Author Archives: Obie Holmen

Wormwood and Gall: an odd book title

The Hollywood screenwriter who hopes to bring A Wretched Man to a movie screen near you, once complimented me on my imaginative, and sometimes provocative, book titles: A Wretched Man, Gonna Stick my Sword in the Golden Sand, Queer Clergy. I could add my current work in progress, Lady Liberty is a Bitch. So, where does Wormwood and Gall come from? For starters, Wormwood is a medicinal herb, and gall is bitter bile.

Of course, Paul’s own self-designation provides the title for A Wretched Man. “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Romans 7:24. Similarly, Wormwood and Gall derives from a Biblical reference: in this case, a lament for Jerusalem:

How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 1:1 & 3:19-22

This lament aptly suggests the novel’s theme. In the midst of despair as Roman legions besiege Jerusalem, and all seems lost, a narrator scribes ink strokes on a papyrus scroll to bolster courage and inspire hope in the beleaguered remnant of Jesus followers, four decades after his crucifixion. The novel characterizes Markos (Greek for “Mark”) as someone who wrestles with existential questions as to the meaning, or meaninglessness, of life.

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Is literary fiction a dinosaur?

First, a working definition of “literary fiction” from Wikipedia:

A concern with social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition.
A focus on “introspective, in-depth character studies” of “interesting, complex and developed” characters, whose “inner stories” drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit “emotional involvement” in the reader.
A slower pace than popular fiction, “literary fiction, by its nature, allows itself to dawdle, to linger on stray beauties even at the risk of losing its way”.
A concern with the style and complexity of the writing: “elegantly written, lyrical, and … layered”.
Unlike genre fiction, plot is not the central concern. The tone of literary fiction can be darker than genre fiction.

Literary fiction is often contrasted with genre fiction, commercial fiction, popular fiction, etc. Among other trends in the publishing industry, literary fiction is increasingly becoming a lost art, driven by cultural changes and market influences. Sadly, good books don’t sell. An overstatement, of course, and there are exceptions. Here in Minnesota, we have authors Louise Erdrich and Marlon James, winners of prestigious writing awards who also manage to sell a good number of books.

Publishing industry veteran Brooke Warner sums up the dilemma this way:

This week I had lunch with an agent friend who expressed her frustration that the best manuscripts she’s representing simply aren’t selling to traditional publishers … It used to be that traditional publishers were curators of what we read, and therefore, in a trickle-down way, of our cultural values. Literary books—which usually refers to books of substance, that are more intellectual, typically better written, and stylistically more sophisticated—were valued by mainstream culture. People actually strove to be well-read. There’s no question that our cultural values have shifted in the wake of twenty-four-hour news cycles, digital content, and the constancy of social media … While literary works win awards, and are the books that transcend time, they’re also becoming the least desirable projects for agents and editors.

Wormwood and Gall imagines the person, the community, and the circumstances behind “the Gospel according to Mark.” Although there are battle scenes, escapes, desert storms, love lost and regained, Wormwood aspires to be literary fiction. Whether it qualifies remains to be seen, but I hope it wrestles with big questions in a meaningful way.

I penned Wormwood a couple of years ago, and then I brought it to a Christian writer’s conference in Nashville where I met other writers who were churning out three and four Christian romance novels a year, and the publishers were lapping them up, so long as they followed a pat formula: a chaste woman meets a fallen man; she brings him to Christ; and they live happily ever after. But, I found no takers for Wormwood.

Now, I’m going to take Warner’s concluding advice, “Set measures of success that include but are not limited to sales, and seize your own publishing future by the reins.” Wormwood will soon be self-published as an eBook through Amazon and a paperback through Amazon’s Createspace, “print on demand” platform.

Support is appreciated. Buy it. Tell your friends about it and encourage them to buy their own copy. I always smile but wince inwardly when I hear, “I love your book. We’re passing it around at church.”

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

I have attended countless church conventions as voting member (delegate), visitor/observer, or as vendor hawking my religiously-themed books. In this latter context, I became acquainted with a group of Wisconsin Methodist queer activists. In fact, when I penned Queer Clergy, a chronicle of the history of queer Christians seeking a place at the table, I featured two of them. Steve Webster was a principal organizer of the first gathering of queer Methodists in 1974 that became the first advocacy group within the Methodist church under the name of Affirmation. Pastor Amy DeLong successfully defended herself against the gatekeepers in a nationally-followed ecclesiastical trial in 2011. Their advocacy continues with others from Wisconsin and elsewhere as “Love Prevails.”

