, it is not the bedrock of Christian history nor a unified view of the divisive social issues in any era. It could only be the bedrock of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the historic creeds and confessions of what it means to be Christian. (So there go the Mormons, who hold to some very odd beliefs about God, Jesus, Adam, and human beings becoming Gods, and who turn up their noses at the ancient statements of faith.) Clearly, the bedrock of Christian faith, and the “core” of Lutheran theological teachings, are about what God does for humanity in Jesus Christ. Those core believes including nothing about who is Pope or whether one needs a pope, a bishop or a priest. the core believes including nothing about human sexuality, homosexuality, or marriage, for that matter.

You can appeal all you want to tradition, and loyalty to the real Holy Bible, but unity of faith is grounded on a great deal more than widely-held prejudices and a quickly assembled outrage and bluster promulgated to grab the attention of the media. And most important, a 7-page statement drawn up by indignant traditionalists does absolutely nothing to make reality go away. And a significant part of reality is that there are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning human beings out there, many of whom were raised in Christian homes and in spite of all the conservative bluster still acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We’re here, we’re queer. We’re Christian. Get used to it. Do I have to say that into Latin?

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, Catholic matters, Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, History, LGBT Christian, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Get on with repeal or ditch the constitution!

October 30, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Three cheers to Roland Stringfellow’s blog on Unite the Fight’s web site.

Here we are a year later and where do we find ourselves in the fight for marriage equality in California? Two major camps debating on whether to return to the ballot in 2010 or 2012 and we have to ask ourselves the question, “Have we learned from our mistakes?” Are egos and attitudes being altered in order for power to be shared and different voices heard? Has a clear strategy been created and presented? And what about our motivation – are we still angry and humiliated from our loss a year ago that we are planning to return to the polls with revenge? (”I’ll show you who is a second class citizen.”)

Stringfellow writes on behalf of the faith communities in California who are organizing to overturn Proposition 8.

There are many wonderful, hard working individuals who are putting their hearts on the line as they strive to make our world a more accepting and loving place for LGBTQI people and to make marriage equality a reality for us all. If our goal is to repair the divisions that exist in our society as we work for equality, we must examine and ask ourselves, “Do divisions exist within our movement for equality”?I agree with his view that we ought not to be divided over the 2010 vs. 2012 issue. It is an absurd dissipation of energies, and the supposed merits of each idea (get on the next ballot at all costs, or get on the presidential ballot when more liberals turn out) are probably stirred with personality issues that bubble over behind closed doors–even in the LGBT communities.Unfortunately, well-intended internal battles are part of human nature. You may have read or heard that another proposal is out there to completely revamp or replace the California Constitution, which would of course blow away the Proposition 8 language now enshrined by amendment.But even in this, there is division. Repair California is interested in “incremental change”, and filed ballot language yesterday for a measure that would call a limited Constitutional Convention (see press release; ballot language; fact sheet). Meanwhile, California Forward (www.caforward.org) has a different agenda: “fundamental change.” The two groups talk to one another, which is hopeful that there won’t be unnecessary intra-agenda fighting. But what worries me is that Repair California says it won’t touch our issue. What does that mean?

Mark Carlson in the Lutheran Office of Public Policy in Sacramento stated in an e-mail yesterday, “Jim Wunderman, the leader of Repair California, emphasized that the convention would not deal with marriage, abortion, gun control, or prayer in the schools” [italics added]. But the lunatic cesspools of power and money which seek to control those very things have to be drained of their toxic influence. But California Forward, so far, only addresses “fundamental change” in the area of money and budget, not civil rights.

It is all too clear that California is still ruled by several lunatic fringes. Yes, I know, the Religious Reich characterizes us that same way, but we know the truth. And we demonstrate our sanity every time one more of us comes out and tells the truth about our authentic selves, our lives, and our family relationships. Coming out remains the single most powerful tool we have for defeating conservative extremism. It is they who are on the lunatic fringes, because in addition to barrels of cash, they rely on lies, stereotypes fear and paranoia to push their anti-LGBT agenda.

