Tag Archives: Scripture

The Road to Damascus

Tuesday, January 25th marks the conversion of Paul, according to the Revised Common Lectionary.

Wikipedia suggests a “Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert’s previous religion.” In this sense, the term “conversion” is actually an anachronism disliked by scholars because at the time of Paul’s Damascus road experience, neither he nor any others of the fledgling Jesus movement anticipated or intended a new religion. Perhaps “transformation” is a better choice.

What happened that day on the road to Damascus? In Paul’s own writings, the only reference to Damascus is the following understated account from his letter to the Galatians:

But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. Galatians 1:15-17 (NRSV)

By the time the author of Acts told the story, a generation or more later, dramatic flourishes had been added:

Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Acts 9:3-7

Apparently forgetting what he had written earlier, the second telling of the story by the author of Acts reversed the seeing and hearing. In the first passage, the companions of Paul heard the voice but saw nothing; in the second, they saw but did not hear.

While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Then he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.’ Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. I asked, ‘What am I to do, Lord?’ The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do.’ Acts 22:6-10

Finally, the third version contained within Acts significantly expands the conversation between Paul and the voice:

when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrewlanguage, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ Acts 26:13-18

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that my novel about Paul, entitled A Wretched Man, was published around ten months ago. How should I depict the scene on the Damascus road? How could I describe an event that is believable to my readers yet account for the profundity of Paul’s experience? As I wrestled with my choices, I also wondered, to what extent was Paul’s experience of the presence of the divine, his theophany, different from the times in my life when I felt God’s touch? Or, from a more intellectual perspective, I wondered about the famous 19th century book by William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, which a late 20th century reviewer lauded for its “penetration into the hearts of people.”

In my novel, I foreshadowed the Damascus experience in a scene with Paul’s fictional mentor, Eli the sage.

“The Prophet Ezekiel describes the God who is indescribable. How do we see the God that is beyond sight? How do we know the God who is beyond knowing? The absolute holiness of God is greater than a mere human can bear and more than we can comprehend. These are words beyond words with meaning beyond meaning.”

“I understand,” said Paulos.

Eli scowled. “Do not be overconfident, my young friend. Self-doubt is the blossom of wisdom. When Moses faced God in the burning bush, he asked, What is your name? We must all pursue the same question,” Eli said, and then his voice dropped to a whisper, “but we err if we believe we have the answer.”

The oil lamp flared and briefly chased the shadows, but then the flame died, leaving the room dark except for the shaft of light that fell across the scroll in Paulos’ hands.

“As soon as we name the one whose name is unknown, we create the one who created us,” Eli said. “Ezekiel the prophet painted colorful pictures that point to the truth, but they are untrue.”

Paulos squinted into the nearly blind eyes of the old man. Had the fuzziness that coated his eyes reached his mind? Paulos began to doubt his mentor who spoke in silly riddles. He tugged on his nose and his gaze returned to the written words. His finger traced the scribed marks with care not to touch the holy scroll. He read aloud, “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.”

The wizened old man rhythmically tapped his willow cane on the tile floor. First, he offered a promise. “One day you will see the glory of the Lord.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

And then, he issued a challenge, “What words will you speak when you tell the tale? What picture will you paint?”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

And finally, he uttered a warning, “But retain your humility and self-doubt. Do not pretend to answer Moses’ question or paint truer pictures than Ezekiel. Do not commit idolatry.”

In the end, how did I write the Damascus scene?

Evangelicals and gays

Tony Perkins of the American Family Council, gay-basher in chief, not only doesn’t speak for all Christians, he doesn’t speak for all evangelicals. Nor do Charles Colson, James Dobson, or Tim LaHaye. It would seem there is a younger crowd, a new generation, that is raising questions about the traditional evangelical intolerance toward gays. Yes, the move toward gay equality is advancing at all levels of religious and secular society, even within the quarter most associated with rigorous opposition.

A small but growing group which calls itself Evangelicals Concerned offers support for gays seeking reconciliation of their faith and their sexuality:

Organizations or churches with Evangelical roots have traditionally been the most condemning, exclusionary and antagonistic to Christians who identify as GLBT. This bias has produced untold levels of damage to many children of God and has caused many to abandon their faith traditions or commit suicide. Evangelical organizations are responsible for virtually every attempt to convert GLBT people. EC has challenged the conversion therapy notion for 25 years, standing in the gap and providing healing and safety to thousands of Christians.

