Tag Archives: LGBT

January figures of ELCA departing congregations

I just received the latest email from the office of the ELCA secretary. The numbers show a definite decrease in activity in December, probably reflecting the holiday season. Bottom line: through the end of 2010, a total of 353 congregations had voted twice to sever ties with the ELCA (as required by constitution). Out of 10,500 or so.

Here is the email:

Here’s the update on congregations that have taken votes to leave the ELCA. As of 1/6/11, 686 congregations had taken first votes to leave the ELCA. These 686 congregations have taken a total of 726 first votes. (The greater number reflects that some congregations have taken multiple first votes.) Of the first votes taken, 504 passed and 222 failed. 351 congregations have taken second votes (and two congregations have taken two second votes!) Of the total of 353 second votes; 334 passed and 19 failed.

In Remembrance

We pay homage today to a pair of clergy leaders in the LGBTQ movement for equality, inclusion, and respect. To call them icons would be incorrect because that term implies a well-known public face, and these two were quiet crusaders, both of them straight allies.

Seventy-five year old Paul Egertson, ELCA pastor and one-time bishop in California, died at his California home yesterday. Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA), the LGBTQ advocacy group within the ELCA , issued this statement honoring Bishop Egertson’s memory:

While bishop of the ELCA Southwest California Synod, he participated in the 2001 ordination of Pastor Anita C. Hill of St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church, St. Paul, Minnesota. For this act, he subsequently resigned his position as bishop, and tirelessly advocated for the policy change that finally occurred as a result of the decisions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly.

Emily Eastwood, Executive Director, Lutherans Concerned, said, “Paul Egertson stood up for us and in opposition to the discrimination of the church against us when that was neither popular nor safe. His witness to Christ’s redemptive grace and his commitment to helping the church see the error of its position are a shining beacon of prophetic righteousness in the face of determined opposition – and he did it with grace and eloquence, as befits a follower of Christ. He was a friend and mentor — always available, with words of calming wisdom. He made a profound difference. He will be missed.”

Under a blog post titled We’ll Take it From Here, blogger Casey, an ELCA seminarian, wrote of being a young student of Egertson without knowing his history. She regrets her sophomoric attitude then but now treasures his advocacy with the benefit of a maturing, retrospective point of view.

But as I continued in the Religion department and spent time with professors in discussion outside of the classroom, I found that this man was interesting.

He was a progressive voice in a generation that would not hear him. As the generation that has heard him, it is our responsibility to go forth into the ELCA that he has helped to shape, and to continue to fight along the lines he laid down. I am proud to have been a student of his, and to be joining the ranks of ordained clergy in the ELCA, in order to effect the same kind of change.

Of course, the ELCA and the Episcopal Church are currently in the forefront of progressive Christian denominations that have moved toward full inclusion of the LGBTQ community. A generation earlier, the United Church of Christ (UCC) became the first mainstream Christian denomination to openly affirm their gay members.

But even before that, a Christian denomination was formed expressly for the purpose of ordaining and celebrating gay inclusivity. This denomination is known as Metropolitan Community Churches, (MCC), and the second person we honor today is Pastor June Norris who died this week at the age of eighty-eight. Norris was the first straight person and second woman to be ordained to the ministry of MCC. From a San Diego Newspaper:

She grew up in a Baptist family in Illinois and married at age 15. She had three children by the time she was 20, divorced after 28 years of marriage and moved to California to seek a new life.

Friends and family said she was a soft-spoken, tenderhearted crusader for equality. “She was nonjudgmental and extremely compassionate,” said her sister, Ruth Mahan. “She accepted people as they were.”

Nephew Ted Sweet, who introduced her to MCC, said he and his aunt agreed to attend her church on Saturday and go to his church on Sunday. “I took her to (MCC) and she never left. The people were so receptive to her and welcomed her,” Sweet said. Rev. Norris would later say she felt called to the ministry at the L.A. church.

Sweet said Rev. Norris had a gift for helping people. “She had one of the most soothing voices in the world. No matter how upset I was, I just had to talk to her on the phone and I’d feel better,” he said. “She just had a way of communicating that took all the pain and hurt away.”

We conclude with the sentiment expressed by blogger Casey. With thanks for these early leaders, Casey promises, “We’ll take it from here”.