Hopefully, we in the LGBT communities will be energized by what happens at next week’s polls. If marriage equality is set back further by the vote on Question 1 in Maine, for example, it may kick us into taking the reactionary lunatics far more seriously. It has, after all, come to light that the same money bags which financed Proposition 8 are pouring more of their cash into the Main steal-our-rights campaign. On the other hand, if the move to repeal Maine’s marriage rights law fails, it may energize us to claim our self-respect and go back at reversing the damage done by Proposition 8.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Also see: Equality Events; includes Rachel Maddow coverage of Question 1 and interview’s Maine’s Catholic Pro-Marriage Governor (9 minutes).

Posted in Catholic matters, "The Closet", Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Pope or poacher?

October 25, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

The man who walks in the “shoes of the fisherman” — Pope Benedict¹⁶ —has gone on a major fishing expedition that certainly raises more questions than eyebrows.

It is not surprising that Rome, under Ratzinger’s leadership, should try an opportunistic gesture to collect disaffected Anglicans back to Rome. After all, he doesn’t consider any Christian communion to be the genuine church unless it is under his authority. So it’s not surprising that his gesture of outreach to unhappy Anglicans and Episcopalians in this country fits with his agenda to strengthen and broaden his own personal authority.

But this latest may have the effect of actually weakening his authority, and this is where the surprises come from:

Rome has long has a curious dispensation to allow married Anglican priests (or, theoretically, married Orthodox priests) to come back to Rome and remain married. It seemed n anomaly of history and Canon Law when I first heard of that, since the Roman Catholic Church has enforced clerical celibacy for at least 800 years. (I have hundreds of pages in manuscript form that provide details on that). But this curiosity seemed all but a historical footnote until this latest gesture.

And Benedict is hurting for priests, as they exit the priesthood by old age and death, marriage, therapy or prison. I’ve been told on good authority (but it’s too broad to Google or Snopes this) that one quarter of all Catholic parishes globally have no priest.

But if the Pope wants to welcome married and disaffected Anglican priests back to Rome, with their wives, he has essentially reinforced the point that clerical celibacy is simply a rule of the church and has no real authority in Scripture or dogma. If it is simply a church rule that can be bent or relaxed by the guy who wears the authoritative hat, then why doesn’t he just get rid of the rule and welcome his own married ex-priests back to Catholic altars?

(It is hard enough to admit to a change of mind in public—the media and the opposition will tell you in a New York minute that you are “waffling”— but to change your mind and go against the last 90 Popes or 800 years, whatever, that takes nerves of steel.)

Benedict has also thrown in a bone to the Protestant Reformation by suggesting that disaffected Anglicans can keep their beloved Prayer Book, the very anchor of the Church of England since 1549, and as fiercely defended by Anglicans as the papacy is by Catholics. But if returning Anglicans can bring along their Prayer Book, in the English language, so much for the Roman Missal, the Roman Rite, and all the dogmatic baggage packed into the Mass. In other words, so much for Rome’s unblinking authority.

The third shocker is Benedict’s suggestion that Anglicans who come home to Rome can bring along their own bishops. If he thinks he will be expanding his authority by adding bishops under him, what becomes of Apostolic Succession? And come to think of it, this is backhanded gesture to undercut the authority and insult the person of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. It is as if to say, “since you can’t control your boys any more, I will take them off your hands.” Every Anglican Bishop that returns to Rome is one less Bishop under Canterbury.

Astonishingly, Rowan Williams seems content to accept this slap and spin it to sound like ecumenical progress! According to Steve Doughty of the U.K’s Daily Mail Online “Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said it showed that relations between Anglicans and Roman Catholics were closer than ever.” Perhaps Archbishop (”Red Riding Hood”) Williams has mistaken Benedict for his own grandmother?

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Just Say Nope!

October 24, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I offer somebody else’s blog and two comments.  i’ll save my comments until after I read some more news stories.  On its face, this is just too fascinating to pass up. — Dan Hooper

Pope Welcomes Disaffected Anglicans

Steve Benen points to the following.

“In a move expected to cause confusion within Anglican and Catholic parishes alike, the Vatican on Tuesday announced it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with the Church of England’s acceptance of women priests and openly gay bishops to join the Catholic Church. A new canonical entity will allow Anglicans ‘to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,’ Cardinal William Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here on Tuesday.”

What it probably means is that married Anglican priests can become married Catholic priests because God knows that priestly celibacy can be thrown overboard when put in service of denying women priesthood or acceptance of gays within the priesthood. Sounds like the patriarchy circling the wagons again.