The Gay Christian Network (GCN) also consists of mostly evangelical members. Earlier this summer, I met one of their leaders when we both happened to be workshop presenters at the Lutherans Concerned Convention in Minneapolis.

The Gay Christian Network is a nonprofit ministry serving Christians who happen to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, and those who care about them.

Like many Christian mothers, Sandy was completely unprepared to learn that her son was gay.

How could he be? Everything she had been taught in church had led her to one conclusion, that gay people were sinful, that they had turned from God, and that they were ultimately condemned to hell. Yet none of that fit the profile of her beloved son. He was a good son, and he loved God. How could he be gay?

For five months after learning of her son’s sexuality, Sandy was a wreck. She was sure that homosexuality was not of God. Yet she loved her son. She needed answers, but she didn’t know where to turn.

Then she found GCN.

An article in the Huffpost this week questioned, Is Evangelical Christianity having a Great Gay Awakening? Author Cathleen Falsani suggests that she struggled to accommodate traditional evangelical Biblical ethics with the reality of the gay relationships in her circle of friends.

That was my answer: Love them. Unconditionally, without caveats or exceptions.

I wasn’t sure whether homosexuality actually was a sin. But I was certain I was commanded to love.

For 20 years, that answer was workable, if incomplete. Lately, though, it’s been nagging at me. Some of my gay friends are married, have children and have been with their partners and spouses as long as I’ve been with my husband.

Loving them is easy. Finding clear theological answers to questions about homosexuality has been decidedly not so.

Falsani then discusses a book by none other than Jay Bakker, the son of the famous televangelists of a generation ago, Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker, called Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self & Society.

“The simple fact is that Old Testament references in Leviticus do treat homosexuality as a sin … a capital offense even,” Bakker writes. “But before you say, ‘I told you so,’ consider this: Eating shellfish, cutting your sideburns and getting tattoos were equally prohibited by ancient religious law.

“The truth is that the Bible endorses all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that we find unacceptable (and illegal) today and decries others that we recognize as no big deal.”
Leviticus prohibits interracial marriage, endorses slavery and forbids women to wear trousers.

Bakker’s exegesis is quite right, and he could have gone further. When I have presented workshops interpreting the so-called “clobber passages” of the Bible, I point out that these ancient Hebrew regulations were religious rules and not universal ethics, loosely akin to the modern day ritual of meatless Fridays, formulated from a consistent pattern of Hebrew rituals of boundaries, markers, and insularity. Don’t do as the Gentiles do. Don’t mix with the Gentiles. Don’t mix unlike things. Don’t mix seeds in your field. Don’t mix different fabrics in the same garment. Don’t cavort with the temple prostitutes of the Gentiles (male and female). Don’t follow the sexual practices of the Gentiles. Don’t eat meat from animals that confuse their category. A shellfish doesn’t have fins or swim like a fish; it is an abomination. Don’t eat shellfish.

Here is the preface to the chapter in Leviticus that contains the infamous clobber passage:

You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you.

Leviticus 18:3

Ritual regulatory rules of behavior for the ancient Hebrews are complicated, which cannot be adequately addressed here, but perhaps that is the essential point; it’s not as simple or as black and white as the literalists would suggest. When we understand the context of their ancient formulation, we recognize a ritualistic and symbolic system of separation of a besieged peoples, anxious to preserve their identity against the dangers of assimilation by the empires that dominated them militarily and politically.

Falsani also discussed Bakker’s interpretation of the New Testament, Pauline “clobber passages”, and Bakker again is accurate when he suggests:

Examining the original Greek words translated as “homosexual” and “homosexuality” in three New Testament passages, Bakker (and others) conclude that the original words have been translated inaccurately in modern English.

What we read as “homosexuals” and “homosexuality” actually refers to male prostitutes and the men who hire them. The passages address prostitution — sex as a commodity — and not same-sex, consensual relationships, he says.

In my workshops, I dig deeper. Modern day Bible versions that include the word “homosexual” are anachronistic at best and political at worst. Paul used two Greek words, arsenokotai and malakoi, which do not otherwise appear in the writings of the period; thus, it appears he may have coined them himself. Bakker’s suggestion that the terms refer to prostitution may be correct, but I think the better interpretation is that the terms refer to the Greco-Roman practice of pederasty, involving an aristocrat and a young man or boy, which was fairly common in the period. Again, attempting to make sense of Paul’s two-thousand year old writings is complicated, and there’s more to it than fits in this blog, but the essential point is that Paul’s writings were conditioned by a 1st century context. The issues facing Paul were not the same issues we face today.

