The Prodigal Sheep

Gay and Dissident Bishops Excluded From ’08 Meeting

The direction the Anglican communion is taking is saddening. Bishops whose appointment, actions or 'manner of life' are considered divisive or scandalous have been excluded from invitation to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. According to the NY Times,

The archbishop of Canterbury sent out more than 800 invitations yesterday to a once-a-decade global gathering of Anglican bishops. But he did not invite the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and the bishop in Virginia who heads a conservative cluster of disaffected American churches affiliated with the archbishop of Nigeria. 

Openly gay bishop Gene Robinson might be at the center of this firestorm, but he is not the one responsible for sowing division and scandal in the worldwide Anglican communion. The responsibility for that lies squarely at the feet of Nigerian Archbishop Akinola and others bent on constraining the historical openness and unity of the Anglican communion by a new form of puritanical fundamentalism.

Bishop Robinson said he was extremely disappointed at his exclusion and asked in a statement, “At a time when the Anglican Communion is calling for a ‘listening process’ on the issue of homosexuality, how does it make sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from the discussion?”

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, who has expressed liberal views on homosexuality in the past, has been determined to keep the communion intact. In his invitation letter, Archbishop Williams wrote, “I have to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the communion.”

How sad that the opportunity to extend grace (to both Robinson and his fundamentalist detractors) has been squandered in favor of political expediency.

Thank God Rowan Williams' ability to extend invitations is limited to ecclesial gatherings. I wonder who would be invited or disinvited to the banquet table of Christ, if invitations were in such mortal hands? As far as I know, the only criteria to get onto that list is to be thirsty for the free gift of the water of life (Rev. 22:17).

I wonder who Jesus would discriminate against?

Posted by Mark Poole at 1:42 PM in Justice, MCC, Progressive Christianity, Queer
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There's no place like Rome, toto...

I'd heard plenty of stories about Ratzinger being gay. I once had an interesting discussion with a (former) Catholic theologian on the very subject. But I didn't know Papa wore pretty red shoes from Prada.

Hat tips to Pam Spaulding and my friend Brenda.

Posted by Mark Poole at 4:05 PM in Humor, Queer, Religious Right
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A lot of ink has been spilled over the story of Ted Haggard’s resignation amid revelations of sexual impropriety.

There is much chatter about abuse of power, the vulnerability of religious leaders in general, whether mega-church ministries set themselves up to fall in such spectacular ways, what are the warning signs, and so on. The center of gravity for these speculations is The Haggard Story, a supposedly sordid drama of lust and betrayal played out in four acts: Act I ‘The Pedestal’, Act II ‘The Scandal’, Act III ‘The Fall’ and in closing, Act IV ‘The Recovery’.

Liberal magazine The Christian Century covers the story in its November 28 issue with an editorial and accompanying news piece that more or less follow this boilerplate. The ‘scandal’ is framed as a fall from grace, a turn toward ‘sexual or chemical addictions’ accompanied by power-fueled hypocrisy.

But why is it that Haggard’s sexual liaisons with a male prostitute are framed in this manner? Forget for a moment that this is how Haggard himself and his charismatic cohorts have characterized it. Why should we view his situation as a personal ‘fall’ rather than as emblematic of a greater struggle going on within the church today – the struggle for equality, acceptance and ministry for all GLBT Christians?

Forget for a moment the sordid hype. Isn’t the real scandal here the way in which Haggard, even now, is still unable to come to terms with his sexual identity and accept himself as a beloved child of God, just as he is? That such a respected and surely learned man of God, who must have ministered grace to thousands of others, can not find within himself that same free gift of grace?

It’s a scandal that un-biblical sex-negative dogma has such a sway over much of the church that even liberal journals like The Christian Century can’t call a spade a spade. The lies that forced Ted Haggard to live a double life and pushed him toward dangerous and self destructive activity are the same lies that threaten the sanity, safety and wellbeing of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people every single day.

The real scandal is that people are still forced to live this way in the twenty first century. The same lies are pushing Ted Haggard and thousands of others into so-called reparative therapy, which itself is a Great Lie and serves only to deepen the scandal and worsen the pain.

What we need is a non-scandalous response to a scandalous situation. Gay spiritual leaders have, as far as I can tell, reached out to Ted with grace and sincerity.

The Colorado Springs Gazette quoted Rev. Nori Rost, MCC clergy and founder of spiritual justice advocacy group Just Spirit, as saying “I feel a lot of sympathy for Ted. Having been a pastor, you live in a fishbowl anyway. It must be very painful for Ted and his family.”

In a November 6 press release, Soulforce urged “compassion for Haggard and accountability for the National Association of Evangelicals.” Executive Director Jeff Lutes said

Rev. Haggard is just one more tragic example of how lives are destroyed by the lies about gay and lesbian people perpetuated by the NAE, the Religious Right, and both the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church. Taught by the church to hate himself, the only option from his point of view was to lead a psychologically and spiritually damaging double life marked by denial and self-destructive behavior. Rev. Haggard is a victim of religion-based bigotry that regularly demeans and demoralizes gay and lesbian people and refuses to acknowledge that we are part of the American fabric, and that many of us form loving families and practice a deep faith in God.

