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Touch us gently.

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

We are a Sanctuary.

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

As our church polishes us and celebrates the recent completion of new things in our sanctuary (such as flooring and pipe organ), my mind turns to the significance of the sacred space, what it has meant historically as a place of prayer and sacrament for nearly 90 years, and what it should mean in the lives of Christians—not just here but everywhere.

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The idea of Sanctuary is an ancient one. A sanctuary is not merely a sacred space where we can pray to God, but a safe space from the anxieties, terrors and violence of the world around us.

From time to time, churches also serve as a refuge or sanctuary for illegal immigrants, for runaways and for the hungry and homeless. Battered wives have fled to the church as a place of safety, hiding and understanding. After natural disasters, many people who have been displaced by fire or flood have come to churches seeking help and temporary shelter.

Hollywood Lutheran Church is a sanctuary for sexual minorities (LGBTQ etc.), people in recovery from alcohol, drugs and other addictions, people living with HIV/AIDS, people of color and everybody else who suffers discrimination, and even inmates and parolees who are shunned even after they have “paid their debt to society.”

We don’t just sit in a Sanctuary to pray! The purpose of the Christian Church everywhere should be to enlarge the Sanctuary of God’s love and compassion, and to become a living sanctuary of people committed to mercy, safety, healing and wholeness.

There is no place in our church for judgmentalism, rejection, hatred, prejudice or fear. The Christ we know in faith—who on the Cross gave up his life for our sake and took away the sins of the world—is a Lord who seeks the lost, upholds the weak, feeds those who hunger and thirst, and reveals the light of God to anyone who struggles against the darkness.

If that sounds over-dramatic, it shouldn’t. Christians are in a life-and-death struggle with evil in the world. Every day I see the ruins and results of evil—broken lives, fearful people, indifference or hatred. In the midst of this world, there is no reason to be “religious” if not to follow in the steps of Jesus Christ. And if we follow Christ, we must be the change we want to see in the world. We must be the sanctuary to which others may come and rest and pray and feel safe. This is true religion . This is the life of faith.

—Pastor Dan

P.S. If you’re curious, here are some key Bible passages about sanctuary: Psalm 20:1–5, Psalm 28:1–3; Isaiah 8:13–14; Ezekiel 37:26–27; Hebrews 10:19–24.

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Faith, History, HIV and AIDS, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace, Ministry, PRAYERS, Recovery, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Violence | No Comments »

My life, my movement, my faith.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Religious Views Anonymous.

Saturday, January 1st, 2011

I’m not exactly “Hooked” on Facebook, but if checking it 3-4 times a day is an indicator, I may need to seek a 12-Step meeting for FB. (A Google search for Facebook users anonymous had 23 million hits. Hmmm.

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 It’s a fun way to stay in touch with friends, but it also encourages one to snoop around just a bit clicking on the links to friends of friends. I’m especially drawn to because FB says so-and-so and I have 17 mutual friends and I’ve never heard of this person.

But when I read some almost-friend’s (2 degrees of separation?) profile, I am struck by the inane or missing Info under “Religious Views.” Even among people I know are active in the church just blow it off in their Profile.

So, you’ve got a lot of friends. Assume most of these FB friends know you personally, actually, not just virtually. And so many of these friends know you are active in the church. Why then are you trivializing or hiding your religious views on FB?

Thinking about this, I conclude it is not because many people are embarrassed or ashamed to state a religious thought or conviction in the social network. I think it’s because religious views and convictions are not perceived as interesting, so what’s to say?

Personally, I had this information posted last year: Religious Views: “Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but more interesting than a label!” (It still conceals more than it reveals.)

And the reason they are thought to not be interesting is because of the great disconnect of religious views from the rest of life. We compartmentalize our religious views in a different box from all the other things that influence and express our values.

Brings me back to my perceptions of Jesus. For too many Christians, our “religious views” are supposed to be about our faith in or allegiance to Christ. Nothing interesting there because the religion about Jesus can’t/doesn’t compete against contemporary culture. But Jesus himself—the enigmatic figure revealed in the Gospels—never encouraged anyone to be religious.

