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Whosoever: Being Fundamentalist

Written by ECWR Web
Monday, 24 January 2011 13:26
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Whosoever: Being Fundamentalist.

Being Fundamentalist

by Reverend Michael S. Piazza

Scripture Readings
Mark 2:23-3:6
II Cor. 4:5-12

I was licensed to preach on the first Sunday of June, 1973. I’ve been preaching for twenty-four years,with almost ten of those years in the pulpit of this church. That is fairly unusual in a day where people change jobs nearly as often as people used to change underwear.

Jesus wouldn’t have lasted very long as a pastor these days. He was too prone to confront people’s assumptions. He was fond of challenging people’s beliefs and values. We don’t read books which disagree with us and we don’t listen long to preaching that challenges how we live.

Fundamentalists in Jesus day were no more open minded than they are in our day, and there is a bit of the fundamentalist in us all. Some of us are fundamentalists about worship being a certain way. We are are fundamentalists about language. If someone slips and doesn’t use inclusive language it devalues everything they say. In this church, we have fashion fundamentalists. Last week someone told me that we shouldn’t change the paraments to red because the color clashed with my hair. We can all be Pharisees at times.

There were several points where Jesus rubbed the Pharisees wrong, but probably none more noticable than how Jesus treated the Sabbath laws. As demonstrated in the gospel lesson for today. Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath which infuriated the Pharisees. In fact, today’s lesson ends with the words: “The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians about how to destroy Jesus.”

They didn’t want to punish Jesus. They wanted to destroy him. What is it about this healing that stirred such vehement rage? One thing that was probably true about the Pharisees that day is something that is often true for us – the cause of our immediate anger is often not the real source of our original anger.

The Pharisees weren’t so angry with Jesus that they wanted to destroy him just because he had healed a man with a withered hand. They were really angry because Jesus’ way of living and being in the world shined a light on the ineffectiveness of their own spirituality. Abundance of life flowed from within Jesus into all those he touched. That only pointed out that their faith was not life giving.

They had a system of belief that answered every question. They knew every appropriate behavior for every situation. Their faith system provided great security and safety. It wasn’t ambiguous or risky. That is the also the appeal of modern fundamentalism.

Life is so rapidly changing and so often uncertain that there is a great longing for a faith system that provides quick, easy, clear and unambiguous answers to all of life’s questions.

I had lunch, one day several years ago, with a fellow who left our church and went to another. He criticized us for not telling people what they should believe and how they should live. I knew I was wasting my breath when he said to me, “I may never keep the rules, but at least if I know what they are I can enjoy breaking them.”

Modern fundamentalist Christianity is mostly about controlling people’s beliefs and people’s behavior. It is also about controlling God. We want to be able to explain why things happened and why they didn’t; because, if we cannot explain them we are not in control of them.

Jesus didn’t follow the religious rules and it made the Pharisees very angry. Most of their anger was rooted in fear. They were afraid they might be wrong about who God was and how God behaved.

In the early 80′s I was the Director of Education for the Atlanta Gay Center. In that capacity I taught a class at the Atlanta Police Academy. Each month I tried to teach them ways to be sensitive to the lesbian and gay citizens of Atlanta.

I would begin by asking everyone who was left-handed to hold up their hands. Then I would ask those who had a left-handed child or spouse to hold up their hands. Then would ask people who had left-handed friends to raise their hands. By this time of course everyone in the room had their hands up. Then I would say, “Did you know that the same portion of the population is lesbian or gay as is left-handed?”

You never saw people yank down their hands so fast. Most of my time was spent answering their questions. All would be fine until someone would ask a question about religion or the Bible. Then my life became hell. The more devout the questioner the more hateful they became. Finally an atheist in the room would come to my rescue.

It is somewhat amusing to watch a person who is typically rational and graceful begin to froth at the mouth about this issue. I always wonder what it is that they are so afraid of? They don’t generally become so angry with Jewish people who might not believe Jesus is the Messiah. They usually aren’t so hateful with Hindu’s who don’t believe Yahweh is the One true God. Why does this issue stir fury of the fundamentalist so?

I could speculate about that, but what it obvious is that like Jesus we haven’t done anything that warrants our being spiritually destroyed. Fundamentalism is almost always a fear based faith. That is as true of our fundamentalism as it is of theirs.

Jesus lived free from fear and for that they wanted to destroy him.

It is important to note, however, that the Pharisees were not the only ones in this story who got angry. According to the passage, when Jesus saw how callused their reaction was it says he “looked at them with anger and was grieved at the hardness of their heart.”