Following the wrenching rejection of the more liberal and moderate versions of Methodist plans to deal with long-standing, onerous provisions of the Methodist Book of Discipline in favor of the “traditionalist” plan that not only reaffirmed the anti-LGBT policies of the UMC but actually called for rigorous enforcement of the bans on queer clergy and queer marriages, “Love Prevails” expressed their frustration:

“It seems that all United Methodists are scared and fearful this morning about what’s going to happen today. This is what it feels like to be an LGBTQI+ United Methodist. This is what it feels like every moment of our lives, since 1972 when the United Methodist Church created these horrible policies that are killing us and destroying our lives. We’ve been the crosshairs this whole time.”

And more, in effect suggesting that “thoughts and prayers” offer a false balm that masks inaction.

Love Prevails demands a bridge between prayer and embodied proclamation, an exchange between the internal disposition of relationship with the divine and action in the external world of oppression, including the church.

In my travels, I met UCC Pastor Loey Powell, and her story is also featured in my book. Here is her take on the UMC actions this week:

I post this with love and with a bit of hesitation but not in any way to minimize the powerful, heartfelt prayers and words which have been spoken and shared to support our UMC lgbtqia siblings and allies. I, too, have offered prayers. I find myself, however, wondering about all the words telling those of us who are queer that God loves us. There are some who undoubtedly need to hear this because of the ways in which religion has, in some traditions, assumed an all too powerful place in life, a religious impetus driven by human failings and need to control other humans. “In the name of God….”, etc.

What I need to say is that those of us who are lgbtqia are strong, self-loving, and not in need of the approval of the straight community to be who we are. What I keep coming back to are the multiple subcultures in which we thrive, play, create, organize and stay healthy, subcultures the straight community is simply not aware of. Women’s/lesbian music – and music companies. Drag shows and clubs. Safe spaces we know about. Mentors, role models, churches and synagogues where we thrive, organizations that fight for our civil rights. And on and on. Artists, singers, authors, academicians, and theologians of all ethnicities and races and genders have been celebrating and authenticating our lives. So when someone says what has happened in the UMC will cause harm to us….yes, part of that is true but more than hurt, we are pissed. And being pissed does not come from a place of feeling less than, it comes from a place of strength. We are strong. We already know in the deepest parts of our beings that we are loved by a Love far greater than what we can comprehend. And we will always be singing for our lives even when silence is all there is. We will sing.

In the dark of night, dawn seems distant. Much of the UMC is grieving right now, and we sit shiva with them. And sing.

Reviewers wanted

Advance reader copies (called a galley) of Wormwood and Gall: The Destruction of Jerusalem and the First Gospel will soon be available, before the book is released to the general public. Would you like to receive an early, free copy in exchange for a review? If so, send me an email obie dot holmen at gmail dot com.

By the way, here’s the cover graphic:

Wormwood and Gall to be released

Wormwood and Gall: The Destruction of Jerusalem and the First Gospel will soon be released. This sequel to A Wretched Man has been in the works for some time. The novel fictionalizes the scribe who penned a narrative to uplift the discouraged remnant of the Christian community as Jewish civil war raged and the Roman Legions destroyed the Jerusalem temple around 70 CE. Of course, the narrative comes down to us as “The Gospel According to Mark.”

A lament for Jerusalem inspires our title:

How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 1:1 & 3:19-22

On a late summer’s day during the reign of Emperor Vespasian, the world seemingly ended for the Hebrew people of Palestine; tens of thousands died as Roman legions torched Jerusalem and demolished the Holy Temple, the very dwelling place of the Lord God Almighty of Israel. As blood-swollen gutters ran red and the smoke of hellfire blackened the sky, where was God? Was there meaning to life? To death?

The cataclysmic destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE followed nearly a century of restless churning as the long-suffering Hebrews of Judea and Galilee agitated against Roman Imperial oppression. A Galilean, Jesus of Nazareth, was one of many executed as a perceived threat to Roman authority and the Romanizing sympathizers within Jewish society, including aristocratic priests appointed by authority of the Romans.