Posted by Mary at October 24, 2009 09:57 AM | Religion | Technorati links 

Comments

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition… which means Cardinal William Levada is the Grand Inquisitor. How cool is that!

Posted by: JimD at October 25, 2009 10:24 PM

Posted in Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, History | Print | No Comments »

Lasting Peace: the Unsplit Life

October 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

On the train to Riverside today I finally picked up a book I had set aside last July: the anthology “Wrestling with the Angel” [Brian Bouldrey, ed.; New York: Riverhead Books, 1995]. Today I came to Andrew Holleran’s chapter in which he wrestles with Catholic guilt more than any angel.

Holleran (Eric Garber) is a gay novelist and essayist roughly my contemporary in age but far more advanced in finding his voice as an activist. You can Google for a lot about his life and work if you like.

So much of what he writes about religion parallels my own awareness if not experience, and I can’t help wondering if it is more because he was Catholic and I Lutheran that he left most of the faith behind and I never did. Holleran identifies, at least he did in 1995 in “The Sense of Sin” as a “cafeteria Catholic,” taking what he wants from the religious smorgasbord and leaving the rest behind. But his chief insight in his brief autobiography of confession reveals that he could neither abandon his childhood and adolescent Catholic faith nor fully embrace it.

“The sense of Sin is, of course, missing in some people, keen, more keen, keenest in others. When I drew up a list of my own one evening, I was surprised to see that all of mine amounted to sins that did not include homosexual acts themselves but the consequences of hiding them from people who loved and expected more out of me, perhaps than I’d given the world. In other words, I suspected myself of shame, withdrawal, and finally that most classic of Catholic sins, despair. Still, none of them seemed correctable; I hadn’t any more faith in homosexuality’s virtues, really, than I did in the existence of God—though the latter was no something I could bring myself to entirely disbelieve, either.”For me, this no-man’s land, this love-hate experience is what happens when one has absorbed the Religion of Christianity without ever finding a manner in which to live out the Christian Faith. Guilt truly is the gift that goes on giving, and we have good reason to jokingly insist that the Lutheran persuasion is “Catholic Lite: one third less guilt.”As a young writer and preacher I was always more than a bit brash, but taking the longer view now in mid-life and mature years I notice with enormous gratitude that I did not pick up much guilt about sex and sexuality in childhood and adolescence. Lutheran preachers were far too conventional and inhibited even to mention that sexuality exists. There were no warnings or scoldings from Sunday School teachers. Luther’s Small Catechism sticks to the basics of the Christian faith —faith in God and Christ and the Spirit and the Sacraments— rather than building moral fences and trying to provide guidelines to control our daily impulses. So to this day I insist that attitudes about human sexuality and homosexuality cannot, in and of themselves “split the church.” Opening our minds about gay and lesbian people and relationships is not an “abandonment of the historic faith” because, the Lutherans would insist, the true Christian faith does not contain doctrines about sex in the first place.

Holleran’s dilemma is that he cannot live with the dire ultimatums which either Catholicism or fundamentalism presents to him, but he realizes at mid-life that homosexuality and sexual liberalism are not a substitute faith, either. Even as a fallen child of his Church, he sees his sexuality in Catholic vocabulary: “a cross one had to bear.”

“That one kept thinking in Catholic phrases was, of course, part of the legacy of a Catholic childhood. The gay Catholic operates on two levels, I suspect; on the one hand, he believes it is quite moral to act on his sexual orientation, to form a sexual bond, of whatever duration, with another man; that the antihomosexual tenets of Christianity are parochial, culture-bound, and heterosexual; that the active gay man has acquired, and provided others, a human dimension available uniquely in erotic intimacy; that kindness, beauty, tenderness, love can be experienced only through the medium of another person. On the other, he suspects that he has turned sex into a form of fast-food junk, that he is trapped in a way of life from which there is no escape and no real chance of finding any lasting peace of mind. In other words, this was cognitive dissonance as a way of life.”All that I can counter is that I do not suffer that dissonance and I preach to dismantle its power over others. But my understanding is not to trivialize the core message of Jesus nor to re-Puritanize sexual expression. That I have remained not celibate but monogamous is not because I have struck some self-devised compromise with God or have internalized homophobic guilt about having casual or anonymous sexual experiences. It is because I have experienced the greatest personal and spiritual growth in relationships (one man, one Lord) which are long-lasting and able to grapple with the tension most human beings live with between the superficiality of the flesh and the overwhelming depth of the soul.If all of that is really a cross one has to bear, it is the cross I have chosen not because of a bifurcated life (hiding my sexuality from the church and hiding my faith from the boys at the gay bar), but because of my awareness that I live only one life and will struggle to keep it integrated. If I can live without splitting my life, then maybe the Church can live without splitting itself apart.—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Gay Catechism, Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Faith, LGBT Christian, Fundamentalism, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