I have attended the annual Church Leadership Institute at the Crystal Cathedral several times. They invite the pastors of some of the largest churches in the world. It was so impressive to hear Paul Yoni Cho speak. He pastors a church in Seoul with over 750,000 members. And I enjoyed Bill Hybels whose Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago has over 17,000 in attendance each week.

Of all the people I have ever heard, the most inspirational was Bill Wilson. He has one of the largest Sunday Schools in America. They use dozens of buses to pick up kids from the poorest neighborhoods of New York. They often feed these kids the only hot meals they get over the weekends when they are not in school. Hundreds of volunteers try to teach these poor and often abused children how deeply they are loved by God.

Bill Wilson tries to provide a taste of love that they might not otherwise find in their families. This is a very important ministry to him. I heard him speak one day about a little seven year old boy. The boy’s mother was seldom home and provided only the barest of nurturing. Then one day she took her son out for a walk. They walked through this drainage ditch and when they came to the culvert she told the boy to sit there and wait while she ran an errand.

The little boy sat there for two days. His mother never returned. A stranger happened along who took him in and fed him and loved him. Bill Wilson became a fundamentalist about love because he was that seven year old abandoned boy whose life was saved by the love of a stranger.

Jesus too was a fundamentalist about love. For him, the law of love took precedent over the Sabbath law, or any other. Love was a law that Jesus believed should never be violated. That doesn’t sound like a radical idea.

Today love has become some ambiguously positive feeling that we are supposed to have for one another. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we are supposed to love one another.

But notice what that meant in Jesus’ life. To love the stranger with the withered arm was to risk rejection and condemnation. In fact, for him, to love meant making others so angry they wanted to destroy him.

Notice that Jesus didn’t give the fellow a new hand, but he calls the man to stretch forth the hand that is within him. That is what love is.

Love is not something we have, that they don’t, or a way we give them a little of what we have. True love takes great risks, and at times pays a great price in order to empower others to become all they can be.

Jesus called life and health from within the people to whom he ministered by reaching out to them with compassion, not with religion.

Our goal must never be to make people feel religious, but rather to make them feel loved. We who have been touched by God’s grace must gracefully reach out to include others in the family of God.

Lloyd C. Douglas in one of his novels paints a picture of Jesus’ encounter with the tax collector Zacchaeus. After Zac has said that he is going to return any money he has over-charged, Jesus asks him why he is changing his life. In the novel, Zacchaeus answered, “Because Rabbi, I see mirrored in your eyes the Zacchaeus I was meant to be.”

As the Body of Christ in this place, we are called to look at people with eyes of love. They are our family. Though they may be hurting and broken and misguided, they are our family. We must love them in a way that empowers their potential to become more than they are.

Let me close with an article about Bill Wilson entitled, “Why I Chose to Live in Hell”. This story comes from a Sunday school ministry in the part of New York City that has been rated “the most likely place to get killed.” Bill Wilson has been stabbed twice and shot at. A member of his team was murdered doing his ministry. Yet they have developed the largest bus ministry in America – not in the suburbs but in Hell’s Kitchen.

Bill writes: “One Puerto Rican woman, after being saved, came to me and asked how she might serve God. The problem was she didn’t speak English. She was so passionate about helping though that I had to find a place for her to serve.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll put you on a bus. Ride a different bus each week and just love the kids.” That is just what she did. She would find the worst looking kid and say to him or her the only English words she knew, “I love you and Jesus loves you.”

After several months, she became attached to a little boy named Ray. They said Ray could not speak. He came to Sunday School each week with his sister and all the way there and back he sat on her lap while she whispered to him, “I love you and Jesus loves you.”

One day, after almost a year, to everyone’s amazement Ray turned, put his arms around her neck, and stammered, “I-I-I l-love you too.” That was 2:30pm on Sunday afternoon. At 6:30pm, Ray was found dead in a garbage bag under the fire escape. His mother had beat him to death and thrown him in the trash. “I love you and Jesus loves you.” Those were some of the last words that the little guy ever heard. They came from a Puerto Rican woman who could not speak English.

What would you have said to Ray? Next time you are tempted to be a fundamentalist, resolve to be a fundamentalist of love.

 

Gay couples hotel battle

Written by ECWR Web
Sunday, 23 January 2011 14:44
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Gay couples hotel battle is latest case of religion clashing with human rights | World news | The Observer.

Gay couple’s hotel battle is latest case of religion clashing with human rights

Stephen Preddy and Martyn Hall’s legal victory against a Christian hotel that refused them a double room is part of a growing trend of cases that pit faith against discrimination

Gay couple hotel room battle

Steven Preddy, left, and Martyn Hall celebrate their victory against the owners of a Christian hotel. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

If there is one clear trend in contentious litigation in recent months, it is the increase in cases that pit the rights of religious communities against the prohibition on discrimination.