Our community's anger at Rev. Haggard's hypocrisy is completely understandable. However, my hope is that our community will take the high road and extend an olive branch of friendship and support when he is ready to fully come out as a gay man. Dobson and the others will counsel him to bury, deny, and repress his sexuality even deeper than before. They will wound his spirit, and he is going to need our prayers and our compassionate message that God loves him, affirms him, and calls him to live his life openly with honesty and integrity.

Soulforce subsequently launched a campaign for LGBT and allied people to write letters of concern and compassion to Haggard. Apparently over three hundred people from different walks of life have written to him, many addressing themselves as people of faith coming from a conservative Christian background having once struggled with denial and being in bondage to anti-gay misinformation.

Some on the right might no doubt characterize such words and acts as part of some ‘homosexual agenda’ to exploit Ted Haggard’s sad circumstances for political ends. To accept such a viewpoint would be to fail to see the heartfelt concern of ordinary people who genuinely care about what the man and his family are going through. Unlike the fear-and-power mongers on the religious right, many of us know all too well what it is like to be on the receiving end of judgment and condemnation.

Posted by Mark Poole at 10:12 PM in Inspiration, Progressive Christianity, Queer, Religious Right
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I once saw a fake pamphlet entitled Heterosexuality: It's Causes and Cures. The point of it, of course, was to parody the way in which most anti-gay literature (if it can even be called literature) sets up and knocks down a straw man (the 'homosexual agenda') using fear, exaggeration and distorted statistics.

Interestingly, a Google search for information on the causes of heterosexuality reveals that heterosexual identity is largely defined in terms of what it is not, i.e. homosexuality. It could even be argued that self-defined heterosexuality is at best a form of subtle homophobia and in some extreme cases a matter of acute homosexual panic...

But I digress. 

In any case it's refreshing to see a new publication by Jim Burroway entitled The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths.

Heterosexuals would have you believe that the heterosexual lifestyle is perfectly normal. They will tell you that their lifestyle choice should be the benchmark for society. But a closer look shows that their lifestyle isn’t as safe or as desirable as heterosexual militants say it is.

Jim parodies the anti-gay literature genre with subtlety and refinement, with extensive footnoting to illustrate the method as well as a step-by-step guide to how it's done.

... my parody is aimed squarely at the select few who hold themselves up as leaders and protectors of faith and values, who claim to command an army of “values voters” and to speak on behalf of all Christendom, while reducing everyone else to mere statistics.

These leaders use statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination. They have shown surprisingly few qualms about distorting the facts beyond all recognition, just like I did when I wrote this parody ...

Most of these organizations exist to promote Judeo-Christian values around the world. But in their zeal to demonize gays and lesbians, they refuse to set forth the truth plainly. Instead, they blatantly ignore one of our most important values: You shall not bear false witness.

If you want to gain an understanding of how hate-speech is supported by propaganda that is in turn legitimized by fake social science, then read this booklet. Highly recommended.

Hat tip to Ex-Gay Watch.

Posted by Mark Poole at 4:29 PM in Humor, Queer, Religious Right
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Chip Berlet has an excellent piece on Talk To Action concerning the frightening direction culture war scapegoating is taking these days with the religious right. He is discussing the recent 'Value Voters Summit' orchestrated by the Family Research Council:

The Christian Right has regrouped and launched a new offensive in the ongoing Christian Right Culture War. Gay marriage and the "homosexual agenda" are the primary tactical scapegoats ...

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins suggested the nation was under attack from without and within, which was a theme throughout the conference. The domestic forces of Satan--secularists, liberals, homosexuals, feminists, abortionists, p o r nographers--are the subversives within; while the barbaric terrorist Islamic fascists are the external enemy. Godly "values voters" should remember how they felt on 9/11, and then go into the voting booth and vote to prevent the Democrats from having the opportunity to appoint more activist judges who are wittingly or unwittingly in league with the evil forces of darkness.

As I have said before on this blog, gay is the new Jew as far as the radical religious right is concerned. Gays have come to epitomize all that is evil, representing a threat to Godly sanctity that must not only be resisted, but eliminated altogether.

Time and again speakers at the conference made it clear that gay marriage was the key battle in the campaign to protect religion, (and thwart the plans of the Devil). Gay marriage, we were told, will spread like a disease across America from the source of the infection--Massachusetts and its cabal of activist judges.

But the fight against gay marriage and civil unions should be viewed for what it is: the thin end of a wedge, merely a starting point for drawing battle lines and testing the water to see what the citizenry will accept.

If the theocrats succeed in having enough 'Godly men' (i.e. fundamentalist or fundamentalist-controlled Republicans) elected to positions of power throughout the country, a Federal Marriage Amendment will be the least of our problems. The rhetoric will continue to ratchet up and the consequences will become ever more grave.

Will the true confessing church please stand up and be heard?

Posted by Mark Poole at 6:15 PM in Marriage Equality, Politics, Queer, Religious Right
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Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right

by Mel White

I mentioned this book by Mel White when I received the advance publicity. Now that I've read it, I recommend everyone read it, whether you're Christian or not, gay or straight or whatever.

Anyone who thinks the religious right is a mostly benign but eccentric manifestation of conservative religion need look no further to be disabused of that idea.

I refuse to call it the 'Christian right' any longer, for it is neither Christian nor right in its refusal to follow the commands of Jesus. In its immense wealth, devoted armies of supporters, and totally malignant agenda for US and world domination, this movement is definitely eccentric but anything but innocuous.

