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 »

Left, right and Spirit.

April 29, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

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

Religion Facts:  A classmate of mine, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

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

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

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

“And God, who knows the human heart, testified to gays and lesbians by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

You Tube:  The shocking truth about the gay lifestyle.

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

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Pacific Lutheran seminary approves RIC “Welcome.”

April 28, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

After a 5-month process, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California appears poised to become the first Reconciling in Christ seminary in the Lutheran church in the United States.

On Sunday, April 26, the Board of Directors released notice of its vote (PLTS Reaffirms Welcoming Statement) to seek designation as an RIC Seminary and implement a “welcoming” resolution that includes sexual minorities. The Statement said in part:

We eagerly learn from and welcome one another’s diversity, including, but not limited to, theological perspective, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender identity, relationship status, age, physical ability, social and economic status and sexual orientation.The Board did its homework, gathering input from a variety of sources, including faculty and staff, student and alumni. And at its March 26 meeting the Executive Committee paced the April action by providing for discussion over two days.

The decision was not precipitous. The previous Board meeting last November heard reports of the Community Life and Academic Affairs Committee, which asked the board “to begin preliminary conversation” about PLTS becoming an RIC community.

More than 350 local Lutheran congregations have joined the RIC Program, which is sponsored by Lutherans Concerned/North America, by adopting an “affirmation of welcome” that specifically invites lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender persons to participate fully in the life of the local church. The procedures and requirements are somewhat different for educational institutions of the church, and must include a non-discrimination policy for hiring employees and for degree requirements.

Apparently the PLTS Board has found a way to meet these requirements, even though acceptance into the Master of Divinity program includes approval by a separate synodical candidacy committee, indicating that the individual, in addition to being educated, is also psychologically and spiritually prepared to serve in the ordained ministry of the Lutheran church. In recent years, background checks have also become a standard part of this process.

This coming summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America biennial Assembly will again have opportunity to change its current ordination standard which precludes sexually-active gay and lesbian candidates from entering the ordained ministry. (A distinct action was taken by the ELCA’s Assembly in 2007 to allow individual bishops not to enforce that standard.)

But this gate-keeping function of the denomination need not prevent potential students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender from enrolling in the M. Div. program, if PLTS is admitted to the Reconciling in Christ program.

Several individual regional jurisdictions or Synods of what is now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America founded the seminary nearly 60 years ago and continue to fund it. At least two, the Sierra Pacific Synod and the Southwest California Synod, have also joined the Reconciling in Christ program, indicating their unqualified support for ministry with and on behalf of sexual minorities.

In 1996 the Council of Bishops of the ELCA declared that all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are welcome in the national church, although that is not always a reality at the local level. The Bishops’ letter echoed earlier supportive and hospitable actions: 

We also call attention to the action of the 1991 Churchwide Assembly that declared “gay and lesbian people, as individuals created by God, are welcome to participate fully in the life of the congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” At the 1993 assembly, that declaration was extended to express “strong opposition to all forms of verbal or physical harassment or assault of persons because of their sexual orientation,” and support for the civil rights of all persons, regardless of their sexual orientation.”

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Doctrine, History, Spirituality, Ministry, ELCA | 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

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

A day of reckoning.

April 19, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

The next church.

April 15, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

I am still muttering internally about what to think about “Evangelical Catholic.” Is there a convergence there, if you take those terms as group names? We certainly saw at least an opportunisitic convergence last fall with the convergence of Rev. Rick Warren’s flavor of church-ianity being “in sync” with the Catholic bishops, all trying to defend traditional matrimony.

At the time I thought that Mormons, the traditional African-American churches, and Catholics each had something in their own dark past they wanted to play down by claiming the high moral ground about marriage (”Why Yes Won“).  In countless discussions since then with other marriage equality people, I have more reason to believe I was right on that. True “family” values, as experienced in those sectors, are not morally high values. Everything from polygamy to broken homes to child molestation is found there. Of course, those were not ideals, and not even the majority of families in those faith traditions, but I believe each of them wanted to play down their own sad failings/scandals by noisily carrying the flag for traditional marriage.