“Religitigation”, as it is becoming known, is manifest in increasingly diverse ways. Last year Christian registrar Lillian Ladele failed to exempt herself from the duty of conducting civil partnerships, Christian counsellor Gary McFarlane lost his attempt to be exempt from giving same-sex couples relationship therapy and Christian British Airways employee Nadia Eweida lost her claim to have the right to wear a crucifix at work

It is not only Christians in the dock. Also last year north London’s Jewish Free School lost its supreme court bid to refuse admission to a pupil on the basis of his mother’s background, after the court found the policy amounted to race discrimination.

In much the same vein, Christian hoteliers Peter and Hazel Bull last week lost their claim to be entitled to refuse double-bed hotel rooms to civil partners Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy. Judge Andrew Rutherford, sitting at Bristol county court, found it was “clear that homosexuals as a group are disadvantaged by the practice adopted by [Peter and Hazel Bull].”

The case appears to be the first to try the distinct legal question of whether a civil partnership is the legal equivalent of marriage, as far as discrimination is concerned. The Bulls’ case was that they openly discriminated on marital status – unmarried heterosexual couples were also denied rooms with double beds – but that this policy was based on sex outside wedlock, not sexual orientation. As their counsel memorably stated, the policy “has nothing to do with sexual orientation but everything to do with sex”.

That argument might have been successful if it were legally accurate to compare an unmarried couple with same-sex civil partners. But anticipating arguments such as these, the law faces the issue head on. The regulations that ban discrimination against sexual orientation state explicitly that “the fact that one of the persons is a civil partner while the other is married shall not be treated as a material difference”.

This exact issue is the subject of a separate legal campaign. Campaigner Peter Tatchell has announced that eight couples will apply to the European court of human rights to overturn the law, on the basis that it “creates a system that segregates couples into two separate legal institutions, with different names but identical rights and responsibilities… based on their sexual orientations”.

His gripe is that same-sex couples are denied the right to marry, while heterosexuals are denied the right to civil partnerships – and that both are violations of their rights.

So while some are fighting for gay marriage, the Bulls’ case confirms that, in the meantime, Christians will have to accept that civil partnerships are intended to be its equivalent as far as the law is concerned. But the interesting issue in this case lurks in the judge’s commentary. “It is no longer the case that our laws must, or should, automatically reflect the Judaeo-Christian position,” said Rutherford, that is in regarding marriage as the only form of legally recognised binding relationship.

It is this issue that concerns religious groups – the ability of the law to move on from its religious roots to a more equitable formula of guaranteeing fundamental rights, including the right against discrimination. Of course where those rights come into conflict, a more nuanced exercise of balancing takes place – one that the judiciary has so far approached with the utmost seriousness. Rutherford confessed he found the Bulls’ case “very difficult”, and Lord Phillips – president of the supreme court and the UK’s most senior judge – said earlier this year that the Jewish school decision had been the hardest of his judicial life.

That has been of little consolation to religitigants, however. What they seem to want is a trump card that puts them above the subtle considerations of fairness. And that, the courts have repeatedly said, is not going to happen.

 

GCN Conference – An Honest Review

Written by miller
Friday, 21 January 2011 08:47
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I had the privilege of attending the annual GCN (Gay Christian Network) Conference two weekends ago and have yet to write a full review.  I have struggled to write this post because, frankly, I don’t know where to begin.  It was so beautiful, so touching, so encouraging and inspiring in so many ways.  I spoke briefly about it previously (see loveboldly.blogspot.com) but I haven’t yet done it justice.  I think it might be best to  just break it down into some focused (hopefully) general topics:

An overall analysis
The general sessions
The workshops
The relationships
A summary of everything

An Overall Analysis
This was the first year I’ve attended the GCN Conference and I have vowed to never miss it again.  My attendance there was one of the most spiritually and personally significant experiences of my life.  I was a little hesitant going into the weekend, not sure what to expect or what I would experience.  I wasn’t sure how welcome I would be as a straight ally, if I would be able to build friendships easily, etc.  In reality, I was probably pretty concerned that people would demand to know my beliefs and stances on everything – conversations I don’t like to engage at a first point of meeting.  Another thing I was unsure about was whether the conference would be about indoctrinating everyone to think or believe one particular thing about homosexuality.  I don’t find those types of experiences to be particularly helpful personally, or for bringing reconciliation between the church and the LGBT community, so I was a bit hesitant, but very curious nonetheless.