As the family and friends of Jesus struggled to keep his movement alive after his crucifixion around 30 CE, a Greek-speaking outsider appeared and dared to promote Jesus as a Hebrew messiah to a Gentile (non-Jewish) world. Paul the apostle spread Jesus’ good news across the provinces of the Roman Empire but not without encountering imperial hostility while simultaneously offending the sensibilities and traditions of the elders back in Jerusalem. Along with establishing a network of Gentile churches, Paul also wrote letters that became the first documents of Christendom, dating to the period 50-58 CE, and recognized as authoritative for the church by the mid-second century.

Three decades after the crucifixion of Jesus, Paul was executed in Rome by order of Emperor Nero, and so was Peter, foremost among the disciples of Jesus. Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem, Jesus’ own brother James (Ya’akov in Hebrew/Aramaic), who led the Jerusalem remnant of Jesus’ followers, was executed by order of the High Priest. Their violent deaths marked the passing of the first generation of the church.

This early church history provided the setting for the author’s earlier work entitled, A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the apostle. The present work, Wormwood and Gall, is the sequel. A Wretched Man concluded in the early 60s CE, and Wormwood and Gall begins in 66 CE.

By then, the bubbling cauldron of sectarian strife and anti-Roman sentiment was ready to boil over. Zealot revolutionaries took up arms against the vaunted Roman legions; initial successes chased the Romans from Palestine but unleashed internal power struggles and bloodletting of the priestly aristocracy that was believed to be sympathetic to Rome. When the vengeful Roman legions returned, they swept through the Galilee, leaving cities and villages ablaze and the countryside littered with rotting corpses on crosses. Refugees swelled Jerusalem like goats herded to the slaughter pens.

In the spring of 70 CE, the legions set upon Jerusalem and raised their siege engines and ramparts and launched their catapults. As the summer sun spiked hot, the city’s defenses weakened, and before autumn arrived, the temple fell on the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. Months after the killing and dying finally ceased, winter rains doused the smoldering ruins and washed the blood and ash from the single wall that remained standing from God’s magnificent marble temple.

The Great Roman-Jewish War was a watershed moment–no, more than that, an apocalypse in which the end of the world seemed near–not only for the Hebrew people, but also for emerging Christianity, and Wormwood and Gall remembers this oft-forgotten setting for an early, important chapter in the history of the church. Amid death and destruction, the dispirited remnant of the followers of Jesus, who had been awaiting the return of their crucified messiah for four decades, needed encouragement and words of hope. In response, an unknown person compiled the good news narrative that has come to be known as “the Gospel according to Mark,” the next document of Christendom following Paul’s letters. What is more, this first gospel served as template and principal source document used by the later compilers of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. John, the fourth canonical gospel, came later still from a different stream of tradition. Although a scholarly consensus agrees with this context and chronology for the development of the gospel tradition, not much more is known about the individuals behind the gospels.

Wormwood and Gall is a fictionalized account of the birth pangs of the early church against the background of revolution, civil war, and apocalyptic devastation. This novel’s characterization of the gospel’s compiler is entirely fictional as history remembers virtually nothing about the actual person behind the gospel compilation–not even his real name. The gospel document does not identify its author. The terminology “the Gospel according to Mark” dates to a 2nd century identification of an associate of Peter, but current scholarship doubts that association. However, for the sake of consistency and familiarity, the novel’s principal character shall be named Markos, the Greek form of “Mark”.

Scholars have long looked to the “setting in life” as the starting point in analyzing ancient Biblical manuscripts. Although Wormwood and Gall fictionalizes the characters behind the compilation of this gospel, the novel attempts to accurately recreate the events, chronology, and apocalyptic milieu of the Great Roman-Jewish War as the setting that influenced the formation of the first canonical gospel, which in turn influenced the later gospels.

Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand

Sgt Holmen and Sgt Heald 1970

Forty-five years ago this month, I was in transition. I was leaving a line company of infantry in Vietnam where we slept under the stars in the mud and amongst the critters for the life of a LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol) that would offer a barracks and hot meals but also hair-raising scouting missions into hostile territory. Even after this lengthy passage of time, I’m not sure of the wisdom of that decision, but it was what it was.

This spring, during a California book tour, I visited my best friend from those long-ago days, and we discovered that time has stood still for our relationship–we jumped straightaway into discussion of religion, politics, sex, and all the philosophical musings and questioning that we first experienced as young men on late nights in the barracks as the sun was setting on the tumultuous sixties.

G-pa Holmen and G-pa Heald 2014

A few years ago, I wrote several short stories based upon my army experience–some of you may have read the compilation entitled Prowl— and my recent visit with Gary inspired me to finish that project. Thus, I have edited and revised those stories, woven them together, and added some new material. All this is to say that I am pleased to announce that Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier’s Story has just been released.