White traces the development of this movement and its growth in influence through the particular prism of its apalling and utterly inexcusable treatment of LGBT people. Drawing on sociological research into the roots of fascism, he explores the uncanny and extensive parallels between historical fascist movements and the spirit of fascism masquerading as 'Judeo-Christian' morality.

A few months ago I linked to a similar analysis on hatecrime.org, which identified parallels between Nazi anti-Jewish speech and religious right anti-gay speech. If you haven't looked at this before, I urge you to. From their own mouths, the leaders of the religious right have declared homosexuals to be their number one enemy and have declared holy war on 'homosexuals' and the 'homosexual agenda'. If you take a look at the historical comparisons, the so-called 'homosexual agenda' is lifted almost directly (even if not consciously) from ther playbook of the Nazis.

White doesn't really ask this question outright, but it's hard not to: What is the difference today between moderate-to-extreme Islamic mullahs who preach death to Jews and Westerners in their mosques and whose words incite others to hateful violence, and 'Christian' fundamentalist clergy who preach death to gays and lesbians from their pulpits and whose words also incite others to acts of violence?

There is none.

Again, if you don't believe Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Keyes and others are literally preaching death to gays and are actively working for our elimination from the face of the earth, read this book. It is full of direct quotes from the sources. The 'homosexual' in America is being caricatured and maligned in exactly the same way as the Jews in Europe were seventy years ago.

Religious fundamentalists are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fight gay civil rights around the globe. I even read today of the Australian-based Exclusive Brethren, a small group that hitherto eschewed political involvement for a spirit of radical separatism from the modern world, nop lavishly funding political war chests on the basis of this one single issue.

We may wake up one day to find we have won the war against the terrorists out there but have allowed ourselves to be enslaved by a different terror in our midst. Violent speech inevitably leads to violent acts, and violent acts to a state of violence. We have already seen this with abortion clinic bombings and the increase in hate-fueled murders of innocent GLBT folk.

If the American Taliban have their way, LGBT people won't merely be pushed back into the closet but will be permanently made second or third class citizens, or worse.

White concludes, however, on an inspirational note. In founding Soulforce, his own journey has been transformed through developing an understanding of the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King concerning non-violent resistance to evil. Hatred and violence cannot be overcome by more hatred and violence, even violence of speech.

Non-violent resistance, or soul force, says White, is the only path to overcoming this spiritual and physical violence. Jesus taught us this truth, but Gandhi and MLK showed us how to live it.

Personally, I find it hard not to repay violence against me with at least thoughts of violence (if not real acts). But this leaves us at 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' and the world is no better for it. By hating those who hate us, we feed the cycle of violence (or negative kharma if you like).

I think Mel White and Jesus are onto something here. It won't be easy putting it into action, to repay violence with non-violent resistance, to stand up to oppressors without using the tools of oppression. But perhaps it is the only way.

Posted by Mark Poole at 11:51 PM in Queer, Religious Right
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A Council of Bishops, Elders and Christian Leaders committed to equal rights and inclusion for all will meet in Dallas beginning September 10 to address religious discrimination against LGBT people, and how to counter it.

Over 30 faith leaders from across the United States will assemble as part of the three-day event to worship, pray and strategize on how to remove homophobia and hate from our churches, and replace them with hospitality, justice and equality for all.

The gathering will be hosted by DignityUSA, The Fellowship, Institute for Welcoming Resources and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC). Goals of the meeting will include:

• Form a Council of Christian churches that are dedicated to reclaiming their faith based on the Gospel of inclusion, justice and love.
• Make public statements on Marriage Equality; Parental Adoption and Foster Rights for LGBT families; and address other pressing social justice issues for LGBT families such as peace, immigration and the Iraq war.
• Develop a collaborative coordinated strategy for moving LGBT rights forward within our Christian traditions - through growing the number and strength of "welcoming and affirming" congregations, reaching out to those rejected and alienated by churches, planting new churches, and creating "fellowships" of supportive congregations and clergy.

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, one of the lead organizers of the Council, is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ:

Certain religious groups have aggressively sought to define their agenda in the public's mind, through publicity and lobbying, as the Christian agenda. On the contrary, there is a growing movement of Christian clergy who reject this agenda, for whom bigotry and exclusion have no place in the Church.

It might be more appropriate (and more inclusive) to say that a growing movement of Christian laity reject the religious right's agenda. What excites me is that initiatives like this reflect not only the view of a handful of religious leaders, but are indicative of a groundswell of grassroots support — not only in the mainline liberal churches but increasingly within the evangelical movement.

Posted by Mark Poole at 2:30 PM in Progressive Christianity, Queer
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Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right

by Mel White

Focus on the Family Action, James Dobson's lobbying organization, will be holding a vote-your-hate rally at the Excel energy Center on October 3. Featured speakers will be FOTF's James Dobson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and Antioch Bible Church's Ken Hutcherson.

The event is billed as a "rally for the family", but the speaker lineup and blurb on the web-site clearly indicates it is a publicity stunt designed to rally the troops for Dobson's anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-democratic political agenda ahead of the November elections.

Which is why the upcoming release of a new book on the religious right is all the more important. Rev. Mel White, founder of Soulforce, will be in Minneapolis Thursday, September 14 at the Wayzata Community Church, to promote Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Religious Right.

