Category Archives: Religious News

Catching up with two lesbian pilgrims: Amy DeLong and Lisa Larges

Rev. Amy DeLong and Lisa Larges, two pilgrims who are featured prominently in Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism, popped up in Facebook links today.

Methodist Pastor Amy DeLong, whose ecclesiastical trial fills later pages of the book, offered a Youtube video following her monitoring of the weeklong Methodist Council of Bishops. She was disappointed in their failure of leadership. “We need to start calling them followers and not leaders,” she said. In an earlier writing, which is quoted in the book, she noted ecclesiastical handwringing and used the metaphor of the “weeping executioner.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIW8Rh8fAHw

Lisa Larges was also the subject of ecclesiastical judicial wrangling—twice. Her path toward ordination in the Twin Cities Presbytery was thwarted by the Presbyterian courts in the nineties. Fifteen years later she tried again, and her attempt was bottled up in the courts once more, but then the General Assembly finally eliminated LGBT clergy exclusion thereby rendering the court case moot, and she is again on track for ordination. She penned a poignant retrospective in a guest blog post on ecclesio.com which reflects upon the Presbyterian wandering in the wilderness for forty years. Her post begins:

What I’m wondering now, some two years after the vote in my denomination, (the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.) to remove the bar to ordination for lgbt persons, what I’m wondering now as someone who is a part of that lgbt community, what I’m wondering now, even as we live out the denouement of that struggle, with churches leaving and the question of marriage for same gender couples still before us, what I’m wondering now, remembering those forty some years of conflict—remembering the parliamentary maneuverings and high stakes votes and judicial actions and attempts toward dialogue and church-wide studies and appointed task forces and—what I’m wondering now, feeling the weight of the needless pain that we, as a church inflicted, what I’m wondering now is: Could we have done it better? Across that forty-year span, could we have worked out our differences with less rancor and divisiveness and objectivizing and bad behavior and fear of one another?

Read the rest here.

When Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber talks, Lutherans listen

I was one of 500 or so who packed the sanctuary of Central Lutheran in downtown Minneapolis last night to listen to ELCA rock star, Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, as part of her whirlwind tour to promote her spiritual memoir, Pastrix.

Rev. Bolz-Weber, a tall, slender, dark-haired, heavily tattooed, “cyber-punk” pastor and a self-described “cranky, post-modern gal of the emerging church a la Luther,” rocked this audience, much as she did the 35,000 screaming teens and chaperones at the most recent ELCA youth convention in New Orleans. The irony is that her counter-culture appearance and hip language born of a prior career as a standup comedian (I’m sure last night was the first occasion that “F-bombs” were dropped inside this hallowed sanctuary) is used to convey a decidedly mainstream Christian, especially Lutheran, message (grace and redemption, saint and sinner, death and resurrection).

I first encountered Rev. Bolz-Weber, long before she became famous, about the time I started this blog back in ‘09, and she had started her own called Sarcastic Lutheran. At that time, I read a story in which her mission church startup to “my people,” the House for All Saints and Sinners in Denver, had provided sanctuary to a lesbian teen who had been booted from her own home. Though Bolz-Weber is straight (she talks about her really cool and good-looking husband), she has been an outspoken LGBT ally. In 2011, Pastor Nadia offered the sermon at the California Rite of Reception for seven gay, lesbian, and transgender Lutheran Pastors. One of them, Pastor Ross Merkel, had been defrocked by the ELCA in the early nineties after he came out to his Bay Area congregation, but the congregation kept him in place and a newly-elected synod bishop did not object. Pastor Nadia calls Pastor Merkel her spiritual mentor, and she embraced Lutheranism in his adult-confirmation class after a childhood of spiritual abuse in a fundamentalist, patriarchal, congregation.

Again, an irony. This outsider and pastor to the outsider has been embraced by the ELCA establishment. Though there were youngsters in the audience last night–including a carload of teens from Iowa who tweeted while traveling north on I-35, “We’re coming! Don’t start on time!”—the audience was mostly middle-aged Lutherans, even elderly, including several hundred clergy from the Twin Cities area.

