Tag Archives: LGBT

ELCA Rite of Reconciliation UPDATED

The blogosphere and traditional media are abuzz today with news of the ELCA Rite of Reconciliation service conducted yesterday in California. An associated press article has appeared in traditional media across the country, and the New York Times offered its own report.

For those new to this blog or unfamiliar with this story, here is a brief background summary.

Beginning in the early ‘90s, slowly at first but accelerating in recent years, a handful of the over 10,000 congregations of the ELCA defied church wide rostering policies that disallowed gay clergy who did not pledge celibacy. An independent organization called Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM) came into existence to provide rostering and ordination assistance to such congregations and their extraordinarily ordained clergy. At first, the ELCA punished these congregations by expulsion. More recently the penalties have been less severe, but the extraordinarily ordained clergy were not recognized or placed on the active ELCA roster.

ELM joined with Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA) and Wingspan ministries to form Goodsoil, an umbrella LGBT advocacy group that has been highly visible at the biennial ELCA Church Wide Assemblies in recent years. Their efforts came to fruition at the 2009 church wide assembly when the voting members from around the country passed a gay friendly human sexuality statement (a teaching document within the ELCA) and also revised ministry policies to allow ordination and rostering of persons in publicly accountable, lifelong, and monogamous same gender relationships. Heeding this mandate of the voting members (the ultimate legislative authority of the ELCA), the ELCA church council implemented policies this spring that provided for a “Rite of Reconciliation” that would be the process for previously extraordinarily ordained clergy to be fully welcomed to the roster of ELCA clergy.

The Rite of Reconciliation conducted in California yesterday was the culmination of years of advocacy and the year long process of implementation of policy decisions of the ELCA churchwide assembly. Prior to this celebratory service, the Congregation of St Francis Lutheran Church of San Francisco, one of the original dissenting congregations that had been expelled by the ELCA, voted overwhelmingly to begin the process of returning to the ELCA. So, two momentous events occurred yesterday in California, visible signs that the ELCA has become open and welcoming to all God’s children.

The Associated Press article included the following:

Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the nation’s largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination, the Associated Press reports.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service.

The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy.

And this is from the New York Times:

With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until recently been barred from the church’s ministry.

The ceremony at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church.

“Today the church is speaking with a clear voice,” the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news conference just before it began. “All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.”

A local San Francisco newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, reported,

Seven Bay Area gay and transgender pastors were reinstated into the national Lutheran church on Sunday after being barred for two decades from serving in the denomination.

It was a day of mixed feelings for the “Bay Area Seven” – the Revs. Jeff Johnson, Megan Rohrer, Paul Brenner, Craig Minich, Dawn Roginski, Sharon Stalkfleet and Ross Merkel – who saw the event as an act of reconciliation with the church that once shunned them.

“We finally got to the direction we knew the Lutheran church was heading. It just took it longer to get there,” Johnson said.

The blog of LCNA joyfully adds:

And then, in the afternoon, at a wondrous service held in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, seven pastors on the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries roster were received onto the roster of the ELCA: Rev. Paul Richard Brenner, Rev. Jeff Robert Johnson, Rev. Ross Donald Merkel, Rev. Craig Michael Minich, Rev. Dawn Marie Roginski, Rev. Megan Marie Rohrer and Rev. Sharon Sue Stalkfleet were received.

Bishop Mark Holmerud of the Sierra Pacific Synod presided. Also participating were Bishop Dean Nelson of the Southwest California Synod, Bishop David Brauer-Rieke of the Oregon Synod, Bishop Emeritus of Southwest California Synod Paul Egertson, Bishop Emeritus Stan Olson of Sierra Pacific Synod, and Bishop Marc Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California.

There were 675 people at the celebratory service, 275 more than the sanctuary holds, necessitating seating the overage in the fellowship hall with remote TV screens. Also, hundreds more watched from home via an live online video/audio feed.
The service was one of healing and reconciliation, magnificent music, extraordinary preaching by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, one of remembering those who have gone before, and lifting up the ministry of the received pastors.

Of course, there is ample negativity expressed from the usual suspects. According to the Times article, Mark Chavez of Lutheran CORE chimed in,

It’s just another steady step taken by the E.L.C.A. to move the denomination further and further away from most Lutheran churches around the world and from the whole Christian church, unfortunately.”