To be brutally honest, I went into the weekend with a lot of prejudices.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent years hanging out in the LGBT community.  All of the reading and research in the world still sometimes leaves you with pockets of ridiculous unfounded beliefs and fears that hide in dark corners and wait for the right moment to slither out.  I laugh at myself now.  Oh my own bigotry!  I think there was a part of me that somehow expected that wild “gay agenda” to be a part of the weekend.  I expected people to try to change me, argue with me, tell me what to believe and why, and become offended when I would refuse to share my personal beliefs and convictions.  (Trust me, sometimes it is so darn TEMPTING to share my opinions.  It would make it so much easier that way, but easy doesn’t make it wise.)  So, in summary, I guess I was bracing myself for the possibility that people may 1) be offended by me 2) try to influence me to adopt their perspectives 3) reject me personally 4) be insincere in their desire to follow the Lord.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong!  I have never in my life been so wrong!  Instead of all of those things, I was encouraged, blessed, challenged, and embraced.  I was truly struck by the sincerity of sacrificial worship in our times together, the depth of relationships that developed (in just a short 48 hours), and the honesty, and wholeness, and holiness that marked the paths of those I came in contact with.

One of the things I hadn’t anticipated was that I’d be mistaken for a lesbian.  I’m pretty sure I should have expected that.  It seems logical right?  I’m at a gay conference – why wouldn’t people think I’m a lesbian?  It didn’t bother me at all – actually, it weirdly made me feel honored because people automatically assumed I “belonged” in a sense.  Throughout the weekend though, I’d refer to my husband naturally in conversation without even thinking about it, and then I’d realize that people were looking at me in utter confusion.  The conversation would go something like this…

“Wait…did you say your husband?”
“Yes, I’m straight.”
“Oh.  (pause)  Are you here with someone?”
“Nope.”
“So…why are you here?”
[Insert me sharing briefly why I love the LGBT community and my call to help the work of reconciliation.]

Dumbfounded silence.

What followed the silence was beautiful.  It was so emotional, a moment of pure holiness in our conversations.  People’s eyes would go soft.  I could literally see something inside of them turn towards me.  Some would ask me why I would care enough to do this – to travel all this way, alone, to come and be there with them for the weekend.  Some would wonder why I would paint a target on myself, take on the risk of rejection by my peers and faith community, by choosing to stand with them.  Some were lost for words – they would just say things like “You’re awesome” and then stand there with a look of hunger in their eyes, as if they just glimpsed something they had been looking for their entire lives.  All of them thanked me, with such sincerity in their voices, with such a humility, they thanked me profusely for caring, for being there, for speaking on their behalf to people and communities that they felt abandoned by.  I was forever changed by these conversations, and forever humbled.  Something was stirred deep within me.  Something was disturbed in me, that even this small gesture of love and support was so foreign to them.  They reached to me with their words, with their eyes, with their souls, with their arms.  They hugged on me and loved on me.  It was beautiful.  Something big happened in my heart through these conversations – something life changing,  something with the scent of God’s presence and transformation, something beautiful and terrible and terrifying and wonderful.

The General Sessions
The worship times at GCN were absolutely transformational for me.  The first one was on Thursday night.  I had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with three lesbian women that night.  We had such a great conversation and such a great connection that they invited me to sit with them for the worship.  I was glad to have someone to tag along with.  As I worshiped next to these women, and in the midst of 400 gay Christians, I was in awe.  These people were so sincere in their love for the Lord.  I could hear it in their voices as they sang.  In fact, I sensed a level of sincerity, surrender, and humility before the Lord in our worship times that I haven’t experienced in a church in years.  I was astounded!  Gone were all the stereotypes I had brought along with me.  It was an amazing thing to just worship God together.  The next morning God really shook me during the general session.  I sat alone, and I’m glad of it, because I wept and wept the entire time we sang together.  I wept because it became so clear to me as we sang (songs like “I could sing of your love forever” and “Blessed be your name” and “Nothing but the blood”) that this beautiful group of people knew what it meant to live a life of sacrifice for Christ that most of us never could understand.  So many of these people had been cast out of their churches and had experienced unspeakable pain in the name of Christ.  So many of them had tried to change their orientations for Christ.  They were willing to sacrifice everything to honor him.  So many of them had experienced such an extreme faith crisis that, had it been me, I likely would have thrown the towel in and told God to just forget it because the sacrifice and the confusion would be too much.  But they didn’t.  They kept going.  Their love for the Lord drove them to His feet.  God overwhelmed me with a sense of this during worship on Friday morning and I wept.  I wept because I have sacrificed so little for the Lord, and have been angry and bitter when he’s asked the little of me that he has.  I wept because I sensed God’s love and favor and mercy on a group of people who are trying to make sense of things.  I wept because these people didn’t choose their orientations, but they chose Jesus – and the church hates them for it.  I wept because even in the midst of all the painful experiences present in that room, those beautiful people chose to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are deeply, truly, passionately indebted and bound to Jesus, no matter what.  It was magnificent.  Justin, the executive director of GCN, put it so well when he said “Many people reconcile their faith and sexuality by dialing back the faith.  That never seemed like a good option to me.  I was the kid with a Bible in my backpack all the time.”  Justin, like many others at the conference, has not sacrificed his love for the Lord, or for Scripture, in his quest to reconcile his sexual orientation and his faith.  And there were many more like him.