Before encountering Pastor Merkel and Lutheranism, Pastor Nadia had experienced spiritual healing in AA, where she became sober “by the grace of God and in the fellowship of other recovering alcoholics.” I share this journey with Pastor Nadia, and I have given talks entitled, “I learned all I needed to know about grace in AA.” She also credits a couple of years of Wiccan involvement for healing the patriarchy-inflicted, gender scars of the church of her youth.

Just released this week, Pastrix is already appearing on best-seller lists. As an author whose own book will be released later this year (Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism), I must confess to more than a little envy. Maybe I should hire her publicist.

Herbert W Chilstrom Autobiography

Eighteen years after his retirement as the first Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, Herb Chilstrom is still a commanding presence, standing straight and tall with his characteristic white hair. At the recent Churchwide Assembly in Pittsburgh, Herb and wife Corinne always had a cluster of well-wishers hovering around them in hotel lobbies, in the exhibit/lunch hall, or signing books in the registration area. When I had a chance to visit with them, I thanked Herb again for the kind words he offered in support of my forthcoming book, Queer Clergy (see below), and he inscribed a copy of his autobiography for me (A Journey of Grace). We joked that he expected that I should finish the 600 page hardcover book that first day. Well, it took me a week, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the back stories to the early days of the ELCA of which I was only vaguely aware.

Chilstrom was raised in a poor Swedish family on the outskirts of Litchfield, Minnesota, but he became the face of the newly-formed Lutheran denomination called the ELCA. The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) came into existence on January 1, 1988 as the result of the merger of the two largest Lutheran denominations in the U.S. (LCA & ALC) together with a moderate splinter from the Missouri Synod (AELC). Chilstrom had been the bishop of the Minnesota Conference of the old LCA before his election to be the first presiding bishop of the ELCA.

He steered the fledgling church through rocky shoals during two four-year terms. Immediately, the church was buffeted by conservative theologians who decried the drift toward other mainline denominations such as the UCC, Presbyterian Church, the Episcopal Church, and the Methodists, preferring instead a rightward tilt toward Catholicism, the Missouri Synod, or the burgeoning evangelical community. Among other things, critics decried the democratic, egalitarian structure of the new church and the loss of influence for white, male, pastors.

This was hardly a new battle. The fault line could be traced from the reaction to Enlightenment rationalism, through 19th century Scandinavian lay-revivalism and Darwinian debates, into the modernist-fundamentalist controversies of the early 20th century, and on to the post-WWII culture wars of the religious right.

Within the first years of the new church’s existence, the conservatives seized upon the LGBT quest for full participation as the bogeyman to frighten parishioners in the pews. When the gay community persisted in seeking the church’s blessing, like the Gentile woman in Luke’s gospel, Bishop Chilstrom was conflicted in a classic confrontation of unity versus justice. The frail new church had no deposit of accrued legitimacy, no ballast to keep the ship upright, and the gales whipped her sails. It was all Chilstrom could do to keep the helm from spinning out of control, but he did so, and the church survived her tempestuous early years. His autobiography poignantly revisits his internal wrestling by quoting his own journal entry from the early years:

I continue to wonder how I got into all of this and how I can carry such a load … I feel so divided. I wish so very much that this church was ready to accept [gays and lesbians]. But it isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination. So I must do my duty. I must support denial of ordination for them. I feel very torn apart by it. At times, I even wonder if I should resign because of the conflict between my conscience and the stance I must take as bishop.

It took over two decades for the church to finally break down the barriers to full LGBT participation. At the recent 25th anniversary Churchwide Assembly in Pittsburgh, there was a sense that the church had reached calmer waters. With a new captain at the helm, and a woman at that, the church boldly surged forward, sails unfurled with a fair wind and following seas.

Presiding bishop-elect Liz Eaton appears to be a suitable heir to the progressive and pastoral leadership that has passed from Bishop Herb to Bishop H. George Anderson and, most recently, to Bishop Mark Hanson. Strong leadership has been a hallmark of this church, and the church is excited that Bishop Liz Eaton will continue that legacy.

Awhile ago, I provided Bishop Chilstrom with a copy of the book manuscript for Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism, and this is what he wrote about it:

“I can’t imagine a more comprehensive review of the journey of various churches in dealing with the issue of inclusion of gay and lesbian persons in the church than Holmen has encompassed in the pages of this book. Though deeply involved in these issues before, during and after my time as presiding bishop of the ELCA, I learned much from this book that had not come to my attention. I commend Queer Clergy to any serious student of the subject. This remarkable book will serve as the definitive text on the subject for a long time to come.”