An LCMS blog (Missouri Synod), Brothers of John the Steadfast, that was the cheerleader for the recent LCMS uprising that ousted its existing conservative leadership team for an even more conservative slate, felt compelled to judge according to the following statement,

I was at a wedding reception last night and referred to the ELCA as “apostate.” Not everyone appreciated that determination. I realize it is debatable but to me, the ELCA is beyond being a mixed (heterodox) denomination. I realize there are still believing Christians in the denomination but for the life of me I cannot figure out why they stay. The ones I have talked to have admitted that neither they nor there pastors are doing anything to protest the decisions of the ELCA General Assembly. That makes no sense to me.

Thanks to Pr. Roger Gallup for alerting us to this Associated Press story. It reminds us how far the ELCA has moved away from Christ’s true word and how important it is for us in the LCMS and for all Christians, to beware of adapting the culture to the Christian faith.

And finally, in a rant reminiscent of the now discredited Pastor Thomas Brock of Minneapolis, Pastor Mark Herringshaw of North Heights megachurch of St Paul called down God’s wrath on the ELCA. After a windy recounting of the tornado that whirled past the 2009 Churchwide assembly, which he contrasted with the absence of meteorological phenomena in San Francisco yesterday, Herringshaw’s invective concluded:

Is God’s silence and seeming consent an even darker and more terrifying judgment. Perhaps he has simply withdrawn his hand. Judgment and discipline is a form of love. But silence… That’s the most frightening judgment! … May God have mercy! And may he again show his mercy in his hand of judgment.

“Have mercy! Lord, do not remain silent! Do not leave the ELCA alone to ferment in their own folly! Act again, in judgment if need be. Just do not turn your face completely and walk away!”

UPDATE: The sermon was offered by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver. Her own blog, Sarcastic Lutheran, contains several excellent photos as well as text and video versions of her sermon.

What is “progressive Christianity”?

A lengthy essay by Brad R Braxton (Baptist minister and seminary professor) appearing in the Huffington Post seeks to answer this question. Since this blog purports to be about “progressive, religious themes”, we’ll pick up this thread. Braxton writes:

According to some accounts, the term “progressive Christian” surfaced in the 1990s and began replacing the more traditional term “liberal Christian.” During this period, some Christian leaders wanted to increasingly identify an approach to Christianity that was socially inclusive, conversant with science and culture, and not dogmatically adherent to theological litmus tests such as a belief in the Bible’s inerrancy. The emergence of contemporary Christian progressivism was a refusal to make the false choice of “redeeming souls or redeeming the social order.”

Progressive Christians believe that sacred truth is not frozen in the ancient past. While respecting the wisdom of the past, progressive Christians are open to the ways truth is moving forward in the present and future for the betterment of the world. Progressive Christianity recognizes that our sacred texts and authoritative traditions must be critically engaged and continually reinterpreted in light of contemporary circumstances to prevent religion from becoming a relic.

During the recent biennial convention of Lutherans Concerned North America, I attended a breakout session for “progressive clergy” (I was a usurper since I’m not clergy), and the threshold question was raised, “what does it mean to be a religious progressive?” Since time was limited, we didn’t explore all nuances of the question, but we quickly focused on the prophetic. Braxton also stresses the the prophetic nature of religious progressivism.

Prophetic religion involves a willingness to interrupt an unjust status quo so that more people might experience peace and prosperity … Prophetic evangelicalism insists that Jesus came to save us not only from our personal sins but also from the systematic sins that oppress neighborhoods and nations. Jesus presented his central theme in social and political terms. He preached and taught consistently about the “kingdom of God” — God’s beloved community where social differences no longer divide and access to God’s abundance is equal.

Braxton quotes Biblical scholar Obery Hendricks:

In our time, when many seem to think that Christianity goes hand in hand with right-wing visions of the world, it is important to remember that there has never been a conservative prophet. Prophets have never been called to conserve social orders that have stratified inequities of power and privilege and wealth; prophets have always been called to change them so all can have access to the fullest fruits of life.

In response to Fox News resident idiot Glen Beck, who foolishly suggested that social justice is not in the Bible, the President of Union Theological Seminary, the Rev Dr. Serene Jones, penned a tongue in cheek response (quoted here from Telling Secrets blog):

Dear Mr. Beck,

I write with exciting news. Bibles are en route to you, even as we speak!