The title comes from a stanza of the gospel traditional, Down by the Riverside, with its refrain–“Ain’t gonna study war no more.” I would like to think that there are echoes of earlier classics of war fiction. Like The Red Badge of Courage, Golden Sand recreates the fear of the soldier facing battle; like All Quiet on the Western Front, Golden Sand confronts the banality of war for the weary soldier.

Golden Sand is a bold, dark, and intense retelling of the Vietnam experience through the eyes of an army scout, the point man on a camouflaged and face-painted four-man LRRP team inserted by helicopter into remote and unfriendly territory to search for “Charlie,” the North Vietnamese soldiers who travelled the mountain gullies of the Ho Chi Minh trail. Golden Sand is less about patriotism and heroism than about the gut-wrenching reality for the Vietnam combat soldiers who are celebrated for simply doing their best to get by, not as superheroes, but as young men who often acted heroically but sometimes foolishly in circumstances not of their own choosing. One reviewer of an earlier short story commented, “The bond and the folly of immortal combat ring loud and clear from the page, and the story’s told with all the realism, language and pathos of experience.” The mood of Golden Sand is dark and somber rather than triumphalistic: a hauntingly honest and brutally true retelling rather than a glorification of the Vietnam experience.

Others commented after reading the short stories:

Gripping stories, unquestionably authentic, well written.

You read along on everyday books, then open one of these up and its like being smacked in the head. They just open up and tell it to you like it is. I love it.

The tension in the individual stories leaps off the page but the author manages an injection of black humour.

This story is a page-turner, the reader will not be left bored or yawning.

Characters and place come to life with the words, dialog is pitch perfect, and there are haunting comments I’ll remember long after the story’s done.

Click here if you’d like an autographed copy, or go to Amazon.com for either a print paperback or eBook. For $0.99, you can download an individual chapter on Amazon to check it out. Here’s the list of chapter titles:

Eleven Bravo

Humping

Here Comes Charlie

Cat Quiet

Whiskey in the Rain

Chasing After Wind

Elijah Fire

Donut Dollies

Down by the Riverside

Gay Games Symposium

Originally known as the Gay Olympics and dating to 1982, the Gay Games are held every four years (just like the Olympiad), and the 9th quadrennial event will run from August 9th through the 16th in the Cleveland/Akron area. The Gay Games will become international when the 2018 games move to Paris.

The events are participatory rather than competitive, and this year’s event is expected to draw 35,000 visitors, including 10,000 participants. The Games are open to all adults – regardless of sexual orientation or athletic ability. With more than 35 sports (from darts to triathlon, bowling to softball) and 2 cultural events (band and chorus), there’s something for everybody.

The United Church of Christ, with headquarters in Cleveland, is one of the sponsors, the first time a religious denomination has taken such a supportive stance. Rev. J. Bennett Guess, an executive in the UCC home office, wrote a guest column in Cleveland.com, and he stated,

[W]hen Cleveland, our hometown, was selected to host this summer’s international Gay Games, leaders within the United Church of Christ knew instantly that we had a responsibility, not only as a good corporate citizen, but also as a prominent national religious organization, to do all we could in support, because the lives of LGBT people and their families are at stake. That’s the Christian message of faith, equality and justice that we want to emanate from our visible and vocal endorsement. That’s why we are especially proud that, this August, Cleveland’s own United Church of Christ, headquartered on Prospect Avenue, will become the first religious denomination to be a major corporate sponsor of the Gay Games. The UCC’s Amistad Chapel, built as a shrine to faith-inspired justice advocacy, will host events and extravagantly welcome visitors from across the country and around the globe.

I am pleased and honored that the UCC has asked me to moderate a symposium during the games entitled Queer Christians: Celebrating the Past, Shaping the Future. Five local and national leaders of denominations that have made significant progress in becoming LGBT friendly will comprise the blue-ribbon symposium panel. The panelists include:

Rev. Don King is the pastor of Hope Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Cleveland Heights. Hope Lutheran is a Reconciling in Christ Congregation, and Pr. King has been active in the Lutheran LGBT advocacy organization called ReconcilingWorks.

Andy Lang is the executive director of the UCC Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Concerns. The Coalition administers the UCC Open and Affirming Program.

Rev. Tricia Dykers Koenig is the National Organizer for the Covenant Network of Presbyterians.