Click here to Like the my Facebook page and to read the eBook (PDF) Preface to “Queer Clergy.”

Minnesota Presbyterians ordain a gay man

When my wife and I spent our summer vacation volunteering at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Pittsburgh, we were called “church geeks.” I guess it’s true. After attending morning worship at my own congregation, St. Barnabas Lutheran of Plymouth, Minnesota, I drove into downtown Minneapolis Sunday afternoon to attend the ordination of Daniel Vigilante at Westminster Presbyterian.

The Southwest edge of downtown Minneapolis boasts a number of high steeple churches that date to the nineteenth century and whose pews have often been occupied by the Minneapolis aristocracy but whose kitchens have offered soup to the poor and homeless: the Roman Catholic Basilica of St. Mary, Central Lutheran, St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Hennepin Avenue United Methodist, Plymouth Congregational Church, and … Westminster Presbyterian.

The ornate sanctuary of Westminster today witnessed a first in Minnesota—the ordination of an out gay man as a Presbyterian teaching elder—which is what the Presbyterians call their ministers of word and sacrament. From the comments of an impressive array of speakers, it was obvious that Dan Vigilante is an especially gifted man who is finally allowed to answer his call to the ministry nearly a decade after graduating from Princeton seminary. Since graduation, the New Jersey native has mostly served as director of ministries for youth and young adults at St. Mark Presbyterian Church of Newport Beach, California. The retired moderator of the Presbytery of Los Ranchos, Rev. Dr. Gary Collins, spoke with great respect and affection for Vigilante and his service in Southern California. Here’s a picture of Dan from the website of St. Mark.

Rev. Brian Ellison, whose tenure as executive director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians is barely a year old, offered a stirring sermon. The Covenant Network as an institution is unique to the Presbyterian Church. Other progressive denominations have long had LGBT advocacy organizations, but they have mostly consisted of gays, lesbians, and a few straight allies operating on the periphery of their denomination. More Light Presbyterians was and is such an organization, but near the end of the twentieth century, the Covenant Network was founded by leaders of the Presbyterian establishment to promote progressive causes and especially LGBT inclusion. When well-heeled allies joined the gay and lesbian pilgrims on the journey toward full inclusion, momentum swelled.

The Twin Cities Presbytery boasts a distinctive history regarding LGBT ordination. Rev. David Bailey Sindt was ordained in this Presbytery before he came out at the 1973 General Assembly (national) by standing on a chair and holding up a sign asking, “Is anyone else out there gay?” More Light Presbyterians remembers that moment as the birth of their movement. In the early ‘90s, St. Olaf grad Lisa Larges sought ordination in this Presbytery, and when she came out to her candidacy committee, the presbytery supported her; only a decision by the Presbyterian ecclesiastical courts prevented her ordination. Toward the end of the century after the General Assembly passed onerous legislation regarding gays and lesbians, the Twin Cities Presbytery issued a formal apology to the gay community and also promised defiance of the policy.

Coincidentally, this Presbytery also played a double role regarding the national church’s decision to allow out gays and lesbians to be ordained. First, the Presbytery hosted the 2010 General Assembly in Minneapolis that passed enabling legislation, which required ratification by the 173 presbyteries spread across the country. As the presbyteries voted one by one, it became clear that the measure would be ratified, and with one more affirmative vote needed for ratification (with twenty or so presbyteries yet to vote), it was the Twin Cities Presbytery that cast the decisive vote on May 10, 2011.

Welcome Teaching Elder, Rev. Daniel Vigilante. Godspeed.

The Courts and Conversion Therapy

Once upon a time, I tried lawsuits for a living. “Plaintiffs,” “defendants,” “negligence,” “foreseeability,” “standard of care,” and “reasonable man” were the jargon of the litigation attorney. Many of my cases fit the category of “professional liability,” aka malpractice. I served as attorney, on both sides, in professional liability cases against engineers, insurance agents, attorneys, chiropractors, and, especially, medical doctors. Here’s the medical negligence rule in Minnesota.

The prevailing professional standard of care for a given health care provider shall be that level of care, skill and treatment which, in light of all relevant surrounding circumstances, is recognized as acceptable and appropriate by reasonably prudent similar health care providers.

