Author Archives: Obie Holmen

Canadian Lutherans preparing human sexuality social statement

Our Lutheran friends and family north of the border (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada—ELCIC) are boldly stepping forward with the process of creating a social statement on human sexuality. Of course, it was the ELCA sexuality statement and related changes to ministry policies enacted at the 2009 churchwide assembly (CWA09) that has roiled the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. The Canadian Lutherans are in the process of discernment and discussion with the goal of presenting the finished policy statement to their 2011 national assembly. For information on the process, check out the ELCIC website.

At this time, the first draft has been created consisting of eleven pages. Although the document deals with the broad range of human sexuality, certainly the passages relating to gays and lesbians will draw the greatest attention. Here is what this preliminary document, released April 15th, states:

This church acknowledges diversity of opinion on how to respond to the reality that people of orientations other than heterosexual are members of our neighbourhood and are faithful members of this church. Our church is affected by the biases of our heterosexually-privileged culture, and by our society’s call for more openness. Working from a rich and faithful practice of Word and Sacrament, members of this church have come to very different opinions on these matters.

Opportunities for ministry will be maximized by permitting congregations to engage in practices that more fully enable persons of various sexual orientations to live as members of the body of Christ and as co-workers in ministry. This would empower congregations to support families and the processes of healing, no matter how family is defined, and to help nurture disciples who “are responsible persons made in the image of God.”

This church commits itself to engaging the diverse faces of the world in which we live. This church recognizes that meeting diverse peoples and forming a truly inclusive community will be a journey of discovery that will include moments of discomfort and anxiety. This church celebrates the vital role that congregations play in helping diverse people of faith to meet and to form community.

God is still speaking, comma

Ten months ago at the General Synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC), the keynote address was offered by the Rev Otis Moss III. Here is a report of his stirring sermon from my blog post dated June 30, 2009:

God says I am the Alpha and the Omega, COMMA, who is, COMMA, and who was, COMMA, and who is to come, COMMA.

In a mind-jolting, three-minute recitation of the history of Christianity, Moss shouted a COMMA between each event, all the way through to the 1957 creation of the United Church of Christ and the presence of John Thomas as General Minister, who introduced him Friday night.

Don’t get angry with the haters, the Rush Limbaughs. Next time you hear them, just say, ‘COMMA!’ When you see Dick Cheney, just say, ‘COMMA!’ Remember, there used to be a period on Pennsylvania Avenue. At Calvary, death wanted to place a period, but Jesus got up on Sunday morning. ‘COMMA!’

The UCC has created a short video, entitled “The Language of God” which utilizes the theme of the “comma” to suggest that God still speaks. Enjoy.

The Language of God from United Church of Christ on Vimeo.

KYMN Radio Guest

Yesterday, April 16th, I was privileged to be Paula Granquist’s guest on her Art Zany radio program broadcast in the Northfield-Cannon River Valley area on KYMN radio. An audio feed is available for replay here. The whole show takes about thrity-six minutes, and I appear three or four minutes after the preliminaries.

Lutheran CORE, Wordalone, LCMC updates

This coming Sunday, April 18th, will mark the opening of the two day WordAlone Ministries annual convention (when did they change from “network” to “ministries”?). The convention will take place at Calvary Lutheran of Golden Valley, Minnesota, a church that aspires to the mega-church model. I attended Sunday worship there a year ago to hear author William Young speak about his experiences behind his best-seller, The Shack, and the array of musicians and singers using the best technologies of sight and sound was impressive. Apart from the opening and closing, there really wasn’t much of a service other than the interesting, if a bit rambling, presentation by the novelist (the umpteenth service that morning?)

The Wordalone website offers a video presentation promoting the annual convention and a pdf brochure. The brochure takes a few paragraphs to get to what it claims to be the main thing, the proclamation of Christ, but the first paragraph betrays their real main theme:

In August 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly votes crossed yet another line in calling into question orthodox understandings of God’s Word. These very troubling decisions have caused a great storm of confusion, misinformation and conflict for Lutherans. Literally thousands of Lutherans are trying to discern what their next steps will be in the church. If you find yourself struggling with these issues, this convention has been designed with you in mind.

