Doors Are So Last Century

This is a shout out to the woman who grabbed me after my final presentation at the Open Hearts, Open Doors Conference in Duluth, Minnesota a week ago. (The mission of this annual, ecumenical conference is to assist congregations in becoming more welcoming to LGBT persons and their families. It's the first conference of this kind that I've spoken at and it was awesome to be invited.) With a furrowed brow, this lady - in her 60's or 70's - said this after spending a day and a half listening to me preach & teach:

"I don't know what I think about all this (i.e. your presentations)...It took so much work to open these doors to everyone...and now you're telling us, 'Why do you have doors at all?'...(long pause) and I think you're probably right. But I'm going to have to go home and spend some time thinking about this."

I really appreciated her honesty...and her willingness to wrestle with new ideas, including this one: Putting a sign on the front lawn of your church that says "Everybody is welcome here!" just doesn't matter...if no one "out there" can think of one good reason why they should care. In this postmodern, post-Christendom, post-ecclesiastical, post-bourgeois, post-personal, post-(you fill in the blank now) world people are no longer lining up to get through our doors. If they were, a welcome mat would be all we'd need. But they're not. They couldn't care less if "we" are ready to welcome "them" because they think we are irrelevant. And who can blame them. Mostly, we're answering questions they don't have. And it doesn't seem like we're even interested in the questions they do have. Let me say this another way: They don't think we're irrelevant because we're not welcoming them into our places of worship. They frankly don't care whether we welcome them or not because they don't believe we have anything they could possibly want or need. This is one reason I just can't get very excited about the "let's make our denomination more welcoming" project that consumes a lot of people inside every mainline church these days. It's not that I think we shouldn't be welcoming. That's a no brainer. It's just that the project to become "welcoming" is, in some really big ways, so...last century. In this new century, people "out there" don't care whether or not there is a congregation in their neighborhood that welcomes them. But I DO think they would be intrigued if they got to ACTUALLY MEET a living, breathing, believing, loving follower of Jesus on their home turf...in the house next door, in the cubicle next to them, working under the hood of their car, coaching their kid's little league team, running for city council, playing pool with them at the local pub. I think they would be really interested if they could see, in the way we ordinary Christians live and act and serve, what true freedom looks like. I think people would be moved to real curiosity if they ever found themselves in the presence of someone who shows them what it looks like to be really free...free from sin, death, and the devil (ala Martin Luther)...free from peer pressure, self-loathing, greed, bondage to material things, and all the other stuff that strangles the life out of people in this culture...free even from the suffocating politics and legalism and traditionalism of the institutional church...free to serve others, free to give themselves away to make a difference in the world, free to be the priests they were ordained to be at their baptism (no degree, no credentials necessary!), free to die to self for the sake of neighbor, free to love even their enemies! Hoekendijk again: "Rarely do our words arouse amazement, but people look up when they meet a free person who uses that freedom to serve" (1954). No one looks twice at our "welcome" signs, anymore. But heads snap when a free person walks by! In this new century, WE will be the only church that matters. Not the building. Not the pastor. Not the membership roster. Not the clergy roster. Not the rules. Not the sign on the front lawn...no matter what it says. WE are the church. I wonder what we would be fighting over, arguing about, and striving for if our heads were really wrapped around that idea.

Today's Headlines

Ten GOP presidential hopefuls went mano a mano last night, trying to win the right to represent the party of Ronald Reagan (and Honest Abe!) in the next election. Three of them - Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo - when prompted by a question from moderator Chris Matthews, 'fessed up to not believing in evolution. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070503debate,1,41504.story?coll=chi-news-hed) Huh?!? In related news, a coalition of religious leaders is pulling out all the stops to prevent a new hate crime bill from becoming the law of the land. They made national headlines this morning because the bill is making its way to the president's desk. He has threatened to veto it. Apparently, this group of "evangelical, fundamentalist, and black religious leaders" is afraid "a pastor could be held liable for giving a sermon against homosexuality if a listener later attacked a gay individual." (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070503hate,1,1847702.story?coll=chi-news-hed) Aside from being embarrassed (yet again) to be a Christian, I find this argument utterly ridiculous. I mean, really. Since when have pastors EVER been held liable for what their listeners do - or don't do? Never, that's when. Think about it. How many sermons over the centuries do you think have been preached on texts like these:

"Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." - Matthew 5:42 "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." - Matthew 5:44 "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged." - Matthew 7:1

OK, maybe not as many as Jesus might have liked. But at least a bizillion sermons have been preached on "Stewardship Sundays" on this one:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth...but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven..." - Matthew 6:19ff

And after all that hot air...not much to show for it. Come to think of it, maybe a little liability wouldn't be such a bad thing.

