Spirit of a Liberal

The book received a pair of excellent reviews over the weekend.  “A stupendous novel” said one reviewer.  Another called it “a phenomenal novel”.

Read more …

  The blogosphere and traditional media are abuzz today with news of the ELCA Rite of Reconciliation service conducted yesterday in California.  An associated press article has appeared in traditional media across the country, and the New York Times offered its own report. 

For those new to this blog or unfamiliar with this story, here is a brief background summary.

Beginning in the early ‘90s, slowly at first but accelerating in recent years, a handful of the over 10,000 congregations of the ELCA defied church wide rostering policies that disallowed gay clergy who did not pledge celibacy.  An independent organization called Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM) came into existence to provide rostering and ordination assistance to such congregations and their extraordinarily ordained clergy.  At first, the ELCA punished these congregations by expulsion.  More recently the penalties have been less severe, but the extraordinarily ordained clergy were not recognized or placed on the active ELCA roster.

ELM joined with Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA) and Wingspan ministries to form Goodsoil, an umbrella LGBT advocacy group that has been highly visible at the biennial ELCA Church Wide Assemblies in recent years.  Their efforts came to fruition at the 2009 church wide assembly when the voting members from around the country passed a gay friendly human sexuality statement (a teaching document within the ELCA) and also revised ministry policies to allow ordination and rostering of persons in publicly accountable, lifelong, and monogamous same gender relationships.  Heeding this mandate of the voting members (the ultimate legislative authority of the ELCA), the ELCA church council implemented policies this spring that provided for a “Rite of Reconciliation” that would be the process for previously extraordinarily ordained clergy to be fully welcomed to the roster of ELCA clergy.

The Rite of Reconciliation conducted in California yesterday was the culmination of years of advocacy and the year long process of implementation of policy decisions of the ELCA churchwide assembly.  Prior to this celebratory service, the Congregation of St Francis Lutheran Church of San Francisco, one of the original dissenting congregations that had been expelled by the ELCA, voted overwhelmingly to begin the process of returning to the ELCA.  So, two momentous events occurred yesterday in California, visible signs that the ELCA has become open and welcoming to all God’s children.

The Associated Press article included the following:

Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the nation’s largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination, the Associated Press reports.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service.

The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy.

And this is from the New York Times:

With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until recently been barred from the church’s ministry.

The ceremony at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church.

“Today the church is speaking with a clear voice,” the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news conference just before it began. “All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.”

A local San Francisco newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, reported,

Seven Bay Area gay and transgender pastors were reinstated into the national Lutheran church on Sunday after being barred for two decades from serving in the denomination.

It was a day of mixed feelings for the “Bay Area Seven” – the Revs. Jeff Johnson, Megan Rohrer, Paul Brenner, Craig Minich, Dawn Roginski, Sharon Stalkfleet and Ross Merkel – who saw the event as an act of reconciliation with the church that once shunned them.

“We finally got to the direction we knew the Lutheran church was heading. It just took it longer to get there,” Johnson said.

The blog of LCNA joyfully adds:

And then, in the afternoon, at a wondrous service held in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, seven pastors on the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries roster were received onto the roster of the ELCA: Rev. Paul Richard Brenner, Rev. Jeff Robert Johnson, Rev. Ross Donald Merkel, Rev. Craig Michael Minich, Rev. Dawn Marie Roginski, Rev. Megan Marie Rohrer and Rev. Sharon Sue Stalkfleet were received.

Bishop Mark Holmerud of the Sierra Pacific Synod presided. Also participating were Bishop Dean Nelson of the Southwest California Synod, Bishop David Brauer-Rieke of the Oregon Synod, Bishop Emeritus of Southwest California Synod Paul Egertson, Bishop Emeritus Stan Olson of Sierra Pacific Synod, and Bishop Marc Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California.

