In the wake of renown evangelical theologian John Piper’s haughty rant about a tornado being God’s judgement on the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s (ELCA) pending vote to ordinate gay clergy, an hour ago the ELCA voted to officially affirm partnered gay ministers. This makes the third denomination to do so, following the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ. Here is a quick overview of tonight’s ruling by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).
The ELCA’s affirmation is the most “surprising” of the three thus far, but it is still a far cry from any conservative denomination to make such a move. Do you think (like it seems with gay marriage throughout the country) that this movement will continue past the traditionally ‘liberal’ denominations and States; moving also to traditionally conservative ones as well?
As is part of my message to conservatives with gay marriage as well:
Is this about the fight in convincing the other side you’re right, or is it about learning how to peacefully and productively live in a culture where gay marriage and ordination are (at least in 3 denominations) an accepted piece of the puzzle that is faith, sexuality and culture?
What do you think, and how should each side of the bridge move forward? Are you in an ELCA church? What are your thoughts?
Much love.
Just a dude trying to learn how to live and love. 
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Sorry Derek. I guess I just got confused with his conclusion: “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and of us: Turn away from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegience to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.”
No hint of God’s judgement at all in that conclusion or the preceding paragraphs…
Matt made a comment earlier “Do such Churches really understand the cost that is demanded when they call for homosexuals to be celibate?”
I think that it is not the Church that asks for such sacrifice…it’s Christ that asks those of us who struggle with SSA to make that sacrifice. The Church is just a body made up of individual, human, sinful,, members…hopefully trying to follow what God has said thru His Word.
God isn’t asking us to trust them, He’s asking us to trust Him.
Jules, Jack and Jon (lots of J’s!!) – Yes, it does get vary wary trying to keep this peaceful and productive. Jon, thanks for your story … I think it illustrates a great point. With that in mind, Derek (and please read Nalai’s comment again), you are continually trying to convince people of something that you will not be able to convince them of. I call that “working off of a false model of the ideal situation.” Your ideal is to have the other side believe in what you’re saying, dropping what they believe. That will never happen! Just like anyone else isn’t going to convince you that the tornado wasn’t a message by God. These types of conversations are totally lose-lose; once again doing nothing more than entrenching each side in their own camp.
That is not bridge building!
Elevating the conversation is finding a common framework to work within. People can disagree and significant things can happen for the Kingdom. In fact, I think disagreement is the path to learning. It’s extremely healthy! (see http://www.loveisanorientation.com/2009/part-1-the-barna-groups-research-on-glbt-spirituality/). And there were even people here who tried to refocus the conversation back to its original intent, with no luck. I am not here to chastise/defend Piper’s words, or him as a person—I don’t know the guy personally and am tired of people (including myself) trying to speak for him, and his intent in what he wrote. I officially have a headache.
I know these types of conversations bring out the most passion in each of us, otherwise we wouldn’t comment.
But from here on out in this post, if there are to be comments (thanks Jeff S.), let’s look over the scope of what has already been said and speak to advancing the dialogue, not defend or incriminate this one guy. If we can only somehow humbly learn from each other, this world, this conversation, this culture war would be at a better place. Much love.
Andrew,
It is more than fair for you to challenge people who characterize you in an unfair way, right? And it has happened to you many times, I’m sure. I am not unfamiliar with you or with the kneejerk reactions you have to deal with, I’ve heard you speak many times, including once in person. Piper has been around the block a long time. He anticipated all of the kneejerk responses that we’ve seen here in this forum and over at iMonk, etc, and predictably, they’ve been ignored by many people.
All I’m doing is asking for you to show the same courtesy and I’ve given some specifics. Maybe you’re not ready to accept responsibility for this now, but I feel more than comfortable giving this a rest and with letting people review what you’ve said, what I’ve said, what Piper has said and let them judge for themselves.
Blessings, friend. 80-90% of the time, I’m in agreement with you, fwiw. Don’t assume that criticism means that people are haters or want to discredit you.
Derek, I don’t assume you’re a hater or want to discredit me. From what I remember you have yet to ‘talk’ about me in any of your posts – your post are about your understanding of, and defending Piper’s comments. My last comment was the realization that in this context for this divide about Piper, you’re not going to convince any of the people who don’t agree with you that you’re right. It’s a no-win for either. And, I think I have shown a lot of courtesy and professionalism (doesn’t have to mean I agree with you), and I always do take responsibility, including the admission of my original usage of “hauty rant.”
n’Process – Thank you for your peaceful, constructive comment. I think you bring up an intriguing point. From my understanding of what Matt said, he was also referring to celibate in relation to the biblical understanding that humans were made to express sexual intimacy. With that key component gone, celibacy brings up a unique juxtaposition, not necessarily relatable to most other constructs of living out the faith.
n’Process
I stand corrected. It is Christ who asks for me to be celibate. Any sacrifice associated with that I will gladly pay considering what He paid for me.