An inspiring year-end story about a gay teen

Earlier we posted about Sean Simonson, a high school student in the Twin Cities metro area who wrote an op-ed piece in his student newspaper. His article was his personal response to the wave of news about bullying and suicides of gay teens. Entitled Life as a Gay Teenager, the article served as his public “coming out” although he was out to friends and family well before then.

At first, the school pulled the article. Some hateful, anonymous comments appeared. Sean’s mother Ann, though generally supportive of her gay son, questioned the wisdom of such a public posture, fearing retribution.

Today’s Star Tribune Newspaper (the leading Minnesota daily) published a followup article, and the news is cause for rejoicing. In this case, it turns out that “Minnesota Nice” resounds loud and clear. Here’s a portion of today’s Strib article:

[I]n the true measure of impact these days … friend requests poured in on Facebook. Sean estimates 80 to 100 complete strangers tried to add him as a friend.

"I think there was like a person from Korea, and someone from like Norway," he said.

What was more stunning to Sean though, was the reaction closer to home.

"I got one handwritten letter left for me in the main office from a teacher. And then I got like three or four emails from teachers basically saying they support me," he said. "It was teachers I wasn’t close to and so that kind of surprised me."

Sean said a school administrator told him it was worth what the school had gone through if just one kid benefited from what he had written.

If the point of Sean’s piece was to get a dialogue going about supporting gay teens, he succeeded not only among his peers, but also among adults. Ann Simonson said she was caught off guard by the reaction in her social circles.

"I even had to take a couple days off just to respond to the all the emails and phone calls I’d received from friends," she said. "It was just ringing off the hook. It was quite amazing. You find out who your friends are, that’s for sure."

In the days that followed, Sean found his anonymous detractors, the online commenters, melted away. The Knight-Errant student newspaper instituted a new comment policy: no anonymous comments and writers must use valid emails.

And he found he had even more friends than he thought he did. In early December, he was elected Grand Knight, the equivalent of the prom king, for Benilde-St. Margaret’s winter formal.

During my teen years in the ’60s, I didn’t know any gays in high school or college. They were invisible. Then came the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village in 1969 and slowly they started coming out of the closet. Bob Dylan from Hibbing, Minnesota was singing in the University of Minnesota bistros of “Dinkytown” in the early sixties, soon to burst on the scene as the poet laureate/prophet of our generation with songs such as “The Times They Are A’changing”.

Social progress often moves as slow as a glacier, and many friends wish for more speedy changes; yet, judged by historical standards, the advances of gay rights these last forty years is nothing short of amazing. As we stand on the threshold of a New Year, I tip my hat to the Congress and the President for repealing DADT, to heroes such as young Mr. Simonson, and to the inspired leadership within my own Lutheran church for breaking down boundaries.

Top posts of 2010: #1

In the final days of 2010, I will reprint the top posts of the year based upon reader views according to my WordPress site stats. At the top of the list is the August 30th post that discussed the open letter of retired ELCA presiding Bishop Herb Chilstrom. That post attracted over 2,200 unique visitors and two pages of reader comments. Here is link to the original post with comments, and the post itself is reprinted below in its entirety.

Since the formation of the ELCA in 1988, the denomination has been shepherded by three presiding Bishops: Herb Chilstrom, H George Anderson, and currently Mark Hanson. Herb and wife Corrine now reside in retirement in St. Peter, Minnesota. On August 26th, Herb penned an op-ed piece for the newspaper in nearby Mankato—his response to the formation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) as a splinter from the ELCA. Bishop Chilstrom asked three rhetorical questions of those who have departed the ELCA for NALC, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), or another church body.

First, what is it about sex that pushed you over the edge?

The retired Bishop wonders why some elevate questions of sexual behavior over more momentous issues such as abortion, war and peace, and the death penalty. What is it about the sexual behavior of others that causes such a visceral outcry and schismatic response?

[Other issues seem] far more serious than getting upset about two adults of the same gender who, like most of us straight folks, chose to live peacefully in a life-long relationship — the only such pairing the ELCA has approved. Like their straight neighbors, they live peacefully, go to their jobs every morning, pay their taxes, volunteer for good causes and, in many cases, worship with us. What is it that upsets you about this?

Ah, the straw that broke the camel’s back comes the response. The various dissident groups go to great lengths to suggest that LGBT issues were merely the tipping point that reflects a lengthy ELCA drift away from tradition and traditional Biblical interpretations. To be sure, LCMC was formed nearly a decade ago, and many LCMC congregations departed the ELCA prior to CWA09 (but the LCMC has doubled in size since CWA09).

