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

Posted in Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

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 »

More shaking likely.

May 13, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

May 13, 2009

Two news items that are likely to keep social and emotional temblors rolling for a while.  First, from the Gay Religion Blogspot, Tuesday, May 12, 2009 ~

Former Catholic Bishop Of Milwaukee Says He’s Gay

New York — A Roman Catholic archbishop who resigned in 2002 over a sex and financial scandal involving a man describes his struggles with being gay in an upcoming memoir about his decades serving the church.

Archbishop Rembert Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese, said in an interview Monday that he wrote about his sexual orientation because he wanted to be candid about “how this came to life in my own self, how I suppressed it, how it resurrected again.”

Called “A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop,” the book is set to be released in June.

“I was very careful and concerned that the book not become a Jerry Springer, to satisfy people’s prurient curiosity or anything of this sort,” Weakland told The Associated Press. “At the same time, I tried to be as honest as I can.”

Weakland in 2002

I found this on the Gay Religion Blogspot, but the whole story is on Huffington Post. Unfortunately, Weakland’s personal story is heavily colored by the ongoing sexual abuse scandal rocking the Catholic church. the former Archbishop, who was forced to resign in 2002, admits his role in moving abusive priests around without alerting the people or the police. Clearly, the abusive climate is too big to control without a complete change in both rampant clericalism and dishonesty about human sexuality. I don’t look for any improvement under the current pontiff, who is doing all he can do to increase clerical power and to maintain the atmosphere of denial about sexuality.

According to the Huffington story, “Weakland said Christians needed to speak more openly about gays in the priesthood without the ‘hysteria’ that often characterizes the debate.” And here’s the real “elephant in the sacristy” issue: “U.S. Catholics have long debated whether the priesthood had become a predominantly gay vocation. Estimates vary from 25 percent to 50 percent, according to a review of research on the issue by the Rev. Donald Cozzens, author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood.”

What most non-Catholics don’t fully understand is how tight the belts of clerical authority can be cinched. For generations, no Catholic writer could publish a work without first obtaining permission and clearance, known as the nihil obstat and imprimatur.  I guess if you’ve already resigned, what else can they do to you?

Secondly, from www.365gay.com this morning, May 13 ~

New York Assembly passes gay marriage

Washington —The New York State Assembly voted 89-52 Tuesday in favor of marriage for same-sex couples. The legislation will now move to the State Senate.

“It’s great to see the Assembly strongly re-affirm its support for marriage equality. It’s time for the Senate, which now has pro-equality leadership, to ensure that loving, committed same-sex couples in New York can have the same rights and responsibilities under the law as loving, committed different-sex couples,” said Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese.

In June 2007, the New York State Assembly voted 85-61 in favor of a marriage equality bill. That bill stalled in the Senate, which was then controlled by the GOP.

In 2006 the New York Court of Appeals ruled against marriage equality, stating that it should be resolved by the legislature. New York currently recognizes marriages by same-sex couples legally entered into in another jurisdiction, but does not permit same-sex couples to marry in New York.

Five states have recognized marriage for same-sex couples under state law: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont (effective September 1, 2009), and Maine (effective September, 2009, pending a possible referendum). California recognized marriage by same-sex couples between June and November of 2008, before voters approved Proposition 8. The Proposition 8 vote has been challenged in court; a decision by the state supreme court is expected by June.

The New Hampshire state legislature has approved legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples; that legislation will go to the Governor’s desk. Same-sex couples do not receive federal rights and benefits in any state.

Librado Romero for The New York Times; their caption: Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, who has been at the center of efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, has used force and humor in trying to persuade colleagues to back the bill.

Well, the New York bill is still a long-shot, put forward by Governor David Paterson (a shot over the bow?). (Also see: James Withers’ opinion piece.) I commented before that it may not be the best strategy to float a bill that doesn’t have a chance of passage. But now the Assembly has passed it (by a wider margin than in 2007,  possibly because of the personal push by Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell, the old brother of Rosie O’Donnell), it does put more pressure on the New York Senate. Wait and see. And speaking of wait and see, when does the New Hampshire bill get put on the Governor’s desk? For crying out loud!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Sex, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Catholic matters, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Coming Out, Public Affairs, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

The parable of a reconciling community.

May 12, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I am exploring the idea of a Taizé style of contemplative worship as an alternative serviceion cooperation with Deacon Roberta Morris of the American Catholic Church.

Taizé is a small village in France near Cluny. The ecumenical community of Taizé was founded in 1940 by a Swiss man, Brother Roger, who was of Lutheran and Catholic roots; his father was a pastor. During World War II, with the help of his sister and other friends, they practiced a ministry of hospitality for anyone fleeing the terrors of war. Taizé was very near the demarcation line which divided France under Nazi power. Before long, friends in Lyon were simply giving the address of Taizé to all who needed refuge.