It's All My Fault

Just in case you thought the far right had some sort of emotional break in the actual aftermath of 9/11, when Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell told their 700 club TV audience on 9/13/2001 that the terrorist attacks were the fault of feminists, homosexuals, environmentalists, and the ACLU (no, I'm so not kidding), here we have Dinesh D'Souza - the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution - some 5 1/2 years later - surely enough time to regain lucidity - publishing a book called: "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11." The title says it all. A follow up article appeared in the national press, courtesy of USA TODAY, on January 23, 2007. Maybe you saw it. D'Souza wrote there that the real "issue" Radical Islam has with America isn't capitalism, science, or even religion. The issue is "that we are a decadent, immoral society that is projecting its culture and values throughout the world and threatening their faith." How should the Bush administration respond, D'Souza asks. The answer, our author says, is that "The best way for America to refute the radical Muslim allegaton that we are an immoral, pagan society is for the Bush administration to show the rest of the world the face of traditional America...[Bush] should not hesitate to speak out against American cultural exports that are shameless and corrupting. And American should promote traditional family values, not feminisim and homosexual rights, in international forums like the United Nations." D'Souza concludes his article by saying: "If traditional Muslims realized that there are millions of Americans who go to church, take care of their families and live by traditional values, they would be less likely to view us or our leaders as the Great Satan, and fewer of them will be tempted to join the camp of the Islamic radicals. Improving our moral reputation is not just a way to look better, it may also be the best long-term strategy to make our country safer." http://www.amazon.com/Enemy-At-Home-Cultural-Responsibility/dp/0385510128 I think this author - this book - and this paranoid perspective - is dangerous. That's why, counter-intuitively, I want you to go buy this book. Buy it and give it to one your friends who has his head in the sand. You know the one: He thinks it doesn't really matter who gets elected president. Or he thinks that our "national security" is more important than safeguarding human rights, not just here but everywhere. Or he thinks it's "just a matter of time" before we have equal rights for all Americans. Maybe you need to buy more than one copy. I'm thinking about buying one for all of my friends who think the biggest issue facing gay and lesbian people is that they can't be ordained. We have an enemy living right here in our midst. Just like the man says. This "enemy" is pointing at me (and maybe at you) and blaming us for the way the rest of the world looks at us - and hates us. And here I thought it was because of the way we keep invading their countries and killing their people and sucking up their natural resources and eating way more than our share of the world's food. Silly me.

It's Time - The Blog Entry that Started it All

Addressing the American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. yestereday, Ann Coulter used one of the F words that isn't "faith" to describe presidential candidate John Edwards. This elicited roars of approving laughter from the crowd. Edwards' campaign has responded by using the whole situation as a fundraising tool. You can read about his effort...and watch the video at: https://johnedwards.com/action/contribute/coulter. I want to know: Why isn't Edwards using the outrageous behavior of this crowd and its speaker as an opportunity to come out loud and clear in support of equal rights for all Americans, including gay and lesbian persons? I can't imagine a better chance ever coming along! Only the most bigoted, most ignorant, most mean-spirited person could watch this video clip and not be utterly horrified. Seize the moment, John! Let people see and hear it for themselves! And then tell everybody why you are committed to helping this nation be its very best self, why you will do everything in your power to bring us together around the enduring values of liberty and justice for all, why you will risk all to do the right thing. I sent him an email today and pledged to give $1000 bucks to his campaign if he does it. I told him to stop being a chicken. You see, I still have this crazy idea that our political leaders pay attention to us and that we can make a difference. But I won't be surprised if he doesn't respond. Too many of our religious and political leaders are paralyzed by fear these days. Political leaders are afraid of losing elections. Religious leaders are afraid of losing members - and their pensions. All of them are being held captive by the fundamentalist terrorists who have hijacked Christianity in this country. I'm talking here about the Christians who want to turn Jesus into a poker-faced, stick-in-the-mud, my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God, straighten-up-or-else-you’re-going-to-hell, rule-making, balls-busting, line-drawing, fear-mongering, noose-tightening, gay-bashing, reason-defying, flag-waving, saber-rattling, son-o-bitch. They use Jesus to stick it to those who are different, either because they dare to be or because they just can’t help having been born that way. They use Jesus to justify their prejudices. Prop up their platforms. Plump up their bank accounts. They use Jesus to be their excuse for the walls they build that keep “those people” out, whoever “those people” happen to be at any given point in history. And if anybody dares to question this picture of Jesus, dares to suggest that maybe we’ve gotten just a little off track, they are branded. Heretics. Pagans. Traitors. Worst of all: LIBERALS. Sometimes I wonder why the rest of us aren't rising up, in one single fluid we’re-not-going-to-take-this-anymore movement, to shout with their loudest outside voices that THIS IS NOT THE JESUS WE KNOW! But it’s time. I know there are people like me out there, people who are fed up with the way in which their churches…their faith…and the Jesus they know…have been co-opted and distorted by religious and political leaders on the right. I have met them. Some of them were hippies, back in the day. They plastered “Jesus Freak” bumper stickers across their beat up guitar cases. They went around in sandals, even in the winter, just like he did. They believed in simple living. They loved the earth. They did a lot of weird things, but they did a lot of good things, too. And, today, they seem to have lost their voices. But they do remember when being a liberal was a good thing. A holy thing, even. When “liberal” meant “generous.” Altruistic. Greathearted. They remember when Christians marched with those who were tired of sitting, if the only place they could find a seat was in the back of the bus; when Christians gave voice to the voiceless and made this nation look beyond itself in horror at a world where far too many children spend sleepless nights because their stomachs are so empty and their futures so bleak. They remember when Christians knew these verses by heart and believed them:

[The Lord] has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)?

Then [the Lord] will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40)

Do to others as you would have them do to you (Luke 6:31).

But a lot of the frustrated Christians I meet today weren’t hippies. Some of them were too old to be; some too young. A lot of them aren’t sure they like the “liberal” label at all, or any label, for that matter. A few of them even think of themselves as “conservative.” The vast majority of them are somewhere in the middle. But all of them know that something has gone desperately, horribly wrong with the Christian church in this country. They may not be able to quote the Bible. They may not know all the theological terms. They may not play the guitar and, if they have bumper stickers at all, they don’t say “Jesus Freak.” They say “Grandparents for Peace.” And “Hate is not a Family Value.” And in their hearts, where once upon a time God promised to write the holiest words, they know that the farther this nation leans to the right the more wrong we are. And it is time for us to take a stand. We're out here, John. I promise we are.