In addition to links to a lot of old speeches and position papers which have previously been covered here, the WordAlone website also cites their new blog, Faithful Transition. Even the blog was a little stale with the latest entry nearly two weeks old promoting their book, We Still Believe (with the implication that the rest of us do not).

Not much new over at the LCMC website either. The website claims 170 new LCMC congregations since CWA09 through the end of March (remember, the ELCA consists of over 10,000 congregations). As I have noted previously, the “Friends of LCMC” Google group has been made private so I can’t report on the conversation that is going on there. I suspect my earlier reporting had something to do with the change from public to private.

The latest addition to the Lutheran CORE website is a lengthy position paper written by Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick, President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Seems CORE is only too happy to provide a forum for LCMS rants against the ELCA. While the news media and the blogosphere is filled with discussions about the rampant homophobia of Uganda and other African nations (kill the gays bill), the Lutheran CORE blog’s latest entry is entitled, African Lutherans are ‘extremely disturbed’ by ELCA, Swedish actions on homosexual behavior.

It appears that Lutheran CORE would have the ELCA follow LCMS orthodoxy and African attitudes regarding homosexuality. Hmmm.

Why Paul?

Next week, I will speak at the Northfield bookstore, Monkey See, Monkey Read with more public appearances to follow. I will read an early chapter from the novel, but first I will offer a few comments about my journey of writing, which I publish here.

The most frequent question I hear is “Why Paul? Why did you choose to write about Paul?”

Why bother with a man nearly 2000 years dead with a reputation as an anti-Semite, apologist for slavery, misogynist, and a gay-bashing homophobe? Paul was not one of Jesus’ disciples; in fact, he never met the man from Nazareth. The early followers of Jesus, including his own family, probably regarded the man from Tarsus as an outsider, a usurper, a pretend Pharisee, a “Hellenist”–Hebrew by blood but Greek by language and culture: a man on the margins. For awhile, the working title of the novel was The Jewish Gentile.

But wait, was this not also the man who wrote of Christian egalitarianism, of boundary breaking inclusivity, and whose good news of a gracious God inspired Augustine in the fourth century, Luther in the sixteenth, Barth a mere century ago, and whose message of love unconditional continues to stir our hearts? “Why Paul?” Because he is a puzzling enigma, that’s part of my answer.

Jesus himself authored no writings. Nor did any of those who followed him in the Galilee or during his fateful pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It fell to Paul the outsider, who first opposed the movement, to become its reporter, memorialist, essayist, interpreter, and promoter. At one time, over half the books of the New Testament were attributed to his hand, and this is also part of my answer: “Why Paul?”–because he is the most important man, outside of Jesus of Nazareth, in Christian history. For good or ill, even the secularist must acknowledge his profound influence on western civilization’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

An enigma who shaped history. Most fiction authors must create colorful characters. This novel’s protagonist comes ready-made with knotty complications and buffeted by conflict from all sides. It has been my task to allow the complex, critical, controversial man from Tarsus to bloom before the reader’s eyes.

But, there’s more to it. There are more personal reasons for choosing Paul.

I have heard accomplished authors explain, “I write because I read.” If one relishes the imagining that is essential to entering the dream world of the novelist, it is a natural development to create one’s own captivating characters, alluring scenes and settings, an alternate reality that speaks to one’s inner truths–fictive and mythical though they may be. Thus, for many writers, the statement, “I write because I read” is an appropriate and accurate answer.

But, it is not my answer.