Here is my take. CWA09 resolutions were not the tipping point but the opportunity seized upon by long time ELCA detractors to scare the the folks in the pews into following their leadership. For much of the hierarchy of WordAlone, CORE, NALC, and even LCMC, their disaffection with the ELCA goes back to the very beginning, and it can all be summed up in one word—CONTROL. This blog has previously critiqued the comments of dissident theologians Nestingen, Braaten, and Benne who in similar ways lamented the egalitarian impulses of the newly formed ELCA thereby diminishing the power of the male elites. Over the years, this coterie repeatedly attempted, unsuccessfully, to achieve leadership status within the ELCA.

But then came CWA09. They saw their chance and they took it. CWA09 handed the dissidents a cultural wedge issue that they could use to drive ELCA congregants and congregations away from the ELCA and into their own organization, under their control. So, Herb, it is not about sex. Nor is it truly about Biblical interpretation. Here the Missouri Synod critique of the new Lutheran church bodies makes sense—if these new organizations truly want to be Biblical traditionalists, why do they allow female clergy? Or divorced clergy? The existence of female and divorced clergy within their ranks puts the lie to the claim that it is all about strict and traditional Biblical interpretation. No, Herb, it is something else. It is all about power and control.

Here is Bishop Chilstrom’s second question:

Second, why are you organizing new churches?

Surely there must be one among them [existing Lutheran bodies] that would welcome you. Why go to all the unnecessary expense of setting up an entirely new structure with officers, boards, committees and institutions?

This might be a good place to interject some basic data about the numerous small and uniformly conservative Lutheran Church bodies that exist in the US in open criticism of the more-progressive ELCA. For comparison, the ELCA has over 10,000 congregations and over 4 million members (statistics for each derived from Wikipedia or the organization’s website)

Missouri Synod (LCMS) 2.4 million members
Wisconsin Synod (WELS) 1,300 congregations
Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC) 500 congregations
Free Lutheran Churches (AFLC) 270 congregations
Lutheran Brethren 123 Congregations
North American Lutheran Church (NALC) 18 congregations.

Bishop Chilstrom assumes the reason why LCMC and NALC don’t join one of the other bodies is because LCMC and NALC will continue to ordain women as their legacy from the ELCA. I know the LCMC is attempting to to position itself as the moderate middle of Lutherandom with the more progressive ELCA on the left and the more conservative others on the right. There would also appear to be an organizational difference between LCMC (congregational autonomy) and NALC (a denominational structure). I have previously characterized LCMC as a website and a mailing list. Their organizational paid staff is minimal. No seminaries, no colleges, no candidacy committees, no disaster relief, no missionary support, no … fill in the blank. It is merely an affiliation of like minded congregations that are free to do their own thing with minimal organizational support or control.

There’s that word again. CONTROL. See the answer to number 1, Herb.

Here is Bishop Chilstrom’s final question:

Third, what will you say to your sons and daughters, sisters and brothers and others in your churches when they tell you they are homosexual?

This is the nub of it. We can argue about “gay issues” till we’re blue in the face, but we miss the human element. This not some academic argument; this is about real lives, children of God, baptized brothers and sisters. I asked last week how many church bulletins proclaim “all are welcome”—and really mean it.

“What will you say to your sons and daughters?” Herb asks.

Will you offer empty platitudes (hate the sin but love the sinner)? Will you “pray the gay away?” Will you offer junk science such as reparative therapy that will only deepen their pain? Will you turn your back or offer an embrace?

Retired Pastor Duane from my congregation tells the story of the gay high school boy who came out to him and then asked Duane to accompany him when he came out to his parents.

Mom came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, with a worried look on her face when the pair arrived in the driveway.

“Mom, I’m gay,” the boy said.

“Is that all?” and mom smiled with relief and gave her son a hug.

They were still in the driveway when dad arrived in the pickup with mud flaps and a rifle slung in the rear window. He exited the cab with a mixed expression of anger and concern.

“Dad, I’m gay”, the son said.

Dad’s face drained of all color, and his eyes turned black. He looked at his son, his wife, Pastor Duane, and back at his son. Then, his eyes moistened and his lips quivered.

“I don’t understand,” he said, his voice cracking, “and I probably never will. But, you’re my son, and I love you.” Father and son fell into each other’s arms, shaking and sobbing.