There were 675 people at the celebratory service, 275 more than the sanctuary holds, necessitating seating the overage in the fellowship hall with remote TV screens. Also, hundreds more watched from home via an live online video/audio feed.
The service was one of healing and reconciliation, magnificent music, extraordinary preaching by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, one of remembering those who have gone before, and lifting up the ministry of the received pastors.

Of course, there is ample negativity expressed from the usual suspects.  According to the Times article, Mark Chavez of Lutheran CORE chimed in,

It’s just another steady step taken by the E.L.C.A. to move the denomination further and further away from most Lutheran churches around the world and from the whole Christian church, unfortunately.”

An LCMS blog (Missouri Synod), Brothers of John the Steadfast, that was the cheerleader for the recent LCMS uprising that ousted its existing conservative leadership team for an even more conservative slate, felt compelled to judge according to the following statement,

I was at a wedding reception last night and referred to the ELCA as “apostate.” Not everyone appreciated that determination. I realize it is debatable but to me, the ELCA is beyond being a mixed (heterodox) denomination. I realize there are still believing Christians in the denomination but for the life of me I cannot figure out why they stay. The ones I have talked to have admitted that neither they nor there pastors are doing anything to protest the decisions of the ELCA General Assembly. That makes no sense to me.

Thanks to Pr. Roger Gallup for alerting us to this Associated Press story. It reminds us how far the ELCA has moved away from Christ’s true word and how important it is for us in the LCMS and for all Christians, to beware of adapting the culture to the Christian faith.

And finally, in a rant reminiscent of the now discredited Pastor Thomas Brock of Minneapolis, Pastor Mark Herringshaw of North Heights megachurch of St Paul called down God’s wrath on the ELCA.  After a windy recounting of the tornado that whirled past the 2009 Churchwide assembly, which he contrasted with the absence of meteorological phenomena in San Francisco yesterday, Herringshaw’s invective concluded:

Is God’s silence and seeming consent an even darker and more terrifying judgment. Perhaps he has simply withdrawn his hand. Judgment and discipline is a form of love. But silence… That’s the most frightening judgment! … May God have mercy! And may he again show his mercy in his hand of judgment.

“Have mercy! Lord, do not remain silent! Do not leave the ELCA alone to ferment in their own folly! Act again, in judgment if need be. Just do not turn your face completely and walk away!”

UPDATE:  The sermon was offered by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver.  Her own blog, Sarcastic Lutheran, contains several excellent photos as well as text and video versions of her sermon.

This spring, I offered a blog post entitled “I have a crush on Rachel Maddow.”  Last night, she again earned my respect and hopefully that of all open-minded folks when she took on Fox News and Bill O’Reilly for their blatant twisting of the news for political effect.  Maddow said the following to O’Reilly:

your network, FOX News, continually crusades on flagrantly bogus stories designed to make white Americans fear black Americans [emphasis added], which FOX News most certainly does for a political purpose even if it upends the lives of individuals like Shirley Sherrod, even as it frays the fabric of the nation, and even as it makes the American Dream more of a dream and less of a promise.

Is MSNBC biased?  Are Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow opinionated?  Of course, but that’s not the point.  The point is journalistic integrity, and that’s an alien concept to Fox News.  Conservative billionaire Rudolph Murdock owns the network, and he can hire right-wing entertainers if that’s what he wants to do, but accepting falsified tapes and trumpeting them as newsworthy “frays the fabric of the nation’” as Maddow correctly asserts.  Troubled by the fractious political situation in America as exemplified by the tea-baggers?  Look no further than Fox News and their McCartheyesqe, fear mongering falsehoods. 

Here’s the full Maddow video clip.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A lengthy essay by Brad R Braxton (Baptist minister and seminary professor) appearing in the Huffington Post seeks to answer this question.  Since this blog purports to be about “progressive, religious themes”, we’ll pick up this thread.  Braxton writes:

According to some accounts, the term “progressive Christian” surfaced in the 1990s and began replacing the more traditional term “liberal Christian.” During this period, some Christian leaders wanted to increasingly identify an approach to Christianity that was socially inclusive, conversant with science and culture, and not dogmatically adherent to theological litmus tests such as a belief in the Bible’s inerrancy. The emergence of contemporary Christian progressivism was a refusal to make the false choice of “redeeming souls or redeeming the social order.”