Mid-twentieth century American novelist Thomas Wolfe said, “The artist is religious man.” I write because I wonder. That’s my answer. I wonder about the “higher power” of the twelfth step group, and I wonder why I have spent more than half my three score years, and counting, as a clean and sober man. “There but for the grace of God, go I,” it is said, and I wonder. I wonder about the mysterious God revealed to Job in the whirlwind, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” With William James, I wonder about the nature of religious experience; what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus? I wonder about the God revealed in the words of Holy Writ. What truths are unveiled there, but also what untruths? As citizens of the twenty-first century, how are we to interpret of the writings of Paul, a man with keen insight into a gracious God, but who also condoned slavery and counseled women to be silent in church? And then there is our issue, a twenty-first century issue that roils our pews and our politics, the issue of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters. How can we make sense of the harsh “clobber passages” penned by Paul?

As with all novelists, I have created a fictive world of the imagination to which I invite my readers. Trudge the dusty alleyways of Jerusalem as James, Jesus’ own brother and the leader of the Jewish Jesus movement, escorts Paul, the young upstart who claimed a vision on the road to Damascus. Pick sides a dozen years later when Paul and James debate circumcision and the traditional requirements of Torah before the assembly of apostles. Wander the ancient Roman highways with the lonely but defiant apostle to the Gentiles, looking ahead toward Rome and back over a nervous shoulder toward suspicious Jerusalem. The novel will introduce you to many whose names you know, lifted from the pages of Scripture. Sail across the Great Sea as the apostle returns after completing his missionary journeys for a final confrontation with James, his nemesis. Will the now-aged leaders, and their Jewish and Gentile followers, finally reconcile?

Because I wonder, I write. And so, as I invite you to imagine yourself into Paul’s journey, I am also inviting all to tag along on my journey too. Come, wonder with me.

Catholic patriarchs counterattack

The papacy is under siege as allegations mount of Benedict’s complicity in the priestly sexual abuse coverups of prior decades. Should we be surprised at the circle-the-wagons response of the patriarchy? It is merely a conspiracy of the liberal press, says one spokesman. Blame the Jews, says another. And now the Vatican’s number two, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, scapegoats the gays:

“there is a relation between homosexuality and pedophilia. That is true,” said Bertone. “That is the problem.”

The “deputy pope” missed the irony that his comments made in Santiago, Chile overlooked the notorious local case of a priest preying upon girls and young women, impregnating one. Irish blogger, Colm O’Gorman, blasts Bertone:

But to suggest that homosexuality is to blame for paedophilia is deceitful and vile. To blame an already marginalised section of society for the crimes of child rapists is a contemptible act which further reinforces homophobia and hatred and grants permission to bigotry and violence.

It is also a blatant deceit. It is true that the majority of victims of abusing priests are male children and teenagers. But by no means are all. And even so, we don’t describe sexual offenders who target girl children as heterosexual offenders, we describe them as paedophiles. The gender of the victim does not make the abuse either heterosexual or homosexual and many abusers target children of both sexes.

It is time to dust off an earlier post from this blog dated November 20th, 2009 entitled NEWS FLASH: GALILEO ARRESTED which reported the preliminary findings of the study commissioned by the American Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops to investigate the causes of priestly sexual abuse, which suggested “the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse. At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now.”

I reprint below the entire post which first appeared here late last fall.

Copernicus expressed the view that the earth circled around the sun and not vice versa. The 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei agreed:

Galileo’s championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed (at least outwardly) to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. Although he was cleared of any offence at that time, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as “false and contrary to Scripture” in February 1616,and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

When the Catholic Church of the twentieth century experienced a crisis of priest sexual predation, homosexuals were scapegoated. According to Thomas C Fox, editor of National Catholic Reporter:

It has been so unfair. Elements in our Catholic community have repeatedly placed the blame of the sex abuse scandal that has rocked our church at the feet of a gay clergy.

It has been a case of guilty until proven innocent.

But wait, a new scientific study commissioned by US Catholic Bishops and conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice researchers reports a contrary view:

The study, which is due to be completed next year, was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after the scandal overtook the U.S. church in 2002.