The Very Rev. Tracey Lind is the dean of Trinity Cathedral, the home of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio.

Dr. Kenneth W. Chalker is the pastor of University Circle United Methodist Church, a Reconciling Ministries congregation.

The symposium will be at the Amistad Chapel (700 Prospect Avenue) in downtown Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon, August 12th, commencing at 2:30 pm.

Email sent to my followers

The following is the text of an email sent today to a couple thousand friends and followers.

Whew!

It’s time to catch my breath. Since the release of Queer Clergy in February, I’ve been on the road … Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and California. I have been the guest of book clubs, adult forums, LGBT reconciling groups, the Pacific School of Religion, and I’ve been a guest preacher (always a treat for an old lawyer). I’ve made the rounds of Lutheran, Methodist, and UCC church conventions and a book fair.

To be sure, there have been disappointments, starting with the three month delay in the book release that caused the book to miss Christmas sales. I had to cancel a speaking engagement in Chicago because of Minnesota weather. As my plane approached San Francisco, we turned back to LA because of malfunctioning de-icing equipment on the wings! Thanks to my Bay Area host, Pam Byers, who did yeoman’s duty by whisking me from the airport to a scheduled speaking engagement when the replacement plane finally landed.

Through it all, we’ve managed to sell a few books, and Pilgrim Press tells me that the book is in its second printing (probably due to a small first print run). But, the biggest treat is the chance to visit old friends and make new ones. The conversations are always the best.

Thank you for supporting my ministry of writing and speaking. Thanks for purchasing one of my books–or maybe two or three! Please share your feedback–directly by email to me or by posting a review on Amazon.

Remember, I love to talk! Please consider an invitation to speak to your group–book club, adult forum, or even to your whole congregation during worship. Contact me by phone or email, and we’ll arrange something that will work for you.

Methodist Queer Clergy

As Christian gays and lesbians have wandered in the wilderness seeking to cross over into the promised land of full inclusion, what has been the goal, the signpost, the visible sign of the land of milk and honey for the queer pilgrim? I suggest two objectives that would mark journey’s end: marriage equality and queer clergy.

Before there was marriage equality, there were ceremonies of blessing, variously called “covenant services,” “commitment services,” “rites of blessing,” and “holy unions.” The United Church of Christ always traveled ahead of sister denominations on the journey toward full inclusion and did not experience the controversies visited upon the other ecumenical denominations. For the Episcopal Church and the ELCA, ceremonies of blessing were never particularly contentious compared to the raging battles over queer clergy that were the subject of ecclesiastical court cases and tense legislative wrangling at national conventions. Similarly, for the Presbyterians, LGBT ordination issues dominated, and the recent adoption of marriage equality was in many ways merely the logical corollary to the revision in ministry policies enacted several years earlier.

For these reasons, my book, Queer Clergy, focuses upon on the struggle for ordination:

For our purposes, full inclusion implies an attitude of welcome without precondition (all means all) and without limit (not just pew but pulpit). The LGBT community is not fully included, not fully welcomed, not fully respected, not fully accepted, not fully treated as children of God unless they can participate in all roles, including the offices of ordained ministry. Many of the pilgrims we will encounter seek to answer their call to ordination, but their quest is not merely self-actualization for they are standard bearers for an entire community. LGBT ordination has been the linchpin, the symbol, the visible sign of inclusivity that sounds” the message [that] goes out from here to the ears of other gays and lesbians who hear the call to ministry, but even more importantly, to the whole host, the entire LGBT community. Here is a church where you are welcome.”

Which brings us to the Methodists. Again, queer clergy issues came first. When gay pastor Gene Leggett protested his defrocking in 1972, the Methodist General Conference responded with the infamous incompatibility clause: “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” A dozen years later after Bishop Melvin Wheatley ordained an out lesbian, the 1984 General Conference responded with “self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.” The first Methodist ecclesiastical court case over LGBT issues was the 1988 defrocking trial of lesbian Rose Mary Denman.

It was not until 1996 when General Conference added a provision to the Social Principles that brought ceremonies of blessing to the fore. The 1996 General Conference enacted this provision: “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” Suddenly, the Methodist progressives were in retreat, and the gatekeepers advanced. Hopes for LGBT ordination had moved beyond the horizon as the ecclesiastical courts enforced the prohibition of covenant ceremonies. Pastor Jimmy Creech, a straight man, was defrocked in the late nineties for performing covenant ceremonies. Similarly, Pastor Greg Dell of Chicago, another straight man, was suspended for a year for blessing the relationship of a pair of his gay parishioners. For the Methodists, LGBT ordination was shoved to the rear burner.

