Beware of Pfalz Prophets

More Roman Idolatry

2012-01-15T14:28:00.003-06:00

Whatever happened to the Jesuits? There used to be an intellectual underpinning to pronouncements by RC bishops, some academic justification to their beliefs. For that matter, there used to be an active discussion of current topics inside the Roman Catholic church. One could vigorously disagree with some Bishop's ill-considered sermon or article and retain one's credentials.

No more. The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops published a statement last week, entitled "Marriage and Religious Freedom". You can find it here. It is not a scholarly document, thus there are no footnotes or other references to support or justify their statements or opinions. Their principal thrust, as I read it, is to claim that Federal or State governments are pressuring poor, innocent religious organizations to "treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct," in violation of the religious organizations' First Amendment right to vilify the same. Clearly outrageous, governments imposing rules on the religious. There are two problems with their umbrage, one tactical, the other strategic. I'll discuss the tactical issues first.

According the the First Amendment, there should be an impenetrable wall that keeps a religious organization from getting involved in a governmental one, and vice-versa. How is it that any part of the U.S. Roman church could be pressured by any U.S. government agency, unless there were some connections? Uh-huh, it seems that Catholic Charities has been largely funded by government grants. This means that this lovely piece of business, conducted by one arm or another of the Roman Catholic Church, is largely funded by taxes collected from all citizens. Should you be a gay or lesbian couple seeking to adopt a child, you would be eligible by right of your status as taxpayers but still ineligible by the rules of Catholic Charities. Net, you are paying for rights that are denied you by a government-sponsored agency.

Now, perhaps, we see the problem from the Roman bishops' perspective. They want to continue to feed at the public trough but bridle at the idea of complying with requirements with which all of us who wish to receive public funds must comply. All their pious bullshit regarding the protection of the "true definition" of marriage is just a smokescreen for their refusal, on their own sectarian grounds, to follow the rules. So much for the tactical argument.

Regarding strategic issues, read the open letter again. Show me any reference to a God of love. From the first epistle of John, we know that God is Love, and from Genesis, we know that we are made in the image of God. Where do the bishops acknowledge that all of us are creatures capable of love? Are LGBT persons not capable of expressing God's love as fully as straight folk? By what authority is this opinion expressed?

The bishops' letter does not acknowledge that marriage is a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Thus it denies that the will of the Spirit goes where it chooses and conveys God's grace on whomever it wills. By claiming that "marriage in its true definition must be protected for its own sake," the bishops succumb to idolatry. I pray that the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy return to its own root document, the Holy Bible, and humbly acknowledge that God can grant his/her blessing on any union, gay or straight.

Trust me, I have seen enough unions, both gay and straight, to know which are blessed and which not. The Roman Catholic church does no good by declaring one group of Christians "intrinsically disordered," whatever that means. I cannot understand how any member of a celibate order is able to rationally identify what is "ordered" and what is not.

Yet another idiot

2011-12-29T20:13:00.005-06:00

New Hampshire State Rep. Jerry Bergevin has dropped another turd in the hopper for next year. Lacking any sense of good judgement, he has introduced House Bill 1148 that evolution is

"to be taught in the public schools of this state as a theory, including the theorists' political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism."

In an article in yesterday's Concord Monitor, Bergevin was quoted as saying,

"I want the problems with the current theories to be presented so that kids understand that science doesn't really have all the answers. They are just guessing."

Rep. Bergevin doesn't understand that "the current theories" don't include thermodynamics, gravity, or evolution. Consequently, there aren't any "problems" with those theories: they're settled, as Eugenie Scott so clearly states. They can be enhanced or adjusted, but their principal structures have long since been established.

As to really current theories, Rep. Bergevin is dead-on accurate, but I don't believe he understands just how accurate he is. Every science is a sea of hypotheses -- guesses, in his parlance -- subject to testing and refutation by competent, qualified peers. New theories are presented and subjected to rigorous, dispassionate and sometimes brutal review and testing by other scientists, but always with data and logic.

The "problems" to which Bergevin refers are religious or political conflicts not subject to scientific inquiry. Bergevin is interested in challenging the discoveries science makes that contradict religious or political dogma. In his bill, he would require school science teachers to include "the theorists' political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism." In short, he would judge the value of every scientist's theories -- in effect, each scientist -- according to some undefined set of political or religious criteria. Should the scientist be an Evangelical Christian, Sunni Muslim, atheist or agnostic, a Democrat, Republican, Independent or a Green Party member, the scientist would have to pass through this ideological filter. Just so you know, Thomas Jefferson would not pass this test. Neither would George Washington or John Adams.

Let's test Rep. Bergevin's idea by applying an example from geology, using the reasonably settled theory of plate tectonics. In compliance with the proposed House Bill 1148, we must now discern the political and ideological viewpoints of Alfred Wegener, Arthur Holmes, Harry Hess and Robert Dietz. To assess the validity of their theories, we must discern their political affiliation and where, or whether, they went to church. If it turns out that Robert Dietz or Arthur Holmes were devout non-Christians and Independents, does that mean that the Himalayas don't exist? Or does that mean that the Himalayas only exist by the magic of Intelligent Design? This is an either-or question, you may squirm but you may not waffle: what do you believe? This is the ideological strait-jacket that House Bill 1148 places on every schoolteacher in New Hampshire. IMHO, Jerry Bergevin is not qualified by reason of the narrowness of his vision to represent any group of New Hampshire citizens.

Playing to the base

2011-12-07T15:10:00.008-06:00

Governor Rick Perry is running to be the Republican candidate for President in the 2012 elections. His constituency in this race is a political party that appears to have been commandeered by religious activists. These zealots espouse a rigid ideology opposed to any compromise of its base beliefs. People--real, living people, trying to get through this mortal life as best as they are able--are less important to these zealots than their moral code, their ideology:

Pregnant women seduced by good-looking but shiftless acquaintenances, girls raped by neighborhood gangs, or daughters raped by their fathers or guardians, all are subordinate to the mantra that all abortions or morning-after pills are anathema, which must be enforced by government power.
Families are "valid" if and only if they are headed by a man and staffed by an obedient woman; all other types of families are inferior and may not be recognized by any corporate or government agency.
The right to pray in public schools, leaving aside the implied compulsion that others must listen to and respect the supplicant, supersedes all others' rights to worship as they see fit. The Federalist Papers specifically call out the "tyranny of the majority" in such cases.

There is a dangerous arrogance here, a presupposition by the zealots that their beliefs are not only superior to all others' but immune from review. These ideas are decidedly anti-American and anti-Christian. They are anti-American because the U. S. Constitution does not establish "classes" of citizens or recognition of any "establishment of religion" and we have been historically very anti-authoritarian. They are anti-Christian because Jesus did not establish classes of any kind. He did not recognize the superiority or inferiority of any human being over another. Jews of any tribe, Gentiles, women, centurions, demoniacs, or the woman who believed she need only touch his clothing to be healed, none were exalted or demeaned.

" there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military..."

Indeed, Mr. Perry, what exactly do you believe is wrong in this country? You have three options:

Gays should not serve openly. They should be vilified, castigated, and discharged when their orientation becomes known, regardless of how that happens. The value of their contribution to this country's national interests is secondary to their sexual orientation. Furthermore, the discovery of that orientation should not be constrained by the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of due process: innuendo is OK in such cases.
Equal access to the laws of this country should only be granted to straight folks. The separation of church and state needs to be amended to give priority to someone's or some organization's particular interpretation of "God's law" over State law. Example: Mormons should be able to decide who serves openly in the military.
The process that determined that gays may serve openly in the military is flawed. A Supreme Leader appointed by an Assembly of Experts or Guardian Council should have authority over all legislation, or at least LGBT legislation. The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution should be subordinated to this religious power. The Guardian Council could rotate the post of Supreme Leader among, say, Bryant Wright, Thomas Monson, Robert Duncan and Jack Iker.

If you recognize the terms of political leadership in the last bullet, you know that I'm referring to the theocracy of Iran. I'd be curious to know if this is Rick Perry's idea of the America he wants to create. If he's successful in creating such a state, I'll certainly be looking to emigrate to someplace friendlier.

Through the Looking Glass

2011-10-20T13:07:00.004-05:00

Once more, a Republican has looked at a problem and confused the root cause with the symptom:

“[T]he biggest problem with poverty in America, and we don't talk about here, because it's an economic discussion – and that is the breakdown of the American family, . . .”
“You want to look at the poverty rate among families that have two – that have a husband and wife working in them? It's 5 percent today. A family that's headed by one person? It's 30 percent today. The home – the word 'home' in Greek is the basis of the word 'economy.' It is the foundation of our country. We need to have a policy that supports families, that encourages marriage. . ."
“As I said, economy … starts at the home, starts with the family, it is the first economy, and if that economy breaks down the overall economy can't succeed.”

Hey, Rick, has it ever occurred to you that the breakdown of the American family is the result of the economy, not the cause? Have you ever considered that the original, post-war ideal of a man supporting a family might have been destroyed by the attack on the middle class rather than the growing recognition that we are all human?

I saw clear evidence of this more than fifty years ago, as my father struggled to maintain a nuclear family in the face of a nasty recession. In desperation, we picked up stakes--sold our furniture at auction on the lawn--and tried to find the American Dream elsewhere. To no avail. My mother found work to keep the family afloat, much to my father's consternation. Their financial situation was the source of multiple, searing discussions, kept for the most part from my teenage ears and my sister's, but nonetheless palpable in our lives. We survived as a family unit, but not quite as a family.

We were in the lower middle class, squeezed by economic shifts in the country. Now, today, is a more insistent problem: the greed of the upper class is demanding even more from the middle class. Greater indebtedness--student loans, sub-prime mortgages, payday loans--continue to loot the middle class, or what is left of it. We are headed toward a neo-feudalism, where all workers are indebted toward the owning class. This is the source of OWS and its tributaries, a grassroots rejection of this slide toward the eighteenth century.

And Rick Santorum's analysis? Gay marriage is causing all this, it's breaking down marriage and this breakdown is crippling the economy? When if ever did a straight marriage amendment precipitate an economic recovery? Connect for me in detailed terms the implementation of gay marriage in Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Iowa, to the Great Recession. What were the causal elements? No such connection? What, utter fantasy or idiocy? I thought so.

I'm sorry, Rick Santorum has it completely wrong, and not implausibly because he is a closeted gay man fighting the cultural idolatry of homophobia: he's not the first. Is he on the National Stage solely to sublimate his sexual urges, to avoid facing the real Ricky inside? I made a very nice career doing that, and am enjoying an adequate, if not cushy, retirement in return. I don't know. I just know that he has it backwards. Our families are failing because the middle class is being dismembered, not the other way 'round.

Insurance companies

2011-10-17T12:58:00.004-05:00

My general liability insurance for my one-person consulting company went up 42% last year, for no change in coverage and no claims since I began this work as a private corporation.

This year, I decided to retire and close the business. I got a renewal notice from the insurance company, which I endorsed with "Cancel" written across its face and returned. Late notice, same endorsement. Today, I got a letter from a collection agency. Apparently there's no connection between the payment process and the administrative task of actually cancelling a policy.

Here's my redacted response to the collection letter:

"I am in receipt of your letter of October 11^th (copy attached), informing me that your office has been assigned to collect an overdue account.

I informed (insurance co) on two separate occasions this year that I wished to cancel the subject policy; one of those occasions pre-dated the effective policy date of June 29^th inst. It is mystifying to me why your client would invoke your services on a matter in which my intentions were so clear. You should regard this “debt,” as I do, as invalid and of no effect whatsoever.

"So that there may be no ambiguity regarding my relationship with (insurance co), please know that I choose not to extend my policy past its expiration of June 29, 2011, I will not pay for any extension of my policy, and I expect you (a) to discontinue your efforts to collect this invalid debt and (b) to notify your client of its invalidity.

"I regard this matter as closed. Should you elect to pursue this matter further, please know that by engaging in any such activity, you accept liability for the cost of any effort I expend, at the rate of $275.00 per hour, plus expenses."

You, dear reader, may be able to detect some discontent, even animosity, toward companies that cannot process incoming information in a rational way. Why did Big Insurance Co. not respond to my cancellation notice? Too cheap to deal with messages on payment coupons? Too obtuse or arrogant? Too dismissive of cancelling policyholders? File that one under arrogant.

Those who hyperventilate at every attempt to create a system for relief of a community need, shrieking "socialism," need to consider the inflexibility of my Big Insurance Co. Apparently there exists one and only one way to cancel a policy, and non-payment of a premium without traveling through this gate constitutes delinquency. Really. The difference between a rigid gummint program and a rigid "free enterprise" program? Transparency and accountability. Guess which one has both?

Light at the end of the tunnel

2011-09-17T10:02:00.004-05:00

I spent a couple hours in a waiting room of the Dirksen Building this week. John went into arbitration with a Federal magistrate over his complaint against his former employer. At the conclusion, I think he was satisfied. His attorney was ebullient.

John, of course, wanted his boss's head on a stick, but the magistrate didn't actually feel that was viable for arbitration. Nor did he get anything close to his original demand, which was more emotional than rational. What he did get, though, was a six-figure settlement several times greater than the usual for such complaints. The settlement check is due in thirty days, minus his attorney's fees. Perhaps now we can focus on restoring John's health and completing his schooling.

I read the briefs John's attorney filed with the court. He's good.

Oh dear, we're being punished again

2011-08-29T18:04:00.006-05:00

Pat Robertson chimed in on the natural events of the past three weeks:

“God will strike back at people who act sort of gay with all kinds of mild responses.”

Good ol' Pat is getting milder. In prior years, he would have invoked much greater punishment on teh gays. God will strike back with "mild responses" at those "who act sort of gay"? Pretty limp-wristed, if you ask me, Pat.

On September 18, 2006, Pastor John Hagee told NPR's Terry Gross he was "glad to have the judgement of God against the City of New Orleans." Hagee was recounting a level of sin that God told him was offensive, because there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday after Katrina's arrival. Right-wing talk-show host Dennis Prager confirmed Hagee's interpretation of Hurricane Katrina's destruction of New Orleans as the result of "sin," that the city was under a divine curse. Really? Who knew besides Prager, and why didn't he issue a warning beforehand? Dennis and John, are you really happy that this disaster happened? I think that's sick.

Isn't it a little harsh, that God would inflict a hurricane measuring 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, on an entire region, just to express displeasure about a gay parade? God didn't destroy Sodom if it meant killing a handful of innocents, but New Orleans?

All summer, gays have been flouncing around P-town and Fire Island, and the worst weather they've received was a glancing blow from Irene. 750,000 people turned out to watch Chicago's Gay Pride parade this year, and all they got was some hot weather, two months later. And, don't forget the earthquake, in the center of Virginia, arguably the most homophobic state in the country. No Gay Pride parades there, all the gays are deeply closeted. Isn't God sending mixed messages here? Or is the basic premise false, that God is angry and vengeful because the creatures she made gay are responding to their creation in an appropriate manner?

I guess I should expect these demagogues to make unsubstantiated claims about God's retributive powers. My first encounter with logic, however, taught me that post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, and my understanding of Christian scripture teaches me, even today, that God is "slow to anger of great kindness". Were quack televangelists to preach of God's loving kindness over the airwaves, their coffers would never be as full. They need to frighten the gullible in order to fleece them and support themselves in the manner to which they have become accustomed. If there is an afterlife, I want to spend time making it Hell for these people. They received their reward while they were here.

Over a cliff

2011-07-27T07:46:00.004-05:00

I've been watching the theater of the absurd unfolding on Capitol Hill. It really looks like there won't be a compromise agreement by August 2nd, there are just too many irrational Republicans in the House. The GOP has given up any claim of fiscal responsibility in favor of advancing their political agenda. That agenda is rather clear at this point: steal from the poor, loot Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and give the booty to their supporters, who are the wealthiest among us. Implementing this agenda has been underway since Ronald Reagan. The NY Times referred to the GOP as a rogue elephant today. No, a rogue elephant is a rational mammal using a technique developed over the eons for a particular purpose. The Republican Party is an insulated band of group-thinkers living in a reality of their own creation. Their leader, the Speaker, appears to be unable or unwilling to discipline his members.

