Thou shalt not get homosterical: One member’s response to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
10. 9. 2009 – Dana Gallagher
During their 2009 Churchwide Assembly, August 17-23, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) adopted a social statement entitled “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.” Though the word “marriage” is never used, the statement includes resolutions allowing same-sex relationships to be blessed by individual congregations. Another resolution permits openly homosexual pastors to have committed relationships, while in the past they were only ordained on the condition of celibacy (one-night stands of both the hetero and homosexual kind remain frowned upon).
Predictably, many congregations responded to these gentle nudges towards greater acceptance with anger, withdrawal of financial support, and literal cries of heresy.
The ELCA “has fallen into heresy” said Rev. Paull Spring at the Annual Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Reform) meeting, according to a piece by Ken Kusmer of The Associated Press. The meeting convened soon after the resolutions were announced, and Spring’s statement earned him a standing ovation. He later described the experience as bittersweet. “That’s a very sad thing, to be a church that you belong to your entire life, that now really has fallen in heresy” [there’s that word again!].
A standing ovation strikes me as a strange way to express sadness, but there isn’t much about the opposition to these resolutions that I understand.
I am not a stranger to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. I was baptized, raised, and confirmed in an ELCA congregation. Of all the Lutheran sects, the ELCA is one of the most inclusive of women, allowing and even encouraging them to become pastors. I have always appreciated that I was raised in a church that understood no one should be held back from fully participating in their faith simply because of their genetic makeup, which is why some of the congregants’ response to “Human Sexuality” is so disappointing.
I know that this is a difficult issue for many, and part of me wants to be sensitive to that. At the same time, this fight has gone on for far too long, and quite frankly, I’m sick of it.
First of all, the idea that God has a strong position on whether or not your genitals match when you engage in intercourse sounds flat-out ridiculous to me. Of all the things to condemn, I just cannot conceive of a God that would get all hung up on that one. And if matching genitals are of such great consequence, how is it that they never made it into the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount? So long as your sexual activity is centered on consenting adults and doesn’t break any vows of fidelity, I’m pretty sure you’re in safe territory.
Secondly, it is not anyone’s place to judge the sexual orientation of their fellow parishioner or their minister. “Judge not lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1), “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” (Romans 12:19), “Get over thyself and for heaven’s sake stop putting condemnations in thy Maker’s mouth” (okay, that is my own interpretation, but the sentiment is the same). If you must see yourself as a member of the “winning” sexuality team, then you must. But leave the eternal damnations to God.
Thirdly, say you just do not approve of these resolutions and you never will-so what? There is no rule within the ELCA’s statement demanding that every church hire a gay minister to perform gay commitment ceremonies. All they say is that the option is there for those who want it. It’s a gesture of inclusion, not exclusion. Your personal relationship to the church and your place in its community hasn’t changed at all.
Not unless you decide to make it so.
Fortunately, Lutheran youth seem to be keeping a healthier perspective than that exhibited by many of their elders. As reported by the ELCA News Service, the board of the Lutheran Youth Organization (LYO) of the Lower Susquehanna Synod sent a letter to its council regarding the fractions occurring within the church. They stated that they saw the ongoing discussions about the resolutions as an “enormous opportunity to share the love that we have been shown” by God. “We understand that people have different opinions, and we as a board were very split,” said Sarah Embley, synod LYO president. “We think it is more important to look past our differences and keep the unity of the church and keep God in main view.”
Amen kids.
By Dana Gallagher
21 responses to “Thou shalt not get homosterical: One member’s response to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America”Write yours at the bottom of the page!
Twitter Updates
Moral Courage Heroes
|
October 9th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Wonderfully said.
I was so happy to hear the ELCA’s decision; we have much work to do, but at least we are taking steps in the right direction.
And, like you, I thought Jesus’s message was “love one another, as I have loved you.” This is not a hard concept to grasp, is it?