Since the recognized medical, psychiatric, psychological, and counseling organizations have issued statements debunking conversion therapy (aka reparative therapy) as ineffectual and harmful, would it not be possible to sue practitioners for failing to provide “that level of care, skill and treatment … recognized as acceptable and appropriate?”

A different legal theory, consumer fraud, is behind a lawsuit recently filed against Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) in New Jersey.

Four former JONAH clients, who were teens when they signed up for help, filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against JONAH and two of its counselors Tuesday, saying they were defrauded by JONAH’s claim that “being gay is a mental disorder” that could be reversed by conversion therapy — “a position rejected by the American Psychiatric Association four decades ago,” the lawsuit said.

According to CNN:

“This is the first time that plaintiffs have sought to hold conversion therapists liable in a court of law,” said Samuel Wolfe, a lawyer with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Meanwhile, a California law recently went into effect that bans conversion therapy for persons under 18 years of age.

California’s conversion-therapy ban … was one of the signature bills passed by the Legislature this year. The law prohibits minors from being subject to therapies aimed at changing their sexual orientation from gay to straight. Under the law, therapists who practice conversion therapy on minors risk loss of their licenses or other discipline by the state.

When California Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law, he stated, “these practices have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”

Not so fast. Conversion therapists have immediately gone to court seeking to overturn the law. One judge has allowed the law to stand, but in a real head-scratcher, a second judge has issued a temporary injunction against the law on the basis that the free speech rights of the conversion therapists outweigh the potential of harm to minors subjected to the therapy. Really? You can’t make this stuff up.

Wayne Beson, in a blog on Huffington Post calls out the up-is-down, Alice in Wonderland, lunacy of the decision:

It seems that Judge Shubb is a bit confused about the First Amendment. He appears to believe that it gives mental health providers license to say whatever they want, even if it is not in the best interest of clients. Such thinking makes a mockery of medicine … the judge seems blissfully unaware that the toxic words of a biased shrink can sometimes be as harmful as a scalpel in the wrong hands. The wounds of “ex-gay” survivors are real, devastating and can sometimes last a lifetime.

Shubb should fully understand that when he protects reparative therapists, he is wholeheartedly promoting and endorsing such outlandish quackery. It becomes particularly damaging when such demented “therapeutic” techniques are practiced on LGBT youth.

In another example of false equivalency in which all views are considered equal, even when repugnant, dangerous, and demonstrably false, the Anoka School District in Minnesota is back in the news. This is the largest school district in the state that garnered unfavorable national attention in the last couple of years due to a number of teen suicides following bullying. At issue was the district’s neutrality policy in which teachers and administrators were required to remain neutral when issues of human sexuality were discussed; critics claimed that this elevated the views of homophobic bullies to equal footing with tolerance and respect. Following a lawsuit, the district eliminated the policy and also set up an Anti-Bullying Task Force. A Minneapolis Star Tribune report today suggests there is further controversy on the Task Force.

Apparently, in another misguided notion of fairness, the school board believed the point of view of the bullies ought to be represented on the Task Force, and a known gay-basher was appointed. The School Board chair said the man was appointed because the Task Force should be “a diverse community.” Upside down diversity.

Now, a petition is circulating in the district seeking that person’s removal, claiming he “uses his personal faith as a weapon and represents the anti-LGBTQ bigotry that is STILL hurting kids in our district.”

“To imply that [he] lends balance is so disingenuous,” [a parent] said. “His position is very clear, and the effects of that rhetoric are painfully clear in this district. … This has nothing to do with balance. It has nothing to do with opposing views. It’s one thing to have opposing beliefs, but this is about opposing the existence of students.”

Female English Bishops? UPDATE: FAIL

In 1558, Queen Elizabeth I came to power, and one of her first acts was to establish herself as head of the English church, rather than the pope. Successfully fighting off Catholic claimants, “Good Queen Bess” ruled for more than half a century, and the Church of England was born.