In a presentation to the bishops on Tuesday, Margaret Smith of John Jay said: “What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse. At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now.”

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of the gay Catholic group DignityUSA, called the report “very welcome news for gay people, gay priests, and our families and friends.”

She said the John Jay report confirms other studies in concluding that sexual orientation is not connected to pedophilia or other sex crimes. “We hope that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church will finally accept this finding, since it has been borne out through their own study,” Duddy-Burke said.

Surely, the bishops will accept this scientific finding. Surely, the church will promptly and expeditiously exonerate Galileo. Or not, as progressive Catholic blogger Terence Weldon suggests:

The fact that this report confirms what the rest of the world knows [i.e., that homosexuality is not a factor in the cases of abusive priests], is welcome, but not earth-shattering. Don’t hold your breath for the bishops to announce that they accept the report, or will act on this finding, or even for them to release the full report when it has been concluded.

The real causes of the problem lie within the church’s own structures, as numerous observers have noted: the appalling monopoly and abuse of power, compulsory clerical celibacy, and a deeply flawed, seminary based training system that is a hangover from the Middle Ages, leaving priests with minimal understanding of human sexuality, their own or anyone else’s.(Reports elsewhere state that this same interim John Jay report concludes that priests with the better training in human sexuality were the least likely to offend).

The naysayers within the hierarchy were quick to dismiss the scientific report, according to Beliefnet News:

“I wouldn’t put a lot of credence in it,” said Archbishop John Nienstedt of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

After the abuse crisis rocked the church in 2002, Nienstedt helped lead a Vatican investigation of U.S. seminaries aimed at rooting out homosexuality, and served on a committee that drew up new sex abuse prevention policies for U.S. dioceses. He has also written that homosexual orientation is the result of childhood trauma.

And blogger Mark Silk adds:

[Nienstedt promoted] the idea being that if you got rid of the gays, the abuse would stop. Not that Nienstedt doesn’t have a fall-back position; to wit: “a priest has to be accessible to all his people, and someone with a strong same-sex attraction would not be good to have in the pastoral care of people.” As opposed to a priest with a strong opposite-sex attraction?

The bishops’ problem with the John Jay study goes beyond Nienstedt’s species of homophobia, however. If, as the study suggests, sexual abuse by priests is the result of not homosexual orientation but the availability of certain types of people (i.e. altar boys), then someone might be led to the conclusion that clerical celibacy is a big part of the problem. The horror, the horror!

ELCA Council approves gay-friendly ministry policies

According to the polity of the ELCA, ultimate legislative authority resides with the voting members to the Church Wide assembly that meets once every two years. The Church Council acts as the penultimate legislative authority, acting on necessary matters that arise between the biennial Church Wide Assemblies and formulating specific policies in response to general directives emanating from the Church Wide assemblies. And so it was with the much ballyhooed pro-LGBT resolutions at CWA09 that have now been formulated into actual policy language by action of the Church Council over the weekend.

Despite protesting letters from the president of the Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the president of the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops that encouraged the Council to deviate from the decisions of CWA09, the ELCA Conference of Bishops had earlier taken a significant step toward ministry policy revisions by issuing draft documents in October 2009 (the ELCA Conference of Bishops is advisory). Those draft documents formed the core of the revised ministry policies adopted by the Church Council on April 10th. According to the office of the ELCA Secretary, copies of the actual revised ministry policies will be available online by the end of April.

I reprint the full text of the ELCA press release, followed by the response of Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA), the LGBT advocacy group.