Everybody, it seems, is carrying different flags now. Faith experiences are shifting. We’ve juggled what emergent churches mean for everyone else, what conversion might be in the 21^st century, and why the larger world still admires Jesus and despises his followers. Every day I see new “Religion” headlines in print and on the net, and most of what makes the news in the world of religion either saddens me or makes me wince.

What is becoming of the Christian church I knew and loved and respected?  Is it now only a shrill, homophobic, legalistic finger wagging at America to return to “traditional values” that it has already left behind and even helped to undermine? Is the mega-church going to be the prevailing symbol of the Christian church in its last chapter of history?—a feel-good, prosperity club mesmerized by flashing lights and pop/rock Christian love songs? Is it strident allegiance to traditional bigotries, even while realignment with Nigerian or Sudanese bishops triggers lawsuits over the ownership of pricey upper-class properties? Is it televangelists owning private jets, buying diamond mines in South Africa, and operating ecologically offensive power plants in Southern California, in order to pay for “family programming” on TV?

In digging around more on the internet to see what “Evangelical Catholic” might really mean, in addition to some enlightening and thoughtful articles I also found a lot of smaller outfits —too small to be called “denominations”—which describe themselves as “evangelical catholic.” Some of them resemble “Old Catholics” or other off-brand splinters from the Roman Catholic Church: denominational side-shows. Others have clearly invented themselves out of thin air with the name of a single bishop who traces his consecration to somebody somewhere that could be thought of as legitimate.

Some of these groups are also rigid, inflexible, strident and legalistic, even while they think they can claim the moral high ground. Some of them are stridently anti-feminine and anti-women’s-ordination while still lauding Mother Mary as Queen of Heaven.

Clearly, the House of the Church needs a thorough Spring cleaning. Some realignment is probably good, because many of these communities, large or small, seem to have lost their way and floated into religious back-waters.

“What is truth?” asked Pontius Pilate. Jesus could have answered that question but it’s clear many of his people today cannot. I don’t like being negative, but I feel like I know what “the truth” is not. It is not fighting over church real estate, yanking congregations out of church bodies over single-issue disputes, denouncing lesbian or gay couples in order to puff oneself up. It is not shopping through a whole cafeteria of ecclesial orders, “communions” and episcopates in order to find a bishop one is comfortable with. It is not turning the call to discipleship into the name of a rock band, or reducing the Gospel to a sound byte or a bumper sticker.

Clearly I don’t have the answer as to what the Christian faith should come to be in the 21^st century, but I know whom it should resemble. What is truth, when it comes to faithfulness to the way of Jesus? It is the process, the search, the walk of those who carry his cross even if they haven’t yet discerned where that cross will be planted or how much blood will be shed. Maundy Thursday is still on my mind, with its call to obedience in love. We are not called to govern one another, to rise above one another, to criticize one another, or to compete against one another. We are called to love one another and keep following Jesus into the places of this world where our own egos will be forgotten and God’s mercy and love and grace can be lifted up.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, History, Faith, LGBT Christian, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

A Personal Resurrection Experience

April 12, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia, alleluia!

I don’t usually dwell on personal issues, but this is a brief follow-up from last week about Carl. Thanks to the intransigence of insurance plans, he was sent home on Easter Sunday right as we began our morning festival worship service. We are still working out the details of home health care and logistics.

I am so grateful to God that he walks, he talks, he is able to ambulate and feed himself, and his body is functioning somewhat normally ~except of course for the fact that he wears the steel, plastic and velcro equivalent of a body cast from his hips to his chin, and will live with those indignities and discomforts for probably 8 more weeks.

The discomforts are from no less than six broken bones, and as I peruse the lengthy print-out of his treatment record, I am finding more and more things from the analysis of his MRI that could mean additional fractures have occurred.

But he is living! And we shall always remember Easter as God’s sign that our own resurrection is in God’s hands!