So, if the gummint has to spend less, where not to spend money it doesn't have? I would prioritize the cutting of government benefits, starting with the Republican congressional districts. Start especially with the leaders: OH-8, VA-7, CA-22, TX-5 and GA-6. Then, go after the Tea Partiers, starting with MN-6. It's not illegal if every district is on the list. The House leadership and the Tea Partiers should get quite a response from their constituents, who are largely unaware of the problem, even now.

Still need to cut spending? Start cutting US Government funds to certain states, like Texas, Louisiana, Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin. Same battle plan, put every state on the list, but put the craziest ones at the top. Expect the governors' servers to crash from the e-mail. Will the governors object? They have the private phone numbers of their congress critters, let them express their opinions. Get the wealthy campaign contributors to pony up some of the millions they gained from the Bush tax cuts, learn to compromise.

The wealthiest contributors are well known, many receive government contracts, subsidies and tax rebates. Now there's a place to save some money. Make a list.

The extremists who have hijacked the Republican Party are thuggish and brutal. They need to be treated the way they treat us, or at least treated that way first.

The heart of this Church

2011-07-16T11:40:00.003-05:00

The congregation I attend publishes a one-page article each week, entitled The Word, but doesn't save it online. The author varies, one week a parishioner, the next a clergyperson or staffer. They are wonderful articles, all of them, each with their own perspective and point of view. I can't show you a link, because it appears that The Word doesn't run in the summertime. You can find the parish homepage here, there will be more articles in the fall.

About three weeks ago, on Pride Sunday here in Chicagoland, parishioner Shannon Cate published an article. It was a love song, and the object of her love was Anglicanism. You can find it here, I recommend it. The key passage for me was this:

"Pusey House's conservatism has remained a symbol to me of one of the things I love most about Anglicanism, and that is the way that it embraces such incredible diversity within its arms. If the president of Pusey House and I could sit over toast morning after morning, genuinely liking and respecting each other across our miles of differences, anyone can surely sit with anyone in this Church.

Because the heart of this Church is community, not dogma."

I could not have framed John 13:34 any more clearly than Shannon. This is why we are here, not to bludgeon each other with doctrine, but to love each other and care for each other, regardless of their -- or our -- failings.

Southern Baptists in decline

2011-06-16T10:42:00.006-05:00

A coalition of six LGBT groups is presenting a petition to the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting this week in Phoenix.

“We call on the Southern Baptist Convention to stop misusing the Bible to promote religion-based bigotry and start recognizing the enormous pain and suffering caused by its mistreatment of LGBT people, particularly vulnerable youth,” said Dr. Jack McKinney, a former Southern Baptist minister and spokesperson for Faith in America [one of the six groups]. “History has not been kind to the Southern Baptist Convention’s record on minorities, and it is making the same awful mistake today by perpetuating abuse against gay people.”

The Rev. Terry Fox, pastor of Summit Church, Wichita, KS, commented on the efforts of “Get Equal,” another of the six. “I think they’re the ones that owe America an apology,” he said. “Their whole platform, that whole organization...is nothing but perversion, and it damages families, it damages children. Ultimately, it damages our own society."
Well, let’s look at that whole organization, the one that’s nothing but perversion. Their mission?

“Our mission is to empower the (LGBTQ) community and our allies to take bold action to demand full legal and social equality, and to hold accountable those who stand in the way.”

Its vision statement reads,

“We envision a society in which LGBTQ people experience equal protection under the law, and are free from cultural and social transphobia / homophobia, without caveat or compromise.”

Well, there it is. Legal and social equality, equal protection under the law, they’re “nothing but perversion.” If ever you wanted an example of a statement opposing American values, you found it at a Baptist church in Wichita, KS.
Their whole platform “damages families?” Really? Tell me how the demand for full legal and social equality of gays damages families and our whole society. I thought our whole society was founded on the truths that “all men are created equal” and on their Creator’s endowment of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If this is damaging, then to whom? To those whom GetEqual proposes to hold accountable as the stumbling blocks? Did Pastor Fox just come out to us as one of them?

Fox told OneNewsNow, the PR voice of the American Family Association, that he was proud that his denomination has stood strong on moral issues in the midst of increasingly liberal Christian teachings.

“It shows [Get Equal] think[s] they have become an accepted organization in America, which I would beg to differ with them,” the pastor adds. “Any poll you would take from any region in America, including the more liberal parts of the country, they would find that they're out of sync with all of society. So I'm embarrassed for them for even asking for an apology.”

Well, let me reiterate, homosexuality is not a “moral issue.” Moral issues require someone to choose from among two or more options. You don’t choose your sexuality, you discover it. Works the same for all mammals, I'm told, not just homo sapiens. The opinion that GetEqual is “out of sync” with everybody else might just be psychological projection on the part of Pastor Fox. Perhaps he is the one "out of sync" and doesn't recognize it. It's OK, happens to all of us. It took the Roman church over four hundred years to acknowledge heliocentricity.

The Southern Baptist Convention must deal with a study conducted by LifeWay Christian Resources at the state conventions’ request and released prior to Convention. The Annual Church Profile reports the lowest record of baptisms in sixty years, down five percent from 2009, the prior year. Sunday attendance is nearly flat. Ed Stetzer, President of LifeWay Research, says that this decline signals serious issues within the SBC (Ya think?). “I think the reality is that something needs to change,” Stetzer said to AFA. Stetzer mentions several contributing factors, chief among them “lethargy”.

Well, it’s plausible. A five percent drop in baptisms means that young adults aren’t joining; current members continue to attend, but they ain’t makin’ any more babies. Perhaps “lethargy” is a code-word for age and fatigue. He goes on to say, "I also think that Southern Baptist churches have struggled because they're not engaging their communities well.” Really?! The communities that include Baptist churches also include unclean people that Baptists shun, like gays and lesbians, blacks and Mexicans, young people with very different views about things Baptists wouldn’t even consider discussing. And those otherwise normal folk who accept this wide, wonderful variety of people for who they are. Think any of them have an interest in joining a church that wants to avoid them, the lives they lead and the things they talk about?

The AFA article concludes with the plaintive line, “And despite the declining statistics, church leaders hope the SBC will continue to stand for biblical values and teachings.”

Biblical values. Code Words Alert! Brace yourselves for a Deuteronomy attack, for a proof-texted version of Romans 1! “Biblical Values” is the phrase that’s used (1) to accuse your opponent of being a Satanic anti-Bibleist, and (2) to cloak yourself in victimhood, besieged by atheists, Muslims and other anti-religious forces more powerful than you. That dog is getting lethargic and won’t hunt much longer.

I forgot to mention, the other four groups petitioning the SBC this week include Soulforce, Believe Out Loud, Truth Wins Out, and the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists.

News for Pastor Fox: Moral issues are not the exclusive province of your “conservative” teachings, they exist in “liberal Christian teachings” as well, they just address issues your Biblical upbringing never covered. My prayer for you, Terry Fox, is that you will repent of your arrogance and seek the true God, the One Who Cannot Be Defined by any culture or time.

Lost weekend

2011-05-31T06:46:00.004-05:00

Memorial Day weekend wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped. John, Rich and I started out Saturday morning for Tippecanoe River State Park, intending to camp out two nights. The car was stuffed to the gills with camping gear and food.

The rain started at 2:00 pm and continued until almost 4:00 am, heavy at times. We abandoned the idea of cooking dinner and went to a Chinese restaurant in Winamac.

The real problem was a contingent of other campers at another campsite about 150 feet away. They were under a rain shelter, drinking, laughing, arguing, cussing, and drinking some more. They didn't let up until about 3:30 am. Park security? In the rain? Non-existent. We heard a pickup truck drive past around 9:45 pm, but it didn't slow down.

Around 3:00 am, John announced that we should leave in the morning and find breakfast on the road. We did. On the way out, we stopped at the guard shack and told the attendant about the party. She wrote it all down and took our phone number. She looked stricken when John told her about the couple having sex on our picnic table and offered his opinion that amphetamines might have been involved.

I wrote this letter to the director of the state parks Sunday afternoon:

"Since moving to Indiana in 2009, I have looked forward to camping in the state parks. My first experience was this weekend, at Tippecanoe River State Park (TRSP). It may also be my last.

"My son, a good friend, and I endured Saturday’s weather, and we would have “survived” the weekend but for another group in the Canoe Campground at TRSP. A multi-site contingent of campers held a loud and alcohol-fueled—my friend suggests also amphetamine-fueled—party Saturday night, disrupting the entire campground until about 3:45 am with their loud laughter, talking, arguing and profanity. It got louder as the evening progressed. Park security? The last vehicle we heard on the primary road was before 10:00 pm; it didn’t stop or even slow down as it passed our campground, in either direction. I commend to your attention the park gatekeeper’s written report from my detailed statement this morning.

"Mr. Bortner, my use of Indiana state parks is concluded until I have specific assurances regarding park security. TRSP Assistant Manager Brady Givens apologized for the incident in a prompt telephone response to my complaint. He informed me that the contract security service was “trained” to physically visit the campgrounds until 2:00 am, meaning specifically something more than merely “driving past”. Whether or not he calls his contractor to account, last night’s incident suggests two action items that you can initiate:

"1. Review your training program for security services. Incorporate the “Learning Pyramid” to improve learning retention rates for contract personnel. This was a major “fail”.

"2. Establish metrics: measurements of how effectively your contractors fulfill their contracts. Absent my report, TRSP would not have known of their contractor’s deficiency. Such measurements can be factored into contract renewals if they are also factored into SPR’s management of those contracts. Net, the larger failure lies with SPR.

"Yesterday, TRSP ruined a quality assurance professional’s weekend, but it created an opportunity for you, Mr. Bortner. I am skilled at measuring business processes effectively and frugally. I would welcome the opportunity to work with you to improve park security inexpensively.

"In the meantime, please reimburse me for my ruined weekend, in the amount of $35.01."

It's a long shot to expect a contract out of this, but it's always fun to vent my annoyance with a letter, especially considering it's been my career to take the hassles out of business situations. I would much prefer chasing a contract like this to commuting into the Loop and working at another desk.

PCUSA admits gays, upsets bigots

2011-05-13T15:17:00.004-05:00

Oh, dear, another denomination accepts that gays and lesbians are human and some are Christians, and another diatribe appears from Michael Youssef.

I love the verb "invades" in the title, makes it sound like Spain being overrun by the Moors in 711 CE. Question: how can gays be both swishy and so terribly powerful? Shouldn't all that promiscuity be enervating? Unclear from Michael.

Mr. Youssef quotes Jeremiah 9:1b:

"I would weep day and night for the slain of my people."

He doesn't extend his quotation to, say, verse 6, which includes a condemnation of liars and deceivers. Too, uh, uncomfortable, Michael?

But to his quote, let me ask about "the slain of [his] people". How many straights have been killed by gays or lesbians? How many straight teenagers have committed suicide because they were bullied, harassed, threatened or out'ed? What a weak excuse for a scriptural reference.

Mr. Youssef, you dragged my denomination, The Episcopal Church, into this discussion. We 'Piskies are called to "seek and serve Christ in each other" without regard to sexual preference. Your blog post clearly denies the possibility that a same-gender relationship can be valid and holy; you call it 'apostasy'. What is your basis for making this claim that excludes David's love for Jonathan or Ruth's for Naomi?

PCUSA has joined MCC, UCC, TEC and ELCA in recognizing that GLBT persons are as much beloved children of God as are Southern Baptists and Mormons. Don't fall back on "rejecting the validity of the Bible" as your justification for hating gays and lesbians. Yours is not the only interpretation of the Bible, and stating that your interpretation is the "true religion" doesn't make it so anymore than it makes other interpretations "false religion" by implication. Nice try, Michael, but yours is not the only key to the Kingdom.

So, you are calling the "faithful" to leave PCUSA and TEC. The rest of us, presumably, are "unfaithful"? You are very quick to judge, Mr. Youssef. We are assured in the Bible that the standard by which we judge others will be the same by which we are judged. Save us from the time of trial. Save us all.

Incidentally, your blog doesn't provide for comments, indicating to me your willingness to hear other points of view. I don't have that problem.

Rapture rescheduled for May 21

2011-04-27T12:10:00.003-05:00

We just got a letter, postmarked in Gary, addressed to our Christian names. The letter contained an unsigned, hand-written letter, all in block caps, advising us that "there are only 26 day's [sic] left till the whole world will come under god's judgement for sin..." and four tracts apparently from Family Radio, Oakland CA. In no particular order, here are the four tracts.

One is entitled "Does GOD Love You?" It's in Q&A format, and it carefully leads the reader to a belief that the Bible is "God's Law book". It instructs the reader not to attend a church, "The church age has come to an end." At the end of the tract, it states "you should patiently wait upon the Lord while you continue to learn from the Bible". Only until May 21st, apparently.

A second tract is entitled, "No Man Knows the Day or the Hour?" quoting from Acts 1:7. It teaches that from these verses, "believers were not to be at all preoccupied with this question." This is a fascinating tract, for it pushes the date of the Creation back to 11,013 BC. As with the prior tract, this one puts verses from Old and New Testaments together to create a vision of apocalypse and judgement against those who don't agree. There is a very large quote from Revelation 5 (1-9) which the tract claims to be the book referenced in Daniel 12. In some undocumented way, the tract informs us that Revelation 8:1 occurred on May 21, 1988. The tract concludes with the idea that Christ will come like a thief, per Rev 16:15. Curious.

The third tract, this one on light blue paper, informs us that "God gives another infallible proof that assures the rapture will occur May 21, 2011". This tract combines traditional mathematics with a very literal translation of the Bible. It claims that the "precise date of the cross was April 1, 33 A.D." This is how the tractarians arrive at May 21, 2011. Taking as literal truth 2 Peter 3:8, "that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day," and someone's translation of 2 Peter 2:5, referring to seven days, the tract computes the day of the Rapture. This tract does a lot with numbers, quite intriguing if you believe the opening premises and a literal translation of scripture.

The last tract is entitled "The end of the world is almost here! Holy God will bring judgement day on May 21, 2011". It repeats most of the prior tracts, alternating between Old and New Testaments. It announces that "the Bible is divided into two parts, with each part divided into many books. Each book is divided into chapters, and each chapter is divided into verses." Not in the original, it isn't! This tract insists that "the Bible is written by God Himself". Really?! I'd do a better job, then, removing inconsistencies and errors that are quite evident to anyone reading it extensively.

This is the kind of heresy that results from a misreading of Holy Scripture and a mis-application of rationalism to a text never intended to be read as a rule of law or a scientific account of events. Especially in English, which the tracts acknowledge isn't the original language. My first reaction to this weirdness was to recall Beyond the Fringe for a greater appreciation of this mentality.

These tracts are conflicted regarding God's judgement and God's forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They clearly don't quite follow what God did and why, in sending His Son into the world. It will be interesting to watch their reaction on May 21st and May 22nd. I'll bring popcorn.

A National Organization for Marriage?

2011-04-27T10:45:00.003-05:00

I discovered a new hate group the other day, the National Organization for Marriage, thanks to my signing up with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Maggie Gallagher, the chairman of the group, issued a standard press release, to which I responded with this e-mail:

"It has come to my attention that you are conducting a nationwide campaign opposing laws that grant same-gender couples the rights traditionally given only to hetero couples. Your most recent statements charge that those of us who support such laws are actually engaged in a campaign of hatred, attempting to silence your supporters by labeling them as bigots.

"I have quite a great deal to say on this matter, because there are several issues here that need to be disentangled in order to be addressed:

"1. You and your supporters, who oppose extending the civil benefits of marriage to same-gender couples, have yet to put forward a rational basis for your position. You either fall back on arguable interpretations of Christian scripture or on invalidated theories of the origin of homosexuality. Either way, your position fails to address the civil issues regarding the rights of citizens to be treated equally under the U. S. Constitution. What state interest is advanced by the discrimination you propose?