[Reply]
October 9th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Criss! It is funny (in the sad way) how often the message of Jesus gets left out of these discussions. You’re exactly right-”love one another, as I have loved you.” It couldn’t be simpler. We’ll get there.
[Reply]
October 9th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Thanks for this wonderful piece Dana!
I just read a similar piece in Newsweek by Brent Childers who is the Executive Director of Faith in America. His piece echoes this idea of being a good Christian actually means loving homosexuals and fighting against discrimination.
If you get a minute I encourage you to check it out: http://www.newsweek.com/id/216910/page/2
[Reply]
October 10th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Beautifully expressed, Dana. Your personal commandment – “Get over thyself and stop putting condemnations in thy maker’s mouth” – made me laugh out loud. What a hoot. Thanks for brightening up my morning! It makes me think that you ought to be coming up with a revised list of the Ten Commandments — entirely in keeping with the spirit of the original commandments — but rephrased for contemporary times. What do you think?
[Reply]
October 10th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I agree, I really believe that the 10 Commandments provide a great framework for behavior and decision making, but they leave a lot of really important things out. For instance, why is the Golden Rule not a 10 Commandment? That brings me to another question, if Christians believe in the Golden Rule so much, why do they discriminate against gays so horribly?
I suppose if anyone were to attempt to revise the 10 Commandments that they would face the same accusations of heresy that ELCA has…Moses is the end all and be all of commandments I guess.
[Reply]
Sonja Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
@Janice Formichella, why do they discriminate? I guess the people who discriminate against gays say it is homosexuals who threaten society because of “immoral” behaviour or because they have sex but don’t have children. To me, that sounds like being afraid of diversity. If one way of life is “good” and every other way is “bad”, that’s easier to handle for those on the “good” side.
Also, I think there are still Christians who think homosexuality is some kind of illness. Then, the logical consequence is: Have compassion for those poor people but make sure the disease does not spread.
Some years ago I read a text published by the Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I remember how sad I felt reading a test that speaks about love as if it were an illness. I found it again on the Vatican’s website, the title is “Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons”. Let me quote the passages I am talking about:
“4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved”.(4)
Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts “as a serious depravity… (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”.(5) This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries(6) and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition.
Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided”.(7) They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity.(8) The homosexual inclination is however “objectively disordered”(9) and homosexual practices are “sins gravely contrary to chastity”.(10)”
This is the dogma of the Catholic church, I don’t know any comparable texts by protestants. But I assume that, if protestants discriminate against gays and lesbians from a religious motivation, their arguments will sound similarly.
Question is: How can we respond to them with arguments that are based on the Bible? “Love one another as I have loved you” is good for a start – any other quotes from the Bible?
[Reply]
Irshad Manji Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
@Sonja and @All,
I’ll let the Christians on this page answer your questions about Biblical passages, but you might be interested in how I address this question for Muslims. Years ago, Al-Arabiya.net, one of the most popular news sites in the Middle East, conducted an interview with me. And of course, the “lesbian thing” came up. Here’s how I answered:
I acknowledge that the Quran contains passages implying that homosexuality cannot be tolerated. It also contains passages implying that Allah knows what He is doing when he designs the world’s breathtaking diversity. In addition to the verse that says, “God makes excellent everything He creates,” there are other verses that say “God creates whom He will” and that nothing God creates is “in vain.” How do my critics reconcile those statements with their utter condemnation of homosexuals?
Notice I am not saying that I am right – I do not know that I am right. The question is: what makes my critics so sure they are right? And in claiming to be right, how do they know they are not usurping God’s jurisdiction as the supreme judge and jury?
There is something else worth pointing out. Those Muslims who insist that one perspective must take precedence over another, if only for the sake of social order, neglect another question: how do we know it is the anti-gay verses that take precedence over all else? Why don’t the pro-diversity verses get that honor?
It seems to me that no matter how you slice it, Muslims who wish to live “by the book” have no choice but to make choices about what to emphasize and what do downplay. Selectiveness is inevitable. I recognize my own selectiveness, but at least I am honest enough to admit it.