Now,I do believe that if a Church is going to publicly and actively condemn homosexual behavior then they also need to be demonstrating Christ’s call to demonstrate love and mercy to the person struggling with homosexuality.
It’s really not that tough to do. It doesn’t take a specialized ministry team to do it. It just takes pastors and church leaders who would be willing to say to their congregation, “if any of you are facing homosexual temptations or are feeling guilt over homosexual behavior, please come talk to me. I will listen. I will pray with you. If you have sinned I will help you to know the forgiveness of Christ. I will respect you for wanting to stand on God’s Word in a difficult circumstance. And I will give you whatever help I can to assist you do that.” (frankly, they should say that about every sin)
If I ever heard a pastor say that, I would be in his office the next day. But I’ve never actually heard a pastor say anything like that. And I do think it is the duty of every Christian to call the Church to a better reflection of our Lord in how we approach this and every topic.
Nevertheless, so what if the Church doesn’t respond 100% correctly? I’ve got the Word of God. I know His forgiveness and mercy. Fasting in whatever form, whether abstaining from food or sex, does have the effect of helping us to comprehend the all-sufficiency of God’s grace and forcing one to go deeply into God’s Word. And that is a gift that is worth any price. Sure, Id like a deeper relationship with Christian brothers and sisters. But that is only a want. My needs are met in abundance in the salvation of Christ and that’s all that really matters.
So, yes, you are right. it is Christ who asks the sacrifice and Christ who supplies the strength to make it. And I stand corrected for not giving Him enough credit and glory in my last post.
Andrew,
You said:
“From what I remember you have yet to ‘talk’ about me in any of your posts”
I was pretty specific on what my objections were, with regard to the mischaracterizations you made (minor suggestion- I wish the blog comments had numbers, like many blogs do, so I could reference my previous entry). My biggest objection isn’t the haughty rant comment, but your mischaracterization that Piper was proclaiming judgment, in the mode of Robertson. As I told Jon Trouten, if he WERE doing so, I might agree. You might not see a difference between a warning to everyone to repent and a judgment that falls on a specific people, but he DID clarify and anticipate kneejerk reactions before publishing his comments. Again, if you expect people to understand nuance in your own arguments, it is common courtesy to fairly characterize others’.
When I read all of your comments, I also get a sense that you don’t think Piper or anyone representing the historical (and Biblical) position on this topic has even earned the right to criticize the actions of the ELCA or to note the dangerousness of their actions. Perhaps I’m wrong and I would be happy to hear you correct me on what your true perspective is, but if any kind of carefully crafted criticism is going to be taken out of context and turned into a “message of judgment from God”, I wonder with all seriousness, what Piper or any other critic could have said that would be taken at face value. Please understand: I actually think you have a really good point about earning the right to speak in certain ways on this topic especially, but sometimes I wonder if that can be taken to such an extreme that it pushes folks like Piper or myself to keep our genuine convictions to ourselves, out of the public – and sometimes, private – sphere.
Peace.
Matt,
I’m right there with you on waiting for a Pastor or Church to announce and follow up with a call to love and care for any strugglers within the group. Which is where groups like Exodus and their local affiliates come in. They have been an absolute Godsend in terms of experiencing worship in a safe place, free from that nagging feeling that “if they only knew what I struggle with, they wouldn’t be the same to me”.
But we are the Church. What we do wrong, the Church does wrong. So WE are part of the solution, we can help our brothers and sisters in our local church learn to be the Body that we need them to be. It involves risk, it involves making our needs known, but there is great promise when God begins to radically change the face of our local church, and He may actually use you as a catalyst in the process. At least that is what I learned at the Exodus Conference.
I have found that the more I am willing to share about my struggles, the less guilt and shame I seem to carry around for having them in the first place!
Wow, those are great words, n’process. I especially appreciated reading what you said because my dad was one of the speakers at Exodus’ conference here in the Chicago area last month. I’m encouraged.
n’Process
I absolutely agree!
I have mostly been pointing out what the church does wrong for two reasons 1: because at the moment church bodies and conservative Christians will be making responses to the ELCA. As they do so it is important that they look at their own sin while formulating their response to another’s. 2: I am in Church work and see very clearly where we “professionals” have missed the boat on this issue. If I critique pastors and churches rather harshly it is not as an outsider looking in but as insider calling myself and my brothers and sisters in church work to a higher standard and a closer image of Christ.