This isn’t about doctrine, or confessionalism, or Biblical interpretation, and it ought not be about control. This is about grace. This is about trust. Let go and let God. Listen to the wisdom of Herb Chilstrom:

I am both sad and relieved that you are leaving. Sad, because this was not what we hoped for when the ELCA was formed some 22 years ago. We believed we could be a church where we held to the essentials and allowed for differences on non-essentials.
But I am also relieved. Now those of us who remain in the ELCA can get on with our primary mission of telling everyone — everyone — “Jesus loves you. You are welcome in this church.”

A Lutheran response to the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell

If you haven ‘t heard, the Senate voted 65-31 on Saturday to end the discriminatory policy known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” After President Obama signs the bill into law this week, the Pentagon will evaluate and then certify that the military is ready for this change, which is not expected for a couple of months. Then, gays and lesbians will be free to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of official recrimination from the military.

Here is the response from Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA):

The United States Senate voted on Saturday, 65-31, to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislation that has discriminated against our lesbian and gay service members for over a decade. The historic vote follows the US House passage of the same bill earlier in the week. President Obama plans to sign the legislation before Christmas. Lutherans Concerned/ North America, serving at the intersection of oppressions, is proud to be a part of the movement to repeal this legislation and celebrates the vote with all of our members, especially those who have served or are serving in the military.

Those serving in the US Armed Forces face unparalleled challenges everyday as they fight to protect our freedoms here and abroad. Now, with this repeal nearly finalized, they will be able to concentrate on their vocation of service rather than worrying about the disclosure of their perceived or actual sexual orientation. LC/NA shares relationships with various other faith based and secular LGBT organizations to bring freedom and equality to all of God’s children, both in the church and in society. The work that LC/NA has done has been a combined effort with the entire LGBT community contributing to the change in understanding of how LGBT people have always served their country with skill, honor, and integrity.

Deputy Director, Ross Murray, commented on the repeal, saying, “It is truly awe inspiring to see people living out their calling from God. Just as Lutherans Concerned works for the full participation of those called to serve the church, we celebrate those who are can live out their call to serve their country without barriers. This is one more step toward full participation in society.”

Our vocation is a calling from God that is realized through a variety of paths, including military service. With the recent historic decisions made at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly 2009, and now with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” avenues once blocked by discrimination are being cleared for all people to live out their calling. As Lutherans we are called to be a public voice, crying in the wilderness, and LC/NA is proud to be living out that calling daily. It is truly evident that the Holy Spirit is moving through our society and our church with a renewed fervor for change and we thank God for this advocate sent on our behalf.

ELCA Rites of Reception for gay clergy continue (updated with photo)

It was nearly twenty years ago that two San Francisco congregations of the ELCA defied the official ban on partnered gay clergy by extraordinarily ordaining a lesbian couple to a joint ministry call and a gay man to a second congregation. Since then, a number of other ELCA congregations and gay pastoral candidates have faced official sanctions for similar acts of civil disobedience, and the number of extraordinarily ordained clergy swelled to over twenty.

After the ELCA church wide assembly actions of 2009 (CWA09) reversed the ban on partnered gay clergy, these extraordinarily ordained clergy have been welcomed onto the rolls of rostered ELCA clergy through very public Rites of Reception. The first two, in particular, were especially symbolic as the three groundbreaking pastors from San Francisco and other pioneers in the Extraordinary Ordination movement were received as officially recognized ELCA clergy.

The Rites of Reception have continued in recent months.

Jen Nagel, Minneapolis, Sept 26th
Erik Christensen, Chicago, Oct 10th
Donna Simon, Kansas City, Oct 28th
Jodi Barry, Minneapolis, Oct 30th
Lura Groen, Houston, Nov 7th
Jay Wiesner, Philadelphia, Dec 12th

Pastor Jay Wiesner is a Facebook friend, and the list of well wishers is endless. Another Facebook friend, Pastor Anita Hill, was scheduled to be the preacher at Jay’s service yesterday, but with the historic blizzard in Minnesota, Pastor Hill’s flight was cancelled, and she was unable to preach. Sounds like another Facebook friend, Ross Murray, stepped into the breach. Jay and Ross are founders and mainstays behind the Minnesota camp for gay youth called “The Naming Project.”

Blessings on the continuing ministries of all.

UPDATE: Here is photo of the Rite on Sunday for Jay Wiesner and a link to a very nice article on the website of the SE Pennsylvania Synod of the ELCA.