And I am dazed again by the power of the blog! It was from reading my April 5 blog that a dear friend in Oregon learned about Carl, and contacted mutual friends that I had not yet been able to tell. Thank you, Sarah. And thank all of you who have lifted Carl’s spirits, fed him before he could feed himself, and brought entire florist’s and card shops to his side, and offered entire prayer books of faith on his behalf. God bless you all.

— Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in PRAYERS, Spirituality, Recovery | Print | 1 Comment »

Holy Week: About Jesus.

April 9, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

This being Holy Week, I am in a refelctive mode about the very core of our faith and our ability to proclaim good news.  Below is an article I wrote more than a year ago, and put it on our pamphlet rack.  Of all the materials put there, this one disappears most frequently. Maybe we should stop promoting ourselves and our programs, and just tell people About Jesus.

About Jesus and Our Faith in Him

We are not ashamed to tell you the real reason we’re here: Jesus Christ — who is the One for whom this and all Christian churches and communities exist. We want everyone to know some things about Jesus that many web sites and many churches neglect to say:  Jesus is God’s gift to humanity. The Holy Scriptures reassure us that Jesus came into this world for one purpose – to give his life for our sake – and to call us to come home to God, whom he vividly portrayed as our heavenly Father. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not be lost but have eternal life.” —John 3:16This congregation is an open, affirming, welcoming, reconciling church, not because of liberal tendencies and wishy-washy beliefs, but because Jesus was open, affirming, welcoming and reconciling in his life and ministry. He, too, was criticized for not being strict enough, or religious enough, or pure enough. In every case, he brushed aside that criticism because it misses the point.

  We proclaim and teach God’s grace, for Jesus’ sake. Yes, there are many strict, dour and condemn-ing words found in the Bible. But we are convinced by the Gospel (which means “Good News”) that God’s most important message in those inspired and ancient pages is the message of unconditional love and grace. God’s Word for us is always an invitation, not an ultimatum. Jesus is God’s Word in the flesh, the one who came to seek those who are lost, not to condemn them. For nearly 500 years Lutheran Christians have taught this based on the clear testimony of the Scriptures: that we and all human beings are justified in God’s sight, not because of our good deeds or best intentions, but because of God’s grace which we receive simply through faith in Jesus. No one earns God’s love. No one’s strict behavior or most diligent abstinence impresses God.

