Category Archives: Religious News

In celebration of St. Martin’s Table

In 1984, a new restaurant opened in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, between the west bank campus of the University of Minnesota and Augsburg, a private liberal arts college of the ELCA. Restaurants come and go, and this new start was hardly noteworthy except that the goal was not to make money but to give it away, and they have succeeded beyond the founder’s wildest imagination. By the time that St. Martin’s Table serves its final customers this December, 26 years after it first offered delicious, homemade vegetarian fare, it will have gifted over $700,000 to alleviate hunger locally and globally.

St. Martin’s Table is an outreach ministry of the Community of St. Martin. It is a bookstore and restaurant open to the general public. St. Martin’s Table strives to be a center for peacemaking and justice seeking. This focus springs from the Community’s faith, centered in the life and teachings of Jesus, and so we seek to provide hospitality to all people in their journeys toward peace, justice and wholeness.

The existence of St. Martin’s Table was one of those things that lay somewhere in the recesses of my mind. I knew about it, but I didn’t really know about it. Thus, when I stopped in for lunch for the first time a month or so ago, my response was “why haven’t I been here before” and “I can’t wait to come back.” The homemade gazpacho and generous wedge of carrot cake were part of the attraction, but it was much more than that.

The food served is a celebration of God’s gifts to us. To that end, St. Martin’s Table serves vegetarian meals with and emphasis on locally grown and organic food. Volunteer servers not only contribute their time, but also contribute their tips to programs that alleviate hunger in the global community.

Conversation takes place not only around the table at noon, but also during programs centered on peacemaking, justice issues and community-building through the arts. St. Martin’s Table is also available for study, worship, fellowship and special events for the wider community.

St. Martin’s Table strives to be fiscally sound and to be a good steward of all resources, especially as they relate to the long-term vitality of the Table. As an alternative business, it is our priority to model a more just way to live and have that reflected in the relationships we cultivate. The Table strives to be a place of peace where creative visions for a world of justice are welcomed and nurtured.

And who is St. Martin, the namesake of the community and the restaurant/bookstore?

The restaurant/bookstore, like the ecumenical community, was named for five Martins who have been models of change, truth and resistance in the Christian faith:

Martin Luther, the 16th century reformer who taught the theology of the cross

Martin Luther King, Jr., for his leadership in nonviolent protest to end racism and injustice

Martin of Tours, a fourth century Roman soldier turned pacifist

Martin de Porres, a Spanish-Indian healer who served the poor of Peru in the 1600s

Martin Niemoeller, a German pastor imprisoned for his nonviolent resistance to the Nazis during World War II

On August 25th, I received an email that announced that The Table would serve its last meal this coming December.

It is with thankfulness for all of the hospitality that has been shown here for 26 years, and also with great sadness that we announce that St. Martin’s Table will be closing in December, 2010.

Bookstore manager Kathleen Olsen encouraged people to continue to support The Table between now and Christmas. “We hope that our loyal clientele, in addition to those who have never been to The Table, will join us in the upcoming months for good food, good books, and good conversation. Help us celebrate a great 26 years!”

Drop in for lunch or leave a greeting on the Facebook page ( which lists the Thursday menu as “Soups: Creamy Curry Split Pea and Chilled Cucumber Yogurt followed by Cashew Carrot (cold). Spreads: Swiss Dill, Tofuna and Bunny Luv”).

A Minnesota report on the ELCA one year later

Since Lutheranism was born and raised in northern Europe, it is not surprising that Minnesota, settled largely by Scandinavian and German immigrants over a century ago, is truly God’s country for many North American Lutherans. Roughly ten percent of all ELCA Lutherans in the US reside in Minnesota, home to six of sixty five regional synods and 1,143 congregations out of 10,400 nationwide.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune (Strib) is the leading Minnesota newspaper, and its Sunday, August 22, edition contained an excellent article reporting on the status of the ELCA one year after the momentous gay friendly resolutions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly (CWA09)—held in Minneapolis, of course.