"2. I have observed that many of the political arguments put forward during the current Administration exhibit characteristics of psychological projection; i.e., "class warfare" was raised by the same interest groups that promoted benefit cuts for the poor in order to cut taxes for the wealthy, and "death panels" were an effective cudgel to preserve the status quo in health care, whose companies ruthlessly operate their own panels to deny benefits to their members. Can you demonstrate that hatred towards you is not connected to your hatred towards LGBT persons?

"3. You bemoan being a victim of the "relentless torrent of accusations and hatred against anyone who speaks, no matter how civilly, for [presumably traditional] marriage". Show me evidence that your opposition to same-gender marriage is not homophobia: where have you spoken favorably toward the relationships of loving, monogamous, same-gender couples? Do you support or oppose granting civil benefits for such couples?

"4. You stated recently, “What I believe is that pastors and religious leaders need to be able to speak up for traditional, Christian sexual morality.” Can you justify your opposition to blessing committed, loving, monogamous relationships between couples without qualifying the gender of the couples?"

Your link and my response will be posted on my blog, a notoriously ignored site.

More assaults on Social Security

2011-03-21T11:38:00.004-05:00

Perhaps it's because I actually need Social Security that I'm a little sensitive when some Republican congresscritter makes a clever argument that we'd be better off if we were all in the stock market. Missouri Rep. Todd Akin made such an argument today. He's calm, he's articulate, but he is, IMHO, calculatedly clever to the point of disingenuity in his argument. My response is given below.

Rep. Akin starts out by saying Social Security (SS) is a tax, which my pay stubs admit it is, but then he switches to looking at SS as an investment:

the government has taken the tax, there's been more money coming in than has been going out, and we spend it. That's not been responsible. I don't like it.

It's irresponsible for the government to spend less than it receives in tax revenues? By this conversation, Rep. Akin, you have taken a firm stand in favor of deficit spending. Can we count on your vote to extend the Federal deficit this fiscal year and next?

Sorry, Congressman, you can't have it both ways. If you don't like it that SS has been in the black for all these years financing our government, then stick with the status quo, SS is moving inexorably into the red because of the factors you mentioned. Frankly, lifting the cap on contributions would keep it in the black, but then your financiers would lose more opportunities to loot the working people of this country.

What a mess! One more example of the sorry state of our education system, that the people of Missouri would elect such a discombobulated thinker to Congress.

Andrew Sullivan gets it

2011-03-07T17:07:00.005-06:00

Andrew Sullivan nails it this week:

...the core elements that made the Catholic Church one of the biggest pedophile conspiracies in the world for decades if not centuries remain: incoherent, irrational and data-resistant doctrines on homosexual orientation and sex in general; a Western culture in which fewer and fewer straight men are prepared to give up sex and love and marriage to serve the church; and a hierarchical structure designed to instill control rather than openness, and perfectly set up to enable cover-ups.

And now, think upon the plans of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who wishes to install a juridical structure into the Anglican Communion via an "Anglican Covenant". The original plan, when it was proposed seven years ago, was to provide a mechanism for expelling or relegating to "second-class" status TEC and Anglican Church of Canada (ACOC) for their apostatic recognition that gays and lesbians might be Christians beloved by God, that their service might be inspired by the Spirit and their loving, monogamous relationships might be blessed by the same. Outrageous, we know, we have the Spirit fully contained, he cannot escape and find something new, we have clearly defined God and of what he approves and disapproves.

I am beginning to worry. Strengthening the hierarchy of the Anglican Communion might have another agenda besides the expulsion of TEC and ACOC. Might there be a pedophile situation in the CofE, or in another Church, such as Kenya or Uganda?
For years, the Roman church hid its dark side through layers of hierarchy. That dark side is only now being exposed. Why is the ABC attempting to build a more robust hierarchy? What are we not observing?

Andrew Carey for the Pharisees

2011-03-02T14:16:00.003-06:00

Andrew Carey wrote on Anglican Mainstream on February 24th inst. Since comments are closed on the article, this is my response, which I will attempt to deliver via e-mail as well.

I suppose we are all expected to be terrified by the prospect of a "gay rights juggernaut" compelling Protestant, Anglican, and Roman clergy alike to conduct marriage ceremonies of same-gender couples sometime in the future. Although such regulations may or may not transpire, there certainly is a case to be made for them. It used to be acceptable to discriminate against Jews, for example, denying them employment, housing, and in Europe less than eighty years ago, life itself. Current laws in Germany now outlaw any public statement that denies the existence of the Holocaust. In the United States, at least six dioceses denied ordination to women only a few years ago. The Episcopal Church is moving steadily toward compulsory acceptance of women as acceptable candidates for all Holy Orders in all dioceses, if not already in place.

So what is it about gays and lesbians getting married in church that so upsets orthodox Anglicans, not to mention orthodox Protestants and Romans? Are such couples unloved by God? Hardly, Holy Scripture points to two really close relationships, without condemnation. Scripture, Old and New, is full of tradition-breaking, the Spirit regularly appears in places outside the bounds of human thought.

OK, since gays and lesbians are not outcasts in God's eyes, why should we, in our exclusion of them from marriage, continue an historical policy of hatred and oppression? Andrew Carey even concedes that "marriage has come in many forms over centuries and millenia and that if it has changed in the past, why not now?" I regret that Carey didn't really address the question he posed. Stating the position of the most obdurate, that the institution of marriage is God-given, God-blessed, or both, and therefore unchangeable, contradicts his own understanding. Why is it not clear that our understanding of God changes with the culture?

Carey asks, "How has it happened so quickly?" I submit that the rapidity of the cultural change is related to the advance of technology: our social networking tools have grown explosively over the last thirty years. Mobile phones, Internet, Facebook and Twitter, global news coverage, all have opened real-time windows into our lives and our hearts. These communication channels have exposed all of us to the wonderful variety of God's creation and our amazing diversity as humankind. The enormous volume of traffic on these channels speaks to our discovery of how alike we are in spite of our differences. No "popular groundswell of opinion"? These communication channels are driving change all across the middle East; why should our narrow views of marriage be exempt from such challenges?

As "appealing" and "ideal" as the traditional view of marriage may be, its "stability" is problematic. Orphans and foster children are the victims of families whose relationships are unstable, succumbed in many cases to external forces. The argument that "the Church must argue passionately and compassionately for the ideal of marriage" only justifies the position of the Pharisees in Luke 5:31-32: the righteous have no need for repentance. Very convenient, you're off the hook, it's not your fault. I do not consider this to be a Christian response.

When the ideal of a wonderful, child-rearing marriage is no longer present, the Church must be passionate and compassionate for any alternative that reflects the love of Christ for those on the margins: the dispossessed, the sinner. For orphans, foster children and those who are victims of divorce, living under the care of a same-sex couple is a valid alternative. For those whose partnerships have endured for decades, it can be a Godsend.

We have new wine, the loving, monogamous gay or lesbian couple, new to this age and this culture, in need of spiritual support and guidance. We need a new wineskin, the old one will not hold. How will the Church respond?

Allen West wants to censor the press

2010-12-14T16:51:00.003-06:00

It's always easier to read others' blogs than to update my own, but I'm becoming increasingly uneasy with this comfort zone. This month, there will be a series of entries (I promise) regarding the current issues that float my boat.

My first entry regards a statement by Rep-elect Allen West(R-FL) indicating his support for censorship of the press. Well, just the press that supports Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. Mr. West, interviewed on a right-wing Internet radio, is quoted as saying

I think we should also be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this...

Mr. West, you will shortly be raising your right hand and swearing to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. The first amendment to the Constitution states quite clearly that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". If you are so unaquainted with the law you to which you are about to swear allegiance, you should either take a crash course in Constitutional law or yield your position to someone more qualified.

Gay Pride

2010-07-05T11:22:00.003-05:00

It's been a week now, but what a day it was last Sunday! The morning was full of music and worship, including one of the best sermons I've heard in quite a while. You can (and should) read it here.

A small but sturdy band of Piskies marched in the St. James' Cathedral unit, once again placed in the back 20% of the lineup. Remind me to talk to the organizers.

It was a warm and sunny day, perfect for inducing young hotties to remove their shirts and strut their stuff. Some over-indulged in strutting, more than a few over-indulged in distilled spirits. The turnout was enormous, and those who stayed sober got a chance once again to see people rejoicing in God's creation.

To Drill or Not To Drill, That is the Question

2010-06-18T17:09:00.004-05:00

There exists some measure of "pushback" against the Obama Administration's decision to declare a six-month moratorium against deepwater drilling until, presumably, measures can be established to prevent a recurrence of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, not without "skin in the game," estimates $165 million to $330 million in lost employee income for 33 rigs in the Gulf.

I do not see any discussion, in the media, blogs or elsewhere (is there elsewhere?), any discussion of the mindset that predisposes the oil industry to preventing a recurrence. Is our environment, let alone an entire regional economy, so disposable that we can tolerate its destruction with impunity? The Minerals Management Service, IMHO, needs to be reconstituted, perhaps re-authorized by Congress, to be the oil industry's FAA, shutting down unsafe operations, even companies that operate without a priority to safety.

The commercial aviation industry, overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has achieved defect rates (in terms of fatal accidents) of wonderfully small numbers. Ever heard of "Six Sigma"? That's a statistical measure of 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Everyone flies these days, and the FAA has been assertive, even aggressive, in pursuing the root causes of air travel calamities, especially those that result in fatalities. The FAA's "vision" is to "reach the next level of safety...we work so all air and space travelers arrive safely at their destinations..."

Depending on how you measure safety, the commercial air transport industry is doing pretty well. Remember, the manufacturing industry standard, which few companies achieve, is 3.4 defects per million opportunities. What is an opportunity? A flight, an hour of flying in a commercial aircraft, or an hundred km traveled?

Measured in terms of fatalities, the commercial air transport industry's worst performance is 1.17 fatalities per 10 million journeys. That's 29 times better than the six sigma goal for manufacturers. It's also the worst metric for the airline industry. Net, commercial air travel is doing better than six sigma.

Measured in terms of hours of exposure, aka the time you're in your seat, the commercial air transport industry's performance is 3.08 fatalities per hundred million hours of exposure. This is 110 times better than the industry goal of Six Sigma. As a frequent flyer, this is good. Very good.

The third metric is distance traveled, since there's an element of risk in that, too. When you consider commercial air travel from this vantage point, you are 380 times less likely to die than you are from the manufacturing industry's six sigma standard. With commercial air travel, you have 5 chances out of ten billion that you won't make your destination per mile traveled. Net, the FAA and NTSB have established a culture that actively works to reduce defects in commercial air travel. This culture needs to be inculcatedin BP. BP needs someone authorized to shut them down when they cut corners.

How do we turn the culture of a rough rider industry from its cowboy past to a culture of community, one that banks its testosterone production in deference to the community it serves? IOW, how do we turn its arrogant attitude of individuality into one that accepts its part in the regional--and global--community?

I don't know how to do that. How do you communicate this concept of a culture of hubris with a board chairman or a chief executive? Are they willing to recognize the downside of the culture in which they were raised?

Catching up

2010-06-11T15:52:00.008-05:00

I've been distracted the last two weeks by events and activities. I missed the blowout of the Well of Canterbury, spewing thousands of syllables of erudition that threatened the entire Anglican ecosystem with division, recriminations and the destruction of Christian community. Such destruction could endure for decades.

The warning signs of this disaster have been visible for at least six years. Following the consecration of Bp. Robinson in 2003, the ABC convened an emergency meeting of the ACC to commission a Windsor Report, which made three recommendations, only one of which applied to TEC. TEC complied with a moratorium on the election of gay bishops for seven years.

Last summer, at GC 2009, TEC passed a resolution (D025) that stated its position rather concisely: we're here, we're Anglican, some of us are queer, and we are led by the Spirit just like everyone else; all of us--gay or straight--love the Church, try to live into God's call to us, and want to express and receive the love which God has showed us from the beginning.

Stop trying to exclude us, ++Rowan. We are as Anglican as the CofE. We have as many gay clergy--and bishops--as the CofE, and our clerics are considerably more truthful about our sexual orientation than yours. How will it look, Abp, for you, in effect, to punish us for our truthfulness?

All over the Anglican Communion, the "local option" is being employed to bless same-gender unions. This is potentially a critical circumstance. Is the "local option" an attempt to circumvent the stumbling block placed by ++Cantuar on the blessing of same-gender unions, or is it adiaphoratic? The Windsor Report, on page 21, discusses "adiaphora," things that do not make a difference. Things that do not make a difference may be decided and instituted at a local level, they don't affect doctrine or dogma.

If same-gender unions are being blessed via the "local option," then the ABC is on the losing end of the stick. Wish him well, he was clearly miscast for his role in the part.

More from my fundie friend

2010-05-10T14:35:00.007-05:00

My old and dear friend, genuine Christian and genuine fundamentalist, has written me again:

This is what the Apostle Paul (actually God Himself, since the scripture is God’s infallible, inspired, inerrant word to mankind) wrote: Romans 1:18-32 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” [underlined text is my emphasis]

Oh dear, where to begin? Let's start with the easiest. We don't know what God thinks, and Isaiah says so quite unambiguously (55:8):

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

Furthermore, Paul wasn't taking dictation from God when he wrote to the Romans, to conducting dictato, so to speak. The Bible is the Word of God, not the words of God.

Now let's look at the other words that my friend used to describe Paul's letter to the Romans. Is this book inerrant and infallible, i. e., exempt from or incapable of error in defining doctrines? Well, when you look at the full extent of Paul's writings, you get a sense he was clearly tailoring his message to his audience. He even admits it in his first letter to the Corinthians ("I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.") 1 Cor 9:22b. So, does it make sense that, for all time and for all cultures, wives should be subject to their husbands, or was this an entreaty to a particular congregation in a specific culture? Should we refrain from sex until we can't stand it anymore and marry somebody, or was this the product of his conviction that Jesus was coming back really, really soon? Most biblical scholars believe the latter. Such questions need to be resolved before we can accept than any interpretation is definitive.

Was Romans inspired? Not if it was dictated, from God's lips to Paul's ears. You can't have it both ways. I'll take "inspired," I don't buy "dictated".

Now let's look at Romans. My friend stopped at chapter 1, but that's only half of Paul's opening message. Read Chapter 2 with Chapter 1. Paul is saying something very deliberate about God's beloved in Rome. It appears that the Jews and Gentiles were at loggerheads, each claiming moral superiority over the other. Paul sets them straight, rather sharply.

As to the details of 1:18-32, I interpret this as Paul's trying to describe how this culture became so debased. Paul attributes the society's debauchery to its abandoning God. Note the presence of "therefore" and "For this reason" in his writing. The result of the Romans' idolatry is "every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice."

Paul understands cause and effect. To the churches of Galatia, after he excoriates them for their back-sliding, he clearly defines the results of the "flesh," aka our human life in our human culture: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, "jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, etc." The result of the Spirit? "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

It's not lost on me that my friend's interpretation of Romans 1, far more literal and detailed than I, enables him to perceive a scriptural condemnation of homosexuality. In fact, "homosexuality" was defined only in the nineteenth century, it cannot be attributed to Paul's letter. To my earlier comments on this blog I would add the commendations below.

First, observe Jesus' caution in Matthew 7:1-2. Listen to what he says in Matthew 11:2-5. Then, observe the lives of the gay people you know, and test them against Jesus' words in Matthew 7:15-20. Do they exemplify Gal 5:19-21 or Gal 5:22-23? If your sphere of close friends doesn't include a close friendship with gay or lesbian families, then I would strongly encourage you to reach out to increase your knowledge: the truth will free you from bonds you didn't know constrain you.