CHICAGO (ELCA) — The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted a series of historic and sweeping revisions to ministry policy documents April 10, the result of months of extensive writing, comment and review by hundreds of leaders and members following the 2009 Churchwide Assembly.
      The Church Council is the ELCA’s board of directors and serves as the interim legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. The council is meeting here April 9-12. The next churchwide assembly is in Orlando, Fla., in August 2011.
      The changes were called for by the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, which directed that policy documents be revised to make it possible for eligible Lutherans in committed, publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA clergy and professional lay leaders. The assembly directed that revised policies recognize the convictions of those who believe the ELCA should not allow such service. The assembly also adopted a social statement on human sexuality.
       The council adopted revisions to two documents that spell out the church’s behavioral expectations of ELCA professional leaders — “Vision and Expectations: Ordained Ministers in the ELCA” and “Vision and Expectations: Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses and Diaconal Ministers in the ELCA.” The council also adopted revisions to a document that specifies grounds for discipline of professional leaders, “Definitions and Guidelines for Discipline,” and it adopted revisions to the “ELCA Candidacy Manual,” used by regional committees to help guide candidates seeking to become professional leaders in the ELCA.
      Council members asked few questions and commented briefly on each proposed document before approving them. Only minor editorial changes were proposed and adopted by the council. Each revised document was adopted overwhelmingly.
      The Rev. Keith A. Hunsinger, council member, Oak Harbor, Ohio, who said he does not agree with the sexuality decisions made in August 2009, announced April 11 that he had abstained on each vote on the documents. He explained that he didn’t believe that the first drafts of the documents released last fall embodied the full range of decisions made at the 2009 assembly. “My conscience won’t allow me to vote for any of these documents, but as a member of the board of directors, I can’t vote against the will of the churchwide assembly,” he told the ELCA News Service.
      However, Hunsinger told the council that the final forms of each document reflected “the breadth and depth” of the decisions, including the fact that “we agreed to live under a big tent,” and that multiple voices would be heard. “Because those documents now said that, I feel my ideas and I are still welcome in the ELCA,” he said.
      The revised policies are effective immediately, said David D. Swartling, ELCA secretary. Final revised text of each document will be posted online at http://www.ELCA.org/ministrypolicies by the end of April, he said.
     Following council approval of the policies, the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, expressed his appreciation to many, including the council and the Conference of Bishops for leading the revision process over the past few months. He also thanked the Rev. Stanley N. Olson, executive director, ELCA Vocation and Education, the lead staff person working with church leaders and various constituencies through the revision process.
     Olson thanked many others who have worked for changes in ministry policies through more than two decades of effort. “This is the work of many — hundreds, thousands of people who have reflected, thought and prayed. We are still a church that is tense over this, but we are Easter people, and I think we have done an Easter thing today,” he told the council.
     Prior to voting, the Rev. A. Donald Main, Lancaster, Pa., chair of the ELCA Committee on Appeals, which led the effort to revise Definitions and Guidelines for Discipline, told the council that the document had not been revised since 1993. New sections address matters such as integrity, and substance abuse and addiction, he said.
     The Committee on Appeals also “considered each and every word, constantly testing different language so as to be clear and concise as possible, and remain faithful to our charge and to the social statement and ministry policies recommended and adopted by our assembly,” Main added.
     The two Vision and Expectations documents and the Candidacy Manual are “tools in the service of God’s mission through the ELCA, primarily to assist us in that work of calling forth and supporting faithful, wise and courageous leaders,” Olson said. The Vision and Expectations documents were most recently revised in the early 1990s, and the Candidacy Manual was revised in the past few years, he said.
     “We have not attempted to spell out every possible situation and to give definitive direction for every possible situation,” he told the council. “There are broad principles in these documents, and there are guidelines with some details.” Olson added the documents call for the ELCA to trust established processes and its leaders who have responsibility for oversight and decision-making.
     “Our next step is to orient our staff and the candidacy committees,” Olson said. A memo summarizing key policy revisions will be sent this week to help guide synod bishops, staff working with candidates for professional leadership, candidacy committee chairs, seminary presidents and selected staff, and applicants and candidates.
     Olson added that the ELCA Vocation and Education program unit, the ELCA Office of the Secretary and others are responsible for monitoring the new policies, and suggesting further revisions and guidelines if necessary.