In recent years, Methodist progressives are winning skirmishes over marriage equality. Well over a thousand clergy and bishops have promised to perform marriages when asked and countless are doing so–too many for the gatekeepers to attempt to prosecute. Even picking and choosing their battles has resulted in losses for the conservatives as penalties are minimal or non-existent. As I write this blogpost, news has flashed that Rev. Frank Schaefer has won his appeal, and his clergy credentials have been reinstated. Bishops and conferences are on public record that they will not bring ecclesiastical charges over gay and lesbian marriages.

If momentum over Methodist marriage equality has turned, could ordination issues again resurface?

Funny you should ask.

A lesbian ministry candidate recently sought ordination in Texas. Though Mary Ann Barclay’s candidacy was rejected by the Board of Ministry, it is not clear whether her sexual orientation was an issue. It was not discussed during her interview, and the Board’s public statement on May 14, 2014, stated, “The Board thanks Mary Ann for her time and we affirm her as a person of sacred worth, created by God. We have learned from her and we extend our respect for her work in ministry at her local church.” The reasons for rejection were based on the lack of qualifications quite apart from her sexual orientation–at least, that was the official rationale. Earlier Judicial Council actions had allowed the process to continue despite her sexual orientation.
At the session of the California-Nevada Annual Conference that convened last week, a resolution was passed indicating that the conference would not discriminate against LGBT candidates for ministry. More specifically, the adopted resolution indicated that “The California-Nevada Annual Conference believes that the mandates of inclusion … take precedence over the discriminatory mandates of exclusion.”
In Wisconsin, Rev. Amy DeLong, whose celebrated ecclesiastical trial in 2011 signaled shifting attitudes, has quietly been re-appointed to pastoral ministry. Although she acknowledges herself to be an “out, partnered lesbian” (as noted in her blurb on the back cover of my book), Bishop Hee-Soo Jung considered her eligible for appointment, and she was appointed to be pastor of River Falls UMC of River Falls, Wisconsin. At the just-concluded session of the Wisconsin Annual Conference, there was no public objection to her appointment although the bishop has received a private letter of objection.

The situation in the Methodist church is fluid. As gatekeepers retreat, they raise the specter of schism. Some church leaders are proposing a middle ground, a de jure local option in which individual annual conferences could choose to be fully LGBT inclusive. That may, indeed, be the direction of the church, but the local option already exists, de facto, as evidenced by the actions noted above. There is concern by some progressives that writing a local option into the Book of Discipline would create a segregated system in which some jurisdictions would remain discriminatory. Adoption of a local option policy may not be a stepping stone to full inclusion but an end-all that entrenches Jim Crow-like segregation for LGBT persons in pockets of the church. On the other hand, a local option policy would perhaps minimize a potential schism; if a schism were to occur, departing schismatics would undoubtedly retain their discriminatory ways. One way or the other, LGBT discrimination will likely remain in some corners of Methodism.

The Naming Project: Ten years of summer camps for queer kids and allies

Brad, Jay, and Ross at camp in their younger years

More than ten years ago, three gay Lutheran men with seminary backgrounds saw a need for “a space for youth to find community and know that they were safe and accepted for who they were.” Based upon their collaborative efforts, The Naming Project came into being and now celebrates its tenth anniversary. I blogged about The Naming Project four years ago, and more information is available on their website.

Rev. Brad Froslee is now the pastor of Calvary Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis, Jay Wiesner-Smith has returned to the secular world as a human resources person for Comcast in Philadelphia, and Ross Murray is now the Director of News for GLAAD and lives and works in NYC.

Today The Naming Project continues to provide safe, welcoming, and nurturing environments for g/l/b/t and allied youth. The dreams and work of Jay Wiesner, Ross Murray, and Brad Froslee alongside the work of a tremendous Advisory Board, congregations, and community leaders continues to unfold. There is a dream that every youth (whether g/l/b/t or allied) should know a place of acceptance and the abundant love of God. And throughout our lives we are reminded that it is an ongoing project to remember that we have been created and named as “a beloved child of God.”

On this tenth anniversary, the Naming Project is undertaking a major fundraising effort. Please help as you can, share with your friends, and point any potential camp attendees in their direction.