Finally, I commend the theology of René Girard, who defines a philosophy that contrasts the "win-lose" nature of our human life with the "everybody wins" nature of God's Kingdom. It is most enlightening, if not entirely readable. James Alison takes a crack at explaining Girard, without complete success.

Nearing the End Times

2010-03-19T08:17:00.002-05:00

We are nearing the End Times. Not the Rapture, the end of the sexuality wars. The Spirit is moving in The Episcopal Church, showing the faithful that heterosexuals aren't the only ones who can be spiritual, faithful, and pastoral, and excellent administrators besides. From the Episcopal News Service:

Episcopalians across the church celebrated the March 17 news that Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop-elect Mary Douglas Glasspool had received the required number of consents from standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction to her ordination and consecration as bishop.

The Spirit isn't confining his/her influence to the US. The Spirit is opening the hearts of those who have historically placed a greater weight than the more liberal Piskies to the tradition of excluding various classes of Christians from some of the sacraments. Take the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt. Rev. James Jones, for instance. From Ruth Gledhill of the Times:

"The day is coming when Christians who equally profoundly disagree about the consonancy of same gender love within the discipleship of Christ will in spite of their disagreement drink openly from the same cup of salvation.

The Bishop...questions whether it is right for the Church to continue condemning committed faithful gay relationships in a world where there is 'so little love' of any kind.

"Even if the traditionalists are right, he says, and gay sex is wrong, it is unclear precisely what sin will have been committed by gay couples other than 'in a world of such little love two people sought to express a love that no other relationship could offer them.'"

I've posted these quotes because I believe they express some of the most powerful arguments I've read to date challenging the traditionalists' view that gay sex is wrong, or sinful, or an abomination, or whatever, for everyone, orientation notwithstanding. "So little love" and the oppression of gays and lesbians recalls for me the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" This question should haunt those who actively advocate for discriminating against gay couples. How does their oppression spread the Gospel of Love?

The point of "precisely what sin" recalls for me the answer Jesus gave to an imprisoned John the Baptist via his followers, who asked, "are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?" Jesus' answer is an important one, and one directly related to his teaching about good fruit coming from good plants.

So, these are the End Times for those who are uncircumcised in heart and ears. They need to repent and turn from their idolatry (for homophobia
is idolatry) and learn to love that which God has made, which includes themselves, not insignificantly. And we need to repent for considering ourselves superior to our oppressors because we believe our arguments are superior. We need to love them as much as we want them to love us.

We're trying to be a global leader?

2010-03-11T16:06:00.004-06:00

From the website of the Itawambe Agricultural High School (now locked down)

The mission of IAHS [Itawambe Agricultural High School] is to involve school, families, and community in enabling students to be responsible and productive citizens of an ever changing world by providing academic and technological programs in a learning environment that is safe, orderly, empowering, and challenging

Motto of Teresa McNeece, Superintendent, Itawambe School District:

Expect More, Do More, Achieve More

The latest example appeared today, of a people who walk in darkness, unable to see the light of the New Testament.

Pity poor Constance McMillen. She is a criminal, convicted of living in the rural deep South, prima facie evidence her school board's decision to cancel the senior prom in preference to letting her appear in a tuxedo, with her girl friend. God forbid that the students of this county ever discover that there may exist truths about the real world that don't agree with the cultural "line". The appearance of these "truths" scares the wits out of the school board. What?! Some people may be attracted to others of the same gender? No one ever taught us that! How can it be true, if we were never taught it, our education wasn't perfect?

These school board people are victims of their own woefully inadequate education. They value dogma and ideology over science. Data, let alone new data, terrify them. They're honest folk, but they're unschooled in how to evaluate data. Or perhaps they're not honest, they have an ideological agenda that trumps facts. It's clear at this point, the school board is responding to the culture and not to the data, that mammalian sexuality is a variable, which leads us to the observation that human sexuality is not exclusively hetero.

Hello, anybody home?! It's only shameful if it's a choice, and it's not just a choice after all, is it! Who are we listening to, the "rules" or the children of God? Where do we find God? Why did Jesus, at the Last Supper, say "Eat me"? What was he saying to us?

Oh noes! The Indiana Democratic Party

2010-03-10T22:38:00.003-06:00

The Indiana Democratic Party is swatting at gnats while the country is being attacked by giant right-wing pterodactyls:

[Lobbyist and Republican Congressional candidate Dan] Coats was tasked with lobbying members of Congress on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

"Coats' firm King and Spaulding was paid $10,000 for their services in lobbying on behalf of the auto bailout.

C'mon, guys, $10,000 is a retainer, it won't buy more than an hour a week from a journeyman staffer. If the Democratic candidate isn't cleaner than this, the GOP has a real candidate!

I would really like to get more valuable e-mails than this from my local Dems.

Weather, or not

2010-02-05T09:16:00.003-06:00

My old stompin' grounds, Washington DC and northern Virginia, is getting its second blizzard of the season. According to forecasts, one to two feet of the white stuff is due to fall on our nation's capital today and tonight, making our national gummint even more dysfunctional than it is in perfect weather.

We could use a foot or so of snow here, but please not next week, I'm on a plane that I want to be on time next Thursday.

More hate speech

2010-02-03T12:22:00.023-06:00

Bryan Fischer, Host of Focal Point radio program on AFR Talk, a division of the American Family Association, posted a copy of a listener's e-mail on his blog. You can read the whole thing or let me publish his salient (and septic) points:

...what I actually suggested is we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

Oh, dear, where to begin. I know more than a dozen gay couples who live in committed, loving, monogamous relationships. Some of them have been partnered for decades. Unlike some senators, congressmen and governors, they're not promiscuous, they don't fly off to Argentina for secret trysts or father children with their lovers. Advocating for the imposition of "sanctions," whatever they might be, is inappropriate if it's only gays and lesbians that are targeted and not straight folks too. It only shows Fischer's homophobia, his hatred of gays and lesbians. Oh, while I'm on the first quote, why is only HIV/AIDS targeted? Worldwide, it's predominantly spread through vaginal sex. Why not address all STD's?

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.

Leaving aside the obvious, that there is no effective reparative therapy, Fischer's underlying premise is that gays and lesbians are somehow broken and in need of repair. Note to Bryan: we're not. God made us gay, just as he made some people short and others left-handed. Nobody chooses to be gay any more than they choose to be short or left-handed. Interestingly, for most of my life I chose to be straight, or tried to be. By defying God's will for me, I became more and more miserable and made those close to me miserable as well. It was when I surrendered--gave up my defiance and came out of the closet--that my period of misery began to come to an end.

Paul lists quite explicitly in 1 Timothy 1:8-11 the actions and behaviors that are the proper concern of the law:

"Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for ... murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers ... "

I don't know which translation Fischer is reading. The term "homosexuality" didn't exist before the 19th century A.D., so Paul could not have used it. Sexual activity among the Gentiles of Paul's time was predominantly or exclusively hierarchical: men had sex with their slaves, their wives (they were property), and their young male proteges. Hedonism was as common then as it is in the NBA today. Paul's letter to Timothy counseled against promiscuity and anal sex (fornicators and sodomites), not against "homosexuals".

While we're on the subject of the Bible's perspective, dare I mention David's relationship to Jonathan in 1 and 2 Samuel? 1 Sam 18:1-4 sure sounds to me like they fell in love with each other. In 20:30, their relationship wasn't lost on Saul, Jonathan's father. After Jonathan's death, David writes in 2 Sam 1:26, "greatly beloved were you to me, your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women". Bryan Fischer's observation?

"The bottom line here is that, biblically, those 'who practice homosexuality' should come under the purview of the law just as much as those who take people captive in order to sell them into slavery".

Paul quite clearly identifies the scope of the law in Galatians 5:18-26: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, etc., are not illegal, and in James 2:9:

"If you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors".

I would surmise that God has blinded Bryan Fischer a la Saul, so that he is unable to see God's grace flowing down on all his/her people regardless of their sexual orientation.

One final quote from Mr. Fischer:

"If you believe all Scripture is inspired, then you are compelled to accept that legal sanctions may appropriately be applied to those who engage in homosexual behavior."

Bryan, Bryan, why do you rail so against couples who love each other, who are patient and kind and generous and faithful to each other, but are merely of the same gender? Have you created a graven image of hedonistic circuit bois and declared that all gays and lesbians worship it? Does the power of your own sexuality scare the bejeebers out of you? Hie thee to a therapist, get control over your libido. We are here, we are as human as you, and we are willing to accept you into the club of those "in discovery" of who we are.

Hey, sex offenders, move to Chicago!

2010-01-28T15:43:00.004-06:00

Gosh, the fun never stops for Mayor Daley. First it's parking meters, then it's a mass exodus of trade shows from the corrupt and overpriced McCormick Place. Now it's convicted sex offenders quietly disappearing into the community. Lisa Madigan, AG for Illinois, has identified 7 child murderers and 161 sexual predators who have disappeared in Chicago. Isn't the Chicago Police Department responsible for keeping track of these people?

How can this be? My college alumni association caught up with me when I moved and didn't think to tell them. The Indiana Democratic Party has been pestering me for donations and I have never communicated with them. True, I didn't really slip away, I left a forwarding address with the US Postal Escargot and gave my new address to my bank and insurance company. It is still difficult to fathom, though, that a city responsible for keeping track of people at risk for repeating crimes that are particularly offensive to the community would be so inept at its job. CPD is probably more experienced at harassing these people than it is keeping track of them.

Sort of a Merry Christmas

2009-12-18T14:11:00.003-06:00

I've been following the health care reform bill as it makes its way through a gauntlet of vicious senators. At this point, it appears that a Merry Christmas wish is in order, but not for everyone. The senators whose re-election campaigns are so well endowed by Big Pharma, Big Healthcare, and Big Insurance (BP, BH & BI) certainly are looking to receive lots of Christmas goodies this year from their benefactors. BPH&I stocks are shooting through the roof--Merry Christmas, Ho! Ho! Ho!, it's going to be a wonderful and prosperous New Year for years to come!

Let's look to see what the U.S. Senate Santas have given BP, BH & BI this year. First, this brightly-wrapped package: permission to sell insurance across state lines from a state with weak consumer protection laws. Oh, goody, you know Big Insurance (BI) will play with that! And lookie here, another box with a lovely red bow: premiums for older persons four times higher than premiums for younger persons. That gift will go so well with the 50% higher premiums for pre-existing conditions! What a wonderful pair of gifts! Thank you, Senate Santas!

Oh, look there! A wonderful new toy, annual limits that can't be "unreasonable"! I just know that BI will wind that up and play with it!

And the biggest gift of all: the personal mandate--gee, it must have taken Harry, Max and Joe hours to put this one together. And they dressed it up with $450 billion in government subsidies for the poorest of us. Probably won't be enough, though, we won't be able to afford insurance anyway and will have to pay the fines instead.

Meanwhile, what do we get this Christmas from our Senate Santas? Well, we were going to get health insurance for 30 million more of us, but Senate Santa Nelson now thinks it's too expensive; he's looking to cut back on gifts this year. Single payer? Nah, not a good gift. Robust public option? Nope, doesn't feel right somehow. Medicare for those over 55? Are you serious? We wouldn't know how to use it. How about an end to the anti-trust exemption? Nooo, I don't think so. Senate Santa Joe Lieberman (he's Jewish, but that's OK, so was Jesus) was going to buy us the Medicare gift but changed his mind. Rahm Emanuel has been running around trying just to get a prettily-wrapped empty box under our tree, doesn't really have to have anything in it, right? Oh, and the statement for BP, BH & BI's gifts will be in our stocking. Net 30, credit card interest rates. Your kids will be stuck with the bill.

Do you detect in my Christmas story a bit of cynicism? You don't have the Christmas spirit yet? Poor dear, perhaps you are as bummed out as I am over the systematic emasculation of health care reform this fall. The audacity of hope has foundered on the shoals of our political system. It is designed to support and reward capital and the income that protects political incumbents. By its nature, it is corrupt.

This is the real message that we need to remember this time of year:

"He brings God's rule, O Zion; he comes from heaven above.
His rule is peace and freedom, and justice, truth and love."

Keeping fighting for God's rule, folks. We must pick a winner some day

Illegitimus non carborundum

2009-11-27T20:53:00.004-06:00

Perhaps I'm just tired from spending Thanksgiving with John's extended family, three hours from here plus thirty minutes' time to travel in the opposite direction boarding and retrieving my cat Lili. Or perhaps, it's because we both have head colds. Not really knock-down, drag-out colds, but enough to take the top 5% off our energy reserves.

We came home, unpacked, shopped for dinner and the last-minute details of Saturday's feast, cooked dinner and now are resting. Or blogging. John turned in early, about an hour ago. I'm still up, blogging, surfing, and now laundering, a task John usually takes upon himself. No, it's not a competition, it's a claim to own part of the responsibility of living together. Tomorrow morning he won't be offended, he'll be surprised and astonished that I am so willing.

What tired my ass tonight was the quick cruise through the political blogosphere and the reading once again of the right wing attitude, that theirs is the only truth, and that my - or anyone's - interpretation of political events is de facto faulty and evidence of mortal sin.

These folks are hopelessly locked into what Renee Girard labels "mimetic rivalry" that they cannot see any alternative, any possibility that love and forgiveness can lift them out of the trench they've dug for themselves. Now, my brain is working on a project: how to teach them about the transformative power of forgiveness? What a great idea, says part of my brain. "Nah," says another part, it would be like trying to blow out a light bulb. After all, somebody needs to inhabit Hell".

Exercising again

2009-11-12T15:16:00.005-06:00

I wasn't born into a family that was aggressively athletic. I played some golf with my dad, did bicycle racing in college and took up tennis afterwards, but never thought of myself as an athlete. One of my co-workers taught me how to play racquetball when I was in my mid-twenties. Until my mid-50's, I played a lot of tennis and racquetball. Then my stamina started to fail, my knees and hips started to ache after about forty minutes on the tennis court. I gave up racquet sports.

About a year ago, a good friend of mine invited me to play racquetball. She beat me, of course, since I hadn't been on the court for almost a decade. My competitive juices, though, began to flow. Yesterday I got back on the racquetball court at a nearby health club and practiced for about 45 minutes, then played my first pick-up game. My opponent, whom I would guess to be about twenty years younger than I, was even rustier, and I beat him 15-11 in spite of his better condition and a physique that reflected his college football days.

At the end of the match, I was gasping for breath, and today I have some stiffness that reflects God's justice for my being sedentary for too long, but I am much happier than I was before I started a fitness program, and even more thankful that I can still get on the court and whup some ass.

Health care reform or no?

2009-11-12T15:12:00.004-06:00

I received the following e-mail yesterday:

"The List

"As a rule, I don't pass along these "add your name" lists
that appear in email, but this one is important.
It has been circulating for months. Please keep it going.
To show your support for Obama's health care reform,
please go to the end of the list and add your name.

"1. Nancy Pelosi
"2."

OK, it set me off on a rant, which follows:

Very cute. Observe closely now, how this "list" changes the subject from the victimization that we Americans experience with the current system of private health insurers protected from anti-trust laws, to one of finding a single scapegoat for our frustration with today's culture of big government and big business insensitive to our stresses. It's so nice to over-simplify, but so totally inappropriate to the crisis our nation faces today.

I have personally experienced insurance companies denying me, my wife and children coverage because of "pre-existing conditions".

I have personally experienced insurance companies charging me outrageous premiums for "sub-prime" coverage.

I have personally experienced slumlord insurance companies delaying payment of claims for years for entirely specious reasons. I can send you documented examples.

I have personally experienced slumlord insurance companies setting up conditions in their policies that guarantee they won't have to pay my reasonable claims. I can send you an outstanding example.

Over 47 million US citizens are uninsured. Countless millions are under-insured with these gutter-dwelling insurance companies. The entire health insurance system is designed, is structured, to guarantee profits for the insurance companies by (a) refusing to insure those who are less healthy, (b) crafting benefits to exclude the health conditions that create claims, and (c) denying valid claims, or delaying them for months or years. How cute, that this e-mail ignores this entire system, preferring instead to reduce the whole discussion to a personal opinion about the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Tell me, who should we be critical of here, Nancy Pelosi or the author of this distractive e-mail?