The “religion of Jesus” (not “about Jesus”) is an allegiance to compassion, generosity, love, forgiveness and self-sacrifice. Maybe it’s time we start putting our Religious Views up there in the social network: “Trying to shape my life by the religious values of Jesus: compassion, generosity, love, forgiveness and self-sacrifice.” I think I will add this as a good way to start a new year.

—Pastor Dan

Posted in Doctrine, Faith, Public Affairs, Spirituality | No Comments »

Warm feeling: claim the love.

Friday, December 31st, 2010

A long-ago friend recently wrote to me by e-mail, and now we’ve reconnected too on Facebook. He mentioned the church where I was an intern—the Vicar—for one year. He has returned several times, but says he didn’t find “the warm feeling I had there years ago.”

Of course, years ago he was a teenager, in a faithful family of the church, and all of life’s adult challenges and problems had probably not exploded yet for him. I re-read his message several times tonight, and the words that snagged me each time were “the warm feeling I had there years ago.”

What is that “warm feeling”? And where did it go?

I am mindful these days (writing in this very last hour of 2010) how much the world keeps changing. I reflect on a lifetime of remaining faithful to the Christian church — the Lutheran church — even in those decades that I knew I wouldn’t be loved if they knew the real me. But I remained faithful because I believed that God was faithful with me and that was all that mattered.

But “the warm feeling” is so much the creation of culture and emotion, which both change, be fickle, or disappear in a New York minute. Over the years I have seen so many of my own contemporaries disappear from the church, or at least from making a commitment, because they didn’t experience or maybe didn’t even want a “warm feeling.” But I am happy to say that I’m seeing this again in our time. It’s a vastly different warm feeling than our families and our childhood/youth culture provided. It is more honest, more grounded, less religious but more spiritual. It has nothing to do with social conventionality, and everything to do with personal integrity and the search for values over sensations.

For me, I think a new “warm feeling” started the day I realized that— if there is a God— God knows me all the way through, and in fact knows all the secrets I was trying to hide from myself and others. The realization caused me brief terror (like “OH NO!!”) until I saw this awareness of God’s knowledge in the same frame as God’s love: I am known by God who is omniscient, as I really am, and yet God loves me. That’s what is so shocking and revolutionary — that, being known fully and deeply, we are still loved.

There is an old phrase in the “red book” (Service Book and Hymnal) that I grew up with, I think, maybe in the Confession of Sins, that said of God: “from whom no secrets are hid.” In psychological terms, this represents true intimacy — when my guard is down, my pretense is gone, my vulnerability is at the maximum, and yet I genuinely sense that I am loved.

Well, maybe it sounds like a lot of theoretical crap.  This goes back decades now, but I think about the time all of this was working through my mind/heart, I was also having many new conversations with troubled young gay people — who never had any “warm feeling” but instead felt “that sick feeling” of rejection and fear of judgment. And my heart went out to them.

I remember sitting up very late many different nights with people who were terrified and wanted to run, if not from God, from any expression of the church. The fear of exposure was a wall too high to tear down merely on the promise that love awaits us all on the other side. But deeply and consistently I heard the secret equivalent of a “Voice” saying to me: “It’s true. Trust this. Follow this. God loves you as you are. It’s okay to come out of hiding.” And so I did. And ever since I’ve keep encouraging others to do likewise. Come out of hiding. Claim the love that Jesus promised.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in "The Closet", Bible & Interpretation, Coming Out, Doctrine, Faith, LGBT Christian, Spirituality | No Comments »

Looking for a different Christmas.

Saturday, December 25th, 2010

The message of the Christmas Gospel is that God is reconciled to this world—with all our imperfections. God does not abandon us, but comes to us.  To me that means that God loves us as we are, but God does not leave us as we are.  And every Christmas, we are invited again to respond to the loving call of God to be different than we have been, and even different than we thought we could be, because God works with us and that changes everything.