And so I select – I choose – to see the bigger point that the Quran makes about diversity: “If God had pleased, he would have made you all one people. But he has done otherwise, that he might try you in what he has given to you.” In my view, what a passage like this shows is not just the virtue of tolerating difference. It shows that pluralism is both divine and deliberate. If that is a far-fetched interpretation, then it is a mistake for which I shall pay on the Day of Judgment.
Meanwhile, I am NOT asking Muslims to accept my sexuality. I do not seek anybody’s approval except for that of my Creator. God made me and only God can unravel me. All I do ask Muslims to accept is that the there is room, even in the Quran, for debate about this and many more issues.
[Reply]
Janice Formichella Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
@Sonja, A couple points:
1) I want to make sure that I clear up something you state about the Catholic religion. You state “I remember how sad I felt reading a test that speaks about love as if it were an illness.” You go on to state “This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries(6)and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition.”
It would be irresponsible for me to not point out to you that there is in fact a long history of dissent within the Catholic faith, including a huge block that is very opposed to the current positions of the Vatican regarding homosexuality, sex, and reproductive rights. One such organization, Catholics for Choice, will be featured on the website at the end of the week. I hope you will comment on that post.
2) Now to address your main point,”How can we respond to them with arguments that are based on the Bible?”
I want to push back on this question and ask: why are we required as activists and concerned citizens, to use scriptures at all when arguing for human rights? My answer would be that I require no scriptural authority to discuss such matters.
My authority to argue for gay rights, women’s rights, and all injustices is my citizenship as a member of this country, a neighbor and friend of many gay individuals, and yes, even a global citizen (however cliched that may sound by now).
If asked by a Christian (this is not how I identify anymore) to give a Biblical backing to my arguments, I would refuse, for I find it beside the point quite frankly.
Thoughts?
[Reply]
karys rhea Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
So I wrote this response a few days ago and since then I see that much of the discussion I was going to start has already begun. Nonetheless, I’m going to post my response anyway. I”m sure you will see some overlap:
I really support the ELCA’s decision, and I agree with Criss that we are taking steps in the right direction, but I find it intellectually dishonest when people quote the New Testament as evidence that Jesus or God or Christianity actually supported homosexuality, or supported anything that they may believe. As we all well know, there are endless ways to interpret the Bible, and just because one interpretation is more open-minded or humane does not mean that it is the right interpretation, and by “right,” I mean how the writers of the New Testament actually intended it. There are just as many passages in the New Testament people use to show Jesus’ disdain for homosexuality as there are to show his support for it, including Romans 1:26-27 (”For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:…And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet”), 1 Corinthians 6:9 (not going to quote each one at length), and 1 Timothy 1:10. My point is that just because the church is making social progress does not mean they are adhering more closely to the Bible’s teachings.
Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman) writes in his book, Misquoting Jesus, (I highly recommend it): “How does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don’t have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes – sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly? What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.” We may voice our interpretations of the Bible, but I think we should be careful about making objective statements about what Jesus believed or what Christianity is really about based on those interpretations. Rather, we should find the strength to be comfortable not knowing, because that is what makes faith, faith: belief in the face of no evidence. Having faith is different than fooling ourselves with selective renderings of the Bible for social justice purposes.
Here’s another interesting quote by Ellison and Bartkowski, two scholars of religion who I was required to read for a “Religion and violence” course at NYU:
“Although many conservative Protestants would disagree, many observers argue that the Bible, like any text, contains passages that permit multiple readings. Thus, it is important to note that understandings of scripture – “inerrant” or otherwise-do not emerge in a mechanical fashion from the solitary study and reflection of individuals. Rather, scriptural readings are social products, generated and disseminated within interpretive communities. Members of interpretive communities make certain a priori assumptions about a given text, and they adopt certain ground rules to define the boundaries of acceptable interpretive practice. These assumptions and conventions shape their subsequent readings of concrete passages, ruling out alternative understandings.”