This blog has long suggested that the defections from the ELCA are best characterized as a trickle but not a torrent. Strib reporter Jim Spencer concurs. The article is entitled “Lutherans bowed but unbroken”, and that is an apt summary of the article that suggests:

Disappointed opponents predicted a fracture that would cause 1,000 congregations to withdraw. A year later, the ELCA remains largely intact. “That 1,000-congregation figure has proven to be wishful thinking on the part of those who wanted it to happen,” said Larry Wohlrabe, Bishop of Minnesota’s rural Northwestern Synod.

Penny Edgell, a University of Minnesota sociologist who studies American religion, said fears of the ELCA collapsing under the weight of gay clergy decision were “overstated.”

But, as Pastor Jeff from Arizona who frequently comments here will remind us, this past year has not been without pain. Many congregations remaining ELCA are roiled with internal conflict. Financial contributions are way down although most observers would agree that has more to do with the Great Recession than ELCA politics. Declining membership continues, but that has been true for decades, and Professor Edgell notes,

“What’s happening to American Christian churches doesn’t have much to do with these hot-button issues,” Edgell said. “It has to do with demographics. Younger generations don’t view these institutions the same way their parents did.”

Cheerleaders for the demise of the ELCA will not go away quietly. Lutheran CORE, the primary ELCA irritant, will audaciously roll out its new denomination this weekend, the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), trumpeted as “a reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism.” Spencer’s Strib article suggests:

While fewer than 10 congregations have committed to joining NALC, organizers say hundreds eventually will.

Perhaps.

Seven California Pastors On September 18th, Minnesota will celebrate a Rite of Reconciliation that will formally reinstate Pastor Anita Hill of St Paul and others onto the ELCA roster of ordained clergy. A similar ceremony welcomed seven California LGBTQ pastors onto the ELCA roster earlier this summer. Pastor Hill was mentioned in the Strib article:

“I feel a sense of loss for those who felt they had to leave because I am welcome,” said Anita Hill, a lesbian who is a pastor at St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul. Hill defied her church’s ban on gay clergy for eight years as her congregation endured sanctions and battled for change. “I never thought the inclusion of some required others to depart,” she said.

How many church bulletins proclaim “All are welcome”? And mean it? Enjoy this UCC video that is critical of congregations that merely give lip service to full welcome.

What do you know for sure?

Self doubt is the blossom of wisdom, self assurance its rot. Socrates purportedly said the only true wisdom is that one knows nothing. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity saith the teacher. Jeremiah admonished the haughty, “do not let the wise boast in their wisdom.” Paul added, “when I am weak, then I am strong.” “Let go and let God” replies the 12th stepper.

I happened on the blog today of Kathy Baldock that husked the kernel this way:

My know-it-all attitude was already being confronted by having my Christian marriage ending over fidelity+ issues and I was open to considering that maybe I did not have all the answers, maybe I did not understand as much as I thought. I was in that scary place of failure and being unsure. I was ripe for change.

To stretch in any area of growth and to shed the comfort of assurance is unsettling and intimidating. My comfort was broken just enough to allow challenge to some of my core beliefs about several things. So, for me, it was crisis that opened me more to God’s Spirit. My own voice and opinions were becoming less loud in me; I was hurt and willing to listen. This was a pivotal point in my own faith walk. I moved out of the known and into the scary.

Kathy, a straight ally who blogs at Canyonwalker Connections, comes from an Evangelical background, and she confesses that she once bashed the gay community, “I felt compelled to tell ‘the truth in love’ and did so quite a few times.” [a favorite catch-phrase of self assured gay bashers]

But, in her own vulnerability, as she encountered ambiguity in her own life, her ingrained assumptions proved empty when she stumbled upon another hurting human on the dusty hiking paths of the nearby canyons. After more than a year of a developing trust, her friend confided,

“I am the absolute lowest on the totem pole. I am a Native American. I am a woman, and I am a lesbian. Not even God loves me.

Perhaps a self-assured person would not have heard the pain in this lament, but Kathy’s own wounds allowed her to listen and to grow:

I was growing in my own relationship with God; it was less about rules and more about grace and mercy. Grace and mercy on me from Him. It flowed outward to those around me. I had to understand it before I could extend it. I often say, you cannot export what you do not have. I can now see that the way believers treat the needy, the less powerful and those on the edge says more about their own relationship with God than just about any other indicator. When I see grace come out of a person, that is what is in their reservoir. When I see anger and intolerance come out, then unresolved pain is in their reservoir. I was personally going through massive, miraculous, marvelous healing and grace was filling the newly available places in me. Grace was filling my reservoirs and it was coming out.