Mel is a former evangelical insider, having ghost written books for Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson before coming out as a gay Christian. From this background and his work with Soulforce he is uniquely qualified to write this exposé of the American religious right.

The Reverend Mel White, a deeply religious man who sees fundamentalism as "evangelical Christian orthodoxy gone cultic," believes that it is not a stretch to say that the true goal of today's fundamentalists is to break down the wall that separates church and state, superimpose their "moral values" on the U.S. Constitution, replace democracy with theocratic rule, and ultimately create a new "Christian America" in their image.

As he writes, "These are not just Neocons dressed in religious drag. These men see themselves as gurus called by God to rescue America from unrighteousness. They believe this is a Christian nation that must be returned forcibly to its Christian roots."

Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, in his review of the book, says that Mel lays bare

the fierce anti-homosexual agenda of organized religion from the Vatican to the American television preachers. White paints a frightening picture of what they mean when they call for ‘making America a Christian nation.’ He issues a challenging wake up call both to those who are traditional Christians as well as to those who hold deeply human values. A consciousness-raising, must-read book.

Rev. Paul W. Egertson of the ELCA says the book is

a devastating and documented account of what happens when fanatical religion and fascistic politics hook up in a semi-secret affair that gives birth to spiritual, and sometimes physical, terrorism.

The primary targets of this spiritual and physical terrorism today are gays. But the hatred extends to all who oppose the theocratic agenda. Presbyterian Church (USA) moderator Rev. Jack Rogers calls the book "essential reading for anyone concerned about the health of the church and the future of our nation".

I've already ordered my copy.

Posted by Mark Poole at 1:46 PM in Politics, Progressive Christianity, Queer, Religious Right
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Today was the last day of our course. This is going to be a brief reflection, not because the content wasn't stimulating and thought provoking, but because it's late on Friday night and I need to finish this off before getting to bed so I can catch my flight home in the morning!

We discussed the difference between beliefs, morals/values and ethics. In my view each informs the other, moving from the abstraction of beliefs through specific moral or cultural values through to specific actions as they occur in community. For instance:

BELIEF: God requires that all men obey His will

MORAL: Homosexuality should not be tolerated by society, as it against the will of God

ETHIC: Actively working to deny equal rights to my homosexual neighbor

Although it was agreed that there is generally a lot of confusion between the three in social discourse.

A few key points Penny wanted us to take away, with regard to what might constitute the kernel of a queer ethic:

1. If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred (Whitman)
2. The ethical battleground is the human body
3. All bodies matter (this is the meaning of the incarnation)
4. We need to make sex (not just sexuality, but sex) sacred again
5. Ethics need to deal with the essence of relationships, not with their form
6. Ethics must involve truth-telling about our lives and our bodies

Now, to get home and put all of this into practice.

Posted by Mark Poole at 10:32 PM in Course Reflections, Ethics, Queer, Theology
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The assigned reading for today's class was from Eric Rofes' Reviving The Tribe: Regenerating Gay Men's Sexuality and Culture in the Ongoing Epidemic. What I really took away from this book was an understanding of some of the ways in which queer activism was coopted by the dominant discourse as a result of AIDS. After the gay liberation of the seventies, there has been a repathologization of queer sex under the guise of medical expertise and safe-sex education.

One example is the way safe-sex education and HIV prevention campaigns often prresent gay male sexuality as a force that needs to be brought under control (for our own good and for that of society). We are "transgressive bad boys." Heterosexual resistance to and ignorance of safer sex practices are winked at (after all, unprotected vaginal sex is only natural, and necessary to the reproduction of the species), while unprotected anal sex (between men) is treated with moral opprobrium.

Tied up in all of this is the fact that even queer men, especially younger men who never experienced the political activism of the sixties and seventies, have a tendency to substitute "love" for sex in their political discourse. Queer rights and queer marriage are not about the right to love one another — we have been loving one another for centuries and no system of powers can stop that. They are about our right to fuck, about the unchaining of our erotic power. Endless prattle about equal love (of which I am myself guilty) obscures what it is we are really fighting for, and what it is that heteronormative discourse so virulently seeks to suppress.

We began the class itself, however, on an entirely different note. Jim Mitulski and Penny Nixon shared stories concerning their recent visit to the Mother of Peace AIDS orphanage in rural Zimbabwe. An interesting and powerful juxtaposition of issues and images... The cultural apartheid brought about by AIDS in post-Reagan America, contrasted with the physical apartheid of gender and poverty in post-revolutionary Zimbabwe.

Continue reading "Thursday reflection: Theo-ethical queer activism" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 5:08 PM in Course Reflections, Ethics, HIV/AIDS, Queer
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Today we looked at HIV/AIDS as an ethical issue. My reflection today, however, is on the significance of the "AIDS years" both for MCC and for me personally.

The "AIDS years" in the US queer community and MCC were those years when the pandemic raged unchecked by life-extending treatments — that period of fifteen years from the beginning of the pandemic in 1981 to the advent of protease inhibitor treatments in 1996. One of the cities worst affected was San Francisco.

Rev. Jim Mitulski was pastor of MCC San Francisco from 1986 to 2001, during which time he officiated at over 500 funerals for those who died from AIDS-related illness. One part of Jim's story that struck me was his sense that God gathered MCC together in the 60s and 70s so that there would be a church for such a time as this. MCC (especially MCC-SF) became known both within the queer community and in ecumenical circles as the Church with AIDS.