Falsani’s experience—“Some of my gay friends are married, have children and have been with their partners and spouses as long as I’ve been with my husband”—persuaded her that the traditional application of the Biblical “clobber passages” didn’t fit for her and for a growing number of her evangelical friends. She concludes:

Only time will tell whether more evangelical leaders — Emergent, emerging or otherwise — will add their voices to the chorus calling for full and unapologetic inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the church.

But I’m sensing a change in the wind (and the Spirit.)

Dusting off your feet

The metaphor of shaking the dust off one’s feet and moving on appears in the synoptic gospels and also in one passage of Acts when Paul and his entourage are not well received in the synagogue of a Phrygian city.

If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. Mark 6:11

Nearly a year ago, well-known author and Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, the bane of many conservatives, dusted off his feet.

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate “reparative therapy,” as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality “deviant.” I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that “we love the sinner but hate the sin.”

Recently, former ELCA Presiding Bishop Herb Chilstrom dusted off his feet.

I am both sad and relieved that you [ELCA defectors] 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.”

Today, blogger and ELCA pastor Justin Johnson writes about the decision of Lutheran CORE to post, and thereby endorse, the repugnant comments of one ELCA defector who wrote, among other untruths,

But the education, worship and other materials provided by the ELCA for use in congregations are shot through with an alien agenda, most of the pastors and ministers it now trains are not competent to preach the gospel, and its home and global missions are in captivity to a false gospel.

Pastor Justin has dusted off his feet.

I think I am done with them. If this is how they feel about me and my ministry and my friends who are also in the ministry, I too am going to have to take the stance and say “I’m glad your gone.” I never wanted to feel this way and never wanted to say such a thing honestly, but if your stance is to be insulting and demeaning, then goodbye, I’m done.

Lutheran CORE, can you disagree without being disagreeable? Can you say, the ELCA is becoming too liberal, and as conservatives, we are uncomfortable? Nah, it’s better to accuse ELCA folks of becoming “unchurched” who have “officially renounced the Lordship of Christ” and now are “committed to false teaching and immorality”. Can you say, I respectfully disagree with your Biblical interpretation? Nah, it’s better to accuse ELCA folks of being “unbiblical”, pursuing a “false gospel you have chosen for yourself”.

Lutheran CORE, you’re gone and you’ve formed your own little denomination, the North American Lutheran Church (NALC); please get on with the business of being a church and get over bashing the ELCA to which you no longer belong. Or, is that your business, your raison d’être?

Maybe we all need to shake the dust off our feet.

North American Lutheran Church spawned by CORE

The long awaited and much ballyhooed Convocation of Lutheran CORE is underway in Grove City, Ohio. At the Convocation, eighteen former ELCA congregations have banded together as charter members of the CORE created Lutheran denomination auspiciously called The North American Lutheran Church (NALC).

Eighteen.

Newly elected NALC bishop Paull Spring predicts the new denomination will soon grow to as many as two hundred congregations. Even this optimistic view seems a far cry from “A Reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism”, yet the press release yesterday persisted in that hyperbole and added the prideful presumption that the actions of CORE were the Lord’s doing:

Our Lord’s reconfiguring of the Lutheran landscape not only in North America, but worldwide, is breathtaking and exciting.

Eighteen.

Spring suggested that the ELCA gay friendly resolutions of a year ago were merely the tipping point, and it was the ELCA’s long term drift away from Scripture that is really the issue. According to the Associated Press report on the Convocation and an interview with Bishop Spring,

He gave as an example the ELCA’s use of inclusive language that strips male references to God — such as “Father” and “Son” — replacing them with words like “Creator” and “Savior.”

Did he really say that? Did he really claim that “Creator” is non-scriptural? Did he really argue that “Savior” is non-scriptural? The verses that prove the contrary are too numerous to list, but here are a couple of obvious examples. Surely the recycled Bishop is familiar with Romans 1, perhaps the favorite “clobber passage” of those who would use Scripture to bash gays, where Paul nobly references “the Creator”. And what about those favorites of churchly misogynists, the Pastoral Epistles–surely the Bishop knows these well? How did he miss the numerous references there to the “Savior”? What kind of Biblical parsing is the Bishop up to?

In this case, at least, it would appear that the arrogance of Biblicism is matched by its incompetence.