Two centuries later, Samuel Seabury was a priest of the Church of England, born and bred in the English colony of Connecticut. When the revolutionary war broke out, he remained loyal to the crown and spent some time as a captive of the rebels. But, when the colonists proved victorious, he saw which way the wind was blowing and switched allegiance to the now independent nation. When fellow priests elected him to be their bishop, an ecclesiastical problem arose. There were no other bishops around to consecrate him; thus, he sailed off to England, but the English bishops also refused to consecrate him because Parliament required that all bishops of the Church of England pledge allegiance to the crown. Scottish Anglicans already chafed under English rule, and they sent word that they would consecrate Seabury, and that was how the first bishop of the Episcopal Church was consecrated in 1789, the same year the U.S. Constitution was ratified.

That was also the start of what came to be known as the Anglican Communion. The American Church became the first body of Anglicans, with historical ties to the Church of England, that was not subject to her authority and control. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, was recognized as the titular and ceremonial leader.

Today, the Anglican Communion consists of thirty-eight international “Provinces” with recent growth concentrated in the third world. Therein lies the problem with international unity. The third-world Anglicans are decidedly conservative in their views of female ordination and LGBT issues generally, and recent years have seen a conservative splinter of Anglicans internationally and domestically.

The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Province of the United States, is perhaps the most progressive of all thirty-eight provinces along with Canada and Scotland, and the mother church, the Church of England, is a mostly progressive province but with significant conservative dioceses. In 1988, the Episcopal Church consecrated the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion. Diminutive Rev. Barbara Harris reportedly was encouraged to wear a bullet-proof vest during the ceremony. That she was female with liberal views was probably a greater affront to the conservatives than that she was black.

Every ten years, the Archbishop of Canterbury invites approximately 800 Anglican bishops from around the world to a conference named for Lambeth, the district where the Archbishop’s palace is located. At Lambeth 1998, the Archbishop invited eight female bishops from the U.S. and one from Canada. Lambeth ‘98 also witnessed a third-world uprising that bashed the United States and adopted a virulently homophobic resolution.

Outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has barely kept the lid on a bubbling cauldron. Several third world provinces refused to attend Lambeth 2008 and set up their own rival conference. The dissident conference also established the Anglican Church in North America as a rival to the Episcopal Church. A few Episcopal Bishops and their dioceses have bolted the Episcopal Church for the conservative alternative, which has not been recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Anglican Communion.

Archbishop Williams suggested that his successor would need the “skin of a rhinoceros.” Whether the Rt. Rev. Justin Welby has that anatomical necessity remains to be seen, but the next Archbishop of Canterbury has urged his own Church of England to follow other progressive provinces in allowing female bishops.

Speaking during a marathon debate ahead of Tuesday afternoon’s vote at Church House in Westminster, Welby, the bishop of Durham, said the measure on the table was “as good as we are going to get”.

But, drawing on his own experience in the evangelical wing of the church, he said he would do all he could to ensure the minority of traditionalists were provided for. The final approval vote – the most important the church has faced in the 20 years since it decided to ordain women as priests – is on a knife-edge.

“It is time to finish the job and vote for this measure,” he said. “But, also, the Church of England needs to show how to develop the mission of the church in a way that demonstrates we can manage diversity of view without division. Diversity in amity; not diversity in enmity.”

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Polity influences policy. How organizations make policy decisions affects what decisions are made. This principle was proved again yesterday when the Church of England rejected female bishops.

Within the General Synod of the Church of England, three separate constituencies voted on the question. The House of Bishops voted overwhelmingly for (44-3), the clergy voted overwhelmingly for (148-45 77%-23%), but the measure also required a concurrence of 2/3 of the laity, and the house of laity vote failed by a mere six votes (132-74 64% –36%). Church leaders were stunned:

Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP who is responsible for speaking for the synod in parliament, said it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” for him to explain the church’s current predicament to MPs. He has previously warned it would be difficult for him to defend the guaranteed place for bishops in the Lords.

While some have suggested the move could even call into question its status as the established church, Baldry said he thought the bigger risk was simple “disinterest”. “I think the great danger for the church following this vote is that it will be increasingly seen as just like any other sect,” he said.

A source close to the culture secretary, Maria Miller, who is also minister for women and equalities, said: “While this is a matter for the church, it’s very disappointing. As we seek to help women fulfil their potential throughout society this ruling would suggest the church is at the very least behind the times.” When the measure was put to the church’s 44 dioceses earlier this year, 42 approved.