   We read and study the Bible, so we know about God’s wrath—repeated over and over in the law and the prophets. But, for Jesus’ sake, we do not need to run from God. Jesus encourages us to draw near to God’s “throne of grace.” We do not need to live in shame or fear of eternal damnation. One word often paired with “wrath” is “saved.” Christians like to talk about being saved from God’s wrath! Some Christians like to rely on good deeds (like silver stars pasted on a chart in heaven) to save them from wrath. They claim their good works like achievements, so they look down on others as under-achievers! But we know that the whole world was saved from God’s wrath by one single event: when Jesus gave his life for all upon the cross. He put a “stop” to the wrath, the suffering, the threat of eternal punishment, and the folly of religious “good works” with his own blood. Our blood and tears mean nothing, because his blood and tears were everything.So the full and true Gospel of Jesus is one of grace, not of condemnation. We claim the unconditional love of God, and try to live in a manner which is appropriate as God’s beloved people. We know it is not necessary to spend our whole lifetime worrying about whether God loves us, for Jesus clearly said so.  The message of grace is this: if we humbly recognize that we have wandered away from God’s love (and yes, every human being has sinned in ways which are big and small), all we need to do is to wake up to this: God still loves us; God has not abandoned us; God is seeking us, and wants us to come home. In this waking, seeking, returning and coming home, God’s grace awaits us in full measure. All is forgiven, because of the Cross of Jesus Christ.God hates no one! The love of God is not cancelled or erased because of human foolish-ness, excesses or willful errors. The church of Jesus Christ is a community of recovering sinners – we are not “saints” in the sense of “perfect people.” We are just those who know our need of grace, and have found the One whom God sent to announce love, reconciliation and peace to the world.How do you imagine Jesus? Although every artist for thousands of years have portrayed him, there are no photographs of Jesus. Every disciple, mystic, saint and believer has used his or her imagination. Yet through the testimony of many Christians —beginning with the letters and narrative stories in the New Testament itself—we have an enduring portrait of this amazing person. Jesus forgave, healed, taught, served, embraced, wept and bled for others.  Even more important than how we see Jesus is how he sees us! He saw the world upside down from the way people usually see it, with the hungry well fed, and the poor and oppressed liberated. He didn’t condemn those whoseexcesses and errors caused them shame. He stood between an adulteress and her would-be executioners. He pleaded with his followers to show mercy, to provide for the least important people, and to forgive everyone—even hundreds of times—and to do greater things than he was doing. In his last hour, he forgave those whose “duty” was to put him to death.   So, if Jesus is so gracious, loving, non- judgmental and accepting —whom the Scriptures tell us is the very image and presence of God Almighty in the flesh—then why is it that Christians are often so angry and threatening? Why are Christians “at each other’s throats” with criticism and condem-nation? Why are churches so competitive? Why does the general public have a positive view of Jesus but a negative view of “church people”? Given the huge difference between Jesus and his followers, does anybody think it is Jesus’ fault that he doesn’t resemble us more closely? Sadly, no, it is we who do not resemble him! Human beings are the victims of our own excesses, and this is certainly true when spirituality is dominated by religiosity.  Who is the real Jesus?At its worst, the medieval church was obsessed with sinfulness and guilt (which, it taught, sent Jesus to the Cross) it expected people to live with lifelong guilt, shame and sorrow, and to avoid every possible thing that might lead to committing a sin. The high morality of the earliest Christians quickly changed from being a self-discipline to a whole system of laws, sanctions, penalties and penitence—ultimately leading to capital punishment for sins.  Now the church in our times is getting lost in its own enthusiasm for marketing and “selling” Jesus the way products are sold. Jesus has become the most over-advertised and over-exposed individual in history! He is being re-made in our cultural image! Hundreds of “feel good” mega-churches have followed marketing consultants and produce a television show worship event featuring praise, optimism, glory and self-congratulation, mixed with American patriotism.Their testimony is often all “about us and How Great We Are for believing” rather than “about Jesus and how changed we are by his grace and forgiveness.” This modern “church” seems to have forgotten the call to discipleship, the call to “take up your cross and follow” the Jesus who humbled himself and accepted death to redeem the world.

Like medieval times, “successful” churches today seem to be all about puffing themselves up and building an empire of wealth, influence, and public respectability. So we need to ask ourselves, as a Christian community, whether we are following Christ closely enough to notice those for whom he stopped and stooped: the poor, those without hope, “sinners” who were rejected by others, strangers, foreigners and outsiders, prisoners, widows, the sick and dying. There is no “glory,” wealth, empire or self-congratulation that comes from this.

  But if we are really moved by and impressed by Jesus, then to serve God faithfully and to follow Jesus faithfully means to serve the people whom Jesus always puts in our path. “For I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” —Matthew 25:40The “bottom line” for a Christian congre-gation is that we are seeking out the lost and the least, with humility, as we try to be disciples who follow Jesus.God bless you as you seek to follow Jesus!

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Faith, Living by Grace, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

For better, for worse, in sickness and in health.

April 5, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

This is not a blog about gay marriage. Indwelling Spirit is about a lot of issues affecting LGBT people who are trying to follow Christ, and to remain in fellowship with other Christians who either reject us and hate us, or at the least are suspicious of us.

But we take the news of the day, and play the ball where it lies. In recent months the news has been jammed with the aftermath of Proposition 8, which (temporarily) dash the hopes of California becoming and staying the third United State to legalize same-gender civil marriage.

The news of my day has changed things, at least for a time. My lawfully-wedded spouse Carl is in the hospital, having suffered a disastrous fall on Saturday. He has four fractured vertebrae, one of them serious, and two fractured ribs. It appears now that this will not require emergency surgery, but what is coming next is still quite unclear.