Of course, Christmas is a time we like to enjoy and just want to be filled with the mystery and beauty and promise of this night.  But Christmas makes us aware—awake—and giving attention to things other than ourselves.  We must look beyond things as they are to see the power of Christmas to make the world different.

The biggest difference I see is the difference between sentiment and faith. Sentiment looks back at all the other happy Christmases in the past, and fondly loves all those traditions that never change from year to year.  But faith is looking forward in the hope that next Christmas things will be different, not the same:

  • that the hungry will not be hungry;
  • that there will be far fewer people who are homeless on this night;
  • that our soldiers will not be in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or anywhere else but home;
  • that teenagers will not take their own lives in despair because of bullying and violence;
  • that families will not be a place of strife and rejection, but of unconditional love;
  • that prisoners will not languish without hope or purpose for their lives in a broken criminal justice system.

Can Christmas really change all that, and make the world a better place?  Not really.  But Christ can change everything, if first he changes you and me, and we change how we view God’s world and how we treasure this holy night. 

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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This remarkable life.

Friday, December 24th, 2010

Think with me just a moment about the life of Jesus, not just his birth:

His was not a planned pregnancy, and his parents weren’t married. At birth, he was homeless; they became refugees shortly thereafter. In order to escape political violence and almost certain death, his family became illegal immigrants in a foreign land.

As a teenager, he was raised in a single-parent household.

He was misunderstood by his own siblings, and rejected by his neighbors and community. He faced the usual temptations, and resisted them. The crowds he attracted were fickle, eating his bread and even waving branches to salute him, but making no commitments; and within a week they called for his death.

He was betrayed by one of his own, denied by another, and ultimately deserted by the rest of the disciples he had hand-picked to follow him. He was arrested on trumped-up charges, didn’t receive a fair trial, had to defend himself, was convicted by corrupt officials, beaten by officers, and executed for crimes he did not commit, between two criminals. They even took his clothing away to shame and humiliate him.

He died in poverty; he had no assets, and left no estate.

Yet Jesus lived a life which has affected more people than any other human life, and his presence in this world permanently changed the course of human history. A billion people today claim to be Christians.

We should not be surprised by this remarkable life. But what should surprise us is that Christians today—the people who claim to be followers of Jesus— do not follow him very closely. The resemblance of our lives to his is faint, at best. Even with this remarkable life as clue and role model, Christians are suspicious of unmarried couples, of children born out of wedlock, of homeless people, of refugees and illegal immigrants, of single-parent households, of the poor and hungry and those in prison. We condone violence in society; we still let our police beat and shoot people. We do little to stop corruption in high places. We don’t want taxes adequate to pay for our criminal justice system, but we re-instituted capital punishment.

In short, Christians still uphold the entire system of privilege and power, and have too little concern for the people who struggle the hardest to survive in our society. Jesus was one of those who struggle, not one of the privileged. Why don’t we see this? Why don’t we conform our lives to his?

—Pastor Dan

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Gay Catechism, Spirituality | No Comments »

New language, not a new message.

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

I was reading an August issue of Christian Century this morning, and was drawn back twice to read the comments of Rev. Geoffrey Black, the new national president of the United Church of Christ. You may remember the UCC as that denomination that has run interesting TV and print ads with the “God is still speaking” slogan. It’s probably the most compelling answer to the fundamentalist”God said it, I believe it, that settles it” drivel.

If God is still speaking in our world—still creating, still controlling our world, then nothing is “settled.” The Word of God is not fixed like an oversize rock we can’t get around, but a living word which God’s people must constantly understand and interpret for themselves. And the ongoing religion wars that drive the so-called Culture War are an attempt to frame the discussion of a changing world through a fixed lens. In my own ministry, I remind people that we must often re-question, and re-answer many of faith’s big issues not because the holy Word has changed but because we human beings have changed. Our language has changed, so we cannot use the old language to speak to the world today.