A ComRes poll in July found that 74% of respondents thought female clerics should be able to attain the highest reaches of the church. The bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Lowson, said the failed vote could make the church look even more outdated. “This is a very sad day indeed, not just for those of us who support the ministry of women, but for the future of the church, which might very well be gravely damaged by this,” he said.

Bishop Robinson’s retirement

Integrity USA is the principal gay-advocacy organization in the Episcopal Church. The organization sprang to life in 1974 following a newsletter postmarked Fort Valley, the county seat of Peach County, Georgia. Louie Crew, a young professor of English was behind the mailing, and Dr. Crew remained a mainstay of the organization for many years.

The Episcopal General Convention meets every three years, and the Integrity worship service has become a highlight, an institution attended by thousands. At the General Convention in Indianapolis this past summer, the Integrity worship service was preceded by a cocktail party in honor of Dr. Crew. Through his prior writings, phone conferences, and email correspondence, Dr. Crew has been an invaluable resource for me, and I was privileged to finally meet him face-to-face before and during the cocktail party. This is a picture of Dr. Crew being honored during the Integrity worship service.

Dr. Crew had been one of the select few invited to be part of Bishop Robinson’s consecration as Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese in 2003. Of course, the ice arena of the University of New Hampshire was full of guests, and the procession included hundreds of priests, bishops, and other dignitaries, and Dr. Crew was part of the contingent of family and friends who processed in with the bishop-elect.

It was also fitting that Bishop Robinson offered the sermon during the Integrity worship service that followed Dr. Crew’s party. I was also privileged to meet the bishop and his partner, Mark, during the party. I visited with Bishop Gene, Mark, and former Integrity president Rev. Susan Russell.

All of this is introduction to a blog post penned by Rev. Russell that appeared today on the Huffington Post. Rev. Russell paraphrased the Simon and Garfunkel song “Mrs. Robinson” as she lauded the tremendous progress made recently in the church and society for LGBT inclusion. Click below to check it out.

“Here’s to you, Bishop Robinson. Jesus loves you more than you will know. And so do we!”

Mitt’s got some ‘splainin’ to do

News out of southeastern Minnesota tells more sad tales of teens who succumbed to bullying and committed suicide. Oftentimes it is the short one, or the heavy one, or the shy one, or the stutterer, or the gay, but thirteen-year-old Rachel Emhke didn’t seem to have any distinguishing characteristics except that she got on the wrong side of the wrong crowd. For seventeen-year-old Jay “Corey” Jones, his life got both better and worse after he came out as gay. His dad said,

“I just saw a difference in him I saw a smile, I saw a little more energy than actually being down and out and depressed-looking,” [his dad] said. “To me he felt a sign of relief, like, ‘Yeah I got over the hard part, right,’ you know.”

But, being out also meant the bullying increased.

In national news, the Washington Post is out with a well-attested article that suggests Mitt Romney’s elitist upbringing also included some bullying at his posh private school. But the well-manicured governor’s son was not the object of the abuse; instead, the presidential wannabe was the chief perpetrator.

John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

Candidate Romney has attempted to get out ahead of the story by issuing the standard wishy-washy apology … I don’t remember but if I offended anyone, I’m sorry. In any case, Mitt says, “I’m quite a different guy now.”

We can only hope so, but I doubt we’ll be seeing any “It Gets Better” videos out of his campaign.

Shout it from the rooftops

Last week I received a comment that I refused to publish because it attacked an individual or a group. Apart from the personal attack, the commenter attempted to make the point that gay friendly resolutions by mainstream churches explain a general membership decline.

Au contraire.

Two years ago, a book entitled American Grace became a national best seller, and I blogged about it in a post entitled Conservative Christianity Driving a Generation Away From Religion. That post included this quote from another blog that suggested American Grace:

makes the case that the alliance of religion with conservative politics is driving young adults away from religion …. Among the conclusions [of a major survey] is this one: “The association between religion and politics (and especially religion’s intolerance of homosexuality) was the single strongest factor in this portentous shift.”

Today I ran across another blog post about a more recent book that makes the case even more starkly. Here’s the open-ended survey question that formed the basis for the book:

What words or phrases best describe Christianity?

How would you respond? What’s the first word that pops into your head? Then, give yourself a couple of minutes to think and then answer again. What’s your answer after reflection?