“Not even God loves me,” said the woman hiking the canyons.

Kathy knew scripture; she knew the oft-quoted clobber passages, but their message of condemnation seemed dry as the canyon trail. It was time for some good news. You are “fearfully and wonderfully made”, sang the Psalmist. To her hurting friend, Kathy became a wounded healer. To the gay and lesbian community, Kathy became a grace-filled, evangelist of good news. To the “hate the sin but love the sinner” church community, Kathy issued a challenge.

I made up my own story about gay and trans people according to my truth about them. Are you doing that? When you humbly get outside your own understanding and story and engage another person that is nothing like you, it can be challenging and scary. What if you are wrong about them?

Equality for the GLBT community is coming and we, as Christians, both straight and GLBT, have a great opportunity in this to grow in grace and love as we challenge our judgments and fear. We can either do this the world-way of yelling and polarizing or the Jesus-way of engaging with hospitality. Up until now, the church has been very guilty of conducting ourselves in the world-way. We are not looking very Jesus-like to those outside the church.

What do you know for sure?

A collection of post CWA09 personal stories

For the past few months, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), through its Public Insight Network and Speaking of Faith project, has been soliciting feedback from ELCA Lutherans regarding the gay-friendly policy changes resulting from the Churchwide assembly one year ago (CWA09). Many of the responses were published recently in an article entitled A church divided, together.

The responses run the gamut of human emotions and of church political views.

A church organist expressed depression at being forced, for reasons of income, to remain employed with an ELCA congregation despite his unyielding conviction that the ELCA had devalued the Bible:

I have had a long, depressing period of very serious soul-searching, and haven’t the slightest doubt about my convictions.

I feel as though I’ll be working in this congregation until my retirement, but that it will no longer be “my church”. My offerings are all now going elsewhere, to ministries where the truth of the Bible is valued.

Another pair of congregants, husband and wife, with a long history in their small town congregation, feel the strain on their social relationships because they chose to leave and attend a different congregation that has severed ties with the ELCA:

Their social network centered around the church, and now their friendships are suffering. “We have a lot of really good friends that are members of that congregation and we still see them socially. But it certainly has put a strain on our relationship. It’s not easy to make that kind of a break,” he says.

A congregant from Arizona said the heavy-handed and questionable tactics of the anti-ELCA faction caused him to become a strong supporter of the ELCA, calling the rabble rousing of the dissidents “the worst display of Christian disharmony I have ever witnessed,” and he deeply resented that:

We lost a beautiful church and campus many of our members had worked hard and long to establish. The legal methods our anti-ELCA group used were devious and too easy for them to destroy our former church. Church members should have the right to disagree but it should not be so easily possible for them to destroy a church.

Perhaps the most eloquent lament over the consequences of fear and mistrust came from a gay man from rural Minnesota whose father was pastor of the local ELCA congregation, fired for speaking on behalf of his son and the ELCA revised policy. At first, the young man was overjoyed at the decisions of CWA09:

I was never prouder. I was so excited. Thrilled. Giddy with the Holy Spirit. Yes, this was my church! Yes! Yes! Yes! This is the church my Dad preached in every Sunday. This was the church I joined with my Mom and the choir, filling it with song. This was true fellowship. This was love. Loving your neighbor as you love yourself. This is God’s Love. This is why Jesus died on the cross. He died for me. So that I could be part of this wonderful family.

But then, the fear-mongering and ostracizing began:

I hear talk of false prophets and evilness and their eyes turn toward me. Me. Me?!

Wow. This is not right. This is not right at all. I must have gotten off at the wrong stop. Made a wrong turn. Crossed the wrong road. Maybe I’m lost in a dream that went south. Way south. The eyes on me hurt. The judgment hurts my very soul. Teenaged boys stare at me as if I were possessed. Young women avert their eyes. My Dad is sneered at. My Mom cries.