Kindly let me explain. On your show, you said that social justice is not in the Bible, anywhere. Oh my, Mr. Beck. At first we were so confused. We couldn’t figure out how you could possibly miss this important theme. And then it hit us: maybe you don’t have a Bible to read. Let me assure you, this is nothing to be ashamed of. Many people live Bible-less lives. But we want to help out. And so, as I write this, our students are collecting Bibles from across the nation, packing them in boxes, and sending them to your offices. Grandmothers, uncles, children, co-workers — indeed, Bible-readers from all walks of life have eagerly contributed. They should be arriving early next week, hopefully just in time for your next show. Read them with zeal!

Oh, I almost forgot: we’ve marked a few of the social justice passages, just in case you can’t find them.

What does this mean in actual practice? How do progressive Christians live out the prophetic call to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Of course, one could cite the progressive march toward full inclusion of the LGBTQ community that is occurring in our mainline Protestant churches. For instance, seven LGBT pastors who were previously ordained by Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries but not by the ELCA will be received as ELCA rostered pastors through a “Rite of Reception” this coming Sunday, July 25.

Here’s another example gleaned from today’s blogosphere. Blog friend Susan Hogan reports that “Pastors for peace head to Cuba” (ELCA critic and WordAlone President Jaynan Clark will likely flip out again in response to this report).

A caravan carrying 100 tons of “humanitarian” aid is scheduled to cross into Cuba today, leaders of Pastors for Peace said Tuesday at a news conference at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in McAllen, Texas.

The [group] has broken the U.S. embargo against Cuba 20 times previously. The embargo includes travel and trade restrictions.

Pastors for Peace is an outreach of the New York-based Interreligious Foundation for Community, which delivers aid to Latin America and the Caribbean.

And another from fellow blogger Terence Weldon on Open Tabernacle in an article entitled “Authentic Catholicism”. While discussing the water relief efforts of an African Catholic diocese, Weldon offers the following indictment of the patriarchal, clerical, hierarchal structures of the Vatican:

To judge from either the most outspoken voices of the Catholic right, or from the anti-Catholic opposition, you could easily think that Catholicism’s most distinctive features are an insistence on blind obedience to the Pope and Catechism, and puritanical sexual ethics. The empirical evidence from actual research, shows a very different picture … [Weldon cites two reports which gauge parishoner’s own sense of what it means to be Catholic] Once again, I do not see in there any reference to automatic obedience, still less to compliance with “official” sexual ethics. But in both these characterizations of Catholic “identity”, a sense of social responsibility and concern for the poor ranked high (emphasis added)- which is what the Ghana contribution to clean water is all about.

And then there is the silly charge by conservatives that progressives don’t uphold the moral standards of the Bible. Jesus called his followers to a higher morality that upheld the spirit of the law often in conflict with its letter, to uplift the alien and the outcast, and to love one’s neighbor. Braxton quotes author Amy-Jill Levine who imagines Jesus chiding a narrow minded, exclusivist Christian who wrongly believes his status is based on offering an appropriate creedal confession:

If you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew … you’ll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison … [Jesus continues] I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John’s Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue?

Book Review: The Bible and Homosexual Practice by Robert Gagnon

I first read Gagnon’s treatise shortly after its 2001 release, and I read it again a few weeks ago in preparation for leading a workshop at the recent Lutherans Concerned Convention. He is an accomplished exegete, and his historical-critical Biblical research is solid; however, his conclusions are suspect. Even as he surrenders the gay-bashing “clobber passages” to contemporary scholarship, he employs a “yes, but” reasoning that reclaims them again. And, as the darling theologian of the sola scriptura, word alone, “the Bible trumps science, reason, and experience” crowd, there is great irony in that his own thesis is based on his view of natural law and questionable science.

Civil disobedience: effective LGBT strategy?

Last week at the PCUSA General Assembly in Minneapolis (GA219), a group of LGBT activists moved to the podium of the convention floor and refused to leave until the police ushered them out. The protest was organized by Soulforce and it’s executive director, Cindi Love. Here’s a link to the video from a local television station:

A few years ago at the 2005 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, a similar protest was mounted. Pastor Anita Hill of St Paul Reformation Church was one of the participants, and the following is from her sermon after returning:

I saw 100 people wearing rainbows (including 15 St. Paul-Ref members) walking to the front of the plenary hall as the business ground to a halt. As Margaret Schuster said: “There was disapproval raining down on our heads.” My heart beat fast and my hands shook. I heard the voice of our presiding bishop asking us to return to the visitor section. I heard the tension in the murmurs and groans of many voting members. It was hard to stand still. Bishop Mark Hanson was my bishop in St. Paul before his election to churchwide office. He has been my shepherd. I know his voice.