Make your customers hate you

2009-10-27T16:46:00.002-05:00

I won't go into details, but this has been a bad year for my business, beginning as early as last fall. As it happens, my last stay at a Hilton property was in the summer of 2008--the sharply reduced frequency of my hotel stays have been at other properties.

The Hilton HHonors© program provides a modest reward of "points" that enable frequent travelers like me to earn free stays. The more desirable properties consume more points than the more remote properties or those with fewer amenities. Like the airlines, the points "time out". For the airlines, it takes on average about three years for points to expire. For HHilton Honors, it only takes twelve months. In other words, you have to continue to stay at Hilton properties at a regular rate of travel or lose everything they gave you. This is happening to me.

I called the HHonors program and asked for an exemption due to the sharp decline in economic conditions. Hilton's standard policy is to restore my balance at the rate of 5,000 points per night, provided this occurs in the next twelve months. They responded by generously raising the restoration rate to 10,000 points per night. That would be fine if my consulting business were even partially restored to its former levels. But business hasn't picked up, and everyone knows it. This is an empty gift. In all likelihood, even if I were to stay at Hilton properties for the next year, it's not at all certain that my prior balance would be restored in full.

What I'd hoped Hilton would do was to extend the deadline to two or even three years. They didn't. Almost certainly, I'll lose the points I accumulated over the last three years. Will I stay at another Hilton property? Would you?

Vatican Conducts Raid on Anglican Communion

2009-10-21T08:42:00.003-05:00

Well, well, so it's the Vatican all along that's been facilitating predation. First it was young boys (it may still be), now it's Anglicans in general. The NY Times has an article today about the Vatican's latest move.

What is it with these people? They are supposed to be selling "love your neighbor," but instead they're conducting raids on other denominations that are struggling with the question of whether it's OK to love absolutely everybody.

I wonder if the Vatican's move to pick off a congregation, maybe even a diocese or two, isn't good old human retribution for the erosion in their own ranks. After all, when the Spirit calls a Roman Catholic woman to Holy Orders, it's the Vatican that puts her down. And, when homosexual persons and their families recognize that a gay man's love for another can be as sacred as the straight guy sitting next to him in the pew, it's the Vatican that spews out the guilt and hatred.

"God loves you," says Scripture. "Some restrictions may apply," says the Roman Catholic church. They may claim to be Christian, but they're sure not behaving as their Saviour preached.

Oppression Without Sunset

2009-09-29T16:53:00.006-05:00

Edward S. Little II, Bishop of Northern Indiana, posted a commentary on September 25, 2009. In it he decries his minority position in TEC and prophesies that, like the progression of acceptance of women into the priesthood and episcopate, the recognition, ordination and consecration of gay and lesbian Christians living in “fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect” will become canonical, not optional or conscience-based. I suggest that Bishop Little does not connect the history of women’s ordination in TEC, and our eventual acceptance of gays and lesbians into all TEC’s sacraments, to Scripture.

Two critical passages lead me to better understand the relationship between God and culture. The first passage is in Acts 11, which summarizes the events of prior chapters as Peter argues his case before the church in Jerusalem. In Acts 11:8 he restates Acts 10:28, “…God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean”.

The second passage is from Luke 7:19. In this passage, John the Baptist sends two of his disciples from his prison cell to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another”? In verse 22 he answers them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them”.

In the context of these passages from scripture, I conclude that Bishop Little’s lament “that there is no longer a place in the church for those who cannot conscientiously support this practice [of women’s ordination]” is a misleading picture. There is indeed a place in this church for those whose conscience railed at the idea of women pastors. There is always a place for those who come to recognize the enormous contribution of culture to their viewpoint. It is the same place that welcomed back those who bridled at the idea of the abolition of slavery 150 years ago, and equal status for African-Americans within my lifetime. Should there be, as the bishop believes, an irrevocable conscience clause to respect those who hate homosexuals? Why not, then, one for those advocating a return to slavery? How about another for those who still hate African-Americans, and one for anti-Semites? Why should there be an irrevocable conscience clause for one but not any of the others? What’s the difference?

I agree with Bishop Little, that the conversation in TEC about human sexuality is effectively over, but I disagree with this graceful and pastoral bishop in an important way. He and much of TEC impose a stigma, a judgment on gays and lesbians. They choose not to consider that many if not most same-gender relationships are “characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect”. Heterosexuals, apparently, can fall in love, but gays can only copulate. He and many of my Christian brothers and sisters still think of homosexuality as behavioral and not structural. To justify their stance, they use Holy Scripture as a rule book, the same method that our Savior decried in the Jewish authorities of his time.

“Given the margins by which D025 and C056 were approved, it’s clear the traditional perspective is a dwindling minority in the church”. Reality indeed forces hard questions. Does he not recognize that the “traditional perspective” is offensive and oppressive toward gays and lesbians? Does he not recognize his own role in permitting, even facilitating criminalizing homosexual activity and inflicting spiritual violence on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons? They—we!—find the consequent violations of our civil rights to be incompatible with Scripture’s radical inclusiveness. Dear God, if an Ethiopian Eunuch can be baptized, why cannot monogamous gays rise to the leadership of the church?

The bishop characterizes the Windsor Report as “nuanced and balanced”. Marilyn McCord Adams, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, disagrees, calling the Report “radically off-course,” offering a “pernicious polity” and a “narrowed indifference,” saying “the Report’s move to promote ethics to creedal status is idolatrous”. Gareth Jones, professor of Christian Theology at Christ Church Canterbury, observes that the Windsor Report is silent on the root issue, which is Christians hating other Christians solely because they are homosexual. He wonders about the extent to which the Windsor report, if adopted, would compel provinces to maintain communion via Canterbury, where they might not otherwise elect to do so. He charges Windsor with “ecclesial expediency born of desperation”. Nuanced, perhaps, but not balanced.

Bishop Little attributes the gradually declining membership in TEC to the exclusion of conservative Christians. I don’t dispute that conservative Christians are feeling a bit dispossessed these days, but I am saddened to see all conservative Christians defined by this one issue. Isn’t there something more creedal that conservative Christians could identify to distinguish themselves from “liberal” Christians? In any event, our membership isn’t declining because we are opening all the sacraments to all the baptized. The Presbyterians haven’t changed their policies toward homosexual presbyters and their membership has also been declining. The Methodists and Lutherans have only recently changed their canons, so the membership decline they have experienced in the last decade cannot be attributed to this issue. I believe that the membership declines can be traced to the individual denominations’ conservatism, not liberalism. Congregations have not made their liturgies, music and sermons relevant to those who walk through their doors nor respectful of their intelligence. Giving priority to amorphous entities like the Anglican Communion over sharing the work of the Church with minorities, women, and gays is a sure-fire way to send them the message that they’d be more welcome elsewhere. If Bishop Little wants to stop the unraveling in his diocese, he needs to act on the belief that The Episcopal Church Welcomes—Me!

Success, with a new wrinkle

2009-09-22T22:03:00.007-05:00

I auditioned last week for a slot in the Northern Indiana Symphony Chorus. Nancy Menk, the director, gave me a thorough audition which I passed with reasonable success (remind me to practice sixths down). In the likelihood that my work will be a null set for the season, this will be a fun gig. They are planning to present Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna at Carnegie Hall in February!

Aha! the wrinkle. My contractor is conveying my resumé to a Nebraska firm in need of a good project manager. If we hit it off, I will have to abandon my singing "career" and earn some money. I need to replace the van and store up a few bucks for retirement, over and above the IRA. How would you handle this situation? Oh, yes, let's have a look at the rate. We'll know in about ten days.

Well, I'm Trying!

2009-09-22T21:59:00.003-05:00

And I'm supposed to be a process management professional. How hard it is to change one's habits! It's been over a month since I added to this blog. Not that I have a lot to add.

Note the prior post. John has fired his first attorney and retained a new one. The new guy appears to be more committed to his clients, and--imperceptibly, I admit--sensitive to John's pain and, I hope, need for justice.

John cries out for closure. God grant it, with grace.

Revelations

2009-08-19T15:46:00.004-05:00

I'm not a theologian, not even a clergycritter. I've been a reader of Scientific American for almost forty years. I'm reluctant to admit, though, that the "aha" theory of discovery is, for me, a moment of revelation, and there are events in my life I can't explain in terms that the scientific method can parse.

Revelation No. 1. Sometime last year, late September or early October, I snuck away from my caregiving duties for John, who was brutally beaten in late August and was recovering in my apartment from his injuries. I went to Church of the Atonement in Chicago for a quick recharge of my spiritual batteries at their Mass. Approaching the altar to receive the elements, a loud voice filled my head, saying "Take care of my man!" or "Take care of my boy!" not sure which.

I was struck by how loud this "voice" was. It wasn't an individual anywhere close to me, it clearly came from inside me somewhere. Although in the form of a command, it was more of a plea, an entreaty to continue my caregiving for John. It was completely consistent with the temporal context of John's recovery. Two or three weeks later, I would create some separation from him, permitting him to adjust to living in his home again and removing elements of my apartment that created additional stress. Toward the end of October, I gradually increased my visits and resumed my help with his recovery. In April I moved into his home, forming a partnership that continues. Too fast for me? Yes, a bit, but with the increased risk comes increased reward.

Fast-forward to this week. John is pursuing legal redress from being fired without apparent cause a few months after he returned to work. It weighs heavily on him, and on Thursday discovered that the attorney he retained is more of a paper mill than a legal counsel. He feels a sense of betrayal, that instead of justice his attorney only wanted to perform the perfunctory complaint filings and collect a retainer, nothing more. In a private moment Sunday morning, John revealed to me that he was in a struggle to control and contain his hatred--of his attackers, his former employers, his current attorney, all of whom, in one form or another, hate him.

And suddenly I had a new revelation, that "Take care of my boy!" wasn't just about restoring his physical health, it was about rescuing him from hatred. I went to church shaken and a bit overwhelmed at this new interpretation of my prior call. Wow.

Home from church

2009-08-16T13:55:00.004-05:00

Home from church, working on a lunch of potato chips and onion dip washed down with iced tea. Thermometer says 92 degrees out, breezy, humid and cloudy, perfect t-storm weather.

Church this morning followed a week of Vacation Bible Camp, aka VBC. I had tried to get an appointment with the associate pastor, but the chaos of VBC precluded that. Above the altar a huge mobile of colorful paper kites and construction paper chains spun slowly. All the kids who attended VBC attended and brought their parents; the place was packed. After the kids sang an a cappella prelude chant in Swahili in the narthex, the processional began, another Swahili chant, brief, energetic and syncopated, repeated over and over, thoroughly engaging.

Roughly twenty of the kids sat on a carpet in front of the choir, near where the traditional altar used to stand (it's now in the center of the congregation). Percussion instruments of various styles were scattered around for their use during the music. During the Prayers of the People, a young boy with a drum reached over and tested his drumstick on a young girl's xylophone. Staring at him levelly, she responded by striking his drum. At the communion hymn, the choir director and his assistant attempted to quell the slowly rising cacophony from the percussion section, but to no avail. We sang bravely through the brief anthem twice, knowing that the likelihood of it being heard was not particularly good. Not important. The entire service was a "joy ride," as the assistant pastor put it. Even the responses in the Prayers of the People were sung, in Spanish. The closing hymn was "This little light of mine," which the director improvided in jazz on the piano, including a short riff of triplets and a tag on the last verse. Some of the verses were contributed by the kids; my favorite was verse 5, "In a cave with baby wolves".The postlude was a jazz solo, including a closing 13th chord. So cool, and I've never been big on jazz.

I was transfixed. Mid-August, the church is full of people, the music is eclectic and exuberant, children are disorderly (in an Anglican sort of way), and everyone appears to be having a wonderful time. Including me. Here is a parish that understands liturgy and how to make it exciting and fun. Exciting and fun. Isn't that what church is supposed to be about?

Confused

2009-08-02T13:50:00.006-05:00

There are so many networking sites out there that I've become confused and fragmented in my journaling. It's gotten so bad that I've stopped journaling altogether. So, you can see the dearth of comments in the last three months, where I'm torn between commenting on Facebook or Twitter or anywhere else, for that matter. I've posted on dailykos and preludium, but there's no coherent place to put my comments. It's time to make a break.

I'm going to start posting my opinions here. It risks ridicule, poor research, all the weaknesses that characterize a blog. But it gives you a window into my soul, in all its weakness. Have at it.

Good Friday: Did God forsake God?

2009-04-11T14:56:00.005-05:00

My third sermon. Perhaps my last, as I'm going to try out another parish closer to my new home. I don't expect other parishes are as willing to risk opening their pulpits to us lay critters. But it's been fun, and very educational for me, to do the research and put together a sermon that's both educational and inspiring for the congregants.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?”

The first segment of these words from Psalm 22 are attributed to Jesus in Mark 15, which we heard on Palm Sunday, and Matthew 27. They don’t appear in today’s Gospel, for reasons I believe have more to do with what John was trying to say about Jesus than with any attempt to record the events of his crucifixion. But these are troublesome words, and they deserve to be understood, for the hope they convey to us today. Did God forsake Jesus, God’s Son? Did God abandon him?

Jesus’ crucifixion was grisly, and he didn’t take it well. Socrates died almost cheerfully, drinking hemlock tea. The Stoics died passively as the lions killed them in the Coliseum. At Masada, the Zealots died proudly. In the first century C.E., Rabbi Akiba, one of the earliest founders of rabbinical Judaism, is said to have recited the She-má while being tortured to death by the Romans (The Shemá is the prayer that begins, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One;” devout Jews recite this prayer twice each day). His was a death he welcomed, a death of freedom.

Jesus died a godforsaken death. He was impaled on a cross stark naked between two common criminals, bereft of all respect and dignity. He was greatly distressed and troubled in the Garden, the night before his crucifixion. He prayed, “Take this cup from me”! And his cry from the cross, from Psalm 22, represents, if not his actual words, his clearly intended expression. How are we to understand his cry? Was he really forsaken by God?

David’s Psalm 22 was written in the context of the God of Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets. The text refers to, if you will, a contractual dispute: God has abrogated his covenant with Israel; he has abandoned me.

This distant God of the Covenant was not Jesus’ understanding of God. For him, God was much closer. He always referred to God as “My Father“. ”The Kingdom of God has come near,” he said more than once. This is a relationship not mediated through the covenant, the law of Moses, this is a direct relationship with God much more intimate, much less hierarchical, than that present in Judaism at that time. Jesus’ preaching was a direct challenge to the mainstream religious leaders. It challenged all their rules of how to gain access to God.

And God confirmed the intimacy of that relationship. At Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, God is quoted as saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1). At his Transfiguration, where he met Moses and Elijah on a high mountain, God said “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him” (Mark 9).

Having this kind of relationship with God means that our sins can be forgiven right here on earth, right at this table! Back then, when epilepsy and blindness and leprosy were considered the wages of sin (and those who suffered epilepsy, blindness and leprosy were unclean, impure), this radical idea that our sins could be forgiven right now was electrifying.

Even in our lifetime, when being black or female or gay is considered sinful, or at least morally inferior to being white or male or straight, this idea is still new and fresh in some places. Jesus was crucified, in other words, because, among other things, he crossed the political and religious establishment in a critical way. He challenged their authority, on a very basic level, to lead the people of Israel.

And, as the Gospels say in several places, Jesus spoke with authority. So, he had to be eliminated. Destroyed. Erased. Dehumanized. Crucified. The judgment of slaves, deserting soldiers and paupers. In Jesus’ words on the cross, you sense they were successful. Jesus’ death was, or certainly appeared to be, godforsaken.