You are also correct that Exodus is an amazing group. But being in professional church work I also know that the biggest challenge they have comes from pastors. Too many pastors are unwilling to admit that they might have members who struggle with this issue. “We don’t have that problem in my congregation” has almost become a mantra for evangelical pastors.
Changing that will take time – but right now as churches and denominations prepare their responses to the ELCA decision, time is not a luxury we can afford. So posting on blogs like this as well as several others that I know are read by officials in my denomination is the quickest way I know of to make them aware of needs evangelical churches have failed to address as they in turn address the failing of another.
Oh, and Derek, I don’t know which speaker your father was but since they were all tremendous I can confidently say he did an excellent job and gave a great witness.
Exodus might be a great group for some, but it’s not effective for everyone and it — and other programs like it — have done their best to chase many far, far away from the church never to return.
Since I only discovered this blog recently, I’m a little late on this issue.
I was happy, naturally, with the ELCA’s– Lutheran for short, decison to simply recognize what already exists. Gay couples where one is a minister is nothing new. Co-clergy where both women are lesbians is nothing new to me. You wouldn’t believe the numbers of retired clergy I’ve met who had been closeted gay men for decades. Once they are retired, a lot of the time, they finally come out. They were fearful closeted men, and then they came out to freedom after their pensions were safe. Some of these guys are still married to women, but have gay affairs on the side, which their wives supposedly approve of. This stuff is more common, and men are more likely to do this than women, because women used to be banned from clergy in most churches when I was born. Remember how everyone screamed when women were ordained in mainstream denominations?
I’m happy for all the gay and lesbian clergy in the ELCA who will now be able to be open about who they are. That’s great.
No doubt conservatives are really going to be upset over this, but I’m somehow detached. Church traditionalists are just who they are. They’re nice people, but ignorant largely. Or they are struggling with repressed homosexuality, and that’s a different matter. If people were 100% honest about who they really were as human beings, we’d have a radically “Christ centered world.” I recall how deeply meaningful the infamous Paul’s words were when I first came out and found a church home in MCC.
We had these words engraved on the altar, “You will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” I also found a lot of comfort in reciting First Corinthians, Chapter 13 when my lesbian cousin was dying young.
Andrew has some interesting ideas about who wants to be right or wrong, or whether we want to be thoughtful. A lot of the fuss over gayness really has to do with people’s internal psychological struggles anyway.
For those people who are bisexual, they might find a fundamentalist background pushing them to be “straight” and to “resist” same sex attraction. These people tend to be the most fundamentalist in my opinion.
And those who are in the clergy and feel this way must really feel conflicted. Ted Haggard comes to mind. Mel White was like this too before he founded Soul Force. Malcolm Boyd struggled too. Bishop Paul Moore of New York lived a double life as married to a woman, and having gay male lovers on the side. His daughter writes movingly of this in her autobiography that is quite good, BTW.
But to me, honesty about who you are is the best policy. Whether you understand straightness or not or opposite sex attraction, as I most certainly do not, you will be stuck with this issue. Sexuality doesn’t go away, and the more the person “represses” a true self, or doesn’t openly admit to having a dual attraction, the more it persists I think.
I’ve had so many friends who were rejected from Lutheran clergy positions because they were gay or lesbian. They have heresy trials, the whole bit.
So I was surprised by this decision. I’m happy for them, and I know that one of the amazing traditions of gay and lesbian folk is our deep spirituality.
We have these spiritual gfts that we have always shared with the world, Only when straight people reject us, they refuse the gifts we offer them.
Think of the gay uncle who takes your children to art galleries, or the black youth leader at your church. Think of the lesbians who defend battered women, or who shelter them when they are fleeing abusive husbands. Think of the legions of lesbian social workers who rescue abused kids. Think of the legions of lesbian Sunday school teachers, your favorite math teacher, your brilliant history teacher. In an era where jobs were limited to women, lesbians were dominant in nursing and teaching and even the military. Talk to a military woman of a certain era, and she was a lesbian. Thank her for her service to god and country! I’m biased, but I think all women who go into the military are lesbians, but hey, what do I know
These are our spiritual gifts, and now, when we are honest about the sheer numbers of gay and lesbian clergy everywhere, we’ll have so much more to share!
No two christians agree on anything these days, and the culture is increasingly polarized.