According to the Taize website, “their desire was to create a community of hospitality and trust for people from all over the world, and particularly a place of refuge for those from Eastern Europe.” Taizé is truly ecumenical and European because it has refused to be limited by the labels of the past. Brother Roger thought that Taizé’s mission or vocation was to be a “parable of community,” a small but visible sign of reconciliation.

I am mindful that this is how our own congregation is growing. Whether we realize it or not, we are a small community near the demarcation lines of various conflicts, struggles and even culture war. We are practicing a ministry of hospitality and trust. We are a Reconciling in Christ congregation. And —although we are a Lutheran church— in another sense we are neither Evangelical nor Catholic but a little of both. We offer compassion, food, spiritual nourishment, refuge, and a place where anyone seeking God may be at peace.

As a community, we are neither black nor white, gay nor straight; not rich or poor, although our community has individuals who fit those labels. Our purpose is to reflect the will of God and the mission of Jesus for whoever comes here.

Brother Roger continued to serve as the prior or abbot of the community from 1944 for six decades until his death in 2005 as a martyr. At the age of 90, he was murdered by a mentally ill woman who attacked him with a knife. Brother Roger wrote some 14 books, and co-authored three more with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Today, May 12, is the birthday of Brother Roger, who was born in 1915.

The Taizé Community today has more than 100 brothers from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds and from more than 25 countries, who live in community. Since the 1950’s, young people have been visiting Taizé from all over the world. Some weeks, there are as many as 7,000 gathered from 70 nations. Taizé has become a model of ecumenical spirit, Christian renewal, prayerful contemplation and service. All over the world, churches of different denominations hold Taizé prayer services including silent meditation and its simple music.

Prayer by Brother Alois. On Easter 2009, Brother Alois offered this prayer in the Church of Reconciliation in the presence of the brothers and thousands of visitors.

Risen Jesus, like Mary of Magdala, who on Easter morning stayed close to the tomb, we say to God our expectations, our unresolved questions, and sometimes our helplessness. You, the Risen One, you come towards us humbly and call us by our own name.

To each one of us you say, “Go towards those who have been entrusted to you. Tell them that I am risen. Pass on my love by your life.”

And as we communicate the mystery of your resurrection, we understand it more and more; it can transform our lives.

So I believe that if we move with commitment toward those who are given to us—entrusted to us—it will transform our community life. We must not just talk about faith and love. We must model what we believe God is working in us. We must be the change we believe God asks of us—not only the change within each of us by repentance and faith, but the change within our shared life as love, welcome, hospitality and reconciliation. The stronger our parish community becomes, the more we model Christ’s love within the larger church: not drawing sharp demarcation lines, never turning people away, never tiring of showing compassion and hospitality.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, Catholic matters, Faith, Living by Grace, Spirituality, History, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

That would be a switch!

May 10, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A few weeks ago, the results of another of those polls was published that revealed and extraordinary level of religion-swapping in America. This summary is from USA Today:

Survey: Half of U.S. adults have switched religionsKey findings:

• The reasons people give for changing their religion — or leaving religion altogether — differ widely: 71% of Catholics and nearly 60% of Protestants who switched didn’t think their spiritual needs were being met, liked another faith more or changed their religious or moral beliefs.

• Most switched early, committing to one faith by age 36. Americans switch religions “often, early and for many different reasons,” says John Green, a Pew senior fellow.

• Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change: The 10% of U.S. adults who have quit the church vastly outnumber the 2.6% who are incoming Catholics. Two in three who became unaffiliated — and half of those who became Protestant — say they left the Catholic Church because they “stopped believing its teachings.” The sexual abuse scandal was a factor for fewer than three in 10 former Catholics.

• Life circumstances, not religious doctrinal differences, prompt most Protestants who switch denominations (Baptist to Methodist, for example). Moving to a new town or marrying someone of a different tradition are the most often-cited reasons, but 36% attributed changes to “likes and dislikes about religious institutions, practices and people.”

• Many people who left a religion and now are “unaffiliated” say they did so in part because they see religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules, or because religious leaders focus too much on power and money.

• Among the 16% of Americans who say they’re now not affiliated with any religion, most are former Protestants and Catholics who say they didn’t quit in a huff or get lured away by science or by atheist philosophy: About 70% say “they just gradually drifted away” from their childhood religion.

• About 9% return to their childhood religion, saying they tried another religion or two but then went back. Religious education or youth group participation seemed to make no dent, although people who say they participated frequently in worship services or Mass were less likely to switch.