Theologian Jürgen Moltmann says that if Jesus was abandoned by his God and Father and then raised through “the glory of the Father,” then there must be some conflict between God and God, some mystery in the theology of the cross which we cannot answer. Martin Luther was said to have sat at his desk in his study for hours on end studying the words, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” Those who observed him said that he appeared to be as a corpse. Finally, he rose from his chair in exasperation and was overheard to say, and here I translate from the German, “God forsaking God! No [one] can understand that.”

I’m not credentialed in systematic theology (or, for that matter, in unsystematic theology), but I’m a close observer of politics in business and government, and I understand that sometimes, our personal perception is for us our only reality. Therefore, I am inclined to agree with the view of another German theologian, Rudolf Bultmann whom Moltmann dismissed, “We may not veil from ourselves the possibility that [Jesus] suffered a collapse”. Here, for me, is a Jesus who is not “pretend” human but fully human, fully able to experience despair and hopelessness and, at the point of an excruciatingly painful death, perceive that not just his disciples but his own Father in Heaven may have betrayed and forsaken him. Here is a man I can identify with, and who through his glorification by God, can identify with my own pain and hopelessness and despair.

Where do we believe God doesn’t go? Where are the places we believe God has forsaken? Prisons? Crack houses? Strip joints? Homeless shelters? Bathhouses? War zones? Terrorist cells? No. God Himself (or Herself) is there.

When do we feel godforsaken?
When we’re diagnosed with cancer? When we’re wheeled into the operating room for major surgery? When we show up for another round of chemotherapy?
When a family member dies from illness or accident;
When we are attacked, beaten senseless and left for dead;
When we discover our children’s college funds and our own retirement nest egg is ravaged by the economic downturn;
When our life’s work is ended abruptly by layoff or bankruptcy;
When friends or family reject us because of who we are or what we stand for;
When, through our own blindness and weakness we let addictions or prejudices weaken us;
When we hit bottom, when we turn around and find that God is “so far from my cry and from the words of my distress,”

When we feel, in other words, that God has forsaken us,

Then know that perception is not always reality. Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us, he suffered and died feeling godforsaken, but God never left him,and He has never left us. God is always present. Even if, as David says in Psalm 139, you “take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,” even there God will hold you and love you and want you to love and trust God. He will never leave you godforsaken.

Fixing the Economy

2009-03-27T18:46:00.004-05:00

Thanks to my brother for sending me this. It's from Jim Caroon, who proposes the following wonderful solution to the Current Depression:

Dear Mr.President,

Patriotic retirement: There's about 40 million people
over 50 in the work force; pay them $1 million apiece
severance with stipulations:

1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings -
Unemployment fixed.

2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered -
Auto Industry fixed.

3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage -
Housing Crisis fixed.

Much cheaper than the trillions being ineffectively spent
on the financial industry

What a neat idea! We can fix the economy by paying 40 million people $1 million each. Not sure if you noticed, but that's $40 trillion total. President Obama's budget is less than ten percent of that, and the bailout package is only about 2.5% of that number. So, are you saying that Obama's plan is insufficient? I thought that President Obama's plan was too costly, that the deficit was too high. Which is it?

Now, as to the details, what constitutes a new American car? Toyota has plants in Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana, Texas and West Virginia. Honda has plants in Alabama and Indiana. Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Nissan and Subaru also have plants in the US. The Big Three automakers depend on Canadian manufacturers for major pieces of the cars they assemble in Michigan. Are their products to be considered American, or not? Remember, the jobs of tens of thousands of Americans hang on your answer.

Buy a house. You need to stipulate that the house not be mortgaged, that's how we got into this mess in the first place. To be safe, you should probably also make sure that the people buying the house can afford its operating costs and property taxes. I know this sounds like "controls," but who wants to create a problem when you're trying to solve one.

It may well be true that trillions are being spent ineffectively. After all, Secretary Geithner has fully bought into the concept of socializing losses (that means we pay) and privatizing gains (that means that the wealthy receive). I have an alternative proposal. Until the government funds are repaid, we socialize the gains as well. Yes, I said "nationalization". Yes, it also smacks of socialism. Nasty word, but tell me: how's capitalism working out for you these days? If you're not a rightwing journalist on a major media salary (and bonus, don't forget), you may be affected by the economic calamity created by the ideologues of the Far RIght. Boom and bust cycles are endemic to the philosophy of free enterprise; the current bust is directly related to the the freest, least regulated period of capitalism in modern times. It's all part of and linked to the millions that have been funnelled into the salaries, bonuses and retirement plans of the privileged few that control most of the assets of the United States of America. Those of us who take it on the chin? Collateral damage comes to mind. It's all part of the plan, in order to make an omelette, you need to break some eggs. Thank you, Josef Stalin, for reminding us of Adam Smith.

AIG and the end of capitalism

2009-03-15T17:45:00.004-05:00

Shrimp jambalaya tonight, a hybrid recipe based on Southern Cooking. Thank you, Southern Cooking.

AIG. $170 Billion in taxpayer dollars to prop up this sorry excuse for a financial institution, and the idiots who put this corporation under water are getting $165 million for their role in this corpocide.

How can I cash in on my screwups? In my career, I made some doozies. Is there a gummint agency that will reward me for my failures? Nope. My friends and family are all compassionate conservatives: they feel my pain, but it's my problem. $170 billion. I want my money back.

Not so AIG. It's "too big to fail," meaning it needs to be bailed out to keep the whole friggin' system from collapsing like a system of dominoes.

I've got a few words for a US corporation that's "too big to fail". If it's too big to fail, then it has escaped the laws of capitalism and needs to be re-incorporated as a government-owned entity. In other words, it needs to be nationalized.

The US Government needs to take control of AIG and run it until the $170 billion is paid back. Then, split AIG up into segments that aren't too big to fail. Let the segments that can survive, survive. The others can go into bankruptcy and their executives can be thrown onto the street with the rest of us. This may be schadenfreude, but I want to see some high-rollers filing for unemployment.

To those who are shocked, shocked, I say, that President Obama's stimulus plan is "socialism," my reply is rather simple: how's capitalism working out right now? A strictly capitalist system would push us into another Great Depression. Only a very few benefit from such a catastrophe. The rest of us suffer. I am deeply suspicious that those who are advocating the failure of the Obama plan are the very ones in a position to benefit from such a collapse. The rest of us will be relegated to a new Pullman workers' community.

Family values

2009-03-12T07:33:00.002-05:00

I swear, you just can't make this stuff up. From the Baltimore Sun:

Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, Johnston said yesterday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby.

Do you see the irony? The 18 year-old daughter of the 2008 Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United States got herself pregnant and there's not going to be a marriage. The political party of "family values," abstinence-only sex education and no funding for any program that might include information on birth control--this is the party whose pick for VP doesn't provide leadership in her own family according to the principles she espouses.

I have to ask: did Bristol Palin take the Pledge?

For hypocrisy, the Pharisees are rank amateurs compared to the Republicans.

Transfiguration Sunday

2009-03-10T22:32:00.003-05:00

Transfiguration Sunday was the second time I've preached, but it was my first sermon.

From today’s Gospel:
Jesus [led] Peter and James and John up a high mountain . . . And. . . was transfigured before them, . . . And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus . . . and Peter did not know what to say, for they were terrified.”

The Transfiguration is one of the “big events” in our Judeo-Christian tradition. It’s not as big as the parting of the Red Sea or the crucifixion, but it’s still pretty big. It’s easy to look at the “big events” in the Bible as the main message, the extent of what we learn about God’s presence in our midst. After all, this is what most of us learned in Sunday School. When we stop at the “big event,” though, we miss one element that runs through so many of these stories. That element is how we as observers react when “the Kingdom of God comes near”.

For example, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, it was such a big deal to the Company of Heaven that a band of angels got together, formed an impromptu chorus, came down and sang Christmas carols all around the neighborhood, then flew back to Heaven and probably drank hot cider or something. I’m sure they were satisfied with their performance, but it terrified the observers, the shepherds. Before they collected their wits and went to see the infant Jesus, I said a few years ago that I imagine they washed more than their socks that night.

Let’s take another example. In Mark 5, Jesus goes across the Sea of Galilee (on the way, he dozes off in the back of the boat in the middle of a major storm that scares the wits out of his disciples). He goes to the country of the Gerasenes. A demoniac, a man possessed by demons, approaches Jesus and begs not to be tormented. Jesus confronts the unclean spirits and gives them permission to leave the demoniac and enter a herd of two thousand swine. The swine promptly stampede down a slope, into the water, and drown.

The observers are the swineherds. Their reaction? Probably panic. They run into the town and inform the townspeople. What do the locals do? “They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion [of unclean spirits]; and they were afraid”. The demoniac, the one too strong to be restrained, who lived in the cemetery howling and bruising himself with stones, running around naked or nearly so, the townspeople were willing to live with; it was Jesus they asked to leave.

So, in today’s Gospel, Peter and James and John observe Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah, the very Jewish embodiment of all the Law and the Prophets, Jesus’ clothing dazzling white, and “[Peter] did not know what to say, for they were terrified”.

They were terrified. This is our typical reaction when the Kingdom of God comes near us. We come to this Table and eat the Body of Christ and drink His Blood, and, little by little, the Kingdom of God comes closer and closer to changing our hearts, to turning us away from cultural expectations and dicta—the world—and toward his call to each of us. It’s terrifying.

Who isn’t terrified today? We see that fear all around us:
1. A woman struggles to reconnect her emotions to her true worth, a connection damaged by physical and psychological abuse;
2. A young man, overwhelmed by the cultural expectations he perceives demanded of him, hides his imperfections in an outburst of sexual promiscuity;
3. Yet another person, terrified by feelings of guilt or shame, resorts to alcoholic anesthesia rather than deal with them; and
4. A middle-aged man, a thousand miles from home, trapped in a parking lot between a culture that expects him to maintain his marriage and family, and an orientation that drives him to seek a relationship with another man.

We know fear, even terror. To a greater or lesser extent, it controls all of us: the more we react to fear in our lives, the more we are controlled by others, and the less freedom we have to respond to God’s love.

What does God say about fear? Just about everywhere, God says, “fear not,” do not be afraid.

As Bishop Gene Robinson pointed out in a sermon last year, Jesus’ life is bookended by calls not to be afraid. Bishop Robinson, of all people, a man not afraid to be open and honest about his sexual orientation in a culture that, more often than not, punishes such honesty and condones the violent suppression of homosexuals by fear-filled people.

At the front end of Jesus’ life are Joseph and Mary. In Matthew, just as Joseph has just decided to dismiss Mary quietly, an angel tells him not to be afraid to marry her. The angel Gabriel visited John the Baptist’s father and scared the wits out of him. Gabriel got much the same response from Mary, who was “much perplexed” by his appearance. Gabriel told Mary the same thing he told Zechariah, “Do not be afraid”.

At the end of Jesus’ life, after the Crucifixion, the two Mary’s who went to the tomb on the first day of the week encountered the stone rolled away and one or two men in clothes dazzling white. The guards were paralyzed with fear. The women were so terrified they couldn’t even look up. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid”.

And even after the Resurrection, the disciples get together in an upper room and lock the doors and windows “for fear of the Jews”. After Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, the Lord speaks to Ananias in a vision, calling him to go to Saul and lay his hands on him. You can tell from the ensuing discussion in Acts 9 that Ananias has a very clear impression of what will happen to him if he does. He obeys the Lord, but one can easily imagine the fear he must have felt on this mission, God’s reassurances notwithstanding.

How do you overcome fear? I have a few practical ideas.

First, name your fear, just as Jesus asked the unclean spirits, “What is your name”? Write down what you’re afraid of, pencil and paper or keyboard and Microsoft Word. Write it down exactly, graphically, all the details, don’t leave anything out.

Second, assess if you can the risk that what you fear will actually occur. For example, If you’re afraid to drive on expressways or fly on commercial airlines, find out how many people actually do without incident.

Third, move toward the fear, not away from it. Jesus spoke directly to the unclean spirits; Ananias went to the house where Saul was staying. Reacting to the fear means the fear controls you. Moving toward the fear puts you in control. It has been my experience that my irrational fears vanish like smoke when I move toward them and stop giving them control.

Finally, and always, trust in God. Love God; God loves you. And love your neighbor as yourself, which I interpret to mean that in order to love others, you must first love yourself. You are, after all, “fearfully and wonderfully made”.

And when you have overcome your fears and love God and know that God doesn’t love you less than anyone else, or more, but that he loves us all beyond our wildest imaginings, you will be able to say to others with genuineness and conviction from your heart, the peace of the Lord be always with you.

New Year's resolution, or Lenten discipline?

2009-03-10T21:17:00.005-05:00

I have been encouraged - driven, even - by my friends to write more. I agreed to do so as a New Year's resolution. That didn't actually work out. Starting now, it's more of a Lenten discipline. Considering that we're now past the Second Sunday in Lent, I'm a bit remiss here as well. But the time has come, and I am finally resolving to write.

Why so reluctant, when I love to write? Embarrassment? Modesty? The old fear of being "discovered"? There is something about writing that exposes the writer to all his readers. My prior essays, by and large, were triggered by outrage or injustice. Easy enough to hide behind righteous indignation. Writing as a discipline and a practice, divulges who I am: just and unjust, kind and cruel, global and petty, deep and shallow, loved and, in all my faults, human. Honesty demands humility.

It has been nearly two years since my separation and only three months since the divorce. I may never shed all the embarrassment and shame of having to go through it and put my now ex-wife through it. By writing this blog, all my laundry will eventually be hung out for all my readers to see. It is time to shed the modesty. I am who I am. Enjoy the view.

Taxes to Caesar

2008-10-18T19:09:00.004-05:00

Well, it's taken this long for the family legacy to bloom. I'm thinking of my Christmas cactus, which waited until April to finally blossom. Now, amidst the communion of saints, a grandfather and four great-uncles watch as I deliver my first sermon, which follows.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emporer, or not?”

Elk Grove Village is not occupied by troops from a distant emperor, and the Archdiocese of Chicago doesn’t make the laws for this state, at least not officially, so permit me to rephrase the question: is it moral to pay taxes to the nation and state, to the administration led by the person Garrison Keillor calls The Current Occupant? Is it moral to pay taxes for the war in Iraq, for imprisoning enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay without due process? We pay income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and the hidden tax of inflation brought on by deficit spending. How do we, supposedly the source of political power in this country, express our disapproval of spending we find immoral? What can we do—what should we do—to express God’s call to us, to resist our understanding of society’s encroachment on Christian moral values, whatever we interpret them to be? The Mennonites and Quakers have a long history of tax resistance in this country, on theological grounds related to the Gospel we heard today. Should we follow their lead, or some other?

Today’s Gospel “pitch” has a rather long wind-up. Let’s review the run-up to it in the prior week’s Gospel readings.

Four weeks ago, Jesus called Matthew to follow him, which he did! Matthew was a Jew. He collected taxes for the Romans under King Herod. The tax was especially hated because it was a poll tax. It tested how much revenue could be squeezed out of the Jews for the Roman Empire. The Zealots actively opposed it. Matthew, quitting his job and following Jesus, directly affected Herod’s ability to collect those taxes. Encouraging Matthew to quit his job as tax collector could have been regarded as tax resistance, the sort of thing Zealots encouraged.

That was four weeks ago. Three weeks ago in the Gospel, the chief priests challenged Jesus, “By what authority are you [teaching]?” Jesus responded by calling them to justify their rejection of the baptism of John. Effectively, he trapped them between their rejection of John and their fear of the Jewish people. Jesus told the chief priests that the Jewish tax collectors would get to heaven before them, and put tax collectors and prostitutes in the same phrase, twice. That’s putting prostitutes and tax collectors—and, by implication, their managers, the Pharisees—in closer proximity to each other than Alaska is to Russia. That was three weeks ago.

Two weeks ago, we heard the parable of the landowner and the vineyard. In this parable, Jesus accused the chief priests and Pharisees of mistreating, stoning and killing God’s prophets. Layed it on their doorstep. He predicted that “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you [the mainstream Jewish leaders] and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom”.