Yet, the young man’s hope is unbowed:

No, I didn’t take a wrong turn. My Dad is still my Dad. Wise and with God. Always with God. My Mom still loves her choir and her bells and her Bible. The Bible is the very same one I read growing up. And I know I’m not that false prophet people talk about. God knows I’m not that false prophet. I know the ELCA was right with God when the resolutions passed this past August. They did it with prayer. They did it with care. The Holy Spirit was with them as it was with me… then and now.

I know Jesus died for me. I know he rises again and is in my heart and soul.

As for my church? Fear and ignorance can be a deadly work. Thick and messy. But I’m on a mission. God’s mission.

I will find my church. I think I know where it is. I hope and pray my church is in Hawley, Minnesota. Right where it’s been for well over a hundred years. The foundation appears as strong as it ever was…with God. Working with God’s people.

I am convinced that this strife will pass, and while we grieve the loss of those who feel compelled to depart, we who are the ELCA shall emerge, smaller perhaps, but stronger and more committed to the love of Christ and an inclusive church that lives that love. I concur in the comments of the husband and father from St. Louis:

I have discovered that I feel strongly about oppression in all its forms.

I believe that although the ELCA may have lost some members because of this vote, it is because we have chosen to be more open and welcoming, less fear-mongering, and truer to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That can only be a good thing.”

And, finally, I offer the summation of the woman from Woodbury, Minnesota, a straight ally, who felt ostracized by her conservative congregation before finding a comfortable home in a more inclusive setting:

… in the process I have made many new Christian friends. I also connected with some who had also transferred from other churches for the same reason. Finally, I felt understood.

I wish this transition had been easier for the ELCA, but the difficulties of my journey, which pale in comparison to the journeys of those more personally affected, have enriched my life.

Saucy Lutherans UPDATED

A few pastors in the Hutchinson, Minnesota area have long been WordAlone rabble rousers so it wasn’t surprising that their congregations pulled out of the ELCA earlier this summer. At the time, I chipped in with a few comments in response to a letter to the editor in the local Hutchinson newspaper. Mike Crary wrote the original letter critical of the departing pastors and congregations, and yesterday he commented here about the loyal supporters of the ELCA forming a Synodically Authorized Worshiping Community (SAWC) in Hutchinson. Thanks to Saint and Cynic Brant Clements for the saucy pronunciation of “SAWC”.

Mr. Crary asks,

Have you been following what is taking place in Hutchinson regarding the two former ELCA churches leaving the ELCA? By next month, I am confident there will be a new ELCA church in town- River of Hope Lutheran Church. At our first gathering, over 100 folks were in attendance and nearly $4000 was collected in the offering. We are psyched! We are energized with the spirit of Christ! Keep an eye on us.

Another frequent commenter here, Kelly of Progressively Lutheran blog, has also reported on the saucy SAWC in her Wisconsin community. Here are excerpts of several of her comments:

Luckily my own synod was quick to step up and give us support. We were able to find a home fairly quickly, and at our first worship …we already had 50+ members. Not bad for one email announcement and a little word of mouth! … I cannot express how renewing and affirming this final process has been after nearly a year of feeling like the floor was yanked out from underneath us … a SAWC (btw, I used to say Sauk as in county in Wisconsin, but I am fancying the term Saucy because Brant makes me smile!) is a faster stepping stone from going from worship center to independent church … As for being authorized? If you want any grant funding, interim staffing, synodical support you need to be authorized … But it gets us up and running in under a month from Are we gonna do this to a full-blown We’re doing this!!!! In this case, being an authorized anything gives us access to a lot of resources that we would not have otherwise … We are meeting for the time being in the local United Church of Christ’s building. They truly take “full communion partnership” seriously, have opened their doors and hearts to us, and it looks like we have the potential to forge some amazing bonds of partnership for years to come. We’re already contemplating a partnership for a variety of ministries and community outreach.

The ELCA news service offered a lengthy report on the situation in Elk River, Minnesota, where a new congregation was formed after an existing congregation voted itself out of the ELCA.

[T]he members of Elk River are passionate about their mission and ministry. “They’ve gone from no place to bursting at the seams. The depth of their joy, tears of happiness and being the people of God has freed them to gather in community, (engage) in ministry and identify with the ELCA.” Elk River Lutheran “intends to be a full-service ELCA congregation,” said [congregation president] Spyhalski. “Right off the top” members of the community committed 10 percent of Elk River’s budget to support ELCA ministries, said Spyhalski. “We are very brand-loyal.”