For christian traditional gay people, and there are lot of that type out there, this will be an excellent decison. They’ll be able to stay in the church they were raised in, be able to consult with a gay or lesbian clergy person about deeply important issues, and have a gay or lesbian clergy person perform wedding and baptism ceremonies. So I’m happy for all my lesbian Lutheran friends out there.
Straight conservatives will say all kinds of things that are rather crazy… I just smile at another homophobe talking about god striking down a church tower across from the convention center. Of course if a plane crashes carrying a bunch of straight people, us gay people don’t go around saying it was god’s punishment to them. Honestly, I don’t think god is that petty one way or the other. I don’t think the mother who came to our gay church in the 1980s with a child who had AIDS was saying this sort of thing about us. Her “traditional” church rejected her when they found out her child had AIDS, and she turned to us for help, because our congregation really was in the middle of the epidemic. I still recall all the mothers who came to their son’s funerals at our church. Fathers never came. That was in the 80s.
I think people need to be fully honest about their sexual orientation, especially if they are in leadership roles. People deal with oppression and social rejection and discomfort all the time. Some of us are very lucky to be happily lesbian or happily straight with no major conflicts. Some of us are happy to have found good church homes where lesbians and gays and straights can be together… heck I’m married to a minister, and down the street from me lives another Episcopal lesbian minister, and the other day I met a gay Episcopal clergyman in the park. So this is just normal for me.
I don’t know what it would be like to not want to be lesbian, and to try to “change” myself to marry a man and be socially accepted. I don’t know what it would be like to be bisexual, and fundamentalist christian. I certainly think it is odd that so many christians find gays and lesbians so upsetting in clergy leadership positions. But I guess this issue isn’t going away. It will be there until people understand the love of god and Jesus, and really get this. It will be there until people have a better grasp on human sexuality. Until that time, traditionalists of all kinds are going to suffer. Lesbians and gays suffered in the pews when we were banned from clergy jobs, now I suppose a lot of straight conservatives are going to suffer and walk out when they hire some gay guy as their new pastor. Things like this happen.
Change and honesty about your true self should be celebrated in the body of Christ, but we’re still working on the honesty part. Thanks for this blog, I really like it.
“If people were 100% honest about who they really were as human beings, we’d have a radically “Christ centered world.”
Audrey, I totally agree with you on this. But not quite in the way you may think. People need to be honest about their struggles, even when they are same-sex ones. But every struggling person is not going to be happier just getting on the gay train. I know. I could have gone that way, but it would never have worked for me.
“I don’t know what it would be like to be bisexual, and fundamentalist christian.”
I do, or at least I know what it was once like to be a Southern Baptist and struggling with dual sexuality issues.
“I’m biased, but I think all women who go into the military are lesbians, but hey, what do I know
”
Trust me, there are many women in the military who are as straight and feminine as can be. I served eight years as a Marine, and got to observe lots of women.
I know I was put off by your feminist rant yesterday, but I must say you have some interesting perspectives. Nice chatting with you.
Hey Debbie, I had to laugh about “the feminist rant.” I love that good old time religion, the classic lesbian feminist rant
Have to laugh about women in the military, because the lesbians in the military I know are deeply closeted. They could beoted out (no pun intended) if they came out. Another topic. Other than my love of Amazon warriors, and double headed axes, I assure you, I am not a very military like person.
It would be hard to “struggle” with sexuality. This is something I don’t really know about. The only major struggles I had were simply dealing with a very abusive, or silent or discriminatory straight world. Once I found my people, I was really delighted with lesbian community. I was very lucky to have found the great love of my life early in life, and actually had a far easier time of it than my fundamentalist sisters.
Even when I was a kid, I found heterosexuals perplexing. “What does she see in that stupid man?” was often something I thought about. “What’s with these love songs?” None of it made much sense to me, because I have always been a lesbian, so nothing about straight anything made any sense at all to me. I just assumed early in life that I would get my education, that I would hang out with really smart women, and that men were just road blocks in the way of my chosen path to success in a male dominated and sexist world. I was strong intellectually and physically, and also a romantic and a dreamer at heart.
So what changed? Well, I fel in love with the woman who loved me for being a good catholic girl, I traveled the world, and I came to see churches first as discriminatory towards women. It was the language that drove me nuts. Once you start learning foreign languages, you start to really understand your native English, and just how male centric it is. Long story.
I never saw all that big a conflict between sexuality or spirituality.
You’d laugh, but in many ways, I am a very proper stuffed shirt victorian sort of lesbian. Being a christian AND a lesbian AND a feminist can cause a lot of drama in the gay community at large, because most gay people think christians are idiots, oppressors or just plain dumb at worst… The gay hating churches drive more gay people away from Christ than any atheists I know
Heck, my atheist straight friends have been incredibly loving and hospitable. It’s kind of funny.