Of course, I want to make a few evaluative comments (what else are blogs for?):

• If people switch because their spiritual needs aren’t being met, isn’t that a wake-up call for America’s churches? Why aren’t we meeting people’s spiritual needs — to offer strength, compassion, understanding and acceptance, in short to offer the same patient love as Christ did? Is there any other reason a church should exist?
• People switch early in life. Translation: while many people remain in the faith tradition in which they are raised, it’s not a slam-dunk. Young people are restless. That’s a given. When it comes to LGBT youth, it is not necessarily adolescence but the 20’s which are the greatest period of self-discovery. If 70% of those who remain “unaffiliated” just say that they “drifted away,” it could be that there is just not enough substance in “Christian Lite” way of life to keep people engaged. If love is no deeper than a pleasant feeling, and discipleship is no more demanding than church attendance, is that supposed to be a compelling reason for people to remain faithful?
• A lot of Catholics desert their faith, but hasn’t that been going on for generations? is this news, or just statistical evidence that huge religious systems don’t always speak to everybody. And the relative anonymity of large Catholic parishes makes it pretty easy to disappear. The Catholic church could ask itself, like Protestants have for years, what do we offer that will help keep those who nurtured as children? Why would they want to stay? Do we have a faith and a message and a spiritual way of life for adults.
• This study find that, as a factor in religion-switching or religion abandoning, the clergy sex abuse scandal has not done that much damage. People cite many other reasons besides that scandal for leaving the Catholic church. To me, here is the “smoking gun”: “Two in three who became unaffiliated — and half of those who became Protestant — say they left the Catholic Church because they “stopped believing its teachings.” Did they stop believing in Christ, in the power of God, in the love, forgiveness and renewal in the Gospel? Or did people stop believing or reject “teachings” that are in stark contrast to actual behavior and the real world? If teachings are hypocritically put out there (”don’t do as I do, do as I say”), isn’t it logical that people will reject the teachings as phony?
• Unfortunately— and this is not just a “Catholic problem” —the teachings I think many people don’t buy any more are the sexual control and narrow-mindedness. Included are teachings about birth control, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, abstinence before marriage, the evil of masturbation, guilt or shame over sexual feelings or an ordinary sex drive. This is not strictly a Catholic issue, but at least some non-Roman Catholic churches do a better job of grounding their ethical teachings in the Scriptures None of those strict, narrow teachings are well grounded in the Bible—certainly not birth control, homosexuality, abstinence before marriage, masturbation, guilt and shame. Vast parts of the Christian church have made sexual purity the ultimate measure of faithfulness, even though Jesus never did so. Is it any wonder people don’t believe those teachings any more?
• That life circumstances prod many to change affiliations is no surprise. If the churches are to nurture people in spirituality and faith are not responsive to real people’s life circumstances, they are clearly irrelevant. In our society, few people remain with anything in our lives simply out of a sense of loyalty or because of inertia. If a job, a marriage, a hobby, a political party, or a religion do not mesh with our sense of purpose and fulfillment, then “we’re outta here”–we’ll make a switch to something that does fit, or a switch to nothing at all. In that regard, LGBT people may have different life circumstances than others such as divorcees or whatever, but we’re going to have a similar reaction: if my church is out of touch with my life experiences and does not respond to my life circumstances with understanding and compassion, I will move on or at least move out.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Spirituality, Faith, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

Congratulations, Shelley and Melissa!

April 27, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The month of April is wrapping up with the same excitement with which it began. The first same-sex marriage licenses were issued a couple of hours ago in Iowa (see: An early Spring, April 4).

The first to marry were Shelley Wolfe and Melissa Keeton, who got their license in Des Moines at the Polk County Courthouse and exchanged vows right outside.

But Wolfe and Keeton were not the first legal same-sex marriage in Iowa. A male couple, Tim McQuillan and Sean Fritz, had pulled that off several years ago before a lower court put a stay on things to allow the Iowa high court to rule.

I am one who is impatient with all those technicalities (although I try to digest them mentally and even read the briefs and decisions when possible). But today I just rejoice, and admit my amazement that in the great conservative corn belt of the nation, where many “decent people” still go to church, etc. etc., the native conservatism actually seems to have opened the door for same sex marriage. Of course, it depends on how you define “conservative.”

The Iowa state constitution is conservative. It doesn’t allow for quick knee-jerk amendments. The process is deliberately cumbersome, which is probably why no reactionary right-wing groups had forced through a “protection of marriage” amendment, as many other states. This left the opening for the Supreme Court to rule conservatively that there is no compelling state interest to forbid same gender couples from having the same civil marriage rights as anybody else.

Iowa is not an “anything goes” state. They haven’t elected actors, bodybuilders or wrestlers as governor. The Iowa state motto isn’t “Whatever!” Iowa is also not the epicenter of disasters, such as California’s constant brush fires, mudslides, earthquakes and mismanaged/imbalanced budgets, that leave us open to the argument that two women or two men who love one another enough to accept responsibility for one another will be The Next Big Disaster!

Iowans have probably shucked enough corn to see scare tactics as nonsense, and have plucked enough chickens to see that Chicken Little (”the sky is falling!) does not represent the whole flock.

Some conservative church voices are trying not to overreact. Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick, president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, in a Statement issued April 6, wrings his hands ever-so-conservatively: 

While members of the LCMS respect all people, we believe it is against the will of God and contrary to the moral fiber of our country to redefine marriage. Furthermore, society needs heterosexual marriages between men and women to thrive and succeed, as such unions remain the cornerstone in God’s design for the procreation and raising of children.It is not acceptable to experiment with this generation of children by trying to muster up weak alternatives to biological mothers and fathers.