In December, I blogged about the experience of St John’s Lutheran of Edgar, Wisconsin where the congregation remained ELCA but a large number of members departed when they failed to attain the requisite number of votes to pull the congregation out of the ELCA. In my December blog post I quoted Pastor Gail Sowell:

[The first Sunday worship after the St John vote] was another surprise: 145 people showed up for worship — the most that had been there since [the assembly]. “We had people come back who had stopped coming at least since the Oct. 18 meeting,” [Pastor Sowell] said. With a shortage of Sunday School teachers, the result of the previous week’s resignations, six people volunteered on the spot to teach, Sowell said. Since that time, “dozens and dozens” of members have stepped forward to volunteer for various roles at St. John. “The next Sunday I saw such warmth in the people that were left. We’ve seen a real consensus of people who really wanted to make this work.” [T]he situation at St. John was “like a death and resurrection experience.” “I have grown so much because of this,” [Pastor Sowell] said. “I have been carried by the prayers of my former congregation. People have called me out of the blue to say, ‘I’m praying for you.'” “I am sure St. John is not only going to survive, it’s going to thrive,” Sowell said.

The common thread in each of these stories is the spirit of hope and renewal that buoys the remnant that chooses to exult in its relationship with the ELCA. I intend to communicate with Secretary Swartling’s office at the ELCA headquarters for further info about SWACs around the country. In the meantime, other SAWC anecdotes are welcome here.

UPDATE:

Here is information from the office of the ELCA Secretary:

SAWC’s are started for a variety of reasons: a small worshiping group needs sanction from the synod, a house church is growing into a bigger ministry, the synod is testing the field for a new congregation, or a larger congregation has changed and lost members but those who remain are committed and wish to continue to worship. Recently we have seen several SAWC’s formed out of existing congregations that have separated from the ELCA. The remaining group forms a SAWC to take time to heal and also to explore their missional potential.

The ELCA has SAWC’s in almost every synod and represent several major ethnic groups. As of today we have approximately 90 SAWC ministries.

A conservative critique of Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC)

Nearly all the congregations of LCMC are former ELCA congregations, reflecting a process of defection that began nearly a decade ago in response to the ELCA full communion agreement with the Episcopal Church and accelerated in the last year following the pro-gay resolutions of the ELCA churchwide assembly (CWA09). As a splinter organization of the ELCA, it follows that much of who they are and what they say and do reflects their negativity toward the ELCA.

This blog has frequently countered LCMC’s criticism of the ELCA. As a generalization, our critique of LCMC has been from the left and thus a recent Missouri Synod (LCMS) blog post that criticizes the LCMC from the right offers a radically different perspective but illuminating nevertheless.

The brothers of John the Steadfast blog has become a strident conservative voice within the LCMS, and their August 17th post about the LCMC contains plenty of good data about LCMC history and policy, but it is their conservative critique that is fascinating.

Thus far, there seems to be much good in the LCMC for us to rejoice and be thankful for. But there are theological problems in such a denomination … including Women’s Ordination, an almost anti-clerical emphasis on the priesthood of believers, Biblical inerrancy and interpretation, and fellowship issues.

Most of the LCMC pastors, with their training and roots in the ELCA, are unwilling to turn their backs on their women colleagues and continue to affirm the ordination of women that began in the ELCA several decades ago. For this, the Steadfast blog questions the traditionalist credentials of LCMC:

This is allowing for experience to rule over the Scriptures. So already, their formal principal of the Scriptures has been violated in the ordination of women.

John the Steadfast asks: Is women’s ordination not in clear contravention of scripture? Should experience trump the Biblical witness? By considering empirical evidence, does the LCMC risk sliding down a slippery slope? The Steadfast ones lament that the LCMC vacillates between an inerrant view of scripture and the historical-critical interpretive model, willy-nilly choosing when to be literalists and when to be contextualists. While the brothers criticize the LCMC for too little obeisance to inerrancy, our critique is that the LCMC countenances too much literalism.