The speakers were great as well during the main sessions.  Philip Yancey was particularly inspiring.  He spoke of how one’s sin and temptation are the very thing that push us toward Christ, force us to rely on Him, even in our weakest of moments.  He spoke of God’s reconciliation and forgiveness and grace.  He gave voice to the reason I had spent the worship time in tears when he said, “There’s no advantage to you, as LGBT, to worship God.  You are just asking for hatred from your fellow believers.”

I have to share with you two more of my favorite quotes from the weekend:

Philip Yancey – “The greatest danger is not that you will fail, but that when you do fail, you will be cast down by shame, rejection, and a belief that you cannot reach God’s grace.”

Justin Lee – “What a horrible state of affairs if people can’t go to their churches when they’re feeling so alone that they want to kill themselves.”

The Workshops
The workshops were great, but honestly, I only went to two of them (and part of a third).  By Saturday, I really sensed the Lord showing me that I should focus more on building relationships than attending formal workshops.  The two I went to were excellent, however.  The first one was “Understanding and Supporting our LGBT Friends and Family.”  I was really touched to hear each person at that breakout session share why they were there.  Some of the stories were really heartbreaking.  Several people admitted they came just because they wanted to have hope that their straight friends and family members could love them again someday, or want to understand and support them.  I believe the leader of the session, Kathy Baldock, provided this insightful instruction (but forgive me Kathy if I’ve misquoted you):

“When you love and care for those on the edges of society, you will grow in mercy, and grace, and compassion.  And there is no better spiritual qualities to have.  You will look and smell like Jesus.”

I want to look and smell like Jesus.

The second workshop I went to was “Engaging the Evangelical Church” and it was fantastic.  I am still processing it.  There was quite a lot of education and evaluation that went on during this session – a really valuable time.  The thing that struck me the most during our time together was a discussion that took place in which the attendees examined with the workshop leader how they might be able to respond with Christ’s love to those in the church who had dealt them hatred and pain in the name of Christ.  I sat in my seat totally baffled.  This was the one and only “gay agenda” present at the conference.  The spirit of the people was strikingly, “How can we be more like Jesus, even when we are hurt and abused in his name?”  I was totally awestruck.  How often do I seek Christ like that, willingly wanting to respond in love when someone wrongs me?  The discussions during this workshop in particular, and in many of my personal conversations, centered on how to be more centered on Christ, more submissive to his authority, seeking his holiness ever more.  It was beautiful, and convicting.

The Relationships
This was the funnest part of the weekend, and one that I really truly miss.  In two nights I got 7 hours of sleep – total.  I couldn’t tear myself away from the people I had met.  The fellowship we had over meals and into the wee hours of the morning every night was incredible.  There was such a sense of acceptance and love in the friendships I made.  One of my fondest memories of the weekend was lunch on Friday, when I met several of the people I now count as dear friends.  We spent the first half of our time together laughing, bantering, joking, and having a good time.  The conversation took a turn as we got our food and I had the opportunity to share why I was at the conference, the calling I feel on my heart to develop non-threatening environments to talk about faith and sexual orientation, and the love I have for the LGBT community.  I was so humbled as one after another, each of them affirmed me, encouraged me, and spoke words of blessing, acceptance, love, and appreciation over me.  It was such a precious, holy moment as God knit our hearts to one another.  We shared openly about our struggles, our vulnerable spots, and our love for one another – no holds barred.  It was the kind of intimate conversation you usually only get the chance to experience with people you’ve known for years, not hours.  It was heart-warming and stunning.  The rest of the weekend was filled with conversations, one after another, about how we could grow to be more like the Lord, what we could do to reflect him better, and sharing with one another about the amazing work He’s done in our hearts and lives.

A Summary of Everything
As you can imagine, this conference was overwhelming.  The thing that was most striking of all though was that, although it was a gathering of LGBT individuals, the focus wasn’t so much about sexual orientation as it was about Jesus.  Everything was so centered on how to be faithful followers of Christ in all areas of one’s life, not just in sexual orientation.  These are the kinds of conversations I think are so important.  When we reduce a person to his/her sexual orientation, we miss the beauty of his/her personhood.  There is so much more to a person than orientation – there are hopes and dreams,  insecurities and fears, victories and passions, beliefs and convictions.  I suppose, at the heart of things, that is what I loved about the GCN conference – it did not diminish any person or any conviction.  Instead, it focused on the things that united us all – our faith in the almighty God, his Son who was sent to pay the price for our sins, His worthiness to be praised and honored, and His holiness that demands our lifelong gratitude, service, surrender, and allegiance.  It called on us to remember these things, and to take heed of them in our daily lives.  And it called us to them in a way that was affirming and challenging, generous and faithful, nurturing and open, with a dedication to living in the tension of disagreement with one another, in love.

