September 21, 2008 by PD.

I was recently invited to another event intended to bring together conservative and inclusive churches over the issues of GLBT sexuality and the Christian message. One of the sponsoring conservative organizations has on its web site a statement about “the authority and power of the Bible.”

I would probably use the phrase “authority and applicability” to discuss the Scriptures in terms of most contemporary issues. While we like to hold to the idea that the Bible is eternally valid and timeless, it has been almost two thousand years since the writers’ ink was dry, and let’s face it, much of the Scriptures seem irrelevant to the world. I spend a huge portion of my Bible Study teaching time simply trying to explain the context, language, history, culture and curiosities of the Bible so that people are not completely lost or baffled.

But it is easy to get snared in all that stuff to the extent that people are still not fed spiritually because year after year the Jewish and Christian scriptures slip further into history. Dedicated scholars — God bless ‘em— devote their lives to unearthing and bringing forward that both the details and the divine message in the Bible. But there are millions of people on this planet who will never give the Bible that kind of attention, and if we quibble and quarrel over every last word of it we are still failing to communicate God’s message to all humanity.

Then there is the problem of human sexuality which doesn’t fit the picture of either sexuality or love portrayed in either Testament. Christians are dividing from other Christians over issues of human sexuality, when all that should truly unite us is our trust and faith in God’s promises.

I always insert the term “applicability” into conversations about “authority” and “infallibility.” The Bible has the highest authority, but not every word is useful to us today. the best example is that much of the Hebrews scriptures are written to address the terms of the covenant between God and the Hebrew people as an ancient nation. None of us—not even the Jewish people—today are part of that nation. Can we therefore insist that every Christian must recognize every word of the Hebrew Scriptures as authoritative for us today? That would mean that we would have to require circumcision, and also take rebellious teenagers and stone them to death.

The list is long of things which no Christian today would in his or her right mind say is applicable to our life in Christ. Obviously there are different lists which we all maintain. But to flatly insist in the totality of the Scripture being authoritative is untruthful, and to reject other Christians because they will not obediently sign on to this view is disingenuous and itself disobedient to Christ who commanded us to love one another and to abide in his love.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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June 21, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Today a friend called back to say that she and her partner had just signed a contract for their wedding and reception site: a beautiful hotel ballroom with a view of the ocean, the Long Beach skyline, and the Queen Mary in the harbor. It sounds fantastic. Her voice practically bubbled right out of the phone.

I am really looking forward to presiding at their wedding. And right away I started writing some language that may wind up as part of the “meditation” or personal remarks I can squeeze into the ceremony. But I am also mindful that her partner’s poor health and recent emergency room visit is what prompted these women to move their wedding date forward.

If only the “religious reich” could understand the depth of love and commitment between people like them, and between me and my partner of 32 years. Two people, period. The sex or gender of the partners doesn’t make any difference, and what they’re all worked up about is that the government form which used to say “Bride” and “Groom” in the boxes now says “Partner A” and “Partner B.”

I think the fundagelicals are obsessed about sex. As if the sex of the partner is the most important thing about marriage. Or the possibility that the partners in a marriage will have ex after they are married. For such people, it’s not about people. It’s not about love. It’s not about fidelity, commitment, about richer or poor, in sickness or in health. For them, it’s about sex.

They can yammer all they want that sex is all about family (that sex belongs only in a heterosexual marriage where babies are the only permissible conclusion to the sex act), but it isn’t. There are all kinds of wonderful families that came together without anyone having sex with anyone.

And they can yammer about sex is wrong unless it’s pat of a lifelong marital commitment, but they refuse to recognize, let alone respect, our lifelong commitments, so that’s just rubbish.

The truth is that they have invented a theology of sex that says it is a reward for good behavior. If you’re good, you get to have sex. If you’re not, you don’t deserve it. And by “good” they now don’t even mean heterosexually married forever. They just mean heterosexual.

At least they won’t be able to castigate us any longer for having sex outside of marriage. We’ll be married men, or married women, and the opinions of the right wing can just be left hanging to twist in the wind, for all we care. If will only be the lesbians and the gay men, at this rate, who will stand up for the “traditional values” like love and commitment.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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November 29, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

One of the worst aspects of internalized homophobia is that we tend to break up our lives and keep parts of them in separate boxes. This is especially true of our sex lives. For years (for generations, I suppose), we could actually live respectable lives, and be admired and integrated into our communities, as long as what we did in private remained private. At some deeply buried level of our minds (perhaps hidden even to ourselves) we believed that it doesn’t matter what you do for recreational sex as long as you’re back in your own bed, alone, when the sun comes up. We could do anything as long as we didn’t blab it to the neighbors, etc.

And the reverse reasoning went something like this: if society hates us for being gay – no matter how decently we try to live– and society thinks that any and all variations on gay love are equally horrible, from lifelong committed relationships to one-night stands— then why bother to have high standards? Or any standards?  Do whatever feels good.

I have seen this operating within the gay community even between gay friends. Men who slipped deeper and deeper into promiscuous, risky or kinky sexual practices started keeping their sexual habits secret even from long-time gay friends. They cut off a part of their life, and eventually cut off their entire life from the view of others, because they sensed that their particular recreational preferences or addictions would not be received well by other friends.

I would welcome broader discussion of this from a Christian perspective, because I already understand it is difficult to discuss within the gay male community. To say, out loud, that gay men should have higher ethical standards is almost to speak some kind of “sexual heresy” against our liberation movement. Unfortunately, the endless pursuit of sexual variety through the channel of riskier and crazier sexual practices enslaves our community and cancels the gains we have made both in sexual liberation and civil rights.

And the advent of the crystal meth epidemic in the gay community has simply amplified the deep division between daily life and nightly pleasure.  Patrick Moore’s honest piece in the Village Voice a few years ago, “We are Not OK,” needs to be read over and over until we let his confession/self-examination sink in and become our own.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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