Missouri Synod weighs in on gay clergy.

August 24, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Global or local, change comes painfully slow.

August 17, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

The recent brouhaha within the Anglican communion over the Episcopal Church decision to continue liberalizing its views of gay/lesbian clergy is apparently nowhere stronger than in Africa. It has been estimated that within a few years, Africa will be the defacto geographic center of Christendom. Not Rome, not Salt Lake City, not Minneapolis. Hmmm.

I have ranted before about Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola, who is extremely hostile to homosexuality and is leading the fight to splinter up the worldwide Anglican communion over the presence of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. Although the ELCA and the Episcopal Church are in full communion, strictly speaking I don’t have a dog in their fight, so Archbishop Akinola doesn’t frighten me.

So much the global perspective on the culture and sex wars here in America. It is hard to open up and relax a church body in America when it fears to weaken relationships in the ecumenical scene which it has spent generations strengthening.

But what about ordinary people of faith at the local level? Are we chopped liver to the Christian church while bishops and archbishops angrily argue over the doctrine of sex? (Is there even a doctrine of sex?)

This past Sunday, a visitor walked in to worship with us in Hollywood, who identified himself afterward as an ELCA pastor from the adjacent synod who has been out from under his parish call for several years. He spent them getting an advanced degree but is now struggling with the internal faith/vocation issue of whether to seek to return to active ministry or not. He is gay and partnered, among other things.

In our system, you have 3 years to accept another call to a position or you automatically drop off the clergy roster of the ELCA, unless some extension or special circumstances are arranged. The clock is ticking for this gay pastor, as it is for all of us who have spent our careers serving a church that has been hostile to (at best) indifferent to our presence.

This week’s vote in Minneapolis may be helpful or meaningful for him, but the most important thing remains his own sense of discernment. Does he believe he still has a vocation to serve in word and sacrament? Is he willing and able to make enormous sacrifices to serve in Christ’s stead in a world still filled with hatred, fear, phobias, and Christians with feet of clay?

This is the local expression of the sex/culture and faith wars. Who was it (a famous somebody?) that said: “the greatest battles a person will ever fight are inside his own head”?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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Are we poking fun because we’re masculinized?

August 11, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

This last week I carefully drafted a verbal rebuke of a fellow community activist, for his tasteless and scarcely apologetic put down of a woman with an unusual name.  He is one of the countless people I have met in life who “poke fun” at things.

Until Shelley wrote her comment, I had never thought of “poking” as something phallic.  But then those with powers and privileges seldom notice what they have and use because to them it seems normal and natural.  Shelley tells of the incident in which a 4-year old boy’s first inclination is to poke a helpless, upside-down beetle, rather than rescue it.

I am reminded of the way in which a scientific fact was presented to me several years ago:  Scientists have no identified the genetic link or connection to human violence.  Those who possess one particular chromosome have been found to be 9 times more violent than those without it.  Want to guess?  It’s the Y chromosome — those who are biological males.

Stoking indignation (July 25) is perhaps not a uniquely male response, but men have a majority here.  Outrage, anger, and violence are characteritic responses from the Y chromosome.  When MSNBC runs a blip about Rush Limbaugh’s fringe political views, of course, they love to re-run that video clip showing him jumping up and down at some podium, undoubtedly because his not inconsiderable weight would have created a lot of violent shaking on the platform.

No women are not always better at resolving problems than stoking them.  But I keep noticing that women are picking up some of men’s worst habits, including aggression and violence.  In my examples, I mentioned three mens:  Phelps, Akinola and Otten.  But I could have certainly found women who seem to have learned (been socialized) similar behaviors. 