That is why I will never miss another GCN Conference again.  I hope some of you will go with me next year.

 

Gay Parents Find the South More Welcoming

Written by ECWR Web
Wednesday, 19 January 2011 08:51
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Gay Parents Find the South More Welcoming, Census Says – NYTimes.com.

Parenting by Gays More Common in the South, Census Shows

Sarah Beth Glicksteen for The New York Tim

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Being gay in this Southern city was once a lonely existence. Most people kept their sexuality to themselves, and they were reminded of the dangers of being openly gay when a gay church was bombed in the 1980s. These days, there are eight churches that openly welcome gay worshipers. One even caters to couples with children

Reginald Maffett, 14, at services at St. Luke’s Community Church, which he attends with his mother and her partner.

The changes may seem surprising for a city where churches that have long condemned homosexuality remain a powerful force. But as demographers sift through recent data releases from the Census Bureau, they have found that Jacksonville is home to one of the biggest populations of gay parents in the country.

In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

Black or Latino gay couples are twice as likely as whites to be raising children, according to Mr. Gates, who used data from a Census Bureau sampling known as the American Community Survey. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to be struggling economically.

Experts offer theories for the pattern. A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, Mr. Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

“People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame,” said Darlene Maffett, 43, a Jacksonville resident, who had two children in eight years of marriage before coming out in 2002. “What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache.”

Moreover, gay men who have children do so an average of three years earlier than heterosexual men, census data shows, Mr. Gates said. At the same time, there are fewer white women of childbearing age nationally, according to demographers, while the number of minority women of childbearing age is expanding.

Jacksonville was a magnet for Ms. Maffett even before she moved here. While its gay residents remained largely hidden, it had a gay-friendly church. In 2003, she spent her Sundays driving 90 minutes each way to attend from the town where she worked as a school bus driver.

Ms. Maffett appreciated the safety of the church in Jacksonville. Her father was a Baptist preacher, and her former husband was a member of the Church of Christ, so she knew how unwelcoming some churches could be for gays. Even so, she felt little connection to the gay congregation in Jacksonville — mostly white, male and childless.

“The pastors were all white guys,” said Ms. Maffett, who is black. “They were nice to us, but we weren’t really feeling that they knew how to cater to kids.”

Then she met Valerie Williams, a customer service worker with a sunny personality and a booming voice. Ms. Williams, 33, had been part of the city’s gay community for years, and when the first African-American, gay-friendly church opened in 2007, she thought it needed to go one step further.

“People were looking to do stuff with their kids, and they had no place to go,” she said.

So last summer, Ms. Williams became pastor of St. Luke’s Community Church, one of the oldest gay-friendly churches in the city, and immediately set up a youth program. Attendance by the mixed-race congregation swelled to more than 90 from 25 in just a few months.

“All of a sudden you started seeing all of these women coming out,” Ms. Maffett said. “All of them had children.”

In 2009, the Census Bureau estimated that there were 581,000 same-sex couples in the United States, Mr. Gates said; the bureau does not count gay singles.

About a third of lesbians are parents, and a fifth of gay men are. Advocacy groups argue that their children are some of society’s most vulnerable, with fewer legal protections and less health insurance than children of heterosexual parents.

Even so, their ranks have been mostly left out of national policy debates, because the Census Bureau did not conduct its first preliminary count of same-sex couples until 1990. This year, the bureau will count married same-sex partners for the first time.

“We don’t know a lot about this group,” Mr. Gates said. “Their story has not been told.”

About 32 percent of gay couples in Jacksonville are raising children, Mr. Gates said, citing the 2009 Census data, second only to San Antonio, where the rate is about 34 percent.

Some gay parents here say that family life can be complicated. Cynthia, the mother of a talkative 9-year-old, can be herself at her daughter’s cheerleading practice, because it is far from their home. But at her daughter’s school, she tells no one that she is gay, because her partner, Monique, teaches there.

Their daughter, they said, ends up with a mixed message at school.

“We tell her, ‘Be honest, don’t lie, but keep this in the closet,’ ” said Monique, who asked that the couple’s last names not be used to protect her privacy at work, “It gets confusing for her.”