Last week he did it again, repeating, in the parable of the king and his wedding feast, the same accusation. Jesus predicted that everyone except God’s chosen people would be invited to the heavenly banquet.

So, it should come as no surprise to us that the mainstream religious leaders of the day would mount a counter-attack, a sure-fire, lose-lose proposition for Jesus. It was a political battle for the hearts and minds of the Jews, Jesus speaking truth to power, power fighting back.

Let’s see, how can we catch him up in his own words? Let’s ask him about paying taxes to Caesar. If he’s a tax resister—and remember, that was one of the accusations against Jesus when he was brought before Pontius Pilate—we can arrest him and throw him in the klink. If he says it’s legal, why, then the Zealots and their supporters will abandon him: besides, it makes him a blasphemer, and we can discredit him within the community.

Why would he be labeled a blasphemer? Because the inscription on the coin, the denarius, read “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus.” Tiberius was the son of God. You can almost hear them say, “Yes! we’ve got him!”

And so, we come to Jesus’ answer that lives for us today: render unto our emperor (or president, or prime minister or whatever), that which is his, and unto God that which is God’s. How perfect, and yet how perfectly incomplete!

God is creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. If this choice is exclusive, what’s left to render to the emperor? Jesus’ response is much more ambiguous than a simple “choose one or the other”. He leaves it up to us, not him, to make the decisions, the moral choices.

We decide what to give to civil authority and what to withhold. We: you and I, as a community. Our actions and our inactions are moral choices, just as they were moral choices for the Pharisees and Herodians back then. Remember, somebody in that crowd of spiritual leaders produced a denarius with that blasphemous inscription engraved on it: they made the decision to trade in that coin. We are called by Jesus to make the same kind of moral choices today. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were left amazed and speechless. Here was an answer to their question that required them to take personal responsibility for their decisions, their moral choices. Throwing up their hands, saying “it’s not my fault, it’s the rules—see, it’s written in Scripture” was not an option, then or now.

On November 4th you will vote for John McCain or Barack Obama, for Dan Seals or Mark Kirk, or you will stay home and not vote. Those are all moral choices. We, collectively, are accountable for them. Our current state of affairs in this country, our foreign policy, our domestic policy, our financial crisis, our environmental state of global warming, can all be traced to our collective decisions or indecisions over the previous decades. As the late Walt Kelly rephrased John Paul Jones so well, “We have met the enemy, and they is us.”

Pray, then, but do not neglect to act, as a community, a state and a nation. Pray that we make the right moral choices on November 4th, and in the days to come, Pray that we avoid the traps and snares that our enemies lay for us, to deny us the kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven.

Tattoos for gays

2008-10-08T07:49:00.005-05:00

Thinking Anglicans covers the opinions of The Rev. Peter Mullen, chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, and their fallout, news articles in The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent and BBC. Link to it here.
After being rebuked by his bishop, Rev. Mullen made a "full and complete apology" for remarks he claimed were attempts at humour (can't resist the British spelling).

Is Father Mullen so insulated from the real world that he cannot distinguish really funny comments from really offensive ones? Is he so ignorant of history that he fails to recognize the connection between his allegedly humourous proposal and the tattooing of Jews in the Third Reich? No sooner did I read this article in TA than I made that connection.

It would be a real laugh-riot if Peter Mullen just cut to the chase: re-open the camps, gas all gays and throw them in the ovens. It took the Third Reich years to get to that point, presumably to acclimate the populace to the treatment of their Jewish, gay and Communist neighbors as sub-human. That's the end objective, though, isn't it, and the same reason for working to achieve it. Gays aren't really human. Heteros can fall in love, form bonds of affection that last a lifetime, commit to each other; gays can only copulate.

I hate ignorance, especially willful ignorance enforced by hidebound clerics who don't get the Word God sent them.

The latest chain mail

2008-09-27T16:56:00.002-05:00

An acquaintenace of mine sent me the latest "outrage," expressing severe umbrage that the new $1 coins don't contain the inscription "In God We Trust" and urging me and all my contacts to refuse to use them.

This is such silliness. The European Union uses €1 and €2 coins and probably saves a lot of money not printing paper bills, which don't last nearly as long as the coins. But the point of the outrage, of course, hasn't anything to do with running the government more efficiently. It's the missing slogan.

What is it about these people, who insist that our government recognize religion? Insisting on this motto bends our government to a particular ideology. It cheapens the motto. As Theodore Roosevelt pointed out, it is irreverent to the point of sacrilege. I believe it is another form of idolatry, to recognize the motto and worship it in place of true religion, which is helping widows, visiting prisoners, etc.

Buying Another Iraq

2008-09-24T18:00:00.003-05:00

I've been distracted for about five weeks, caring for a man recovering from a traumatic brain injury, the victim of a vicious mugging. I'll have a post in the near future talking about the different types of love we encounter or exhibit, relevant to this topic.

But today's topic is about the $700billion dollar bailout that our Current Occupant has proposed to solve all the financial problems he and his cohorts created in the past eight years or more. And I titled it "Buying Another Iraq" because that's about how I see it: it hasn't been enough for Dubya to bury us in debt for a specious war, he has to double-down by rescuing Wall Street for the excesses he facilitated. The effects of this bailout will be felt for over 40 years.

Who benefits from this plan? Surely it must be the few hundred Wall Street financial leaders, aided and abetted by GOP-sponsored legislation that deregulated the financial markets. Surely those who supported Senator Phil Gramm's deregulation mania. These are the same people who benefited from the Bush tax cuts, during a time of war when we are all supposed to sacrifice. Sacrifice indeed. Now it is we, the middle class and below, who once again sacrifice. It is the wealthy few who get off the hook.

Who is being bailed out, who lives and who dies, financially? It is one of the tenets of capitalism that reward results from risk. This bailout should shout to all Americans that the free market system has serious flaws that only government can correct, through regulation and controls, assiduously applied.
The companies who are "bailed out" should be nationalized, no less than FreddieMac and FannieMae. The executives and boards should be fired for cause and their golden parachutes confiscated. Trust in our financial system will not be restored until we have people running it who are doing so for better reasons than their own portfolios.

Blather in the e-mail

2008-09-04T11:28:00.002-05:00

My beloved kid sister forwarded a petition for President Bush from an unnamed source, reading as follows:

We, the undersigned, protest the bill that the Senate voted on recently which would allow illegal aliens to access our Social Security. We ask that you and all Congressional representatives require citizenship as a pre-requisite for social services in the United States

The more I thought about this petition, the sillier it became. So, I wrote back to my sister, with cc's to my other siblings and relatives who received it. Here's what I said:

I don't think citizenship is the issue. Citizens and legal immigrants alike must pay into social security for at least 40 quarters--ten years--before they're eligible for SS benefits. Furthermore, the amount of their benefit is scaled to their income. This means that the benefits of minimum-wage workers are not the same as those of us paying larger amounts into SSA.

As for "illegal" immigrants, it would be helpful if the authors of this petition attached a bill number to it so that we could determine its exact wording and track its progress through the Congress. Without it, we are at the mercy of the author of this Ponzi scheme. Why have so many of you attached your name to a petition without checking out the actual bill before Congress, if in fact it exists with the provisions claimed? Do any of you actually believe an elected congresscritter would sponsor such a bill? What are you smoking?

Now that you have been alerted to the soft spots in this rabble-rousing, would you be willing to (1) research the real bill before Congress, (2) send in a retraction of your original email, should you find the details to be different from what was claimed, and (3) alert those who alerted you, that this whole e-mail enterprise is a fraud, if you so decide?

If you are unwilling to take these simple countermeasures, what are you prepared to say about your willingness to be duped by demagogues? Are you unwilling to recover your integrity? Are you unwilling to fight back against duplicity, innuendo and outright lies?

Don't feel like I'm singling you out. I've been duped before, it cost me tens of thousands of dollars at one point; I didn't do what I should have done to check out the claims of the perpetrator.

Please, folks, don't sign on to "outrages" until you've checked out the details. If there aren't any details, don't jump on the bandwagon. House and Senate bills have numbers, and they're all online, at http://www.house.gov and http://www.senate.gov. If you don't have the patience or training to understand the amazing complexity of what you're reading, then ask a librarian for help, or some other person who has the expertise.

And please stop sending me these faux alerts, they're distracting me from more important pursuits, like brushing my teeth and taking hot baths.

Lambeth Noisemakers

2008-07-23T07:47:00.003-05:00

Well, Lambeth 2008 has begun. 680 bishops and primates from around the world all at Canterbury. My own diocesan, Jeff Lee, has posting updates on YouTube here, here and here.

The noise of Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul and Bishop Jack Iker, of course, gets all the press. Archbishop Deng, most likely speaking for the Global South, released a statement of his bishops in the Episcopal Church of Sudan. Some snippets:

We believe that God created humankind in his own image; male and female he created them for the continuation of humankind on earth. Women and men were created as God’s agents and stewards on earth We believe that human sexuality is God’s gift to human beings which is rightly ordered only when expressed within the life-long commitment of marriage between one man and one woman.

So much for respecting the dignity of every human being. There are millions of gay men and women living in life-long commitments to each other that the church has actively oppressed, demeaned and even killed them for centuries. This historic position directly conflicts with Jesus' life and teaching, that care for God's people should have priority over any exclusionary or discriminatory institutional policy.

We reject homosexual practice as contrary to biblical teaching and can accept no place for it within ECS.

Oh, silly me. It's not the homosexuality that's at issue, it's the practice. Straight folks can have sex, but gays must remain chaste. Rubbish.

++Deng Bul expresses a flawed theology. He's given ground on homosexuality, admitting it as an emotional condition. He acknowledges that God created gays and lesbians. What kind of God would create them but then restrict the joy of sexual activity only to heteros? He wants us to "respect the authority of the Bible," the book that states that God created his world, saw it was good, and loved it so much he sent Jesus into it. ++Deng Bul's God is a cruel god. That kind of theology doesn't respect the Bible.

"Out of love for our brothers and sisters in Christ," the statement reads, and then asks the churches in Canada and the U.S. to deny rites of blessing or ordinations to our gay brothers and sisters and to stop litigating to recover stolen property. This isn't love, it's the opposite of love, it's fear. The Bible tells us not to be afraid, even in the face of really embarrassing news like the Annunciation, or throngs of angels appearing in the sky over Bethlehem, or an empty tomb.

The ECS statement says that reviving the oppression and discrimination of gays and lesbians is "essential for bridging the divisions which have opened up within the Communion." That's not true. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in an attempt to assuage the anxiety of the Global South, refrained from inviting +Gene, yet 200 or so bishops still boycotted the Conference. They've shown no inclination to listen to anything other than their own prejudices. They want to create a rigid, confessional church and call it Anglican and Episcopal. If they succeed, I'll find somewhere else to worship. I don't feel like being oppressed by a church.

Whither the Windsor Report this Lambeth Year?

2008-05-16T15:58:00.002-05:00

The Windsor Report was the Archbishop of Canterbury's emergency response to the election of Gene Robinson to the episcopate in 2003. For all the subsequent onshore and offshore shelling expended on the Windsor Report by Episcopalians and other Anglicans, it strikes me that the WR has been mortally wounded by its most strident defenders. How can it supply any moral weight to forming an Anglican Covenant when its strongest supporters, Archbishops Akinola, Orombi and PB Venables, flagrantly violate its clear admonitions against jurisdictional violations?

Even in its second draft, the Anglican Covenant will, IMHO, find itself unable to escape its Windsor parentage and, therefore, its doom. For if the Windsor Report is disregarded by its strongest proponents, how should the Report's spawn, an Anglican Covenant, expect greater respect? It cannot, because we are all tied, at least by one leg of the three-legged stool, to scripture. Scripture is really big on the primacy of families and tribes. If the patriarch is not respected, how can his progeny be?

Were those who claimed to be so outraged by the election of a bishop who was unashamed of God's creation more respectful of the process of trying to delineate who is "in" and who is "out" of Anglicanism, there might have been hope for an Anglican Covenant. Now that they have diss'd the one chance they had to establish orthodoxy--which is really just following tradition and procedure--they have destroyed that which they wished to reform.

Big event

2008-05-15T13:29:00.002-05:00

The Supreme Court of California ruled this afternoon that the term "marriage" could not be restricted to opposite-gender couples and still be consistent with the California Constitution.

Would that more state legislatures recognize the legitimacy of long-term, committed relationships between couples of the same gender.

I suspect that for gays and lesbians in life-long, monogamous relationships, this ruling will enable them to bring their love for each other to the same legal and civil status as those of us in life-long, committed relationships with our spouses, absent the euphemisms and pretensions. We all recognize the value to society of life-long, committed relationships among opposite-gender couples; what’s the objection for extending this to gays and lesbians?

If marriage must by definition be exclusively for partners of opposite gender, what’s the justification? If your answer falls back on “we’ve always done it that way” or “the bible tells me so,” then think about the medical profession before and after the discovery of the causes of infection. Tradition never included hand-washing or other antiseptic methods, nor is there any scriptural basis for sterlizing instruments or latex gloves. Yet who among us hasn’t benefited from these innovations? We know them by their fruits.

Quick interview

2008-05-08T15:33:00.003-05:00

Bishop Robinson went on MSNBC to handle a few key questions. Hoo boy, if you're looking for an in-depth interview, you won't find it here! Check it out here.

For Fr. Jake, the key passage in his interview was his reason for moving up the date for a civil union with his partner. It was an important point, but not the one I picked up on. As an older 'newly out' person, though, the passage that grabbed me was this:

"When your life is at stake, you learn that there are things in life that are much worse than death, that’s the great reward of being a Christian. Not living your life, that’s worse than death."

And, with a tip o' the hat to Sir Thomas More, perhaps eternal life is at stake here as well.

I hope that all who may have felt or been injured by my decisions in the recent past understand that it was made not out of hubris but out of repentance.

How did Pharaoh feel?

2008-04-29T20:41:00.002-05:00

I've been reading Exodus. I started around chapter 3, where Moses encountered burning shrubbery, and skipped across to chapters 5 and finally to chapter 7, where Moses and God finally focused in on getting Pharaoh to take notice of the Israelites' demands for freedom. There are some interesting passages in here:

"The Lord said to Moses, 'See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.'"

What an interesting parallel here between Exodus and Lambeth 2008. +++Rowan, Pharaoh of Lambeth, has in his panic regarded +Gene as a God to be feared. Earlier, he barred him from participating in prayers and conversation, and just now has forbade him from celebrating or preaching during "the Lambeth period".

"But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt."

+Gene may not celebrate or preach, but he will be at Lambeth. So will Integrity; so will Fr. Jake; so will dozens of TEC bishops. Their presence and their witness will spread across the entire Conference, spreading the Good News of God's amazing love for all of us, gay or straight, in spite of +++Rowan's best efforts at containment.

OK, I've escaped from the OT, but there are wonderful parallels in the NT. From John 20:19:

"...the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you'".

Oh, the scariest message you can imagine, that all our fears and terrors and defenses and denials are permeable by His spirit. Just imagine Abp Rowan chartering a flight or two for the whole conference, taking "the wings of the morning and settling them all at the farthest limits of the sea", yet still unable to escape the living God who desires all His children to be loved.

It's late. Much to do tomorrow. Love one another.

Blog surfing

2008-04-28T17:48:00.003-05:00

I stopped by Mark Harris' blog this afternoon and revisited a post he started a few days ago. You can read it here. Rev. Mark's comments are, IMO, reasonable and sane. The comments, OTOH, deteriorated into a battle of wits between two contributors not fully armed. Phil, aka "anonymous," had two real clinkers:

"[homosexual sex] is short of what God desires for us and designed us for.”

“we are fallen creatures who's [sic]judgement is faulty, so we need some external touchpoint to know God's will and design for human beings"

BLS, not to be under-done, had this gem:

"To change my mind, I need to be shown arguments from Holy Scripture and/or the Teaching of the universal Church."