And here is the text of the LCNA response:

This weekend, the ELCA Church Council meeting in Chicago moved the decision of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly into policy by replacing the language in church documents that excluded ministers in committed same-gender relationships with a policy that allows congregations and organizations to call a fully-qualified minister in a committed, same-gender relationship. And, the Council also approved the way to reinstate ministers who have been removed from the roster because of the previous policy and to receive ELM pastors onto the roster of the ELCA. The Council also made the benefits of the ELCA pension plan available to rostered ministers and employees in committed, same-gender relationships.

There were no votes on the Council opposing the adoption of the revised documents, the pension plan inclusion, and the rite of reception for those Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries pastors who were ordained “extra ordinem.”

The ELCA has reached two milestones long sought by the movement for full inclusion. First, it has eliminated all prohibitions against qualified people in a same-gender relationship serving on the ELCA”s roster of ministers. Second, and more importantly, it created a pathway that frees the gifts of ELCA members to pursue ministry and mission with new vigor. Each of these steps is crucial for both our continued healing and our bold walk into a more just future.

These actions are important because they are a major milestone along the journey of full inclusion. We have a policy that recognizes the gifts of its members to spread the good news of God in Christ Jesus and that will allow the return of those who have been removed or alienated from rostered leadership solely on the basis of the old policy.

Bishop Hanson said that one of the results of the Council”s actions would be new life in the church through new leaders. Bishop Hanson also thanked the Church Council for shepherding this task in most thoughtful way. He lifted the Conference of Bishops” participation up as key to the process.

As we reflected on the great amount work and effort it took , we observed a paradox. On one hand, in order to follow God”s call for justice, the former policy forced us, as a community, to restrict how we could use our gifts. Many of us spent considerable time and effort working to make the ELCA a more inclusive church. However, even within a relatively narrow focus on the policy concerning LGBT people”s role within the church, we have lifted up crucial questions for the church: What is the relationship of sexuality to salvation in Christ? What is the diversity in God”s wondrous creation? What is sinful? How do Lutherans read and interpret scripture? Who continues to face barriers to ministry and mission? How do we journey together faithfully, in spite of so many differences? What some people have dismissed as a narrow issue has both opened up and profoundly deepened our moral and theological life. God indeed works in mysterious ways.

Although we are closer to full-participation than we ever thought that we would be, there is still further to go. The ELCA continues to be heavily involved in a myriad of issues as it reaches out in Christ”s name and mission. We pray that our well-earned celebration as a community of reconciliation will renew us, will energize us to go yet more miles with even more joy and less fear, together with the whole people of God, as we follow Christ in love, healing, and abundant life.

Since the August decision to change policy, we have heard from many of you that it feels as though celebration is “stuck in our throats.” Verily, the time has come to clear our throats. Currently, censures are being lifted from congregations, for which we can celebrate. Soon, we will start to see pastors received and reinstated across the whole church. By the time we gather together in Minneapolis at Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters, we will be ready to shout out in holy joy! We hope that you can join us in July to add your voice to the chorus of people singing praise and thanksgiving to God.

Finally, there are acknowledgements to make. There are so many people who have worked to overturn the policy of the ELCA for so long. Among them, we offer thanks to God for the past and present service of the Goodsoil Legislative Team, the Regional Coordinators, Board, and staff of LC/NA, countless volunteers in congregations and synods, and the working group of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Thanks be to God!

Northfield daughter, author Siri Hustvedt speaks

On a Friday evening a week ago, author Siri Hustvedt addressed a packed upper floor of the Northfield Public Libary. Now resident in Brooklyn but born and raised in Northfield, Hustvedt said that all her writings contain memories of her Northfield childhood. Indeed, much of her 45 minute address related to her philosophy of writing in which memory and imagination are intertwined. For Hustvedt, the creative process of writing fiction is akin to child play and fantasizing, the alteration of reality by imagination, calling up images and glimpses of the past to realize the author’s inner truth. She disagreed with the view that fiction writers are “professional liars” because characters are true to the author.