Your situation may be more common, I’m not sure. But whatever you feel, I hope your marriage is a happy one.
The reason there may be conflict between lesbians and straight people, is this differing experience with self. If you’ve never felt sexually attracted to men, and were extremely out in the world, well, the world would look different wouldn’t it?
I’m a pretty basic person. Pretty simple and directed. I want equality, I am persistent is fighting for rights for women, minorities and oppressed peoples. That’s what I do. I also read things for myself, and think for myself.
I believe strongly in the feminist principle that all people speak for themselves, and that no one group or person has a right to articulate your life or life experience. So I can’t really know about same-sex attraction as a struggle, but if that was or is your struggle, then that’s what it is.
Either way, god loves all people. When you hear the words “god loves gays” for the first time, it is a striking moving moment. I was lucky, because in my 20s, I got to meet all the great gay and lesbian ministers, priests, preachers and evangelists. We heard this message that god loves us, we felt united and connected as a community, and it was absolutely wonderful. We had found our home. That’s always important for believers I think.
But what about the people who are conflicted? What about women who might fall in love with women, but really want to marry men? What would happen if you felt this, and then you also got to hear fire and brimestone about how god hates gays? What would that be like?
So people invented all this “counciling” to “cure” the people in the middle.
It made no sense to a lot of us, and it was deeply damanging to those lesbians or gays who really were gay. Just imagine a straight person going into therapy to “turn lesbian.” It would be crazy and morally wrong.
I believe the strongest testiment you can have is to be who you are, and to not let others who are NOT YOU to tell you anything. I think god speaks to people individually. I certainly don’t hear god’s voice the way the pope does. I hear the voice of a lesbian god, who speaks to me in my feminist dialect. This is unique to my spiritual experience.
A lot of lesbians and gays are still on god 101, or they are still recovering from abusive bible bashings. Fortunately, I wasn’t raised in those fundamentalist homes or churches. I didn’t even really know about them until I was an adult. The christian right and all its campaigns against lesbians and gays really hadn’t geared up when I was younger. And, public schools still had little manger scenes on their front lawns.
I get a bit nostalgic for those manger scenes, and for the sense of loss right wing christians feel about how the state kicked them out, along with prayer in the schools. I’m not unsympathic to this, I just don’t want to be attacked and denied my civil rights because of some theocracy out there, and that is wrong too in my opinion. I’m convinced that a blog like this can help a lot. I don’t have high expectations, but then again, way back when, I knew NO lesbians at all. I was the only one in the world, and now I now thousands worldwide!!!
I think it was this tranquil life filled with lesbian feminist intellectual adventure, meeting all the greatest lesbian thinkers, writers, artists and world travelers that was truly life changing for me. The first women ministers I met were lesbians, how lucky is that! And I took the very early women’s studies classes in college, and had incredible professors.
To see all this progress, and all this explosion of great lesbian and gay culture in your lifetime is amazing. Martin Luther King said he wouldn’t get to the promised land, but we as early 21st century lesbians might get there.
This blog exists, you and I am alking. Straight men SHOCK are actually starting blogs like this. If god can talk to straight men about gay stuff, she can talk to anyone!
Audrey, you’re a hoot. I am especially laughing at your comment, ““What does she see in that stupid man?” (No offense, men). I am sure many mothers of daughters (we have two) have uttered those words, myself included.
Yes, our marriage that tottered on the brink of destruction when my same-sex indiscretions came to light is a happy one now. Our 28th anniversary is Saturday. One daughter is happily married and the other is engaged. We love both young men. They chose (and were chosen) well.
“It would be hard to “struggle” with sexuality. This is something I don’t really know about. The only major struggles I had were simply dealing with a very abusive, or silent or discriminatory straight world. Once I found my people, I was really delighted with lesbian community. I was very lucky to have found the great love of my life early in life, and actually had a far easier time of it than my fundamentalist sisters.”
I can absolutely understand that. Makes sense to me.
I’m sure we could both preach some good “sermons” if we got fired up enough.
We came from different backgrounds that informed our worldviews and later experiences differently. It happens. And we can still talk and laugh. Whaddya know?
“This blog exists, you and I are talking. Straight men SHOCK are actually starting blogs like this. If god can talk to straight men about gay stuff, she can talk to anyone!
I am new here. I just read the book, Love Is An Orientation and thought I’d check all of this out………Hope to connect often.
Hope, Christian PFLAG Mom
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