Where to begin. In the first excerpt, God appears to have died and left Phil in charge. To Phil alone have God's desires and plans been revealed. The physical aspect of my partner's love for me appears not to be included. This would be disconcerting if Phil were God. He isn't.

Next, we learn that our judgement is faulty by reason of Original Sin. The murders of Matthew Shepard and Lawrence King, among countless others, were merely lapses in judgement. Archbishop Peter Akinola's labeling us as less than human was an error in judgement. I think not. I believe they were failures of the heart. Pharaoh kept the Israelites in bondage because his heart was only in the Egyptian economy. +++Rowan's heart is likewise in bondage, to the number of Anglicans ++Peter et al have gathered into the Anglican Communion. A schism wouldn't look good on his watch.

BLS has a different problem. You gays! Come down from the cross that culture has put you on and he will believe. BLS is a reincarnation of Thomas. He has no connection to Matthew Shepard and Lawrence King, therefore they do not inform his belief. BLS doesn't understand that he is in community with all of us, Gentile and Jew, man and woman, gay and straight. We are all the Body of Christ, when one suffers, we all suffer. Until the authorities come for him, it's not his problem.

And then there's the matter of the "universal" Church. What the heck is that? There hasn't been a universal Church since the Council of Chalcedon. Silly.

Where do these people get their religious education? God knows.

2008-04-23T13:06:00.004-05:00

The Rev. Canon Mark Harris has a brilliant post on where he thinks the Church should be regarding sexuality. Find it here.

Mark doesn't hide:

I still believe that sexual expression between persons of the same sex is no more evil or good than is sexual expression between men and women...

As to marriage, I am convinced that holiness of marriage is not in marriage, but in God's blessing on people committed to life long companionship. I see no reason to suppose that God does not, or can not, bless such commitments when they are other than between a man and a woman. The Church ought do no less.

There's more, a lot more. Read it all. Mark writes succinctly and in a highly organized manner. I should learn composition from him.

The Episcopal Church Still Welcomes You!

2008-04-15T18:14:00.002-05:00

Two events galvanized religious conservatives in and out of The Episcopal Church (“TEC”) in 2003. The Diocese of New Hampshire elected, and TEC approved, the first openly gay bishop in the Church, and the Canadian diocese of New Westminster authorized services for blessing same-sex unions.
Conservatives had been uncomfortable since 1979 with women in the clergy and a new Book of Common Prayer. Outside TEC, the Institute for Religion and Democracy (richly endowed by Howard Ahmanson Jr. and the Bradley, Coors, Olin, Scaife and Smith-Richardson family foundations) began plotting to recast mainstream denominations in rigid doctrinal—and homophobic—terms. TEC became one of its prime targets. IRD and Anglican neoconservatives coaxed other churches around the world to be horrified by an openly and honestly gay man being made a bishop. Together they helped create several organizations in the US, reconnecting conservative parishes to African provinces, forming an alternative church that they hoped the Anglican Communion would recognize as the “true” Anglican church in the US.
A word about Anglicans. There are 34 autonomous Anglican churches in the world, called Provinces, each governed by an Archbishop, called a Primate. Most primates appoint their own bishops, who then select the next primate. The Archbishop of Canter¬bury (UK) is “first among equals,” a position with more clout by rea¬son of being the “Mother Church”. The Primate in the US is called a Presiding Bishop and is elected every nine years by bishops, clergy and lay persons in a triennial General Convention (GC). The GC is the governing body of TEC. All church property is held in trust for TEC.
Following Bishop Robinson’s election, the Archbishop of Canterbury convened an “emergency” meeting of primates, appointing a conservative to conduct a Special Commission to address the twin horrors of an Episcopal bishop not hiding his homosexuality and an Anglican diocese producing a rite to bestow God’s blessing on gay couples who love each other. The Eames Commission produced the Windsor Report in 2004. It called for moratoria on the blessing of same-sex unions, consecration of gay bishops, and incursions by primates on other primates’ turf. The Windsor Report was thoroughly critiqued in 2005, part of the building resistance to hijacking TEC.
TEC elected not to consecrate any bishops until GC 2006. Primates in Nigeria, Rwanda and elsewhere continued their cross-border incursions, picking off conservative Episcopal parishes and taking the property with them. In 2006, TEC elected the Anglican Communion’s first female Primate, Katharine Jefferts Schori to be its new Presiding Bishop, another shock for Anglican traditionalists. Bishop Katharine has actively cleaned house since, tolerating dissent but not schism.
For all the noise emanating from straight Christians who hate gay Christians, fewer than 1% of Episcopal parishes have voted to leave the church. Congregations who lost members over Bishop Robinson report a net increase since. Still, count¬less thousands of dollars will be spent in litigation to recover church property, funds that will not help those who need it the most, for food, clothing, education and shelter. Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned.
David Fleer
There really are churches that welcome lesbians and gays?
Yes, there are. St. Nicholas in Elk Grove Village has an active ministry for LGBT Christians:
 adult education on spirituality and sexuality
 LGBT group discussions on spirituality
 openness to leadership talent: 50% of the board is gay
 commitment to celebration, not just tolerance or inclusion
“The Church has a sexuality complex, it’s bankrupt on issues of sexuality,” says pastor Stephen Martz. “It’s hurting the Church. Until this issue is resolved, the Church cannot be whole, cannot be human.” Martz’ vision for St. Nicholas is a congregation that includes everyone, not just those with a narrow range of “acceptable” sexuality. Oh, did I mention that St. Nicholas is growing larger, year by year?

2008-04-14T18:47:00.002-05:00

Fr. Jake pointed me to an interview with PB Katharine Jefferts Schori in the Seattle Times. You can read it here.

I found this comment of hers particularly interesting:

"The Lambeth Convention's intent is to gather bishops in community and to meet each other as individual human beings. It's never been intended to settle issues."

Oh, really? Has anyone bothered to inform +++Rowan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose conference this is? One duly elected and consecrated bishop, V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, was not "gathered" into this conference, even for common prayer. Why? Is he undeserving of being in community with his peers, some of whom have never been elected? Or is it because he is not perceived to be an individual human being? Conventional wisdom being oracular, all should know that heterosexuals can fall in love, form close personal bonds and make long-term commitments, while gays can only copulate. Has +VGR been relegated to a sub-human species, as were the Jews under the Third Reich? We must hope not.

More impairments for the Communion

2008-04-03T08:53:00.003-05:00

Timidity, timidity. The clergy of Anglican Church in Wales have failed to grasp the issues.

I should have written this two days ago:

"The Standing Commitee and I announce that the Diocese of New Hampshire is in impaired communion with the Anglican Church in Wales; and given that their continuing position results in an extremely difficult situation for New Hampshire churches and Christians that do hold Anglican doctrine, and in the spirit of Philadelphia 1974, we support our Primate and other Primates who are overseeing the development of a new ecclesial structure in Wales."

What are the odds that such an event will occur? Probably less than zero: I expect two or three bishops currently deposed or expecting to be deposed in the near future, to issue a press release lauding the failed vote. Everyone else will recognize the failed vote as an opportunity delayed, more than denied.

Locked for fear of the Jews

2008-03-27T16:28:00.004-05:00

Tough bunch. They'd just arranged to have Jesus arrested, tried, convicted and executed on trumped-up charges. One of his disciples, Peter, only escaped by insisting loudly that he wasn't a disciple. It was reasonable to assume that if they were found, they'd all be swept up and crucified in turn. So they met in a house with the doors, and presumably windows, locked. Nobody gets in to threaten them; nobody even wants to get out and risk death. So how did Jesus get in, twice?

Let us now fast-forward to Lambeth 2008, the decennial meeting of bishops and archbishops of the Anglican Communion. It is hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the epicenter of the autonomous Anglican churches around the world, the First Among Equals of all the Primates. The churches of the Anglican Communion are united first by their history of Colonial domination at some point in the last 400+ years, and second by their obeisance to a common liturgy, in spirit if not in word. It is he, Rowan Williams, appointed by the Queen of England, who decides who and what constitute the Anglican Communion.

Every ten years, the Archbishop of Canterbury invites most Anglican bishops and their wives to a fabulous party in the U.K. Those invited are "in" the Anglican Communion, those not invited are, well, "out". Bishops consecrated irregularly are "out." Bishops alleged to be complicit in murder of Muslims, or recently deposed, or actively violating centuries-old boundaries of other dioceses, are nonetheless "in." Gay bishops who hide or publicly deny their God-given sexuality, are "in;" the only gay bishop to openly proclaim God's gift of homosexuality to him, is "out." No one has ever asked, however: in the selection of invitees, is Christ ever locked out?

Which brings me to the subject of this post's title. I believe that God will appear behind the doors of Lambeth 2008 that Rowan the Easily Frightened has locked for fear of homosexuals. Bishop Robinson will appear at the Marketplace and speak to all who will listen. Bishop Marc Andrus has proposed a Witness at Lambeth to put the flesh and blood of LGBT persons on the ground or in videotapes at Lambeth. His idea, now public, will gather strength and support, God willing. The bishop which the Anglican Communion has refused will become, if not the chief cornerstone, the chief topic of discussion, at this Conference. The Spirit of God cannot be denied.

Throwing your life away

2008-03-26T13:36:00.002-05:00

An acquaintenance of mine, on a listserv for married men who are coming to grips with their homosexuality, wrote:

"I feel like I am throwing my life away"

I wrote back:

I know how disorienting and frightening it is to abandon your married life and start over. All those images and ideas about the idyllic married life: 2.3 kids, house with picket fence, loving wife and housekeeper, stable job, all run aground on the reality that you're really a lot happier--a lot happier--with a guy. I had that same feeling last year, I also walked away from certain financial security in retirement. My parents were adults during the Depression, so I inherited a lot of frugality, and "throwing that away" takes either a lot of guts or no brains!

But, y'know, some things you have to throw away. They don't work anymore, and can't be repaired, or start to smell bad, or clutter up the place so you can't do other things of greater value to you. You may have discovered, as many of us [on this listserv] have, that you bought it for the wrong reasons. Your "married life" may fall into one or more of those categories. With deepest respect and great care for your wife and kids, throw away the marriage. Go with what works best for you.

HRC broadcast

2008-03-17T17:42:00.003-05:00

The Human Rights Campaign sent out a broadside today, asking that its recipients send it in to their Congresscritters.

Before I forwarded it to my close friends, I rewrote it, as follows:

"All Federal employees and Members of Congress are entitled to federal health benefits, family medical and emergency leave, group life insurance, long-term care and retirement benefits for their families, provided their partners are not of the same sex. Same-sex partners receive no benefits whatsoever. I am writing you to express my dissatisfaction with this unequal treatment.

"Most major private sector employers in the US have corrected this inequity. The U.S. government lags behind in bringing its employee benefits current with standard practice.

"Beyond the civil rights issue that this matter addresses lies the consequences for recruitment and retention of top-notch employees in a competitive jobs market. By passing the Domestic Partnership Benefits Act, Congress can level that playing field, while at the same time striving for the equality guaranteed us all in our beloved Constitution.

"I sincerely hope you will sign on as a co-sponsor and advocate for the passage of this vital piece of legislation."

You can log on to HRC and see the original. Even in the original, it's worthwhile. My question: did I improve it?

Come Josephine in my Flying Machine

2008-03-13T13:37:00.000-05:00

Ahh, the joy of air travel. Combine the prestige and sense of adventure with respectful treatment by airline staff and airport personnel, and travelling overnight on business is an ego trip, right?. Let’s look at the adventure of getting to the gate.
Print boarding pass. Drive to airport. Collect ticket at parking lot gate. Find parking place; park car. Remove suitcase and backpack from trunk. Lock car. Place keys in suitcase. Clip backpack to suitcase. Walk to security, wait in queue. Remove plastic bag from backpack. Place watch, cell phone, loose change and iPod in plastic bag. Place plastic bag in backpack. Remove boarding pass from backpack. Remove driver’s license from wallet, show it and boarding pass to TSA agent. Enter queue for security screening. Put driver’s license in wallet.
Collect two bins from stack, place on table. Remove coat and place in bin. Remove shoes and place on coat. Place boarding pass on top of shoes. Unclip backpack from suitcase. Remove laptop from backpack, place in second bin. Remove toiletries bag from suitcase, put next to laptop. Remove engraver’s blocks from suitcase, place next to toiletries. Retrieve boarding pass. Push backpack, suitcase and both bins onto X-ray conveyor. Walk through magnetometer. Show boarding pass to TSA agent. If the magnetometer is especially sensitive, return through magnetometer, remove belt, place on conveyor; walk through magnetometer again.
Explain purpose of engraver’s blocks to TSA agent (paperweights). Put on shoes. Put on coat. Put laptop in backpack. Put toiletries and engraver’s blocks in suitcase. Clip backpack to suitcase. Remove plastic bag from backpack. Put on watch. Clip cell phone to belt. Clip iPod to belt. Put change in pocket. Put plastic bag in backpack. Put boarding pass in pocket. Walk to gate.
The security procedures now in place trigger some questions in my mind:
I didn’t remove my shoes going through security in China, Singapore, Brazil or the U.K. Why do we have to take off our shoes? Why do we have to take off sandals and thongs?
My shaving cream is in an aerosol can, its contents inaccessible except by depressing the little button on top. Why must it be treated like an open liquid?
I’m only allowed one plastic bag of toiletries. A second bag is a security risk?
My belt will set off some magnetometers, while most of them ignore it. Are most magnetometers exhibiting a security risk or do a few of them need calibration?
Grocery stores identify me by fingerprint. Why don’t the airlines offer this alternative on a photo ID for their high-mileage travelers, and skip these useless X-rays and metal detections? Just askin’.

Unintended consequences

2008-03-11T11:41:00.001-05:00

By failing to invite Bp Robinson to Lambeth, the ABC has made him the most important topic of the conference. The stone which the builder of Lambeth 2008 rejected will be the chief cornerstone of conversation for the duration.

I am beginning to think of +++Rowan as a kind of Sorcerer's Apprentice, trying to undo the work of the Spirit by hacking at its harbinger. But look at what will transpire instead: +VGR will sprout up in dozens of spokespersons, the vast majority of TEC bishops attending Lambeth gatherings. The Excluded One will come up repeatedly in conversation with their peers from other provinces. Our bishops will have the opportunity to talk about God's call to TEC to minister to the oppressed and marginalized, esp. in this case LGBT persons.

Visiting my parish this month, ++KJS said that support for LGBT Christians was more widespread among TEC bishops than we know because they are not the loudest voices. Imagine the conversations, then. Hundreds of them, piano, not forte, speaking in the tongues of bishops, of their discovery of God's deeds of power working through TEC and +VGR.

God freed the people of Israel by hardening Pharaoh's heart. God is working the same magic on the ABC to bring LGBT persons into the AC. Thanks be to God.

Opening day

2008-03-11T10:56:00.003-05:00

I didn't really intend to start a blog today, but the confluence of events and comments seems to have forced my hand. Let me delineate those factors.

First, my good friend John praises my writings incessantly. "You need to publish," he says. "Start an op-ed column." Ye gods, John, do you know how many hours of research it takes to do that?

Second, I'm following rather closely the events in the religious denomination of my choice, The Episcopal Church (TEC). I track its struggle with the attack of a schismatic movement funded by the IRD on many blogs to which I will link here, eventually. Yesterday's decision by the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Rowan Williams, not to invite to the decennial Lambeth Conference a legitimately elected and consecrated bishop of TEC has unearthed a righteous anger within me that is only quenched by printer's ink, or its digital equivalent.

Third, my desk is awash in unfiled papers that spill over to the dining room table. Organizing them requires an act of will with which I struggle daily. I'd rather write.

So thus, this blog. It will be political in part, for politics affects and reflects us all. It will be spiritual and Episcopalian (those aren't mutually exclusive, BTW), because I am. It will be open to your comments, but I cannot promise hour-to-hour moderation, because I have other things to do. But here I am, and here I will journal my hour on the stage.