Unfortunately, Kieschnick’s view is so conservative that he didn’t bother to give much original thought to the issue, but echoed the mentally-deficient views of reactionary groups. Gerald (may I address you by your baptismal name?): no one is saying that society doesn’t benefit from heterosexual marriages which “thrive and succeed.” To bring that up implies that having same-gender marriages somehow shuts down or impedes the ability of heterosexual couples to marry. 

And you wring your hands about “experimenting” with a generation of children.  Every generations of kids are an experiment, Gerald. And this isn’t the first generation when two people of the same gender have raised kids; it’s just that up to now those loving parents had no legal protections from the prejudices and interference of moralizers and hand-wringers.

And who says that every lesbian couple that marries are going to “experiment” with the lives of kids? When Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon married in San Francisco, reactionary Chicken Littles started running to “protect the children,” even though Del and Phyllis were in their 70s-80s. Not every same sex couple is having kids, or adopting kids, or even wants kids. And not every heterosexual couple who have kids bring them up well. And not every heterosexual couple is having kids, or adopting kids or even wants kids. Oh my God, Gerald, what will become of the kids if everyone isn’t heterosexual and cranking out kids?

And what exactly does a “biological” mother or father have on any loving mother or father? Let me cite a very conservative source for you, Gerald (one that many Iowans and all Christians read from every week!): Let me remind you that Jesus had two dads? Joseph wasn’t his biological father. And Jesus, upon the cross, was attended, not by his kids, but by women he wasn’t related to, and his biological mother, and by the Beloved Disciple, but he said to the two of them: “Behold your son. Behold your mother,” and so commended two biological strangers to one another as family. The Christian Church has never been anti-biological family, but from the first day of its existence has been able to get past the idolatry of biology and reproduction.

Of course, other religious leaders reacted early in April. Iowa’s Catholic Bishops, for example, said that the Supreme Court ruling “threatens families” (like, my family’s existence threatens your family’s existence? Like sweet corn threatens the existence of feed corn or broom corn?), and they called for an Iowa constitutional amendment to stop it.

Each has its place, but it’s all corn.

But, by conservative estimates, it would take until 2012 to amend Iowa’s constitution to stop gay/lesbian marriages. By then, same-gender marriage may have become as passe as last week’s corn husks.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Catholic matters, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | 1 Comment »

Catholic and evangelical comfort and bull.

April 25, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

I’ve had some more private e-talk with my friend Sarah. She is/is not a rarity: a faithful Catholic lesbian.

(How does anyone know that all the lesbians and gay men are fleeing the church? Just because we meet a lot who have fled? There might be tens of thousands more who have not fled. there’s no way to take a census, after all.)

A couple of weeks ago Sarah responded to my thoughts in Evangelical Catholic? Here is more of what she wrote: 

I’m Catholic. Roman Catholic. To the core, beyond anything I can deny - tried to get away from it for awhile, and that didn’t work out too well. And yes - it is because of the nuns - the ones who taught me about civil disobedience in 2nd grade, the ones who I called several years ago when I returned to the Church, telling them about the horrors that had shoved me away from any faith in God, being condemned to hell for being who I am, and who said “Honey, you should’ve just called us right away. We’d have told you that what that man said was bullshit.”

First lesson: the Church is not monolithic, and many LGBT people find room within it where they don’t feel crushed. My local friend and ordained deacon Roberta says as much. Make space for yourself where the hypocrisy or authoritarianism of the hierarchy isn’t so oppressive. Shrug them off. Press on with your own sense of calling and ministry and service to Christ.

Sarah is raising a son, who is in Catholic school, and will remain in one. Yet she walks closely with a dear gay friend (partnered, married), a Catholic priest who is in the process of exploring the Lutheran ministry, and now worships in a Lutheran church.

[It] is overwhelmingly filled with people who are part of the “Catholic diaspora” - and it sounds like Hollywood Lutheran is as well. There’s one guy there who sat down over coffee with me . . . saying he finally felt at home there, because he finally felt there was someone with proper Petrine succession. He thinks the Holy Mother Church is idiotic for refusing to ordain women and married people (regardless of the gender of the one to whom they’re married) - but is Roman to the core otherwise.

When I wrote about Roberta’s ordination a year ago, I ventured to remind myself that the Lutheran church is the original “Old Catholic” movement. Or as I quoted a few weeks ago (from Wikipedia of all places), “[the Lutheran reformers] saw the continuity of Catholicism in Lutheranism, which they understood not as a re-formation of the Church, but rather a renewal movement within and for the Catholic Church, from which they had been involuntarily and only temporarily separated.

Top Lutheran meets top Catholic.  More on this later.

Ironically, I don’t think that either the Roman Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church acknowledges the fact of this diaspora. When I search the ELCA’s official publications or its web site, I find absolutely nothing helpful about what Lutherans say to Catholics in the diaspora, or what we should be teaching about grace, scripture, the sacraments, church order, Blessed Mary or the saints.