But we stood firm in our places.

We risked our reputations, risked losing the respect of the church we’ve been nurtured in along with our families for generations. We studied non-violence, sought to let our love be genuine, especially toward those we perceived to be against us; searched our hearts for ways to express God’s love as we brought our message to the church. Even without voice our message was delivered: no longer can you make decisions about us as though we are an “issue” to be handled by policy and procedure. We are human beings beloved of God, marked with the cross of Christ forever, just like you. As you make decisions, you’ll have to look into our eyes and faces, and see that we love God enough to suffer and to persevere in prayer and action.

But we stood firm in our places.

I’m convinced that whether the change we seek comes sooner or later, we must continue to be a congregation that embraces “justice rooted in gospel.” I’m ready for the day when I am a pastor known not only for being lesbian, but known for teaching, preaching, and leading in ways that move our community to care for those who are hungry, homeless, or sick, those in need of love and care, the “little ones” of the world. Let our community grow in global awareness and response even as we care for this particular metropolitan area. Let us live well and share well and witness well. Let us confound those who cannot fathom our faithful enterprise.

But we stood firm in our places.

An effective strategy or counterproductive? What say you?

Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA) convention concludes

On Saturday afternoon, a multitude of gays and their straight allies recessed the LCNA biennial convention on the campus of Augsburg college in Minneapolis to return to the venues that were so historic last summer at CWA09.

First, along with hundreds of others from around the twin cities and farther (I bumped into my Wisconsin Methodist friends from Kairos CoMotion), the convention goers temporarily adjourned for a stunning, high church gathering around the table of bread and wine. The Eucharistic celebration at Central Lutheran Church was reminiscent of the Goodsoil service at Central following the passage of the sexuality statement by the ELCA church wide assembly last August.

But there was a striking difference also. The presiding minister was the Rev Sherman Hicks, and the preaching minister was the Rev Stephen Bouman. Both men hold high office (Executive Directors of ELCA mission and ministries) within the ELCA churchwide leadership structure. That this was truly a Kairos moment, as LCNA executive director Emily Eastwood often stated, was symbolized by the presence of these two ELCA leaders. The symbolism was first evident an hour earlier at the press conference where the three speakers who sat together to answer questions were Eastwood, Ross Murray, LCNA deputy director, and Rev Bouman–the LCNA and the ELCA together at the same table.

Of course, Pastor Bouman’s ringing sermon offered words of celebration and even an apology for previously having been “part of the problem”, but Bouman also sounded a theme heard throughout the LCNA convention—now that the LGBT community has moved toward the inclusive center of the ELCA, their sense of justice and skills at advocacy ought to be used to promote the cause of those still on the margins, especially the stranger in a strange land.

With church bells pealing, the entire congregation marched across the street to the Minneapolis convention center and the now empty assembly hall where the historic votes had occurred nearly a year earlier. Here were veterans with familiar names, pioneers in the struggle of gay Lutherans for full inclusion, but the procession also swelled with many “first timers”. Much of the crowd remained in the Convention Hall for a reception and dinner dance well into the Saturday night.

Sunday morning was more subdued as the day began with the conclusion of the continuing business meeting. But then the closing worship rekindled the high spirits. The band from nearby Edina Community Lutheran Church had the worship hall at Augsburg swaying to bluesy renditions of traditional hymns and even the Kyrie Eleison was syncopated. By the time the final notes of “God be with you till we meet again” died out, there weren’t many dry eyes.

Note to my workshop attendees, click here for the powerpoint presentation in pdf format.

Lutherans Concerned Convention

The bienniel convention of Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA)opened yesterday at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. LCNA is the principal LGBT advocacy group for Lutherans and several hundred gathered for the first time since the historic policy changes at the 2009 ELCA churchwide assembly. Not surprisingly, the mood was electric and celebratory.

The stirring opening worship was led by chaplains Lura Groen whose sermon offered many rivers of justice images, Jay Wiesner who presided during the eucharist, and Matt James who led in prayer–gay clergy all. David Lohman at the grand piano accompanied the rafter raising singing and also offered his own composition.