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What kind of Nation does this make?

July 25, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

Rachel Maddow made a comment in passing the other night in another context, but she used a phrase which has stuck with me. Referring to other commentators (I think it was Rush Limbaugh on the Crowley/Gates/Obama story), she said that people “stoke indignation.”

Stoke is a word seldom used these days. From www.dictionary.com: 

stoke [stohk]

–verb (used with object)  1. to poke, stir up, and feed (a fire).  2. to tend the fire of (a furnace, esp. one used with a boiler to generate steam for an engine); supply with fuel.

stoke 1660 (implied in stoker), “to feed and stir up a fire in a fireplace,” from Du. stoken “to stoke,” from M.Du. stoken “to poke, thrust,” related to stoc “stick, stump,” from P.Gmc. *stok-, variant of *stik-, *stek- “pierce, prick” (see stick (v.)). Stoked “enthusiastic” first recorded 1902; revived in surfer slang 1963.I love the reference to surfer slang, but Maddow’s use is more serious. And this on indignation:  

in·dig·na·tion [in dig’ney shuhn] 

– noun.  Strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting, or base; righteous anger.[Origin: 1325–75; ME indignacio(u)n < L indignation- (s. of indignatio), equiv. to indignat(us) ptp. of indignari to be indignant, take offense + -ion- -ion; see indignant ]

So this implies that the taking of offense or holding righteous anger and outrage, etc., must be stirred up or fed like a fire to keep it alive. Otherwise, people flame out and tempers cool off by themselves.As much as I enjoy the poking of one political force by another (preferably my side poking the other side), the phrase “stoking indignation” explains a lot of the supposed outrage in our culture/nation/world. One wonders what all of our public commentators, spokespersons, and self-appointed moralizers and critics hope to create by being “stoked” and trying to supply fuel to everyone else. Fred Phelps stokes the indignation of those who don’t like homosexuality, for example. His extremism gives support to others who take offense and don’t see their own offense as unreasonable because there is this minister guy who is even more shocked, shocked, shocked at the tolerance of homosexuals in America. But his church in Topeka, I understand, consists almost entirely of his own extended family members. His stoking doesn’t seem to find much fuel in Topeka or anywhere else.Is not this the agenda of Archbishop Peter Akinola in Nigeria who is still stoked, still outraged six years after the consecration of a gay Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire. Akinola has done everything possible to “stoke indignation” in the worldwide Anglican communion.And the right-wing Lutherans such as Solid Rock and Word Alone pretty much do the same. The Word Alone newsletter, which comes to me unsolicited, attempts to stoke indignation by offering news and analysis of everything they believe should stir up the faithful to righteous anger.

Herman Otten played this role, beginning with the Missouri Synod Lutherans, for decades in his tabloid Christian News. My friend Howard Erickson, who was instrumental in launching Lutherans Concerned for Gay People (now Lutherans Concerned/North America) in 1974, loved to bait Otten by mailing him copies of The Gay Lutheran, which Otten would not merely quote in his news tabloid but reproduce the entire front page of the mimeographed newsletter, in its entirety hoping to “stoke indignation” among fellow Missouri Synod Lutherans.

“I always put the complete mailing address right on the front,” says Erickson, “because I suspected many closeted pastors and lay people who received Otten’s newspaper would hear about Lutherans Concerned and be able to contact us easily.” (The first three issues of “The Gay Lutheran” by the way are reproduced in their entirety on the LC/Los Angeles web site. More will be added when I have time to scan them.)

Stoking indignation is hardly new. A thousand years ago Peter Damien (above; a saint and doctor of the Catholic Church) wrote a little treatise, The Book of Gomorrah, by which he meant to expose the terrible homosexual practices among Catholic clerics, and sent the work directly to Pope Leo IX. Leo responded with praise and approval for the work (”About these thins, since you have written what seemed best to you, moved by holy indignation . . .”) and commendation for Damien (” . . . for it is greater to instruct by deed than by word”), suggesting politely that he keep up the good work. The late John Boswell’s (below) groundbreaking study in 1980, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, pointed out that Pope Leo IX basically shelved Damien’s holy indignation and did nothing about the homosexuals among the ranks of clergy.

Hmmm.