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Geoffrey Black articulates this very well. When asked how he interprets the declining membership of the UCC and other mainline Protestant denominations, his answer is thoughtful and very much on point:

“The Protestant mainline and the UCC are going through a period of rediscovering what makes us committed to and enthusiastic about the Gospel. We have to dig deeper. We cannot rely on the props of the past. America is changing, and we have lost the language that conveys the centrality and the compelling message of Christian faith. We have to find a new language that speaks to the realities that human beings are facing.”

The contrast with right wingnut Christian couldn’t be sharper. They clung tightly to the King James Version of the Bible (published in 1611) until nobody could understand it anymore, and only switched to new versions when the realized that they could manipulate the Bible to say what they want said, a la The Living Bible, and the New American Standard Bible, etc., which put the word “homosexual” on the lips of St. Paul even though the original Greek doesn’t say that.

President Geoffrey Black, I think, speaks to the real point for progressive Christians in 2010. We can’t go back to the past. We have to speak to the realities which humanity lives with today, in a language that can be understood. If mainstream churches are in decline it is, in part, because those who are disaffected and leaving may have been in church for the wrong reasons (the comfort of civil sanctity rather than the discomfort of following Jesus to all the difficult places he leads us), and the younger generation is not interested in picking up their tired old pious rhetoric. Religious forms with deeply-held conviction and passion for truth and purpose are simply dead. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that conventional churches are emptying out.

But there is reason to be passionate about the gospel, because it is the news of God’s reconciling with humanity as we are—often lost, broken or hurting–especially from self-inflicted wounds—sometimes depraved but sometimes noble, not disembodied angelic spirits but embodied human beings with dreams and energy, capable almost at the same time of compassion and creativity and stupidity and cruelty. But in the story of Jesus, we are accepted by God as fully human, and we are given an example of the highest purpose of human life. As Christians, our “righteousness” is neither pretense nor fake, nor is it piety and religion. Our “rightness” with God is grace, an undeserved gift which comes alive in our faithfulness.

In place of searching and striving for the divine in our lives, we often make the mistake of settling for piety and religion. The Gospel, however, includes the news that God seeks us, even when we are off-track, lost and oblivious.

Black goes on to say, “More than ever we need voices of reason and deep spirituality. The voices of intolerance and hatred are loud. We need to articulate an alternative.”

But talk is cheap, and the din of media, internet, twitter has made it even cheaper. Over and over I realize that more Christian energy needs to go into our faithful actions and much less into religious talk. The people who are being drawn to our church, I think, are more interested in what we do that tells the Gospel in our neighborhood than what we say. Actions speak louder than words, it is said. Actions also speak more truthfully than words.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, Faith, Fundamentalism, Spirituality, wingnuts | No Comments »

The Two Systems

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Our Wednesday studies engage a wide diversity of people who are not (yet?) members of our congregation, but who find their spiritual centering in our midst. This week we were discussing this passage at the end of John 3.

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. 34 He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

We have talked in the study many times about the overarching power of grace, and the danger of “works righteousness.” Some people “get it,” and others don’t, because they seem to have a great deal invested in their own sense of personal righteousness as dutiful, believing Christians. As I try to probe with them what it is they are “hanging on to” this explanation began to unfold itself for me.

It seems there are basically two rules or systems which may govern our relationship with God and one another. The one is the rule of rewards and punishments. The other is the rule of grace. In the Bible, of course, we find language that is descriptive of both, and so it takes enormous discernment to give weight to each of these and to decide by which rule we will live.Under the rule of rewards and punishments, we will always strive for reward and try to avoid punishment. We will measure our achievement and calculate our relationship both to God and to other human beings on the basis of how we can gain rewards and what we might lose or suffer. The bottom line is that we will expect our behavior and good works (or our abstaining from bad things) counts for something, and that in the end—the judgment day—we will receive the ultimate rewards of eternal bliss, a heavenly mansion, a heavenly banquet, a crown, etc.