Midweek miscellany

Bavarian Lutheran Church

Lutherans in the United States and Canada trace their lineage through immigrants from northern Europe. Of course, Luther was German, and the Lutheran Reformation centered in the regions around the Baltic Sea. As the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), easily the largest and most moderate of the American Lutheran denominations, moves toward full inclusion for gays and lesbians, similar processes are underway in the traditional Lutheran churches of northern Europe. Sweden has a lesbian bishop. A bishop in Finland has announced an openness to “gender neutral marriage”. Now, the Lutheran church in conservative Bavaria announces that gay clergy partners who have entered into a legal civil union may live together in church owned parsonages:

Gay and lesbian Lutheran ministers in the conservative German state of Bavaria may live with their partners in parish parsonages, but only if they enter into a state-sanctioned civil union … According to church officials, six Bavarian ministers already live in same-sex civil unions.

Gay student editorial banned at Catholic high School

Sean Simonson is a senior at Benilde-St. Margaret’s, a Catholic school in St. Louis Park, Minn. His editorial entitled “Life as a gay teenager” drew heated comments in the student newspaper, The Knight Errant, and the article was removed. Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reprinted the article in full. Here is a portion:

I have considered suicide. Yes, I have considered taking my own life. Unlike six other boys recently in the news, I never took the steps to follow through on my dark thoughts, but, unfortunately, I can understand what drove them to. Because I know what it’s like to be a gay teenager.

Imagine going through adolescence: hormones raging, body changing, and relationships that go a little deeper than friendship developing. Now, add on being gay.

Don’t believe being different is difficult? Try going through a day in the life of a gay teen.

Every day you hear someone use your sexuality — a part of you that, no matter how desperately you try, you cannot change — as a negative adjective. That hurts.

You fear looking the wrong way in the locker room and offending someone. Politicians are allowed to debate your right to marry the person you love or your right to be protected from hate crimes under the law. Your faith preaches your exclusion — or damnation. And no one does anything to stop it … Oh yeah, and the words “queer,” “homo,” and “faggot” that people throw around all the time? Yeah, those might as well be personal attacks.

As an aside, there is news today that Sarah Palin’s sixteen year old daughter Willow embarrassed herself with a Facebook homophobic rant, using the personal attack terms Simonson derides. What values is she learning from her mother?

Roman Catholic Council of Bishops signals move to the right

For progressive Catholics who thought that the solid swing to the right by the church hierarchy, away from Vatican II, couldn’t get worse, it just did. The conservative vice-president of the American Council of Bishops, in line for election to the presidency, was defeated by a right wing insurgency and an outspoken hard-liner, New York Archbishop Tim Dolan, was elected.

Conservatives [dislike the vice-president’s] reputation as a moderate who favors dialogue and persuasion over the more bully pulpit pronouncements of churchmen like … Dolan, a media-friendly but outspoken figure who became head of the New York archdiocese only last year.

[It was] conservatives’ main goal of thwarting the ascension of a progressive to the top spot; since the contemporary structure of the bishops conference was established in the 1960s, no sitting vice-president has ever been passed over for promotion to the presidency of the bishops — until now.

ELCA commits half a million dollars to cholera relief

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) announced Nov. 15 that it has committed $500,000 for the prevention and treatment of cholera in Haiti, as well as continued response to communities displaced by the January 2010 earthquake. The gift is in addition to the $25,000 the church committed last week for similar purposes in Haiti.

ELCA social statement on genetics

Critics of the ELCA can find the lamest of excuses to justify their stance. A small, rural, farm community congregation of the Red River Valley of North Dakota announced that part of their rationale for leaving the ELCA is a pending social statement on genetics.

Members of the Anselm Trinity Lutheran Church near Sheldon, N.D., interpreted the ELCA’s draft statement as saying farmers who use genetically modified seeds are “pretty much sinners,” said church council president Jill Bunn.

The church is located in the Red River Valley, where farmers often use enhanced seeds to help plants resist weed killers.

Turns out that the pending social statement, which is still in draft and discussion stage, says nothing of the sort.

“If anyone reads the statement for themselves they’ll see that it does not condemn genetically engineered seeds and it doesn’t make any recommendation on farm management practices,” said Roger Willer, the ELCA staff person working with the task force developing the statement.

Minnesota Public Radio and anti-gay bullying

With kudos to Locally Grown Northfield blog and its commenters, here is a link to yesterday’s program on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), which continues the discussion regarding religion’s role in fostering anti-gay attitudes that are manifested in bullying and teen sexual angst.