The Steadfast folks also take the LCMC to task for their anti-clericalism. It appears that LCMC is rather “low church”, both in their suspicion of denominational structures and in their liturgical practices, which probably reflects a “Haugean” strain that dates back to the Norwegian lay preacher Hans Hauge and his anti-clerical revivalist movement of two centuries ago. The ELCA embraces both high church and low church worship styles, and I would not criticize LCMC on this account. I think that ELCA congregations have greater local autonomy than the LCMC would acknowledge, but the loose association of congregations that comprise the LCMC is certainly a congregationalist model rather than the denominational polity of the ELCA or the LCMS, for that matter. “A website and a mailing list” is an apt characterization of the LCMC.

The Steadfast blog points out another inconsistency in the LCMC regarding the importance of doctrine. On the one hand, LCMC congregations have split from the ELCA due to doctrinal differences, yet seemingly exhibit a broad range of doctrinal influences within their own ranks. It is ironic that the LCMC criticizes the ELCA for doctrinal laxity in failing to honor the Lutheran Confessions while utilizing seminaries that are essentially Baptist in outlook. Here is the Steadfast impression of the LCMC doctrinal ambiguities.

The LCMC is much more elusive to pin down to a certain theology or practice due to its heavy congregational structure. A survey of the different districts of the LCMC reflects the wide array of beliefs and practices allowed in the LCMC … A final concern is that the LCMC allows for its clergy to be trained at a number of seminaries that even includes non-Lutheran ones … This represents another disconnect between the confession of the LCMC and their accepted practices.

While this blog and that of John the Steadfast make for strange bedfellows, we acknowledge their keen insight from the right which in many ways confirms our view from the left.

The Church and LGBTQ youth

In a post last September, I wrote the following:

The young woman nervously approached the microphone at the ELCA 2009 convention. This fall, she will be a high school senior. With apologies, I paraphrase her plea.

“Give us honesty,” she said. “My generation is turned off by what they see as hypocrisy in the church. ‘Love your neighbor’ is on the lips of the church, but a cold shoulder is what my generation sees.”

I concluded that blog post with this comment:

While many in the ELCA are wringing their hands, worrying about losing members, wondering how to defend Convention actions, wistful about the loss of a Bible writ in block letters, black and white and bold print, I say this is an opportunity. An opportunity for mission. An opportunity to live the gospel and not merely preach it. An opportunity for honesty. Let this be a teaching moment in which we plumb the depths of scripture far beyond the literalistic superficialities of the past. Let us invite, encourage and inspire a new generation by our deeds.

It would seem that some are doing precisely that. Although there are junk science believers among us who would still promote reparative therapy (pray the gay away) and whine that our youth are being proselytized into “a gay lifestyle”, the hopeful reality is that a vital mission opportunity is now blossoming around us.

I speak of summer camps,

providing for youth in our communities who desperately need a positive experience where their faith is nurtured and sexuality can be approached with honesty and integrity.

I have known Ross Murray since CWA09; he was the interim director of Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA) and thus a key person overseeing the Goodsoil efforts, and I was a Goodsoil volunteer “gracefully engaging” in a ministry of presence. This summer at the LCNA national convention, I met Pastor Jay Wiesner of University Lutheran Church of the Incarnation in Philadelphia who served as one of the chaplains for the convention. Ross and Jay, together with Pastor Brad Froslee, are the founders and directors of “The Naming Project”. According to the organization’s website,

The mission of The Naming Project is to create places of safety for youth of all sexual orientations and gender identities where faith is shared and healthy life-giving community is modeled.

The goal of The Naming Project is to provide a safe and sacred space where youth of all sexual orientations and gender identities are named and claimed by a loving God; can explore and share faith; experience healthy and life-giving community; reach out to others; and advocate for systemic change in church and society.

The Naming Project programs include:

Outings to Worship and Fellowship Experiences

E-mail check-ins and resources for youth and parents

Workshops and conversations for youth in schools, communities, and churches

Workshops for youth workers, parents, and congregations

A five-day summer camp for youth

Meanwhile, with seeds planted by the Naming Project, a similar organization, centered around a camp experience for LGBTQ youth, has sprouted in Austin, Texas, and the first fruits were harvested this spring.

The Spiritual Pride Project is a new ministry that hopes to serve as a resource, a discussion forum, a community, and a sounding block for youth of all sexual orientations. More specifically, we are a weekend retreat where both sexuality and spirituality are seen as equally valuable gifts from God.