Apparently indignation is not always stoked successfully. We can only hope that our modern stokers would take up surf boards and stop trying to turn America into one enormous Indig-Nation.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs, History, ELCA | Print | 1 Comment »

Critical Mass

June 16, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The nation is changing, as if we haven’t noticed, and the pace of change is changing, speeding up, on overdrive. I’ve purposely been avoiding same-sex marriage stuff for a few weeks so that readers can be assured that there are other issues to talk about. But in today’s news, the pace of change on this issue is reinforced again: 

The U.S. Conference of Mayors at their 77th Annual Convention today passed a resolution calling for full marriage equality for same-gender couples. In addition to its strong language on marriage equality, the resolution passed today also endorses the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, the Uniting American Families Act, and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The resolution, called “Equality and Civil Rights for Gay and Lesbian Americans,” said the following on the subject of marriage equality: “…The U.S. Conference of Mayors supports marriage equality for same-sex couples, and the recognition and extension of full equal rights to such unions, including family and medical leave, tax equity, and insurance and retirement benefits, and opposes the enshrinement of discrimination in the federal or state constitutions.”

Ross Murray, Associate Director, Lutherans Concerned/North America, said “As we continue to advocate for full inclusion of LGBT Lutherans in the life of their church, we are encouraged that leaders in the secular world are beginning to recognize what we have known for a long time: that LGBT people are and always have been part of the wondrous diversity of creation, and, as such, are entitled to equality in society, as well as in the church.”

Phil Soucy, Director Communications LC/NA: communications@lcna.org

So, maybe we are really reaching the critical mass for social change on the marriage issue, when even Dick Cheney thinks it’s okay and the U.S. Conference of Mayors wants to be in the “yes” column (see its Resolution No. 46 here). Note also that the same resolution supports ENDA legislation and the Matthew Shepherd act. Support like this is pretty cool on the occasion of the 40^th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Somebody let me know when the actual “tipping point” arrives for LGBT people, so that we can hold a celebratory concert, party or church service in honor of it. Maybe we could call it the “Critical Mass” and offer prayers of thanksgiving?

The only problem is that homophobic Christians may use the term in the other sense, and hold a Mass which is critical of same-sex marriage. More than likely the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that would back that one. It opens tomorrow in San Antonio, Texas. Hmmm.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Catholic matters, LGBT Rights, History, Public Affairs, PRAYERS | Print | No Comments »

I still have my sign up. So do my neighbors.

May 24, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

We are some of the people who voted No on Proposition 8, and raised thousands of dollars to try to block this appalling piece of legislation. The number may change, but it looks more and more like there will be a 2010 ballot proposition to repeal Proposition 8 and remove it from the California Constitution.

(I didn’t think I’d be thinking about this until after the California Supreme Court speaks on Tuesday, but I can’t get this off my mind.)

I believe it is not simply a matter of majority rule when it comes to basic, inalienable civil rights. The right to marry the person of your choice should never be up for a vote (it never should have been on the 2008 ballot to start with). America established that once and for all when the U.S. Supreme Court brought in its decision on Loving vs. Virginia, which removed the legal hurdles for interracial couples to marry.

There is nothing sacred about civil marriage. Marriage is honorable and good. It is part of the fabric of our society. It creates stability in culture, community, households and individuals. It bestows rights and accepts responsibilities.

But the word “sacred” is a religious concept that should be left out of the civil marriage equation. Different religious groups think of marriage differently, and they practice different rituals to solemnize or seal a marriage. They assign their own beliefs, requirements and privileges to marriage as they define it.

We need to stress the separation of church, state and marriage. Millions of people marry every year who are not interested in any religion, and that is their right. And many religious people marry who do not contract a civil marriage yet still receive a ritual blessing which creates relationships in their religious community.

My reasoning is entirely empirical. I am certain—this does not take a Ph.D.— that what my church teaches and practices about marriage is not the same as what the Roman Catholic Church teaches and practices or what the Mormon churches teach or practice.

Mormons believe that a heterosexual couple who marry are sealed for eternity. This is not the same as what Jesus says in the Bible (in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, Matthew 22). They call marriage an “ordinance” and have their own cosmology and beliefs which are not shared by many Christian churches. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as they prefer to call their faith, may try to look respectable by supporting only heterosexual marriage, but the history of the matter, which lingers in the back country of America, is that Mormons started by permitting—really advocating—polygamy. Polygamy is not only not legal in any U.S. state, it is not supported by any Christian church organization.