But under that rule of rewards and punishments, we become more like Muslims than different from them, for they too hope to receive entrance to Paradise on the judgment day, except of course that their doctrine affords them no advance certainty that God will grant to them the eternal reward.

The rule of grace, on the other hand, cares little about rewards or punishment. We stop measuring our performance against a standard which is impossible. We simply live under grace, honest in the knowledge that we do not deserve it yet confident that we have already received it without measure. Under grace, we are not ultimately terrified about damnation, for the scripture assures us that we may draw near to the throne of grace with confidence.

Moral theology, especially under the definition of the medieval Catholic system, would attempt to marry these two rules together, but in fact that results in a tragic, upended mishmash in which grace must be subordinated to law. When Lutherans insist— relying on where St. Paul tells us that all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, and that all are justified by God’s grace apart from the law— we do not mean that grace is merely the strength we need from beyond ourselves to perform all the required works and deeds and abstinences of moral law. Rather we mean that we are wholly and completely justified —not by any effort on our part nor by refraining from anything, nor even confessing to our sinful nature and our manifold iniquities—only and totally as a free and undeserved gift from God for Christ’s sake.

If it is not the melding of these two rules, which I think is destructive at best, here is the bottom line: It is left to each of us to choose under which rule we will order our lives—whether under the rule of rewards and punishments, or under the rule of grace. If we voluntarily choose the system of rewards and punishments, we may be caught up in a giddy hopefulness for an exclusive parcel of eternal real estate, but in this life we will be preoccupied with fear of punishment and with being given credit for each correct moral choice we make and the sum of our accomplishments.

But if we voluntarily choose the rule of grace, all those things pale before the wonder-filled knowledge of God’s generous love and forgiveness, whereby gratitude for God’s gifts of grace so overwhelms our hearts that our life itself overflows with generosity and compassion.

This topic will be more fully explored on my other web site Gay Catechism. 

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, Gay Catechism, Living by Grace, Spirituality | No Comments »

Prayer in the heart of Hollywood.

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

The music of Taizé has been around for a generation or more, but continues to grow in popularity, in part because of those who come from around the world to pray in this southern French town are met with simple and direct piety in an amazing blend of experiences.

Taizé was founded by Brother Roger during World War II, quickly became a refuge for Jews escaping the Nazi slaughter, and today draws as many as 7,000 visitors per week.

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We have begun to pattern our prayer life on the piety and music of Taizé here in Hollywood. It has begun as a Lenten experiment, will continue on Maundy Thursday next week, and hopefully in the weeks after Easter.

There is no doubt that the experience is monastic — it provides a temporary retreat from the world into pure contemplation. There a re few words, time for silence and easily repetitive prayer. But when monasticism gently opens its arms to the outside world, it is grace.

Better yet, the brothers of Taizé welcome imitation all over the world. Their simple ecumenism fits our emerging church sensibility that the only way to be post-denominational as Christians is to start living like Christians with no prefixes or suffixes.

Even more amazing, doctrine and official dogma clearly are in the back seat or not present at all. The texts give voice to the words of Scripture alone, and interpretation is simply left to the Spirit to bring to each heart. The worship style of Taizé takes seriously the prophetic words of Jeremiah 31, “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD.”

In our experience, the role of the leader is unimportant, and formality is forgotten. Some sit on the floor or on cushions. Different people simply rise to read or to offer pray from the heart.

What is gratifying to many is that this kind of faith and spiritual expression is attracting young people. The music is singable, not complex, not packed with theology, and the mood enhanced by things as un-high tech as candles allows each person to bring what she or he has to offer and place it before God with honesty and simplicity. In our house of worship, each week different people have been close to tears. I hope we can continue this in the future to welcome people who don’t feel they belong in a church on a Sunday morning.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Faith, PRAYERS, Spirituality | No Comments »

Enveloped on the mountaintop.

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Today being the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, it deserves some comment. I had to preach on it this morning.

It’s a difficult thing no matter whether you’re a cynic or deeply pious. As the story is told it’s too supernatural–ranks right up there with the Ascension on the list of things no one really believes as narrated.