Yesterday, I exchanged emails with Ashley Dellagiacoma, the executive director of the Spiritual Pride Project. Here is her report:

It has been a fabulously exciting year at SPP and we’re about to gear up for next year! What I can tell you so far is that we were absolutely inspired by local need and the amazing precedent set by The Naming Project in MN. We watched their documentary and saw that these were Lutherans at work! We could work together! They have been so helpful in supporting us as we get off the ground.

We held our first retreat in April and it looked like most any youth retreat. Worship, s’mores, games (showtunes kickball was a hit!), songs. We focused on how several bible stories connect to important people in the LGBTQIA community. We talked about what life is like as LGBTQIA youth….in relationships…..with family…..at church. Jeff Lutes, the former Executive Director of Soulforce empowered the campers to talk about how they had been hurt by the church, and provided resources like “For the Bible Tells Me So” to give them a new perspective on what the Bible says and doesn’t say about sexuality. Most importantly, the campers formed a community and were supported by LGBT leaders in the church, Ally leaders, and LGBT leaders in the community.

I have a great letter that a camper wrote to us about how the retreat has impacted her. She shared that even though her church had not openly condemned her sexuality, they certainly didn’t celebrate it either. She didn’t feel they truly accepted her as God created her. After being a part of Spiritual Pride Project, she was inspired to go back to her ELCA church and start a bible study group for LGBT issues. She is reinvigorated in her faith. Some of the campers were involved from the start in helping us plan and sharing the news of SPP to their church groups, their Gay-Straight Alliances at school, and secular groups like OutYouth in Austin.

All of the campers are excited for the next retreat in 2011. We are actually meeting this Saturday to talk more about that. I will have more news after then. I personally expect we may be intentionally expanding our programs to provide a better experience for Ally Youth. We had so many people who wanted to bring their youth groups to learn how to be better allies, but we didn’t know how to do that best. I think we’re going to take a shot at it this year. We may also talk about extending the ministry to young adults. Who knows where the Spirit will lead? Please keep us in your prayers and I will do my best to keep you updated. I update our Spiritual Pride Project page on Facebook fairly often, so it is a good resource as well.

At the recent Goodsoil service at Central Lutheran in Minneapolis, I heard former ELCA Bishop and current ELCA executive Pastor Stephen Bouman say words to the effect that the church has been part of the problem for too long and now it is time to become part of the solution. These two projects are grass roots Lutheran efforts to minister to the youth wounded by a fearful church, stuck in the prejudices of the past. Amidst the angst caused by dissenting voices, it is time for the faithful supporters of the ELCA to kick the dust off our feet and move forward to seize the opportunity for mission that lies before us. While our youth may not have a choice about their sexuality, all of us have a choice—shall we be part of the problem or part of the solution?

“Give us honesty,” said the young woman at CWA09. “‘Love your neighbor’ is on the lips of the church, but a cold shoulder is what my generation sees.” Out of the mouths of babes. Let us be inspired and emboldened by our youth.

At the intersection of religious and secular

A recent thread of comments on this blog has touched upon the potential legal implications of the ELCA pro-gay CWA09 resolutions on individual congregations that refuse to call or hire gay clergy or to perform any type of blessing service on same gendered partners. For my part, I have insisted that CWA09 resolutions are entirely irrelevant to the legal rights and responsibilities of congregations, especially in light of the long standing constitutional and statutory doctrine of the “ministerial exception”. Succinctly, this doctrine prevents courts from interfering in the hiring and employment practices of churches even when the practice would constitute illegal discrimination in the secular realm. CWA09 will certainly not change or soften that doctrine. Neither the courts nor ELCA synods will force local congregations to hire gay clergy over the objections of the local congregation. Any suggestion to the contrary is either misinformed or demagoguery.

On the other hand, when a congregation enters into the secular realm as a landlord or accepts governmental funding for particular programs, then the situation can become blurry. Without exploring the nuances of such instances, the point remains, CWA09 resolutions didn’t change the law. The legal rights and responsibilities of local congregations toward gay and lesbian persons will be determined by the courts according to their policies, procedures, and precedents, and the resolutions of CWA09 will not control the courts nor lessen the legal prerogatives of individual congregations.