Jim talked about the authenticity of worship and community experienced during those years. The church with AIDS was not an unjoyous place. It was "a community where it didn't matter what you looked like, in the midst of a community where appearance was everything."

In both The Samaritan's Imperative and The Church With AIDS, we read about the joyful and spirit-filled AIDS healing services, and how experiencing these moved ecumenical leaders to reflect on the meaning of the marks of the "true church" in a time of AIDS. What does it mean to be "one, holy, catholic and apostolic"? MCC embodied, and continues to embody, these marks in its witness, worship and community.

Continue reading "Wednesday reflection: The AIDS years" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 3:31 PM in Course Reflections, HIV/AIDS, MCC, Queer, Theology
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I almost died laughing reading this blog's take on The Gay Blade.

It's been twenty years since I read Jack Chick's hilariously drawn (but seriously intended) cartoon gospel tract designed to persuade us homosexuals to repent of our evil ways.

I know you can't stop at just one cartoon. Read the entire series of tracts and be saved!  

Posted by Mark Poole at 9:55 PM in Humor, Queer, Religious Right
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Today we talked about MCC being a queer church movement rather than merely welcoming or open and affirming (ONA).

This is a controversial topic and may rouse some suspicion within even some MCC congregations, who probably do see themselves as welcoming and not necessarily queer.

However, it seems to me that there are at least two key differentiators:

1. Individual local congregations (and in some denominations, conferences) may choose to become open and affirming. Which means of course that this is a choice that at some time in the future may be reversed. It is not an essential part of their church polity and is not universally recognized or supported at a denominational level.
   
2. Open and affirming congregations welcome, invite, accept or tolerate queer people in their midst and may even (in some polities) ordain them as clergy. This is not the same as understanding and practising church, doing theology and living Christian ministry from a distinctly queer perspective.
   

MCC is the only church movement that speaks consistently and always from and for the margins of heteronormative society. We are no more likely to fade away with the slow dawn of mainstream tolerance than are the black churches going to close any time soon.

There was also discussion about queering liturgy and preaching. As an exercise we broke into small groups to conceive of specifically queer rites of confirmation, laying on of hands and blessing. My group developed a laying on of hands liturgy specifically designed to invoke God's Spirit in the recongition of someone's coming out process.

With a minimum of time and resources, it was amazing to witness the liturgies that each group was able to devise. Each rite spoke powerfully to the experience of queer folk in their relationship with God and the community. This reinforced for me the power and importance of imagining and developing new transformative rites in and for the queer community.

The open communion practised in MCC is one such example of a transformative rite or sacrament. The occasional voluntary practice of rebaptism after coming out (as undergone by me at the age of 21) may be another. But we have only begun to touch the surface of how we might use liturgy in new transformative ways.

Posted by Mark Poole at 10:22 PM in Course Reflections, MCC, Progressive Christianity, Queer, Theology
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It seems that I managed to piss off the editor of Purple Pew today, as a result of my recent journal entry on queering sacred texts.

VL Carey took umbrage at my reference to Take Back The Word as groundbreaking, retorting that "scholarship such as this pollutes the already dung-filled cesspool of Biblical Interpretation".

The problem with the “queer” (re)interpretation is that is sets the mind up to allow the possibility of any interpretation to enter in. In other words, when we give any credence to these reinterpretations, we leave the mind’s door ajar, allowing for the possibility of any interpretation to come in; thus, we invite deception, and not just any deception, but Scriptural deception, which is nothing more than the work of the enemy. Because it’s precisely this kind of deception that will cause us to unwittingly walk away from God. This is why the Bible tells us to be of sound and sober mind, and to question all doctrines and biblical interpretation to see if they are truly of God.

In Carey's eyes, queer scholars are (literally) shitting on the Word of God. None of this contextual social-location crap for her; true Christian salvation is available only by casting off queer theories and submitting ourselves to the (male) God revealed in the scriptures.

Now if we believe that God is Truth, and therefore can neither contradict Himself nor oppose Himself, that is, He cannot lie, then we have validation in the Word of God that we too, we queer Christians, are saved and receive eternal salvation by the grace of God when we trust in His Word and believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We need not the validation of men, or their unscriptural and deceptive “queer theories” to know that we too are of the children of God.

Continue reading "Seeing purple" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 4:34 PM in Course Reflections, Queer, Theology
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Today's session was on sexual transgression as a path to spiritual insight, to "redemption, revelation and/or a deeper relationship with ourselves and the Divine."

We looked at this primarily in the context of expressions of BDSM within the queer community. The discussion was rich and provocative on many levels, although I don't plan to detail everything we discussed.

First of all, BDSM is not evil, bad or sick. Most important are the concepts of mutual consent and mutual enjoyment. If these characteristics are missing we are talking about sexual abuse, not BDSM. BDSM can also be understood as play, and as sexual roleplaying involving consensual power exchange.

Where is the spiritual insight in this? We discussed how BDSM can provide a structure for negotiating and talking about sexual desire. Many people find liberation from sexual guilt and shame as a result of their involvement. Naming and owning our desires, we can reclaim and celebrate the power of our bodies. As feminist Susie Bright says in one of the readings, "sex doesn't lie."