Sarah says that while she attends her priest friend’s new Lutheran eucharists, “I simply can’t imagine ever being Lutheran. 

I can sit with that liminality just fine. It’s something that you’re encountering from a different perspective, and I’m really enjoying reading about how you work with it, hearing how the Catholics [in Lutheran parishes] handle it, how Chuck reconciles it all… it’s not easy for any of us. I’m so happy that places like [these] exist to welcome my Roman brothers and sisters. I’m still pondering what it takes to make that “home away from Rome” a place that will speak to and soothe our souls in ways that will heal the wounds caused by the HMC’s own sins.

That’s Holy Mother Church for those of us who didn’t grow up with a Catholic “abbreviary” in our school book bag. (I was once shocked when visiting a beautiful little Catholic church in the mountains of Arizona to find the bronze plaque affixed on the outside which read “Church of the B.V.M.” I know they saved a lot of money by not having to pay to spell out “Blessed Virgin Mary”, but I couldn’t help wondering how reverent that really is when it makes outsiders think of an underpants company.) (Sorry, Sarah!)

My friend Roberta just doesn’t use the word “Roman” when she speaks of herself as Catholic and reminds me that I am Catholic. In conversations like these, I realize there is a lot of fluidity within the larger “small c” catholic church, and that all of us are trying to live out our discipleship appropriately.  This is the current reality 500 years after the “Reformation.”  There is some convergence of what we as the people of God understand about our Christian faith, regardless of what the hierarchies of church institutions may publicly state.

But, we (LGBT Christians and our straight allies) also have to struggle with an ongoing divergence: that these institutional churches are taking far different courses in dealing with this other reality: the faithful presence of lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender people who are seeking to find their place and live out their discipleship without condemnation, without the bullshit.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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Not clear on the concept.

April 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I almost missed the April 11 Los Angeles Times story that the son of the Mayor of Vernon was convicted of sex crimes and given an 8 year sentence.

This is John Malburg, 40 year-old son of Mayor Leonis Malburg. For those of you outside of Southern California, Vernon is a small, heavily industrial suburb of Los Angeles, with a mixed record of being run like a banana republic or fiefdom.

Malburg was convicted of molesting boys, including coercing at least one boy into pornographic videos. But here is where it gets scary and tragic: Malburg was Dean of Students at the now-closed Daniel Murphy High School in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles. The all-boys school, the original location of a Catholic seminary until it was moved to the San Fernando Valley, was shuttered by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2008.

The school connection tells us once again that here is another individual who is not clear on the Christian concept. You don’t molest kids. According to Deputy District Attorney Richard Taklender, Malburg had been a therapist for the boy when the abuse began, when he was under age 15.

Malburg apparently isn’t clear on the gay concept either. If you’re gay, there are plenty of opportunities to have an emotionally, sexually and relationally fulfilling gay life without messing with kids 15 and under. Or, for that matter, without resorting to coercion, unless your partner playfully begs “coerce me.”

But there is another issue here where the public itself is usually not clear on the concept, either. It is quite possible that the younger Malburg doesn’t consider himself gay and isn’t gay as most of us would understand that. It is possible he is simply a pedophile. And according to a lot of research, pedophiles can’t be easily classified as attracted to their own or the opposite gender. They are, as a group, attracted to children.

According to statistics I pulled from the Protect Our Kidz’ web site in 2001, here are some characteristics of child molesters:

• Can have adult sex partners, but children are primary sex object.
• Have lifestyles which give them easy access to children.
• Use threats to manipulate and control victims - or bribe them with gifts, love or promises to lure victims into their confidence before victimization takes place.
• May commit first offense when in teens.
• Continue behavior even after conviction and treatment.
• Are mostly males, but females also molest.
• May video or photograph sexual activity with children to exchange with other molesters and/or shame child into not telling anyone of the abuse.

Many of us are all too aware that gay men are accused of being pedophiles, although the majority of criminal incidents of pedophilia occurs within families.  Most often it is a father or uncle molesting a daughter.  Gay men who are interested in young boys are a small minority within a minority, and there is almost universal public repudiation by the gay community of male pedophiles.

The point is that some men who have a gay sexual orientation are pedophiles and can be molesters just as some men who are heterosexual are pedophiles and can be molesters. The problem for public safety and for families is not gay or straight; it’s child molesters. We must be clear on the concept. It would be ridiculous and unjust to go after gay people for being molesters because there is some overlap of those categories, just as it would be ridiculous and unjust to lock up or deny rights to all males because males are nine times more likely to engage in violent behavior than females.

We need to keep clarifying the concept, most of all, because we are an easy target for televangelists, radio preachers and politicians who in 2009 still take every opportunity to defame LGBT people and do everything they can to derail our civil rights. Calling all of us pedophiles is an easy way to stir up general hatred and homophobia.