What do you know for sure?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you know for sure?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Is confessionalism the new circumcision?

During this morning’s weekly Blue Monday coffee shop theology table discussion with area ELCA pastors, I suggested that as a historian and novelist rather than clergy, I bring a different point of view to the weekly lectionary. I have an eye for conflict.

See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Luke 10:3 NRSV

Though we may wish otherwise, conflict is part of our past and our present. The first schism in the church occurred during the first generation following the death of Jesus with Paul and his Gentiles on one side and the original Jewish disciples on the other. This split is evident when comparing the three synoptic versions of the gospel lesson for this Sunday. The Markan original (Mk 6:7) suggests Jesus sent out the twelve, but the Matthean and Lukan revisions are revealing. Matthew speaks for the Jewish faction, and he agrees that Jesus sent out the twelve and adds “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Mt 10:5-6). Luke’s motivation is entirely opposite, and he mentions not twelve but seventy (Lk 10:1), an obvious symbolic reference to the nations—the Gentiles. For the Pauline Luke, exclusive boundaries marked by circumcision had been dismantled by the Christ, which Paul himself confirmed in the conclusion to his letter to the Galatians:

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised … even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law … for neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! Gal 6:12-15

Paul’s concluding comment, “As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them,” was echoed by Luke:

first say, “Peace to this house!” And if anyone is there who who shares in peace, your peace will rest upon that person; but if not, it will return to you. Luke 10:5b-6.

Pauline theology suggests the Christ has torn down the boundaries of traditional Torah exclusivity, marked by circumcision, and Paul offers a new and broadened understanding of the descendants of Abraham. Come and join us, he says, we will “bear one another’s burdens”, but if you insist on your traditional boundaries, on your walls of exclusion, on your separateness based on literal application of the law, then … you “cut yourself off” and ”you bite and devour one another”. Again, Luke offers the final word, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you.”

Upon returning from coffee with this lectionary fresh in my mind, a blog post from Pastor Brant, “Both Saint and Cynic”, popped up on my computer. Pastor Brant writes of the new SAWC (Synodically Authorized Worshiping Community) that has arisen out of the dust of conflict in Tomah, Wisconsin. Another blog friend, Kelly, reports on the Tomah House of Peace SAWC that is developing after a former ELCA congregation refused to accept the peace offered by the inclusivity of the revised ELCA ministry policies. Paul tore down boundaries, but the Judaizers rebuilt them. This ancient church conflict presents a compelling parallel to the inclusivity of the ELCA versus the exclusivity of LCMC, CORE, and WordAlone that boast of their confessionalism, their reverence for the traditional, their persistence in championing sharp lines of division.

Has confessionalism become the new circumcision?

Scientific study: children of same sex partners are well-adjusted

Opponents of the ELCA ministry policies that allow gay clergy frequently trumpet the Reformation cry Sola Scriptura. The WordAlone Ministries bases its name on this slogan, and ELCA critics decry any other influence in ethical discernment beyond strict application of Biblical law. Such critics conveniently overlook Luther’s own two-pronged analytical approach–“the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason”–to inform conscience. One expects that the Lutheran CORE, WordAlone, & LCMC spokesmen would cite scientific or empirical evidence if they could, but they are left with unsound science such as reparative therapy (CORE brought along fellow-travelers from the debunked Exodus Ministries to CWA09). Lacking sound scientific support for gay-EXCLUSIVE policies, it is understandable why ELCA opponents wrap themselves in unscientific and uncritical Biblical interpretations. Oh, we hear platitudes now and again about “family values” or “traditional marriage”, but the evidence doesn’t support their case.

Thus, we don’t expect the CORE types to pay much attention to the scientific study report in today’s issue of Pediatric Journal which concludes “Being raised by a same-sex couple is no hindrance to healthy psychological development”. In fact, 17 year olds who had been raised entirely by a lesbian couple following artificial insemination of one partner, actually seemed better adjusted than their counterparts who had been raised by heterosexual partners—except when subjected to homophobic bullying.

When comparing the results to how mothers living in conventional families rated their teenagers, children of same-sex couples were more competent in school, had fewer social problems, broke fewer rules and were less aggressive.

Based on what the children reported themselves, they did just as well whether or not they knew the identity of their biological father.

However, those teenagers who — according to their mothers — experienced homophobia and bullying did turn out to be more anxious and have more depressive symptoms than their peers.