Carl was climbing a tree in order to do some quick pruning in preparation for Palm Sunday. Now w have both missed the Palm Sunday service entirely, instead watching the hours tick by in the Emergency Room. At this hour he is completely immobilized with a neck brace, until the results of his MRI can be evaluated by a neurosurgeon.

Yet in the midst of all his pain, Carl has been capitalizing on our civilly-married status. Coming out all over again, he makes sure that each doctor or nurse attending him understands that I am his “husband”—a term I have yet to get used to when applied to myself, even though we have been a couple for decades. In fact, last October’s National Coming Out Day was the fourth time we have tied the knot in a ceremonial way.

After waiting in the rain overnight in front of San Francisco’s City Hall in February 2004, a quick view of our happiness.   The Lutheran magazine later mentioned us and our best friends in a news brief, “Married in the State of Grace.”

“He is fulfilling his marital vows,” Carl tells the nurse matter-of-factly, “to take care of me in sickness and in health.” As much as I have advocated for stable, permanent relationships among lesbian and gay couples, and now carried the flag for Marriage Equality in the streets and in my church (NoOn8Church.org), there is something almost monumental in just living as a married couple and in effect holding our heads up high as a married couple. Not just when the television station showed up at our wedding reception, but when we have to call the nurse (again) for some pain medicine.

The Supreme Court may speak any day now on whether it considers our pre-Prop 8 marriage “legal.” That nasty ballot measure insisted that only a marriage between a man and a woman is “recognized” in California regardless of when or where contracted (not the exact wording).  A month ago, the Justices closely questions attorneys on both sides in the oral arguments about what “recognized” might mean, and what it was intended to mean in the wording of Proposition 8.

But I am here to tell you that my marriage is recognized in our local Emergency Room, as it is in the congregation and the supermarket and the neighborhood and in our extended family circle. Ultimately, Proposition 8 cannot erase recognition for those who know that they have tied the knot securely and have already claimed their rightful status as “married.”

But please pray for Carl, and for all of us who have to keep coming out and claiming rights until the rest of the state “gets it.”

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Living by Grace, Spirituality, PRAYERS, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Conversions, to and from Catholic faith.

April 1, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A New Your Times web story yesterday reports that Newt Gingrinch [cf. John 19:22] has become a Catholic – converting from his native Baptist roots.

Katharine Q. Seelye’s headline is revealing: “Gingrich Gets (a New) Religion.” Is she referencing the fact that a lot of us were unaware that Newt had any religious faith. This was the political pit bull of the 1990s and, IMHO, the role model for Karl Rove. I wonder if Catholicism will bring any compassion, humility, restraint or civility to someone with more of a reputation for confrontational politics.

In the late Richard Neuhaus’ last book Catholic Matters, he makes the claim that (while Protestant churches are shrinking) Americans are converting to the Catholic Church at the rate of 200,000 a year. His book carries no footnotes, so we cannot know the source of his statistics.

Here in the wild west, it seems people are converting to no religion at a faster clip, but Neuhaus’ claim set me thinking. Is the Catholic faith so attractive that, after a strong 500 year strand of Christian tradition, people are leaving the various Protestant folds and returning to Rome?

Neuhaus was a conservative Lutheran pastor for years before he himself converted to Rome and entered its priesthood. His book is passionate boosterism for authoritative Catholic tradition, especially linked to the idea of a prevailing magisterium: the pope, cardinals and bishops as protectors and defenders of the faith. As a historian, Neuhaus is weak, and overlooks centuries of pathetic to despicable behavior on the part of the Roman hierarchy. (Not that any Protestant historical record is spotless.)

Neuhaus’ “growth” statistic stands in relationship to his claim that 63 million Americans claim to be Catholic. It would be more accurate to say that the Church claims them, keep tabs on every infant baptism, for example, but probably is not watching adult defections very closely. Be that as it may, 200,000 conversions would account for less than one-third of one percent growth.

I don’t want to belittle conversion, any time it happens, because it may mean that a person is now taking the new faith more seriously than she or he had taken the old faith. And I don’t draw a harsh or sharp line between Christian traditions. It is the same Lord we put faith in, even if our own faith practices morph or move on to a different expression.