Ms. Williams confronts those troubles directly with a program called Youth Power Hour, a kind of group counseling session for children of gay parents. This month, the group of about 20 young people discussed their problems after a free spaghetti dinner cooked by one of the adult moderators.

“This girl at school is always bullying me,” said a 9-year-old named Diantra.

Ms. Williams responded, her voice filling the room: “Remember what we said? Tell an adult.”

Cynthia’s daughter, also part of the group, said the sense of community it provided helped her.

“It feels good to be around people who don’t just have moms and dads,” she said, pulling her braids nervously. “I like it because I’m not alone anymore.”

Married same-sex parents face legal hurdles. Florida does not recognize same-sex marriage, and its domestic partnership recognition, while growing, is an uneven patchwork, and still leaves many spouses uninsured.

Even when employers agree to cover domestic partners, those couples pay higher taxes, because without federal recognition of their status, health coverage is considered income and is taxable. Until recently, Florida was one of a handful of states that expressly prohibited adoption by gay couples.

But money is often a more immediate problem.

Ty Francis, a bank customer-service worker here with a sharp sense of humor, supports six children together with her partner, Rosalyn Cooley, a health care worker.

“I’m one check away from being on welfare,” Ms. Francis said.

But that kind of financial difficulty does not dampen enthusiasm for coaxing along acceptance in this conservative city of more than 800,000 people. A recent billboard supporting gay and lesbian youth drew no public scorn or boycotts, and gay pride parades have been held for several years.

Ms. Williams compares the community’s efforts to the struggles of the civil rights movement.

“Slowly but surely, all this will pass,” she said. “I truly believe that.”

 

Cathleen Falsani: Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

Written by ECWR Web
Thursday, 13 January 2011 17:02
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Cathleen FalsaniReligion Columnist aka “God Girl”
Posted: January 13, 2011 06:10 PM

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

Some of my dearest friends are gay.

Most of my dearest friends are Christians.

And more than a few of my dearest friends are gay Christians.

As an evangelical, that last part is not something that, traditionally and culturally, I’m supposed to say out loud. For most of my life, I’ve been taught that it’s impossible to be both openly gay and authentically Christian.

When a number of my friends “came out” shortly after our graduation from Wheaton College in the early ’90s, first I panicked and then I prayed.

What would Jesus do? I asked myself (and God).

According to biblical accounts, Jesus said very little, if anything, about homosexuality. But he spent loads of time talking, preaching, teaching and issuing commandments about love.

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.

That’s why I’m grateful for a growing number of evangelical leaders who are bravely offering a different answer.

In his new book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, Jay Bakker, the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Messner, gives clear and compelling answers to my nagging questions.

Simply put, homosexuality is not a sin, says Bakker, 35, pastor of Revolution NYC, a Brooklyn evangelical congregation that meets in a bar.

Bakker, who is straight and divorced, crafts his argument using the same “clobber scriptures” (as he calls them) that are so often wielded to condemn homosexuals.

“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. Deuteronomy calls for brides who are found not to be virgins to be stoned to death, and for adulterers to be summarily executed.

“The church has always been late,” Bakker told me in an interview this week. “We were late on slavery. We were late on civil rights. And now we’re late on this.”

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.

(The word “homosexual” first appeared in an English-language Bible in 1958. Bakker is part of a group petitioning Bible publishers to remove the words “homosexual” and “homosexuality” from new translations and replace it with terms that more precisely reflect the original Greek.)

“We must weigh all the evidence,” Bakker writes. “The clobber scriptures don’t hold a candle to the raging inferno of grace and love that burns through Paul’s writing and Christ’s teaching. And it’s a love that should be our guiding light.”

Bakker’s clear voice on homosexuality is not alone in the evangelical community.

Tony Jones, a “theologian-in-residence” at Minnesota’s Solomon’s Porch, one of the pre-eminent “Emergent” churches in the nation, echoes many of Bakker’s arguments. Peggy Campolo, wife of evangelist Tony Campolo, has been saying this kind of thing for years, despite her husband’s disagreement.

And while he stops short of explicitly saying “it’s not a sin” in his 2010 book, A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren, godfather of the Emergent church movement, condemns a Christian preoccupation with homosexual issues as “fundasexuality.”

“We could really use someone like Rob Bell to step forward and say this, too,” Bakker said in the interview, referring to the 40-year-old pastor of the Michigan megachurch Mars Hill and author of bestselling books such as Velvet Elvis and Sex God.

Bell, a classmate of mine at Wheaton, is a rock star in emerging Christian circles, despite eschewing the “Emergent” label or any other apart from “Christ follower.”

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.)

Might the evangelical church be on the verge of a Gay Awakening?

I prayerfully hope so.