Yet the narrative tries to convey something intensely mystical and meaningful. In the midst of his public ministry, Jesus seemed profoundly different to his disciples. Something happened that allowed/permitted/forced them to see him in a new and blinding light.

Typically we call that a “mountaintop experience,” and it must have been for Peter James and John, the “inner three” who get lot of attention in the Gospel stories but we are never fully told why. As told in Luke 9, the three of them were “weighed down with sleep” (and you will remember that in Matthew and Mark, the same three disciples are with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and, yup, there they fell asleep too).

Just like the other nine disciples, these guys were not perfect. They had feet of clay. They were as flawed as any human being alive right now—but: the witness of these disciples is that a veil was ripped away, and they saw Christ Jesus as God sees him. They were overshadowed and enveloped by a Cloud— a glory they could not understand and could hardly describe— but the Jesus who came out of the transfiguring Cloud with them was not One to be afraid of, or One to hide from, but One who was to lay down his life for them.

I cannot guarantee you a mountaintop experience. You will find your own mountain, and it probably won’t be a pretty picture in the piney woods with postcard views from the top. For some of us, it may be the mountain of our own failures, or sorrows, or mistakes, or addictions, pain or internalized homophobia. But if we climb the mountains we have heaped up in our lives, there, at the top of these heaps of human experience, we encounter the Cross. And it is not a trigger for terror. It is the revelation of the One True God of grace, forgiveness, compassion and lovingkindness. It may be Law which drives us up the mountain of despair, but it is pure Gospel to find the love of Jesus Christ awaiting us at the top.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Lasting Peace: the Unsplit Life

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

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.

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

Praying for those who have no faith.

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Recently I read about an Episcopal Church here in Los Angeles that welcomes people of faith and people with no faith. That contrast has stayed in mind for days. Our parish attracts an amazing diversity of people. some of them are still very much living in a fundamentalist world, and others are in recovery from fundamentalism, from Catholic guilt, from heavy parental piety and moral control, and from total burnout.

This is not the first time I have wrestled with these issues. I am struggling again with how to talk to people who have no faith, but who are at least open to spiritual experience that will lead them to respond in faith. As I am planning for an alternative, evening worship service–which may possible take the form of a Taizé worship experience– I started to jot down what elements belong in it, or what “ingredients” I would use to cook one up.

If we were to offer a brand new service or gathering without using traditional liturgy (complex, busy, unintelligible, boring) as a model, but drawing seekers and believers into a new experience of Jesus, what would this event include?

For one, it cannot use a traditional creedal statement, even the Apostles Creed. The formulas of the historic Christian Creeds were built on several generations of theological reflection about the significance of Jesus.

I no longer assume any such experience or penchant for reflection on the part of new seekers. Many people who wander back into a church had left as teenagers, not young adults. However long ago that was, they were operating on simple Sunday School thinking, and didn’t do much reflection on spirituality and life experiences before they walked.

Think of Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” only “high school” is “Sunday School”:

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

The ancients (priests and prophets, disciples and apostles of Jesus) were steeped in a tradition of seeking and knowing the power of God. And they had powerful experiences in their lives to confirm their faithful sense. People today seem not to have these experiences, possibly because we have cut too many ties to our own inner spiritual selves, as if spiritual stimuli are disconnected from the nerve pathways that could bring them into our consciousness. And we are numbed by the over-stimulation of stuff, of action films, instant gratification, and 24/7 virtual hook-ups.

Suddenly I found myself praying a prayer for faith without dogma. Is this un-Christian, non-Christian, pre-Christian? Or post-Christian? It is at least a prayer for “openness to faith”.

Great One,
I do not so much seek You as to open myself to be found.
I, who am finite, open myself to the infinite.
I, who am contemporary, open myself to the Ancient One and the Future One.
I, who am limited, open myself to the one who is unlimited.

Present One,
May I become transparent to your color, your strength, your Spirit.
May I have an ear ready to hear your Voice.
May I have legs to follow where You lead.
May I have a life ready to live in You.