That is beyond merely ignorant and misinformed. It’s even beyond “not clear on the concept”—because the real concept among the opportunists who prey, not on children, but on the public’s fear and disgust, is to manipulate public ignorance about us in order to perpetuate false information, stereotypes, hatred, anti-gay violence and denial of basic justice.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Catholic matters, Homophobia, Sex, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Hate the sin, hate almost everything?

April 22, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

In another situation of accompaniment, I am mindful of yet another sad alienation. After casually checking a reference to disfellowshipped Jehovah’s Witnesses, I was reminded that I blogged a while ago about excommunication. (”Kick them out: voted off the island.“)

Luther appears before Emperor Charles V in 1521.

Ex-communication is the term I know, from Catholic history. Martin Luther was ex-communicated, for example, by Pope Leo X on January 3, 1521. (About eleven years from now we need to schedule a party.) So was the Army of God. To be kicked out maybe puts you in good company.

In a major study on disfellowshipping among the Witnesses a sidebar mentions others, including Mormons, Scientology and the Amish community, who can also be ruthless and thorough in cleaning house.

The hand of Jehovah, wiping practically everybody off the island and out of the Kingdom.

But part of my accompaniment is with a disfellowshipped Jehovah Witness, who after being shunned by his local Los Angeles “Kingdom Hall” has discovered an entire international community of disfellowshipped Witnesses. He’s still not sure of the official reason he was voted off their island:  either for being gay, or for “False Worship,” meaning:  attending another church (the one where I am pastor) — and either reason is more than a stretch of Christian principles.

This article is an exhaustive and detailed analysis (over 11,000 words) of the Witnesses’ practice and why it is unscriptural and brutal and wrong.  In reading through it, I found myself wondering over and over, why don’t people just walk away?

But I am reminded of a conversation I had three decades ago with Howard Erickson, one of the founders of Lutherans Concerned/North America, when I asked him why he didn’t just leave the Lutheran Church for, say, the Metropolitan Community Church? “Because it’s my church!” he said.  He is Lutheran to this day, and has always refused to be rejected.

Why?  Well, for one thing, people are deeply invested in the religious community from which they eventually may be expelled.  One’s identity is deeply rooted.  It’s a horrible state of the soul to have loved a community enough to spend a lifetime or significant portion of one’s life in a community and, for any reason, to be expelled from that community. It can lead to despair, self-destructive behaviors, apathy, anger, rebellion, or spiritual death.

Martin Luther lived out the anger and rebellion. Although ex-communicated, he did not go away, let alone go away quietly, and the Roman Church still must face the music on what their forebears did to him nearly 500 years ago.

Not going away quietly, Luther set fire to the Papal bull excommunicating him from the Catholic Church.

Luther, of course, had incredible nerve and resolve. How many tens of thousands of individuals do not have that nerve or resolve, but are deeply hurt or permanently damaged by the rejection of the whole community?

In the case of the Witnesses, it still amazes me that what started as a Bible study and tract society so quickly became a cult which, in order to protect its flanks will ruthlessly mistreat anyone for almost any reason. In the above article, “Disfellowshipping and Shunning,” there is an incredibly thorough list of no-no’s which can earn you permanent expulsion, so that any other members is forbidden to ever speak to you again.

Before you look at the summary list, bear in mind the words of St. Paul, who by comparison seems to be a bleeding-heart liberal about human behavior: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23.

But the Jehovah Witnesses have no such “everybody does it” attitude. You may qualify for disfellowshipping if you are found guilty of any of the following: adultery; apostasy; associating with disfellowshipped people; blood and blood transfusions; drug use; drunkenness; dishonest business practices; employment violating Christian principles; false worship; fornication; fraud; gambling or related employment; gluttony; greediness; homosexuality; idolatry; loose conduct; lying; non neutral activities (involvement in politics and the military); military service; obscene speech; parents condoning immorality; political involvement; porneia (a Greek word which would take some lengthy explaining); slander; smoking or selling tobacco; spiritism (including yoga); stealing; subversive activity; uncleanness; violation of secular law [with a] flagrant attitude; violence, including physical abuse, fits of anger; willful non support of family, including endangerment of mate’s spirituality; and worldly celebrations such as Christmas.

Gee, being gay or lesbian seems almost trivial when we see that in the middle of such an exhaustively rejective and punitive list. If eating too much, having a cigarette, voting, or celebrating Christmas are equally damnable, then, well, go ahead!

Clearly these standards are not mere ethical errors which everyone in the community is strongly encouraged to avoid. They are control factors which clearly flag the Witnesses as a genuine cult, using psychological pressure and abuse, brainwashing or mind control, etc.

I know, use of the word “cult” is itself pretty loose and maybe meaningless, but when palpable harm comes to individuals in such a group who cannot freely come or go without vicious reprisal, something is amiss. Frankly, I’ll stand with those sinners who are voted off their island, and I do it in Jesus’ name — the man of God who had no such list, and who said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”(John 10:16). I think if our parish ever gets voted off the denominational island, maybe we should just rename ourselves “Other Sheep Lutheran Church.”