Now shift your thinking. How do you think others, self-identified as non-Christian and aged 16-29, responded to the question? What of those who self-described as Christian?

With an open-ended question, one would expect a wide variety of answers, but it turns out there was a single theme that was listed on a startling 91% of the responses from this youthful age group that self-identified as non-Christian. What do you think that one answer was?

Ready?

Antihomosexual.

Ouch! Thanks UMC and General Conference 2012 (GC2012) for reinforcing the perception.

Well, what about the self-identified Christians in that age group? How did they respond?

Antihomosexual.

But, it was only 80%.

The blog post contains this quote from the book, unChristian, by David Kinnaman.

“The gay issue has become the ‘big one, the negative image most likely to be intertwined with Christianity’s reputation. It is also the dimensions that most clearly demonstrates the unchristian faith to young people today, surfacing in a spate of negative perceptions: judgmental, bigoted, sheltered, right-wingers, hypocritical, insincere, and uncaring. Outsiders say [Christian] hostility toward gays…has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith.”

That’s the bad news. The good news is when a problem is so clearly defined, the solution also becomes obvious. The United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the ELCA Lutherans, and the PC(USA) Presbyterians have opened their doors. They understand that “all means all”. They have decided to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. By inviting gays into their pulpits and to serve at their altars, they have welcomed the whole host, the entire gay community, into full communion, full participation, full inclusion in the life of the church.

Don’t be shy, don’t be embarrassed, don’t hide your light under a bushel. Tell the world what you have done. Shout it from the rooftops!

United Methodist General Conference (GC2012): Biblical obedience and ecclesiastical disobedience

To be sure, GC2012 was a huge disappointment for LGBT folk and their allies. After forty years of wilderness wandering, the church seemed poised on the banks of the Jordan, but after the setbacks of GC2012, the promised land seems ever farther away. At GC2008, the major gay-friendly legislation failed by 55%-45%, but this year the margin swelled to 61%-39%. Simultaneously, the proportion of foreign delegates also increased significantly. At GC2008, foreign delegates accounted for 33% of the total, but this year it ballooned to 41%. This 8% increase undoubtedly corresponds to the 6% swing on the gay resolution.

This shift in the balance of power overseas will likely continue, and thus near-term gay-friendly legislation seems iffy. Of course, the next General Conference is four years away.

Thus, the Friday gathering at the Coalition Tabernacle emphasized a different approach not tied directly to legislation; that is, speakers advocated civil disobedience at the local level in the form of covenant ceremonies. The first ecclesiastical trials of clergy for performing a covenant ceremony more than a dozen years ago resulted in a defrocking of Pastor Jimmy Creech, then a suspension of Pastor Greg Dell, and most recently a slight wrist slap for Pastor Amy DeLong. There have also been countless quiet ceremonies that didn’t result in any trial at all, and the “Sacramento 68” of a dozen years ago also resulted in a dismissal of all charges against the 68.

At the Minnesota Annual Conference in 2011, a petition movement originated in which clergy could publicly espouse their willingness to perform covenant ceremonies in spite of any potential consequences. That movement has exploded across other annual conferences, and the number of signatory clergy now approaches 1,200. Pastor Bruce Robbins of Hennepin Avenue UMC in Minneapolis has spearheaded the effort:

Seventy Minnesota United Methodist clergy members have signed a statement saying they would “offer the grace of the Church’s blessing to any prepared couple desiring Christian marriage,” including same-sex couples.

Robbins read the statement during a time of personal privilege at the end of clergy session, a business meeting held in the afternoon. Initially about a dozen clergy members had signed the statement, he said. By 9:30 p.m., the total signers had increased to about 40. As of June 3, the number had reached 70.

Pastor Robbins was the opening speaker to the standing-room only crowd gathered last Friday at the Coalition Tabernacle. He suggested the time has come for “biblical obedience and ecclesiastical disobedience”. With an array of around a dozen bishops lining the front of the podium, the final speaker was retired Bishop Melvin G. Talbert who roused the crowd with a civil rights themed speech.

“I declare to you that the derogatory language and restrictive laws in the Book of Discipline are immoral, and unjust and no longer deserve our loyalty and obedience.”

View this video to hear and see the full set of speakers from beginning to end of the “Altar for All” presentation.