 

Out Of The Closet … In The Pulpit Of A Megachurch : NPR

Written by ECWR Web
Monday, 15 November 2010 19:02
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LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW AT:

Out Of The Closet … In The Pulpit Of A Megachurch : NPR.

A few weeks ago, Bishop Jim Swilley sat down in front of his congregation at Church in the Now near Atlanta to get a few things off his chest.

“There are two things in my life that are an absolute,” the megachurch pastor told his flock. “I did not ask for either one of them, both of them were imposed upon me, I had no control over either of them.  One was the call of God on my life… and the other thing … was my sexual orientation.”

Jim Swilley — a twice-married father of four, a man who comes from a long line of evangelical preachers — revealed a secret he’d been holding onto most of his life:

He’s gay.

Not A Conventional Marriage

Swilley tells NPR’s Guy Raz that it was his ex-wife Debye who encouraged him to come clean. Though they’re recently divorced after 21 years of marriage, she still works and preaches alongside Swilley at Church in the Now.

The pastor says he told her he was gay before they married, thinking it would be the end of their relationship. “But she said no, let’s get married, we’ll work it out.  And to a degree, we did.”

But a couple of years ago, Swilley says, Debye came to him and told him it was time to get real.

“She said, look, I love you and I’m never going to hurt you with this, I’ve always got your back, but you and I both know we don’t have a conventional marriage… You tell everybody else to be real … but you don’t allow yourself the same grace that you give everyone else… I think you need to tell everybody what the truth is and let the chips fall where they will.”

Teen Suicides

Swilley says he never wanted to go public about his sexual orientation, even after his wife confronted him. He told his children, and they were supportive, and that was as far as he went.

But then, the recent wave of gay teen suicides hit the news. Swilley says he was particularly moved by the case of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who jumped off the George Washingon Bridge after his roommates filmed him having sex.

“I would hear people nearly imply that he deserved it, you know, people would say he shouldn’t have been in an act of perversion.” Swilley says.  “And when I started hearing that, especially from people who professed to be Christ-like, I don’t know. Something changed.”

Swilley had never preached against homosexuality or the gay community, but he knew he had to go further. “I felt like, with me not saying at least my little part of it, I end up being part of the problem.”

So one recent Wednesday evening, he sat down in front of his congregation and told them his story.  Many walked out during his sermon, but many others stayed.

“I’ve had people in my church come to me and say, if this had been anybody but you, I would have just had a knee-jerk reaction and not even considered hearing them out,” Swilley says. “But you’ve been my pastor for a quarter of a century.  I know you… so if you say that you are, and you know you were born this way, then that changes everything.”

 

YouTube – Ellen DeGeneres Slams Sarah Palin On Gay Marriage–Vote NO on Prop. 8

Written by ECWR Web
Saturday, 13 November 2010 15:11
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Denver Evangelical Church Welcomes Gays

Written by ECWR Web
Monday, 08 November 2010 18:17
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As more states consider whether or not to legalize gay marriage, church leaders have been forced to examine their theological position on homosexuality. They find themselves asking the question about gays and lesbians: What would Jesus do?

And they are coming to very different conclusions.

Some churches have decided to take the “hate the sin, love the sinner” approach by actively lobbying against gay marriage. Catholic leaders in Minnesota have turned to mass mailings as part of a media blitz to try to keep marriage between a man and a woman.

In Denver, an evangelical Christian pastor has split with his former church and started his own evangelical church that fully welcomes gays as worshipers and leaders.

The Rev. Mark Tidd says he does not see a discrepancy between the Bible and accepting members of the homosexual community.

“There’s times when we change how we approach scripture because we observe how God is making God’s self known in creation,” he said. “We don’t consider it a sin to be gay and we don’t consider it a sin if you are gay and seek a relationship which is the only natural one you can have which would be someone of the same gender.”

Video: Colorado candidates debate same-sex marriage issue

Lisa Crane and her husband Ryan left their more traditional evangelical church for Tidd’s church, and have no plans to go back.

“Do we ever worry like, ‘Oh God am I wrong about this?’ and ‘Am I going to get to heaven and God is going to be like – No, you weren’t supposed to let the gays serve communion!’” Lisa said.

“You know, I don’t think so. That doesn’t jibe with the Jesus that we learned about from the Bible”

About 1,000 miles away, Gretchen Thibault hears a much different answer.

“What would Jesus do?” she wondered. “Jesus loves us, but the activity would not be appropriate. Jesus loves the sinner not the sin.”

Thibault is a Roman Catholic living in Minneapolis, where the archdiocese has distributed 400,000 DVDs encouraging its members to support the idea that individuals and not judges should vote on an amendment that would define marriage between a man and woman.