Northfield is a retirement community with a heavy component of former professionals—hardly surprising since the two excellent private liberal arts colleges here are significant attractions(Carleton and St. Olaf). Northfield supposedly has the highest per capita rate of persons with doctoral degrees of any city in the nation. This environment has allowed an organization called the Elder Collegium to thrive. Their motto is “a questing mind never retires.” Retired professors offer interesting courses for their fellow retirees, with a decided tilt toward art and literature. I know one favorite class has been “the history and chemistry of chocolate” offered by a retired Carleton chemistry professor.

I mention the Elder Collegium because the works of Siri Hustvedt are being featured in a course on Minnesota writers, and the Collegium website announces that she will be present as a speaker for one session of the class offered by my friend, Jim Holden.

I have a crush on Rachel Maddow

For those who don’t know, Rachel Maddow is the host of her own show on MSNBC on weeknights. She is the freshest voice on network news. According to her description from her website,

Rachel has a doctorate in political science (she was a Rhodes Scholar) and a background in HIV/AIDS activism and prison reform. She shakes a mean cocktail, drives a bright red pickup, hates Coldplay, loves arguing with conservatives, spends a lot of money on AMTRAK tickets, and dresses like a first-grader.

She could also have been a lawyer. As a former trial lawyer myself, I envy her skills at cross examination evidenced in the following interview (aka smackdown) of a reparative therapy advocate and pseudo-psychologist named Richard Cohen. I was kidding about that crush part since she’s gay–I’m straight–and we’re both in happy relationships.

Enjoy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Pastor Br’er Rabbit wants to dual roster with LCMC: should the ELCA toss him into the briar patch?

LCMC Pastor Tony Stoutenburg, who has been a frequent commenter here at times, sent me an email link to a press release from the SW California Synod of the ELCA.

The Southwest California Synod Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting at the Synod offices in Glendale on March 20, 2010, voted to instruct Bishop Dean Nelson to call together the Synod Consultation Committee to address whether or not there is cause for disciplinary action against Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Torrance, and Christ Lutheran Church, Santa Clarita, and the clergy of both congregations. The Consultation Committee is made up of ordained and lay persons elected by the Synod Assembly.

The Synod Council took this action upon learning that both congregations had recently voted to affiliate with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), while retaining their membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The ELCA has recognized LCMC as a separate Lutheran church body since 2003 but has no official relationship with the denomination. For clergy or congregations to attempt to belong simultaneously to different denominations is precluded by the constitution of the ELCA.

What is the ELCA to do with congregations or pastors that attempt to be dual rostered with both the ELCA and LCMC? While dual rostering is permitted with denominations in full communion with the ELCA (Episcopal, UCC, PCUSA, RCA, Moravian, & UMC), the ELCA has no such relationship with LCMC. Clearly, the present attempt to dual roster with the LCMC violates the ELCA constitution, but the question persists—what is the appropriate ELCA response?

A follower of this blog from Florida reported in a private email that she heard LCMC rabble rousers openly suggesting to congregations that were unable to mount the 2/3 necessary majority to sever ties with the ELCA, that dual rostering was a convenient shortcut. “Dual roster then wait for the ELCA to kick you out,” was the gist of the message. Similar sentiments were expressed on the Friends of the LCMC Google group (which is now private and hidden from prying eyes like mine) based on the example of a small group of Pennsylvania congregations that were not LCMC but part of their own tiny organization.

To the LCMC, this process serves the twin purposes of accomplishing a departure from the ELCA without following constitutional procedures and makes the ELCA out to be the “heavy” and the poor LCMC church that is expelled the martyr. Is expulsion a classic Br’er Rabbit briar patch response? Is a reprimand or censure the better response in the case of congregations? What is an appropriate punitive response for the pastors, who often are the real culpable party anyway? Removal from the ELCA roster?