Holy One,
Let Your Life infuse my life.
Let Your heart be the beat within my heart.
Let Your Light illuminate wherever I have darkness,
and Your Joy replenish my emptiness.
Let your compassion shape my compassion,
your power be my own power,
your grace become my graciousness,
your love awaken love within me,
and your forgiveness teach me to forgive others.

Let these things be so! Amen!

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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The arts and the sacraments of community.

Friday, June 5th, 2009

One of my other hats in the community is as an organizer of new ventures in spirituality and the arts. This being Hollywood, involvement in the arts is almost required. Every week I meet more people involved in film, music, theatre, design and visual arts.

Deacon Roberta Morris came to me more than a year ago and proposed that we launch a new organization for spirituality and the arts. It is still in formation now and will incorporate shortly as a non-profit. But in the meantime, we launched the Los Feliz Art Walk, one of a growing number of grassroots neighborhood arts enterprises to allow emerging artists to exhibit their work, and some of the surrounding galleries, studios and public art spaces to reach new audiences.

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Tonight was our monthly First Friday Art Walk. The informal center of the cluster of galleries and stores is our church’s work in progress—Courtyard Studio & Arts— which is being created out of junk classroom space and a back playground now filled with grass and a bubbling fountain. It is amazing what space, light and water can bring together. Since last September, we’ve had the Courtyard open for art exhibits, and the number of talented but unknown neighborhood artists who want to exhibit keeps growing. Three artists brought their work for tonight’s exhibit, two accomplished plein air painters and a sculptor.

Our hope is to eventually capture some modest grant money to pursue spirituality and the arts in many forms, including performance, film, music and other media. You can see some of our proposals as www.LosFelizArtWalk.org.

In these ten months, the most gratifying part of the Art Walks has been conversations with people who admit they are not religious but are trying to express or find (or both) their native spirituality in a way which is graciously received by others.

Without the formal structures of religion, spirituality is comfortable with all the arts, probably because it is not concerned to present, impose or enforce specific content or message. The arts speak with their own voice. So far that has included decorative work, crafts, sculptural nudes, both art and documentary photography, documentary film and spontaneous unscheduled music. For World AIDS Day , in conjunction with Hollywood Remembers, we also exhibited huge panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest work of folk art in the world.

So far I have not drawn people directly into the church but I’ve had many conversations with total strangers who enjoyed our wine and cheese receptions, who were much more open to talking about faith, love, hopefulness in an age of cynicism, the spiritual search, and the spiritual lessons of life experiences with an openly religious parish priest. Most of these people were churched people at one time, but no longer. Some were wounded. Most became bored. Many were shown the door, made to be unwelcome at some point in their lives, yet felt happy to be able to be honest about their wounds, their boredom or their distance with a “man of the cloth.”

Of course, both because of people Roberta and I know, and because this is Hollywood after all, many of the artists and the public who come to see their work, are gay or lesbian or transgender. For them, being this near to a church can have an element of surprise or uncertainty. I try to put them at ease, both with my art and my faith and life experience.

To me, these chance encounters with lapsed Christians, non-practicing Jews and others, have almost been sacramental. The arts are sacraments, in one sense. Conversations can be confession and absolution. Simply for me to be present to unchurched people and to speak easily and openly about my own faith and life—including creativity, spontaneity, and hopefulness—is a genuine proclamation of the word. When I read Acts of the Apostles and some of Paul’s writings I realize that for every formal sermon he may have delivered to a gathered audience, he probably had a hundred informal one-to-one conversations first.

Maybe the biggest reason that the church as a whole fails so much to engage its culture and its neighborhood is that typically its doors are open only for the religion business, rather than for art, spirituality, community service and simple conversation. While we are growing only modestly, I have every confidence our trend will continue because of our creative ventures and our straightforward openness to people we don’t know. We will all learn from one another, and I suspect the Holy Spirit of God will find ways to be heard in those settings.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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The parable of a reconciling community.

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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