Switching to another legal matter, marriage equality for gays and lesbians, the court decision last week that overturned Prop 8 in California was the subject of a couple of the Sunday morning network news talk shows. Since I’m usually busy on Sunday mornings, like many of you, I seldom watch these programs live. Thus, I’ll imbed a couple of videos of a pair of key discussions involving the two attorneys who successfully led the Prop 8 challenge. In case you hadn’t heard, these two high profile attorneys were the same two who opposed each other in the Supreme Court decision in 2000 that stopped the Florida recount thus allowing George Bush to become President. While many conservatives might be unimpressed by the involvement of Democratic attorney David Boies, his teamwork with well-known Republican attorney Ted Olson has been noteworthy. Each of these esteemed lawyers spoke yesterday.

First, I offer Ted Olson’s interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace:

Second, I offer the debate between David Boies and Tony Perkins, the conservative leader of the Family Research Council on CBS’ Face the Nation.

August figures of ELCA departing congregations

Here are the latest figures according to an email received from the ELCA Secretary’s office. Please note that over 75% of the congregations that are leaving have indicated affiliation with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), which doesn’t leave many unaffiliated congregations for the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). The NALC will finally get off the ground with its convocation this month. It will be interesting to see if some switch from LCMC to NALC and whether turf wars develop. As an LCMC booster predicted months ago, “LCMC and NALC will be splitting a small pie”.

As of August 3, the Office of the Secretary has been advised that 504 congregations have taken first votes to terminate their relationship with the ELCA (some congregations have taken more than one first vote). Of these 504 congregations that have taken first votes, 348 passed and 156 failed. Synods also have informed the Office of the Secretary that 212 congregations have taken a second vote, 199 of which passed and 13 failed. Of the congregations that have voted to leave and advised synods of their intentions, more than 75% have indicated that they are affiliating with Lutheran Congregations in Missions for Christ (LCMC).

Fear of the feminine?

Is misogyny related to homophobia? We have long noticed that the leading spokesmen against the ELCA gay-friendly policies often sound sexist tones in their rhetoric. That trend continues with the Lutheran CORE response to the Rite of Reconciliation service in California last week.

The blog of Lutheran CORE offered the following commentary yesterday:

A worship service formally receiving seven gay and lesbian persons as ELCA pastors included elements that many Lutherans would find offensive or even heretical.

The service also included elements of pagan and goddess worship (emphasis added) reflecting the practice of some of the congregations of the new ELCA pastors.

What the blogger referred to as “pagan and goddess worship” were prayers that recognized feminine and other images of the divine. I guess that can be pretty scary to the patriarchy.

Here are the offending prayers; is this pagan and goddess worship?

Our Mother who is within us we celebrate your many names. Your wisdom come, your will be done, unfolding from the depths within us. Each day you give us all that we need. You remind us of our limits and we let go. You support us in our power and we act in courage. For you are the dwelling place within us, the empowerment around us, and the celebration among us, now and forever. Amen.

God, lover of us all, most holy one, help us to respond to you to create what you want for us here on earth. Give us today enough for our needs; forgive our weak and deliberate offenses, just as we must forgive others when they hurt us. Help us to resist evil and to do what is good; For we are yours, endowed with your power to make our world whole. Amen.

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven. The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the people of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth! With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.

While the image of God as father may be the most prevalent Biblical metaphor for the ineffable and transcendent YHWH whose name shall not be spoken, it is not exclusive. The esteemed scholar of the Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann, suggests “No noun for Yahweh can be taken at face value; each must be attended to in its rich, contextual density”, and Brueggemann offers the following lists (The Theology of the Old Testament, pp 233-263):

Old Testament metaphors of governance

Yahweh as judge
Yahweh as king
Yahweh as warrior
Yahweh as father

Old Testament metaphors of sustenance:

Yahweh as artist
Yahweh as healer
Yahweh as gardener-vinedresser
Yahweh as mother
Yahweh as shepherd

The Hebrew reluctance to name the one who cannot be named is rooted in the understanding that to name and define is to domesticate and control. How revealing is it that CORE would claim a metaphor of control as the sole and exclusive way of speaking about the divine? Is it “pagan and goddess worship” to call on other metaphors, especially those of sustenance?