Following the worship, executive director Emily Eastwood and deputy director Ross Murray offered comments and updates to recurring standing ovations, especially when Emily read from her blackberry that the Presbyterians had passed a resolution for gay clergy and the US courts had struck down DOMA.

After breakout sessions and dinner, the highlight of the evening was the keynote session that began with the presentation of an award to retired ELCA presiding bishop Herb Chilstrom and pastor Corinne Chilstrom for their contibutions as straight allies. More standing ovations. Ethicist Miguel de la Torre was the keynote speaker, and he offered an impassioned call to justice, to read our Scriptures through the eyes of the oppressed, and to remind all that seekers of justice are called to advocacy for all the marginalized. More standing ovations.

The evening closed to the jazz and blues riffs of Rachel Kurtz. Off to bed. More tomorrow.

Monday afternoon at PCUSA GA219

I was scheduled to autograph copies of my novel, A Wretched Man, in the Cokesbury bookstore in mid afternoon. I arrived an hour early in order to set up and to visit at the booths of the 4-5 LGBT advocacy groups clustered together in a prominent location of the exhibit hall. I met some very nice folks and gladly accepted a rainbow prayer shawl from the More Light Presbyterians (MLP). A question I asked without receiving a clear answer was why these groups don’t pool their resources, but it seems to an outsider that the MLP organization is the largest.

I snapped a few photos which I post here. The mixed generations at “That all may freely serve” pseudo malt shop invited me to sit with them in order to be included in the photo, so that’s my smiling mug you see.

The biggest order of business accomplished by the assembled delegates thus far was the election of new moderator, Cynthia Bolbach, and her election was praised by the volunteers staffing the LGBT booths. Apparently, of the six candidates, she was the one who spoke mostly openly about her support for LGBT issues.

Much of the work of these first few days takes place in committee, and the Committee on Civil Union and Marriage Issues voted 47-8-2 Monday to approve a report that urges Presbyterians to further study the issues and stay in covenant with each other while they do so. The committee rejected a minority report submitted by three members of the special committee. The minority report, which stated that “only marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God,” was defeated 40-15, with one abstention.

There were two other authors present for the book signing. Gustav Niebuhr of the famous Niebuhr family, who had earlier spoken to the Covenant Network, offered his book Beyond Tolerance, and I spent quite a bit of time speaking with Dr. Mark Braverman who offered his book Fatal Embrace, Christians, Jews and the search for peace in the Holy Land. I hope to report on our conversation and his book in a later blog post.

PCUSA 219th General Assembly Opens Today

Yesterday, I visited the exhibit hall at the Mpls Convention Center where 2100 Presbyterians (PCUSA) will gather this week for their 219th General Assembly. The local newspaper offered an excellent preview. According to the lead in the Minneapolis Star Tribune article:

Motions about same-sex marriage, gay clergy and a controversial stand on the Middle East will give convention delegates lots to talk about in Minneapolis.

Even though the official opening of the assembly was still 24 hours away, the exhibitors were all in place and early registrants wandered about. In a prominent location in the exhibit hall, four or five adjacent booths comprise the LGBT corner. Many early shoppers stopped by the LGBT corner and gladly accepted a rainbow colored prayer shawl.

Eleven months ago, this same venue hosted the ELCA Church Wide Assembly, and I was there as a Goodsoil volunteer. Goodsoil was an umbrella organization of several LGBT groups, and I wonder why the several Presbyterian LGBT organizations don’t combine their efforts and resources in a similar fashion.

I visited with the volunteers in the More Light Presbyterians booth and also briefly with the folks at Covenant Network. The following is taken from an essay appearing on the Covenant Network blog:

Gay and lesbian people may be denied the formal recognition of marriage in many places, but we are married nonetheless. Our relationships emerge out of the countless little, implicit promises that we make to each other, day after day, until one day we wake up and realize that in fact we are married. It’s not as much fun as parties, perhaps, but certainly as real and often more enduring. Anyone who doesn’t know that by now simply hasn’t been paying attention.

My favorite definition of the love that I share with my partner of twelve years now comes from a Broadway show, courtesy of Barbara Streisand – clichéd, I know, but true nonetheless: “His is the only music that makes me dance.” Or we can look to the assessment offered by David Nimmons, a gay activist in New York: “We are gardeners of each other’s hearts.” And if that doesn’t do it for us dour Presbyterians, perhaps we resonate to the views of Law & Order’s Jack McCoy: “Let ’em marry. Why shouldn’t they be as miserable as the rest of us?”