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Catholic matters, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, History, LGBT Christian, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

New York: Paterson, Smith and lightweight Giuliani all weigh in.

April 21, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

It looks now as if New York state will be the next battleground over legalizing same-sex marriage through legislative action rather than courts. It may be just as well. There have been a stream of court decisions beginning with Hawaii years ago and as recently as Iowa’s Supreme Court earlier this month, where Justices declared that, when it comes to standards of justice under the constitution, two persons of the same gender should not be denied the right to marry. Or more accurately, the state has no compelling reason to deny that right.

We all know the ensuing history in which state after state then decided to ink prejudice into their constitutions, and make bigotry the compelling reason, thus closing “loopholes” which “activist judges” had found to legalize same-sex marriage.

New York’s Governor David Paterson seems to be reflecting the will of the citizens of the state in pressing to introduce legislation to legalize “gay marriage,” announced April 16.

According to a NewsDay.com story this evening,

Fifty-three percent [53%] of voters surveyed by the Siena Research Institute said the Senate should pass Paterson’s bill. The Senate has been the stumbling block; the Assembly passed a similar measure in 2007.

Thirty-nine percent [39%] were opposed to same-sex marriage, including a majority of Republicans, men, older voters, blacks and Protestants. Eight percent [8%] didn’t express an opinion.

It looks as if the immediate disagreement is only one of strategy, between Paterson and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, who doesn’t want a bill used as a trial balloon. He argues that the votes need to be put together outside of the Senate before the legislation is proposed.

I know from experience that floating new or controversial ideas without doing the homework is dangerous. A negative vote, even as a “straw vote” sets a bad precedent. But how much “homework” do we need? Paterson says he’s not doing this in response to polls, and apparently Smith is not resisting it in principle. From the same NewsDay.com story:

Smith spokesman Austin Shafran said, “these new poll numbers further validate our support for marriage equality legislation. Senator Smith is fully committed to continuing the process of securing the 32 votes necessary for passage and ensuring that all New Yorkers can enjoy the fundamental right of marriage equality.”

So where is Rudy Giuliani coming from with his civil unions, no gay marriage line? Vermont is dumping civil unions when their new gay marriage law takes effect. Is he just marking his conservative territory for the next Governor’s race? Or is he just making a fool of himself.

After one of his divorces (Giuliani has been married three times), Rudy actually lived with a couple of gay friends of his —a couple—for six months in 2001. I remember reading a wonderful feature story on this in the Los Angeles Times several years back, when Giuliani was still sort of a hero after the September 11 tragedy.

Tonight on MSNBC, that same gay couple have stated that Rudy Giuliani, while still Mayor, had told them that if gay marriage ever became legal he would do their wedding. The rest and the friendship, I guess, must be history. According to a Post story tonight, Mark and Howard are going to Connecticut next month to get marriage—without quisling Rudy.

But here’s the curiosity, as quoted in the Post: 

They see no contradiction in the ex-mayor’s opposition to gay marriage and the fact he roomed with them for six months in 2001.”Rudy doesn’t discriminate. I should know. I lived with him for six months,” Koeppel, 68, a car dealer, said yesterday outside his West Side apartment. 

Koeppel, a Republican, said he believes that Giuliani’s opposition to gay marriage stems from his religious and political beliefs, not his personal ones. [emphasis added]

Hypocrisy and integrity are hard enough to measure in a person.  If I don’t personally live up to the values I espouse, my integrity is toast and I am rightly seen by others as a hypocrite.  But Rudy, which set of values are you using at any one moment? You have personal values that prompt you to like and support your gay friends, but those values can be shelved by the demands of running for office as a Republican? Isn’t that political opportunism? If you have values, shouldn’t you have one set of values that informs your personal life, your political positions and your religious beliefs?And excuse me for asking, Rudy, but if you are a “traditional Catholic,” did you convert to those values after getting married the first time or the second time or the third time? Pam Spaulding says it square and fair. She calls him “serial adulterer Rudy Giuliani.”My personal guess is that, in contemporary America, in the scissors/paper/rock game of values, one’s political positions always trump personal and religious views. Giuliani is apparently hoping for a backlash against bleeding-heart Paterson. Says Spaulding, “The former mayor, in an extended interview with The Post, also predicted that Gov. Paterson’s high-profile effort to legalize gay marriage would anger many New Yorkers and spark a revolt that could help sweep Republicans into office in 2010.”

And my prediction is that with four, or maybe five, or even six, states where gay or lesbian couples can get married by November 2010, it will be just plain too late to anger voters over this issue. But we have our own hands full in California, right up to November 2010, so we’ll just have to watch New York from afar.

— Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Walking alongside, walking wounded.

April 20, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A few days ago I began thinking more seriously about how to walk alongside those who are either wounded, disaffected, or keeping their distance from the faith in which they once made a home. In my ministry, most often this is the Catholic church. Will they ever again find a home in which Christian discipleship can be lived out.