In the Roman Catholic church marriage is a “sacrament.” Lutherans do not, because we have a strict and narrow definition of what a sacrament is (specifically instituted by Christ, for one thing, and so marriage fails the test right there.) And the Catholic church has not budged on the indissolubility of marriage. That church absolutely forbids re-marriage after a civil divorce. Most Protestants and many Lutherans do not look at divorce as a block against re-marriage, and we do not forbid ministers from marrying, as Catholics do.

(On the site above, the explanation of marriage from a Catholic viewpoint is a real stretch, but save that for another time.)

The ELCA tries to focus:  on sexuality. Where did they get this picture?

The bottom line is that one person’s sacred beliefs are another person’s blasphemy. Even while the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America wrestles with human sexuality and homosexuality, its new draft “social statement” on human sexuality does not forbid the blessing of same-gender couples in a Christian liturgical ceremony.

Obviously, people of faith are not all people of the same faith. And not all Christians are opposed to same-sex marriage.  Using faith and religious rites as a monkey wrench on civil marriage rights is unjust, plain and simple.  America was founded on freedom of religion, and that primarily meant that we are free to practice our own religious beliefs and to therefore avoid coercion by means of another’s religious beliefs. That is why civil marriage is not sacred, because if it were, who’s version of “sacred” couple it possibly reflect?

So I’m keeping my sign up, if necessary, until Proposition 8 is revoked, invalidated or repealed.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Vocation, integrity, born again.

May 20, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I had a brief conversation last night at a Love Honor Cherish event with Father Geoff Farrow, the courageous priest who came out last fall and was expelled from his parish because he would not, in conscience, echo the bishop’s order that the faithful all vote in favor of Proposition 8.

When is the right time to speak up, or to remain silent? This is one of the eternal questions of human integrity, and no matter what generation or century you live in, there are things over which some people will trip and fall headlong away from their own inner sense of who they are and what is important in life. Our culture doesn’t provide opportunities for people to lift up their own values, or speak about them easily. Our culture itself has little integrity left, when it comes to values (unless you count right-wing flag waving which I don’t).

Integrity is perhaps the tap root of genuine ministry as well, as Father Geoff fully knows. When we counsel people —and many times the counsel is quite informal, rather than scheduled and deliberate behind closed doors— what people are listening for in a priest or pastor is not necessarily the religious or doctrinal “party line.” They are listening for our integrity: to hear how we inwardly weigh and process the decisions that we all face as human beings in a dehumanizing culture.

Fr. Geoff mentioned those priests who left the ministry but never moved out of the rectory. Their genuine ministry ends when they loose their integrity. (Fr. Geoff had started packing up his personal effects in the rectory before he came out and spoke to the media about being gay.)

I had an opposite experience years ago. I was outed in my previous parish—but secretly so that the rumor was going around but nobody would tell me what they were being told. I was forced to resign over other petty complaints. So I left the professional ministry, the paycheck side of the equation, but was not finished with my inner sense of vocation or calling to be in ministry. So for many years I kept teaching, writing and preaching whenever I could while I worked in an ordinary office job.

From the day I left that parish, I determined I would never go back into the closet, even if I never went back into the professional Lutheran ministry. It was how I preserved my sense of integrity. And in the years since, I am convinced that coming out as a Lesbian/gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or whatever sexual minority and telling one’s story, is the most important thing we can do to preserve our sanity and integrity, and to change the world. In fact, in a society where personal integrity is not highly valued (we left countless politicians do as they please and weasel out of it any way they can just to get their names off the front page quickly), the one bright spot or the moral high ground for humanity and personal integrity is our movement to come out and tell our stories honestly even at high personal cost.

Without your integrity, said Father Geoff last night, “it’s like your death, on a lay-away plan.” Your humanity, your life, is being given up a little bit at a time. But coming out and choosing to have integrity, if you ask me, is kind of like being born again.

(Father Geoff blogs at www.FatherGeoff.com.)

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Catholic matters, "The Closet", Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, Coming Out, LGBT Rights, Ministry | Print | No Comments »