We know that there is a hard practical reality, and a deep theological truth, in McCoy’s remark. Living in committed, lifelong relationship is in fact a means of sanctification – the daily discipline of learning, in ways large and small, to find the understanding, patience, compassion, and support that can help another person to flourish. It is a life of generosity and self-denial that enables each of us to grow more fully into the people God intends us to be. When we deny marriage to any group, we deny them a powerful means of discipleship.

PCUSA 219th General Assembly to open this weekend

Later this morning, I’ll drive 50 miles up the freeway to check out the Minneapolis Convention Center where the various entities that will comprise the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) will be setting up. As I write this, the live feed from the PCUSA convention website says the convention will open in 1 day, 4 hours, 37 minutes, and 45 seconds.

First, I’ll check in with the Cokesbury bookstore, which will carry my historical fiction book about the Apostle Paul, and finalize the arrangements for my personal appearance in the bookstore on Monday afternoon to autograph copies of A Wretched Man.

Next, I’ll visit the various LGBT advocacy groups including Soulforce and More Light Presbyterians (MLP). I have signed up to do some volunteer work during the week. Soulforce is multi-denominational while MLP is obviously specific to the Presbyterian church.

The Soulforce blog suggests:

Our best information tells us to expect the votes on our issues on Thursday July 8, Friday July 9, & Saturday July 10. On these days, we will assemble in mass prayer, not blocking and not provoking, but in a highly visible process that encourages the members of the PC(USA) GA to do what needs to be done. Whatever action the GA takes, we plan a powerful conclusion to the assembly that we pray can be a celebration of justice and love. If there is no cause to celebrate, we will be there in the words and spirit of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, to demonstrate: “…to those who have mistreated us so long that we are tired — tired of being segregated and humiliated; tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression…We have no alternative but to protest.”

Meanwhile, a post from the MLP blog sets the stage for the Minneapolis event:

As the denomination gathers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, many are aware that in the same hall, one year earlier, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American voted to allow ministers in partnered same-sex couples to be listed on the official roster and to serve the church. All requirements to limit participation were dropped and Lutherans are living into the new policies by receiving clergy back into the church.

Lisa Larges, head of That All May Freely Serve, said, “Faith traditions are moving toward a new understanding of God’s diverse creation. The time for policies based on our love of God and call to serve has come. Churches are learning to affirm gifts for ministry rather than reject ministers because of whom they chose as a life partner.”

The PCUSA currently allows gay and lesbian people to serve in official capacities if they maintain “chastity.” An amendment to lift the requirement for “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness” was passed at the 2008 General Assembly, but after the long process of voting by regionally based presbyteries, the constitutional amendment did not garner the required number of presbytery votes.

What was impressive was that presbyteries in relatively conservative areas like Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, southern Illinois, rural Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Montana voted to support equal acceptance of all those who feel called to serve the church, including those in same-sex committed relationships.

Will this be the summer for the Presbyterians to step forward into full inclusion for their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters? Stay tuned.

Stonewall: Forty-one years and counting

This is essentially a reprint of my Stonewall post from a year ago. The response to the police raid on Stonewall, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City, June 28, 1969 marked the beginning of the gay rights movement. For many, progress toward full equality and inclusion of LGBT folks seems slow; yet, for one like me who thinks like a historian, the progress since 1969 has been remarkable, and the same is true for the advances since this post first appeared.

In the last year, two major, mainline protestant denominations took significant steps toward full inclusion of LGBT folk. Following the encouragement of Integrity (an Episcopal LGBT advocacy group), the Episcopalians now offer “all the sacraments to all the baptized”. In practical effect, this means that the episcopate is fully open to gays and lesbians, and the year saw the election and confirmation of suffragan bishop Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, to the diocese of Los Angeles. My own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) committed itself to recognize and affirm publicly accountable, monogamous, life-long same gender relationships and to allow persons in such relationships to be fully rostered as ordained clergy. There were also advances in Judaism, which already boasted an enviable record of inclusivity.

2009 & 2010 saw advances in LGBT legal and political rights: gay marriage became the law of Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington D.C.; partners of gay federal employees received expanded benefits; and the military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell” appears to be in its last days. What will the next year bring?