This is especially true for LGBT people who are often brutally harmed by the Christian church. But they are not the only ones. I meet a large number of other people, for a variety of issues and reasons— divorce and remarriage, abortion, abuse of church authority, refusal to ordain women, or too many questions with condescending or absolutist answers— have felt estranged from the church. Later, some feel drawn to find a faith expression, a spiritual home, but are at a loss. Complex social studies and entire books deal with this. But as a pastor in a local church, “book learning” about the disaffected usually is not really helpful to me.

I have learned simply to listen— and hopefully to listen well, so that what I have to offer neither offends or frightens those who are drawn by the spirit of God. And most often, people need to be heard, more than to be told the perfect word or ideal teaching or doctrine or even word of welcome. They have life experiences which have shaped both their spirituality and their sense of alienation or estrangement, but traditional religious structures have not always made room, or opened up, or offered to listen. Because I care, when I hear these stories, I try to walk with or walk alongside those who are at a distance, or outside of the faith community which I serve.

Servant of God Archbishop Oscar Romero, “San Romero” to the people of El Salvador.  The process of beatification was begun for him in 1997.

Lately I have found a word from another church context— “accompaniment,” which probably dates back to Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. (See, for example, this article by Jim Barnett, O.P.) In accompanying, especially disaffected Catholics (or other Christians— fundamentalist or Missouri Synod Lutheran or Jehovah’s Witnesses or whatever) I learned quickly that I cannot erase the pain or dissolve the hypocrisy, straighten the contorted view, or re-work the hierarchical logic that has been imposed on people’s real lives and contributed to their alienation. I cannot make the Catholic church whole and well anymore than I can fix what is wrong with the Lutheran Church. And in my own heart I too hurt because these Christian communities, in particular, are not one church community, but many. When it comes to Lutheran and Catholic— although progress has been made, these two world communions have “dinked around” almost my entire adult life trying to find delicate and respectful ways to talk to each other. They have affixed important signatures to well-written and carefully nuanced documents.

But in Jesus’ high priestly prayer of John 17, he prays that his followers will be one. He didn’t say “Take a thousand years to get pissed with one another, and the next thousand years to consider kissing and making up.” What part of be one don’t we get?

So my accompaniment is to walk alongside those who express to me that they are wounded by their experiences, and if appropriate, to welcome them into the temporary sanctuary of an evangelical catholic community which believes itself to be “involuntarily and only temporarily separated” from the one universal church (“Evangelical Catholic?” April 14).

Regardless of the snail’s progress of Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, or Lutheran-Anything Dialogue, the truth of one’s spiritual system comes down to how we accompany one another at the community and personal level, not at scholarly international conferences. I make no claim to be an ecumenical expert or an important theologian, but I think that the contribution of my ministry is every bit as important as that of the greater minds appointed by councils or a church magisterium to represent formal positions and historic points of view.

What comes to mind is the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday of Easter, April 26, taken from Luke 24:

^{13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. . . . [The appointed passage continues through v.35.]}

Classic scene of the road to Emmaus by Robert Zund

This text amazes me. It is beautifully composed to help the reader see Jesus in the Eucharist – that sign of oneness in Christ and in one another that is really only a reality at the local community level. But I also find something quite personal in this passage which scholars don’t tend to notice: One of these two disciples is named Cleopas. He and his companion invited Jesus to stay with them for the night in the village of Emmaus to which they were walking, and he agreed.

Emmaus by Velasquez

The scriptures give us no other information about the identity of Cleopas (he was not one of The Twelve). Since it appears that Cleopas and the other man shared a home, to which they were returning when they met Jesus on the way, and where they shared a common table and would both spend the night, I cannot help wondering if, well, … you know. Were they “a couple”?

 

Another interpretation of the Emmaus moment.

But would the Apostles back in Jerusalem have approved of this? Did they even know? Would the presence of Cleopas and his friend in the community of disciples have caused a huge controversy, a “split”? Would the Apostles have called an entire collegial assembly to decide whether it was okay for two disciples to share a home, or spend a night together under one roof?

Luke’s treatment here, and throughout the Acts of the Apostles, seems to indicate that the earliest church did not hold its members back until an official council could vote on things. Individual believers just moved forward (like “street prophets“?), and after the fact, the Apostles and the church as a whole didn’t vote these movements up or down. What they did was recognize the presence and power of the Holy Spirit as active in the situation, and on that basis gave their blessing and assent.

Why must we be so constrained by the magisterium, the structure and institution (can it ever really be “infallible”?), that individual Christians feel they must move out of one household and into another to be prophetic or just nurtured or to live out discipleship? Or feel they must leave all faith behind for good? Why must any of us suffer the spiritual catastrophe of being a “recovering” Christian of any label? Or ex-Christians for life?

It is a cliché that “the Church is the only army that shoots its own wounded.” But who is walking with the wounded?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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