But in the stories I am told — by people coming into my own congregation—the Roman church still expects and requires individuals (for example, who are about to marry a Catholic partner) to become Catholic and to raise the children Catholic. The Protestant “weakness” is that we don’t require any such thing. We don’t lay on anyone a moral obligation to attend Mass, for example, or dozens of other requirements. Maybe we are wimps, but maybe we emphasize God’s grace as completely outweighing church requirements.

But indeed does that mean that 200,000 people a year are quite content to come under a system of obligations and requirements? That they were not content with the freedom of the Christian life under grace? It would take more than a statistical approach to understand what is true here.

In my own parish, more than half of those who are coming into our community are coming from a Roman Catholic background. For one reason or another (divorce and remarriage, conflict because of sexuality and homosexuality, disaffection with church legalism, a personal search for meaning or a very individual experience of pain or abuse) they can’t or do not want to go back to the Roman church. Since Lutherans consider ourselves to be “Evangelical Catholics” we ought to be able to bridge this shift, and to show sympathy and understanding for anyone who is trying to find a spiritual comfort zone in our communion or another.

I am just grateful that the Gospel itself, and the pull of a faith community, still draws many people back from inactivity or lack of spirituality to a deeper sense of self, humanity and God. In an Associated Press story in March carried by 365Gay.com, the number of people with no religion continues to grow. And in the posted comments on the Daily Beast’s list of other well-known Catholic converts, a lot of anti-religious drivel abounds.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

No shame, no gain?

March 12, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I have written before about the toxic and corrosive effects of shame on human beings. (See for example, “Pray for the Bobbies of this world,” January 3, 2009)

I seriously think that what lies at the center of the culture wars’ battlefields is shame.

Those conservatives who spend millions of dollars and hours doing everything possible to deprive LGBT people of our rights are not merely trying to preserve rights and decency for their “traditional values” constituency. Beneath all of that strategic and rhetorical stuff they are really trying to shame us back into the closet, back into the stone age. Without shame, the reactionary and conservative side cannot make gains in these “wars.”

The battle over Proposition 8 in California is only the latest issue in these “wars.” On every other battleground I can think of in recent decades, there has been the public issue articulated by the cultural/religious right, but there has been the underlying shame-related view as well. This analysis is clumsily worded here, but I think we could devote more attention to this correlation until clarity is revealed:

Marriage Rights: “Traditional marriage” must be protected and preserved as the foundation of society.	Lesbian and gay “marriages” are shameful because their pathetic attempts to form “relationships” are sad and shameful.
Employment Non-Discrimination: Homosexuals do not deserve special rights. Employers should not be forced to hire people whose behavior is contrary to accepted moral standards.	If homosexuals get jobs, they will do shameful things on the job. Anita Bryant insisted that homosexuals would try to wear dresses to work.
Adopting or Parenting Children: Children need a father and a mother to grow up right.	Children need to be protected from the shameful and disgusting desires of predatory homosexuals who will trying to lure innocent young people into shameful behavior.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: Homosexuals should not be allowed to serve in the military because it will destroy troop morale.	Homosexuals ought to be ashamed of themselves for trying to infiltrate the ranks of our brave people in uniform, to lure them into shameful acts.
Sodomy Laws: Our society needs to preserve public decency.	Anything two homosexuals do together, even in the privacy of their own bedroom, is shameful and disgusting.

Shame is a constant in the formula of the cultural and religious right. It is still thought to be a convenient tool or weapon, that can be picked up and used any time other arguments are not persuasive enough to push LGBT people into their closets. And shame, as viewed by the conservative power base, is thought to be almost self-evident. That is, the way in which they make attempts to shame us —just for being who we are, or just for wanting to live our lives with the same rights and the same opportunities as other people— is built on their conservative view that what is so shameful about being or behaving as a homosexual/bisexual/transgender person, is that it is just shameful.  Most typical of all is the attempt of the Right to belittle pride by shaming it.