Pastorally, we in queer ministry need to recognize the prevalence and significance of BDSM practices within relationships and within our communities. We don't need to practice or promote it (unless we're inclined that way) but we need to be able to relate authentically in our ministry to those who do. By opening our minds to the possibility of sexual transgression as spiritual insight, we might even learn some things ourselves.

There is also the need to be senstive to those experiencing or recovering from real abuse, sexual or otherwise, and to be able to minister appropriately in that context. There was a very helpful handout highlighting the differences between BDSM and abuse.

Posted by Mark Poole at 4:22 PM in Course Reflections, Queer, Theology
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This morning we reflected on the emergence of postcolonial queer theology. Last night's reading was on the theology of sexual stories, from Marcella Althaus-Reid's Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics.

Althaus-Reid asserts that theology, especially liberation theology, "is a passionate and dangerous business," akin perhaps to sticking your tongue in a wall socket. She compares the passionate commitment to justice and solidarity with the poor to sexual passion, where "desire is intense, and carries that of life in itself."

She talks about how "abnormal" stories (those of women and sexual minorities) may be ignored or suppressed in liberation theologies. There is the story of Father Mario, a young gay Roman Catholic priest working in a Christian base community. Mario is murdered by a rent boy, the police allude to him being a faggot, and the church covers things up as usual. But the local community have embraced Fr. Mario as one of their own. They care not whether he was gay, only that he had to suffer alone. They speak to the TV media of his love and generosity of spirit, and how they wish they had been able to help him in his loneliness. Althaus-Reid approvingly refers to this resistant telling of his story as "indecent theological thinking."

Elsewhere in the reading she talks of the sexual pyramid, the invisible hierarchical privileging of some people's sexual stories over others. The class broke into groups to draw up our own sexual pyramid based on our perception of privileged story-telling in our own society.

The obvious truisms emerge: rich, white, powerful, heterosexual males sit at the apex of the pyramid; poor, disenfrachised women, queers and people of color near the base. But it is difficult to draw such a pyramid on paper, since there are so many different intersecting axes of privilege. At a minimum these might include: race, assigned gender, sexuality, adulthood, class, wealth, beauty, health.

Continue reading "Thursday reflection: Queer postcolonial theologies" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 8:42 PM in Course Reflections, Queer, Theology
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Today's class started with a discussion of the Queer Commentary on the Bible, to be published in the fall (Mona West and Bob Goss, editors). Several of our readings for today were from this new commentary. I look forward to obtaining the entire volume, I'm sure it will be a very useful resource.

Bob made a statement to the effect that queer commentators are exegetical activists. He quoted from Foucault, who spoke of the insurrection of subjugated knowledges. This places queer theory and queer theology within the context of action, of praxis. Arguably, exegesis that is not activist, that is static, is blasphemy, for the Spirit blows wherever it wants to.

There was discussion of erotophobia as the root of misogyny, and both as the root of homophobia. Bob sees homophobia as based on a fear of women and of women's sexuality. To be queer in heteronormative society is to usurp the proper socially assigned roles of male and female. A man who is willingly penetrated by another man is "as a woman" and has turned the "natural" order on its head.

It was good to be reminded that, while we may see others "like ourselves" everywhere and throughout history, homosexuality and heterosexuality as binary modes of sexuality are relatively recent social constructs. When these concepts were first developed in Germany in the late nineteenth century, they were both labels for pathological sexual behavior (i.e. sexual intercourse with the same or opposite sex for the sole purpose of pleasure).

Somehow, heterosexuality was depathologized and granted normativity, while homosexuality was extended to apply all kinds of same-sex attraction and behavior (and still remains pathologized to an extent within modern society).

Continue reading "Wednesday reflection: Queering sacred texts" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 5:48 PM in Course Reflections, Queer, Theology
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Today we had a whirlwind introduction to queer theology and queer biblical hermeneutics by Rev. Dr. Mona West. Dr. West is co-editor with Rev. Dr. Bob Goss of a ground-breaking work of queer biblical scholarship, Take Back The Word: A Queer Reading of The Bible.

I have to say that reading this book was a very worthwhile experience. A detailed chapter by chapter review can be found here. There are so many diverse ways to read the Bible, all of them according great respect to the sacred text while at the same time queering, or subverting, the heteronormative interpretation.

One of the most interesting and inspiring chapters for me was Rev. Michael Piazza's "Nehemiah as a Queer Model for Servant Leadership." It pictures Nehemiah as a privileged queer man risking imperial privilege in order in order to carry out God's work in rebuilding Jerusalem. I also enjoyed reading Victoria Kolakowski's "Throwing a Party: Patriarchy, Gender, and the Death of Jezebel" and her discussion of court eunuchs as transgendered women. This contrasts with Nancy Wilson's view of enuchs as representative of all queer folk.

There are different ways of understanding the eunuch historically, socially and theologically — I believe we can embrace various understandings without silencing one or the other viewpoint. A lot of queer theologians focus (appropriately in my view) on the social role of eunuchs and how this allowed them to move fluidly across gender, sexual and social boundaries — just as many queers (in all our variation) are able to do today.

In today's class we discussed what it means to queer the sacred text.

Queering <=> Querying <=> Questioning
[Resisting convention]

Continue reading "Tuesday reflection: Queering sacred texts" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 9:18 PM in Course Reflections, Queer, Theology
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For our polity class we had to prepare a brief history of landmarks and milestones in the development of MCC.