I know these quotes are provocative and that I’m deliberately taking this discussion in another direction. I don’t mean to inflame but I think how the words of Jesus (or any religion) are used for selective interpretation is an important issue to address and I look forward to hearing your responses
[Reply]
Irshad Manji Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
@karys rhea, Awesome post, Karys. I believe it’s important that free-thinkers avoid the trap of assuming that “my fundamentalism is better than your fundamentalism”. Uh, fundamentalism is a problem – whether it emanates from a conservative or a liberal. That’s exactly why, whenever I’m asked by Muslim audiences about homosexuality and Allah, I offer my interpretation and then emphasize, “I’m not saying that I’m right – I don’t know if I am. The question is: what makes my critics so sure they are right? And in claiming to be right, how do they know they’re not usurping God’s jurisdiction as the supreme judge and jury?” I’ve said the same in my interview with Al-Arabiya.net (see my reply to Sonja above), and yet it’s amazing how many times Muslims accuse me of pretending to be a God-appointed prophet. Just goes to show that people hear what they want to hear. Which is why we can’t let the approval or disapproval of others stop us from speaking our truths — with humility, yes, but also without shame or guilt.
[Reply]
Irshad Manji Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
@Janice Formichella, Great point, Janice. I hear you about not needing scriptural backing for what might be termed “natural law” — universal dignity being one such law. Problem is, people of faith (or, more accurately, people of dogma) usually need some kind of scriptural reference in order to simply listen to an argument like Sonja’s. So, for the sake of creating new conversations among those who would dismiss your non-scriptural approach, I accept Sonja’s question as tactically necessary.
[Reply]
Janice Formichella Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 5:48 am
@Irshad Manji, But I am not well versed in the Bible, which limits my credibility with those who want to use the Bible to make their points. Are you suggesting I take time to learn about verses that may argue my points? I suppose my concern is: why would I want to use a book that I don’t believe in to argue points I believe firmly in?
I think that human rights in a fight that welcomes people of all backgrounds and faiths. However I think we need to create space for an inner-faith dialog in this country that does not involve scriptures, or religion for that matter.
Why can’t we take it for granted that we will disagree with many people about God and sacred texts, yet move forward with conversations about rights and freedom?
[Reply]
Sonja Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 8:19 am
@Janice Formichella, the sentence
“This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries(6)and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition.”
is not mine! It is part of what I quoted from the Vatican’s website! Maybe I should have made it more obvious, the three paragraphs from “There are absolutely no grounds…” to “…contrary to chastity” are entirely a quotation. The text I quoted was published in 2003 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
My answer to your question why I ask for Biblical verses would have been what Irshad has already said: It may be tactically necessary. Also, I do not want people to have to choose between either their faith or tolerance for gays and lesbians. If Christians don’t find a way to reconcile the two things, they may feel they have to abandon either their faith in God or their tolerance. Why should they? Thirdly, what about gay/lesbian Christians? Wouldn’t it be helpful for them to see people argue that their sexual orientation is ok from a Christian point of view?
When I first told a Christian friend of mine that I am lesbian, she was confused and did not know what to say. Two days later, she e-mailed me. She had found a website (it’s in German) that lists arguments why homosexuality and Christianity need not be mutually exclusive, quite the contrary. For my friend, that was a great relief and she said that now she does not have a problem with homosexuals at all any more. Her only concern was that it might be irreconcilable with her faith in God. And her faith is where she draws strength from to do great things, so the last thing I would want is for her to give up her faith!
I think this already partly answers your question “Why can’t we take it for granted that we will disagree with many people about God and sacred texts, yet move forward with conversations about rights and freedom?” If people feel that the two things might be mutually exclusive, yet don’t want to abandon their faith in God altogether, they have to solve the problem in a way that includes their faith.
[Reply]