Americans for Truth trying to shame the Chicago Gay Pride Parade.  Keep reading down the page to find this shocking headline: “I Was Attacked By a Homosexual Mob!”

What is self-evident about circular reasoning? That we or our behavior is shameful because, well, it’s shameful? We should, in their view, just know and admit that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. And if we’re not, that is evidence that we are shameless, which is pathetic, disgusting and shameful.

Shame is often defined as unwanted attention. Take a room full of people, single out one person and have all the others simply stare at this one person and yell, “Shame on you!!” This is the power of the majority over the minority. For centuries, the heterosexual majority has reserved this power to shame lesbian/gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and for that matter any other minority that they don’t like, simply by yelling “Shame” until the minority is intimidated enough to back down, withdraw, build a closet, or run away in fear for their lives.

This is 2009, for God’s sake. Why does shame still work as a cultural and religious gimmick, a contrived deus ex machina to rescue the conservative view from an otherwise dismal collapse? That is, after all, the other use of religion — the one I don’t subscribe to at all — when you appeal to a judgmental and cruel God to shame people when your own efforts don’t seem to work well enough. The fact that LGBT people are not sufficiently ashamed of themselves in the sight of God is largely what propels the Religious Reich to such extremes.

But the God I know and obey is the one who calls us to compassion, to love, and to take risks in order that God’s realm may come to this earth. The spiritual lights by which I try to walk are those which reveal the power of love and grace, and call all people to come out of their fear and hiding, rather than to be shamed or run from God’s steadfast love and kindness. Perhaps the most spiritual thing any of us can do is to refuse to be shamed, and to have confidence that our integrity and our conscience are leading us to change society in a positive direction.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, "The Closet", Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Spirituality, LGBT Rights, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Lent can be fun. Or not.

February 26, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I overheard some dear parishioners last week chuckling about what they planned to “give up” for Lent. The list included succotash, sky-diving, etc. Very sacrificial. On the other extreme, one person is giving up all sweets except natural fruit. Sweet.

Is this what we ought to do in order to prepare to celebrate Easter (one popular explanation of why Lent is kept)? Does this imitate the Christ who went into the wilderness for forty days to wrestle with demons? (His own, or The demon?)

One Holy Week years ago in seminary, I tried to fast just from the close of Maundy Thursday’s evening service until Easter morning. It didn’t work. I cheated, because I also had a huge amount of work to do to be ready for the liturgical observances in the seminary chapel for the Triduum Sacrum.

Not my seminary community, but you can read about their Triduum Sacrum here.

I am more of the mind now to make light of giving up things. Especially if they are things to which I fully intend to return after the season of Lent. If Jesus struggled with the Devil in the wilderness for 40 days, it is clear that he came to find the spiritual strength to forego power and wealth, etc., forever. In token of that, giving up chocolate for Lent seems pointless and trivial.

(But for fun, you may want to check out this: “Dear Jesus, in Honor of Your Death, I’m Giving up Facebook…for 40 Days.”) This unidentified blogger is irreverent but insightful. Wish I knew who he is.

Here are some suggestions, if you want:

• Give up something you won’t go back to on Easter Sunday. Like try giving up some money for a worthy cause. (Your church can sure use it.) The cause or church you give it to in fact will use it, so there’s no chance you will get it back. Thus it’s a real sacrifice. Sacrifice is very different from postponed pleasure.
• Try taking something on for Lent instead of giving something up. Take on a discipline which requires effort or commitment from you. Examples: write letters to people you have meant to stay in touch with. Visit people who are in the hospital.  Pray five times daily like the Muslims. Read something on paper rather than on the screen. Plant more vegetables than you can ever eat with a clear plan to give away your surplus. Feed the hungry. Visit the homeless.  Eat your vegetables.
• Test out a self-discipline which is really hard, and actually resist bragging about it. Examples: promise yourself not to be cynical, resentful, or testy for 40 days. See how long it takes for friends and family to notice a change in your behavior.
• Write down your resolves and disciplines and seal them in an envelope dated for Easter Monday. Put in the bottom of your sock drawer. The point? To see if come April 13 you have completely forgotten the self-discipline you had selected now.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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The real gift of Christmas, oh my!