The following chronology is by no means authoritative. It speaks only of dates and milestones, not of the spirit that animated and propelled our movement forward. It only touches on the deep suffering and loss that lies at the heart of our experience of grace as a community. And even in queer history, the story is often written by the "winners". This means that important minority stories may be undervalued or even forgotten. So I ask for forgiveness in advance...

• July 27, 1940 — Birth of Troy Perry in Tallahassee, FL. As a young man, Troy was a pastor in the (pentecostal) Church of God of Prophecy. After Troy was excommunicated by the church for being gay, he separated from his wife and moved to Los Angeles in 1963, where he came out as a gay man.
• October 6, 1968 — First MCC worship service held in Troy Perry’s living room in Huntington Park, CA, attended by 12 people. Rev. Perry’s sermon was entitled “Be True to You.” This took place one year prior to the NY Stonewall riots.
• 1968 to 1970 — MCC congregations started in nine US cities, leading to the convening in late 1970 of the first General Conference and the establishment of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC).
• July 1970 — 12 people established an MCC in Dallas, TX, which later became the Cathedral of Hope. Growing to a membership in 2006 of 3,500, the Cathedral of Hope (no longer part of MCC) is the world’s largest GLBTQ church.
  

Continue reading "A very brief history of MCC" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 11:45 PM in Course Reflections, MCC, Queer
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Another thing that occurred to me in reflecting on today's class was how MCC has played a part in the development of other streams in the LGBTQ social movement.

• Several other church groups and denominations found their roots in MCC, including Unity Fellowship Church (a predominantly black GLBT liberation-theology centered church with 14 congregations, started in 1985 by Carl Bean, an MCC-trained minister), International Christian Community Churches (an association of 13 evangelical churches started in 2002) and Cathedral of Hope in Dallas (the world's largest LGBT congregation, with 3,500 members, currently pursuing affiliation with the UCC).
  
• Beth Chayim Chadashim, the world's first LGBT Jewish congregation, was founded in LA in 1972 with support from Troy Perry and MCC.
• Many of the reconciling, affirming, welcoming etc groups within or aligned with traditional denominational movements have received inspiration, training, support or leadership at one time or another from MCC.
• Numerous AIDS and community service oriented organizations internationally were started as local MCC initiatives.
  

I think it is fair to say that the spiritual and social influence of MCC as a movement has touched hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives in one way or another. Often these connections are not acknowledged in the official and popular histories.

Another note — Wikipedia contains some brief, but excellent, articles on MCC and various MCC clergy and theologians. I was talking with another student in the class about the need to better document our history and theology. What better way to do this than in Wikipedia? I am considering getting involved as a contributor and doing some research to update existing articles and add more.

Posted by Mark Poole at 10:29 PM in Course Reflections, MCC, Progressive Christianity, Queer
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We began the course with a presentation today by Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, MCC's new Moderator since Troy Perry's retirement last year. Nancy shared some of her story and discussed the history of MCC, touching on various subjects covered in more depth in her 1995 book, Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Jesus & the Bible.

Nancy credited Troy Perry's pentecostal roots, personal openness and early life experiences for much of the charismatic energy and positive buoyancy of the early MCC movement.

Because Troy and many of MCC's prominent leaders have hailed from evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds, many not so well informed outsiders (including those within the LGBT movement) often mistakenly assume that MCC is a fundamentalist or evangelical church. Nothing could be further from the truth really.

Troy, from the very first church service, embodied and practiced an openness to the Spirit that transcended denominational, theological and liturgical categories. This openness has permeated the MCC movement in profound ways. For many of us, God's radical, inclusive love shattered the rigid categories we had built up in and around our lives. Yes, some of us are or were pentecostal, but not everybody who raises their hands in an MCC service is pentecostal. MCC has taught me and many others to respect and embrace diversity, not only in sexuality and gender expression but also around liturgy, theology, race, cultural background, ability, age, economic status, and so on.

Things are not always as they seem on the surface in MCC; we are truly a melting pot. It's kind of weird to hear the world's most liberal/progressive and theologically diverse Christian denomination referred to as "evangelical."

On this same point, Nancy repeated what I have heard Troy Perry also say — our movement is like a new book of Acts, a new Pentecost. As I reflect on this, it seems that this is true not just from the perspective of the excitement and energy and marginality of our movement. It's also true because there has been a great movement of Spirit (beginning in October 1968) that has made it possible for all of us to hear of the wondrous works of God in our own "language", in our own "various mother tongues" (Acts 2:8).

Continue reading "Monday reflection: MCC as a social movement" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 8:35 PM in Course Reflections, MCC, Progressive Christianity, Queer, Theology
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Somebody asked the question this week in an online forum about the appropriateness of allowing a church youth group to stage a drag show in the ‘sanctuary’. Apparently some people felt that the ‘sanctuary’ should be reserved for ‘sacred’ activities, and presumably drag does not quite make the grade.

To hear this concern expressed was interesting for me, to say the least. Those raising the objections to drag were members of a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). MCC is an inclusive and predominantly GLBT denomination that, among its many celebrations, commemorates Pride and the Stonewall riots (the infamous night in 1969 when New York drag queens and trannies joined with gays and lesbians to fight back against centuries of oppression and silence).