The following is my post from a year ago under the heading “June 28, 1969: Where were you?”

Many of you probably weren’t born, so I guess this is a question for the baby boomers, like me. But, I encourage the young’uns to read along, anyway, to get a better understanding of who and where we are this Sunday, the fortieth anniversary of Stonewall.

Here’s my answer. I had just turned 21 and had just finished my army infantry training in the heat and amongst the snakes and spiders of Fort Polk, Louisiana, “Fort Puke, the arm pit of America,” we called it.

“If’n one of them coral snakes bites ya, here’s the proper military procedure,” droned the drill sergeant. “Spread yer legs to a comfortable military stance, put yer hands on yer knees, bend down at the waist as far as you kin, and kiss yer sweet ass goodbye.”

A few weeks earlier, over Memorial Day weekend, our battalion received back to back three day passes, a rare treat toward the end of our training. We were all headed to Viet Nam to become “grunts”, anyway, might as well allow us a good time. My new girlfriend of less than six months drove down from Minnesota — along with my parents, brother Mike, and his girlfriend — and we all camped out at Aunt Carol’s place in nearby Lake Charles. In front of a sultry red sun of dusk, under the bearded Spanish moss that hung from the live oaks that leaned over a dusty country lane, I had proposed, but the girlfriend had turned me down.

But now, three weeks later, I was back in Minnesota on a 30 day leave before departing for my one year tour of duty as an infantryman in Viet Nam, and the girlfriend had finally consented under my relentless urgings, and she allowed me to purchase an engagement ring. I needed that lifeline, that sense of commitment and belonging, that sense that there was a future beyond the jungles of Southeast Asia, and her assent to one day becoming my bride gave me that grounding. Lynn still wears that ring, today. I didn’t know then what a privilege it was to ask the one I loved to be for me; to hold my hand and keep my heart close; to send and receive trite, and silly, and melancholy missives; and to wait and to be there when I returned.

Bobby Dylan was singing and saying that the times were a’changing, but it wasn’t clear in what direction. Tricky Dick was in the White House. Dion was lamenting the losses of Abraham, Martin, and John: “but it seems the good, they die young,” and in my narcissism I knew the song was about me. I wasn’t much concerned about what was going on in Greenwich Village, NYC.

If there were any gay people in my life then, I didn’t know it. Oh, there was elderly Emil, a hapless figure who would buy the small town boys cigarettes, but we all knew not to go behind any buildings with him. Maybe some did, I don’t know. I suppose somebody had to be the source of the giggling about the comic old man. In hindsight, I know that an older cousin later died in alcoholic squalor, never fully able to come to grips with who he was, and I have a younger cousin who thrives in a long term relationship with Robert. Perhaps there is symbolism in the differences between the older and the younger. In a reunion with my younger cousin a few years ago, he laughingly recounted how he loved to come and spend time with us in Minnesota and with dear old Grandma Olga because she allowed him to dress up in girl’s clothes.

Queers were deviates, so said the medical and psychological establishment. Fags were outlaws and security risks, so said the FBI, State Department, US Postal Service, as well as state and local law enforcement agencies. Homosexuals were sinners who had chosen the wrong path and needed repentance, so said the word from Christian pulpits. And these others, whoever they were, were mostly invisible:

a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised. And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage, too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States. They were invisible. Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else. Wikipedia, the Stonewall riots.

When the eight police officers knocked on the Stonewall door at 1:20 a.m., June 28, 1969, and announced “Police! We’re taking the place!”, they didn’t know they were about to make history, any more than the bus driver who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat on the Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white passenger 14 years earlier. Spurred by the successes of the civil rights movement, the bra burning feminists, and the college students protesting the war, the response of the gay community of Greenwich Village to the routine police raid on the Stonewell Bar of Christopher Street, said Dylan was right, the times were a’changin’.

We all had a collective feeling like we’d had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn’t anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place, and it was not an organized demonstration…. Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us…. All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren’t going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it’s like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that’s what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we’re going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren’t going to go away. And we didn’t.

Michael Fader quoted in the same Wikipedia article.

Will the occasion be noted from any pulpits this Sunday? Some, I hope, but only a few, I fear. Probably not in my own church, even though I know my pastor is willing, but the congregation isn’t ready. Not yet. But, someday, and sooner than you think. It’s blowin’ in the wind.