December 25, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I’m still trying to get out a decoration or two at this hour — why bother, except that we are expecting a couple of dinner guests, lonely hearts who had no other place to go. Ordinarily I wouldn’t take time to blog on Christmas Day.

But after a rich and rewarding Christmas Eve service last night, I am still thinking about those who have no other place to go or to be on this day, to give and receive some love.

Fortunately, we had enough gifts come in last night so that I will be able once again (our fifth year) to take our annual gift cards to the 24 young people at the Jeff Griffith Youth Center in Hollywood. This is a residential program for runaways, throw-aways, kids who are trying to get back up after a hopeless descent into drugs or other addictions, even street prostitution or crime. Their stories would break my hart, except for the tangible love and spectacular results that the Center gets in helping youth get the life skills and job applications it takes for them to be self-sufficient and self-respecting.

But there are so many others out there. The Jeff Griffith program only has 24 beds, and the number of homeless street kids in Hollywood and Los Angeles is fearful — by some estimates in the thousands.

And I am thinking about the tens of thousands of LGBT people (and those for whom the four initials do not describe their life experience and self-understanding) who may be alone at Christmas simply because they have no one who listens, no one who understands or wants to understand, their hearts and the psyches.

The trouble with Christmas as many people see it is as the ultimate family holiday — where people who fit nicely into conventional families get to celebrate their normalcy and belonging, to the exclusion of those who don’t fit or don’t even have family.

But the Christmas Gospels tell a story which doesn’t support this, and tugs at our hearts to be open to those who aren’t in “conventional” families. (Of course, what is conventional nowadays, when more than half of all marriages end in divorces?) The Christmas Gospel tales touch on all the things that “nice” people want to forget or avoid, especially at the holidays.

• Mary and Joseph weren’t married. Were it not for Joseph’s willingness to swallow his pride and to avoid his legal rights to have Mary severely punished, Jesus would have been illegitimate.
• There was no room for them. The night Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph were far from home and actually homeless.
• Where were their friends? Where was Mary’s mother, for Christ’s sake? The story implies the two of them had to deal with the birth themselves, in a dirty stable. Obviously, they were not economically prepared for this birth, the sudden travel, the lack of accommodations, the dirty conditions.
• Within a short time (weeks?) the “Holy Family” had to flee for their lives. They became political refugees in a foreign land, in order to avoid the genocidal and evil King Herod, who had all the infants of Bethlehem murdered out of jealousy of a potential rival.
• Most of all, they had to trust their own visions and dreams — their own discernment that God was working a great deed and a wonderful miracle through their faithfulness. That is the Christmas Gospel in a nutshell.

None of us knows 100% if God is working through us, either, unless we trust our own discernment. I haven’t been sure since launching this blog—primarily to reach out to LGBT Christians and others—that it is a god thing to do, or worth the effort. But then I checked the web statistics, and see there have been over 29,000 unique visits. That totally humbles me. It sort of worries me that I must personally probe more deeply, asa gay Christian, to discern what God is already doing that I should be a part of.But today God is doing what we understand so beautifully: God is coming to us again, and it is a gift of pure grace. If we can only discern this grace (Christ is a gift, life is a gift, we are God’s gifts to others), we can turn the world upside down. And we can find the home, family, warmth and welcome, that so many people do not have today. Quoting Mother Teresa—which I saw not in some pious book but painted on the wall of a nearby restaurant on Vermont just a block from our church—”Noone can help everybody, but everybody can help some one.”

We can be God’s gift to another person—to listen, to understand, to welcome, to uphold when lonely and confusing times in her or his life seem overwhelming. Forget the stuff and the gift wrap and the tinsel. Be the gift someone is longing to receive.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Hollywood, Faith, Living by Grace, Spirituality, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

Wrong choice, right choice and privilege.

December 20, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

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

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

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

“He has shown strength with his arm;

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

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.”

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

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

Two camps, two Gods?

November 15, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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

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