Consider Justin Anderson, who graduated from Blaine High School outside Minneapolis last year. He says his teenage years were a living hell. From sixth grade on, he heard the same taunts.

“People say things like, ‘Fags should just disappear so we don’t have to deal with them anymore’; and, ‘Fags are disgusting and sinful,’ ” he told the Anoka-Hennepin School Board. “And still, there was no one intervening. I began to feel so worthless and ashamed and unloved that I began to think about taking my life.”

Anderson told his story at a public hearing last month — a hearing convened because in the past year, the district has seen a spate of student suicides. Four of those suicides have been linked to anti-gay bullying.

Justin Anderson survived. Justin Aaberg did not. Aaberg, 15, loved the cello, both playing and composing numbers like “Incinerate,” which he posted on YouTube. Justin was openly gay. He had plenty of friends, but he was repeatedly bullied in his school. In July, his mother, Tammy, found her teenage son hanging from his bed frame.

“They were calling him, ‘Faggot, you’re gay,’ ” she recalls. ” ‘The Bible says that you’re going to burn hell.’ ‘God doesn’t love you.’ Things like that.”

But a representative of the Minnesota Family Council (the same group behind the flyer that appeared in my mailbox directed to “serious Catholics”—see yesterday’s post), disagreed:

she wants to keep the neutrality policy because she says that controversial topics like sexual orientation should be taught in the home or church — not in school. And she believes that changing the policy to allow such discussions is a ploy to normalize homosexuality for kids.

“It becomes homosexual advocacy when you allow this curriculum to come in under the guise of anti-bullying,” she says.

I actually agree with her in part. Sexual orientation issues ought to be openly discussed in our churches; unfortunately, I sense that the message in conservative churches only reinforces the gay angst, and the silence of many moderate and progressive churches, borne of fear of giving offense, is a sin of omission. Listen again to the words of Cody Sanders quoted in an earlier post:

These messages come in many forms, degrees of virulence, and volumes of expression. The most insidious forms, however, are not those from groups like Westboro Baptist Church. Most people quickly dismiss this fanaticism as the red-faced ranting of a fringe religious leader and his small band of followers.

More difficult to address are the myriad ways in which everyday churches that do a lot of good in the world also perpetuate theologies that undergird and legitimate instrumental violence. The simplistic, black and white lines that are drawn between conceptions of good and evil make it all-too-easy to apply these dualisms to groups of people. When theologies leave no room for ambiguity, mystery and uncertainty, it becomes very easy to identify an “us” (good, heterosexual) versus a “them” (evil, gay).

If anti-gay bullying has, at any level, an embodied undercurrent of tacit theological legitimation, then we simply cannot circumvent our responsibility to provide a clear, decisive, theological response. Aside from its theological base, anti-gay bullying is a theological issue because it calls for acts of solidarity on behalf of the vulnerable and justice on behalf of the oppressed.

Conservative Christianity driving a generation away from religion

Of course, the problem of declining religious participation is not confined to Catholicism. Indeed, statistics suggest the decline in Americans who identify with religion is startling.

That shift is the decline in participation by all Americans, but particularly young adults, in churches. In 1990 only 7 percent of Americans indicated “none” as religious affiliation. By 2008 that number had grown to 17 percent. But among young adults, in their twenties, the percent of “nones” is reaching nearly 30%. The new “nones” are heavily concentrated among those who have come of age since 1990.

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.”

Most Americans believe messages about homosexuality coming from religious institutions contribute to negative views of gays and lesbians, and higher rates of suicide among gay youths, a new poll reports … Americans are more than twice as likely to give houses of worship low marks on handling the issue of homosexuality, according to a PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll released Thursday (Oct. 21).

After a recent spate of teen suicides prompted by anti-gay harassment and bullying, the poll indicates a strong concern among Americans about how religious messages are impacting public discussions of homosexuality.

Once again, there is a significant gap between the attitudes of younger versus older adults which mirrors very closely the higher percentage of “nones” among young adults.

Nearly half of Americans age 18-34 say messages from places of worship are contributing “a lot” to negative views of gay and lesbian people, compared to just 30 percent of Americans age 65 and older.

I’ll close by repeating the words of a young woman spoken at the ELCA Church Wide Assembly in 2009 (CWA09),

“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.”