The responses from forum participants were thoughtful and well informed. Some spoke of the universal and inclusive nature of the sacred and how the house of God should be open to all people for all kinds of events.

From a personal perspective it was interesting to see this question come up, given a related experience of my own last Sunday. I was making announcements at the start of our own worship service. Our church is holding a 'Prom' in a couple of weeks. One of our young adult leaders came up to the front to make a special announcement about the event — wearing drag. The idea was to promote ticket sales while getting people to think about how they might ‘dress up’ for the event.

Now this should not have been a shock to any in our congregation...

Continue reading "Spiritual trans/gression" »

Posted by Mark Poole at 1:32 PM in MCC, Progressive Christianity, Queer, Theology
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The American 'Family' Association claims on its website that it does not hate homosexuals:

Absolutely Not! The same Holy Bible that calls us to reject sin, calls us to love our neighbor. It is that love that motivates us to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture. AFA has sponsored several events reaching out to homosexuals and letting them know there is love and healing at the Cross of Christ.

The AFA, it its literature on the 'homosexual agenda,' preaches compassion and understanding toward the gay community, in one of its publications quoting Mona Riley of the predominantly exgay Church of the Open Door:

Riley sees a “hardness in the heart of the American church” toward people who have been involved in homosexual behavior. “We need to be trained in compassion,” she says. “We have judged this particular sin to be worse than every other, but I don’t see that in the Scriptures.”

How surprised the Rev. Mark Bidwell, pastor of the predominantly GLBT Metropolitan Community of Detroit must have been, then, to receive the following e-mail last month from an AFA supporter:

You fag loving BASTARDS, Pull your head out of your ass and any thing else you have up there and forget about this ass humping doughnut pumping fag and lesbo bull-shit.

Or this phone call from an AFA supporter named Steve:

There's a band named Queen - 4 men, but yet with a female title - why, because they're sodomites, they're effeminate. Freddie Mercury used to prance on stage saying: 'When I'm on stage I am a devil.' What did he die from Mark? He died from AIDS. Why? Because that is God's judgment on sin, exceeding sin. Sodomy... Sometimes the judgment of God comes in this life - doesn't wait until eternity that's why y'all are dying so rapidly from AIDS.

Hundreds of similar calls and e-mails came into the Detroit church as a result of the AFA's latest campaign against marriage equality, targeting Ford Motor Company as a sponsor of Motor City Pride. The campaign directed supporters to a page on the Pride website featuring a gay commitment ceremony and linking to the MCC pastor's e-mail address.

Rev. Bidwell's crime? Being a gay pastor of a Christian church that believes "the Gospel of Jesus Christ was, and is, meant for everyone." 

Once again, a self-styled 'Christian' organization shows its true colors in spite of all efforts to disguise its rhetoric as reasonable, God-centered truth. As Jesus said, good trees do not bring forth bitter fruit. Nor does the one who loves God hate his neighbor.

If there is a war on Christianity, it is the one being waged against it by the religious right in this country. Or, as one letter writer to the Washington Post put it last Friday, "it is the war waged by those who call themselves followers of Jesus while proving they are nothing of the kind."

Posted by Mark Poole at 11:32 PM in MCC, Queer, Religious Right
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On Monday evening I attended the Soulforce Equality Ride rally in Elliot Park, across the road from North Central University.

It's interesting to compare and contrast North Central's position statement on the Ride with the Riders' own perspective.

The NCU Administration avoids dealing with Soulforce's charges of religion based discrimination, claiming in at least one place that to do so would violate student privacy rights under FERPA. Having listened to David Coleman's story and that of other LGBT NCU alumni, the university's definition of 'privacy' seems to be somewhat flexible, as also their definition of 'truthful.'

NCU asserts that it does not "summarily expel students who reveal that they have same sex attraction."

It is true that NCU does not expel students for revealing same-sex attraction. It places them on probation or suspension for not leading a compatible "lifestyle", and allows them to return only after effectively becoming "exgay." Which is effectively the same as expulsion, since most LGBT are unable to "change" who we are. The belief that LGBT youth can "overcome" their sexual orientation through self-discipline, prayer and reparative therapy is a religious myth right up there with creation science. Which is to say it is a fantastic and cruel assertion unsupported by either the biblical or scientific evidence.

Also, the University does not tolerate "gay-bashing" or abusive acts on our campus. These are contrary to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ who we as Christians are called to follow.

This would appear also to be an outright falsehood, unless one refuses to consider coercion into discredited and harmful reparative therapies a form of abuse. I know from my own experience that gay bashing takes many forms; not all of them leave physical scars.

NCU prefers to distance itself from these, the least of Jesus' brothers and sisters, by characterizing them as political opportunists who have rejected attempts at "mediation", whatever that means. Their message characterized as "political", not because of what they say (which is very religious) but because they draw a link between the school's religion based discrimination and the oppression of young gays and lesbians both inside and outside the church.

NCU's inability to see that it's faith-based policies toward LGBT youth produce consequences which are fare from the fruits of Christian love—and that their refusal to see these kids as brothers and sisters in Christ rather than as part of some "homosexual agenda" to undermine Christian society—are what is truly contrary to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Posted by Mark Poole at 10:50 PM in Inspiration, Minnesota, Progressive Christianity, Queer, Religious Right