Progressive Christians believe that sacred truth is not frozen in the ancient past. While respecting the wisdom of the past, progressive Christians are open to the ways truth is moving forward in the present and future for the betterment of the world. Progressive Christianity recognizes that our sacred texts and authoritative traditions must be critically engaged and continually reinterpreted in light of contemporary circumstances to prevent religion from becoming a relic.

During the recent biennial convention of Lutherans Concerned North America, I attended a breakout session for “progressive clergy” (I was a usurper since I’m not clergy), and the threshold question was raised, “what does it mean to be a religious progressive?”  Since time was limited, we didn’t explore all nuances of the question, but we quickly focused on the prophetic.  Braxton also stresses the the prophetic nature of religious progressivism.

Prophetic religion involves a willingness to interrupt an unjust status quo so that more people might experience peace and prosperity … Prophetic evangelicalism insists that Jesus came to save us not only from our personal sins but also from the systematic sins that oppress neighborhoods and nations. Jesus presented his central theme in social and political terms. He preached and taught consistently about the “kingdom of God” — God’s beloved community where social differences no longer divide and access to God’s abundance is equal.

Braxton quotes Biblical scholar Obery Hendricks:

In our time, when many seem to think that Christianity goes hand in hand with right-wing visions of the world, it is important to remember that there has never been a conservative prophet. Prophets have never been called to conserve social orders that have stratified inequities of power and privilege and wealth; prophets have always been called to change them so all can have access to the fullest fruits of life.

In response to Fox News resident idiot Glen Beck, who foolishly suggested that social justice is not in the Bible, the President of Union Theological Seminary, the Rev Dr. Serene Jones, penned a tongue in cheek response (quoted here from Telling Secrets blog):

Dear Mr. Beck,

I write with exciting news. Bibles are en route to you, even as we speak!

Kindly let me explain. On your show, you said that social justice is not in the Bible, anywhere. Oh my, Mr. Beck. At first we were so confused. We couldn’t figure out how you could possibly miss this important theme. And then it hit us: maybe you don’t have a Bible to read. Let me assure you, this is nothing to be ashamed of. Many people live Bible-less lives. But we want to help out. And so, as I write this, our students are collecting Bibles from across the nation, packing them in boxes, and sending them to your offices. Grandmothers, uncles, children, co-workers — indeed, Bible-readers from all walks of life have eagerly contributed. They should be arriving early next week, hopefully just in time for your next show. Read them with zeal!

Oh, I almost forgot: we’ve marked a few of the social justice passages, just in case you can’t find them.

What does this mean in actual practice?  How do progressive Christians live out the prophetic call to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  Of course, one could cite the progressive march toward full inclusion of the LGBTQ community that is occurring in our mainline Protestant churches.  For instance, seven LGBT pastors who were previously ordained by Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries but not by the ELCA will be received as ELCA rostered pastors through a “Rite of Reception” this coming Sunday, July 25.

Here’s another example gleaned from today’s blogosphere.  Blog friend Susan Hogan reports that “Pastors for peace head to Cuba” (ELCA critic and WordAlone President Jaynan Clark will likely flip out again in response to this report).

A caravan carrying 100 tons of “humanitarian” aid is scheduled to cross into Cuba today, leaders of Pastors for Peace said Tuesday at a news conference at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in McAllen, Texas.

The [group] has broken the U.S. embargo against Cuba 20 times previously. The embargo includes travel and trade restrictions.

Pastors for Peace is an outreach of the New York-based Interreligious Foundation for Community, which delivers aid to Latin America and the Caribbean.

And another from fellow blogger Terence Weldon on Open Tabernacle in an article entitled “Authentic Catholicism”.  While discussing the water relief efforts of an African Catholic diocese, Weldon offers the following indictment of the patriarchal, clerical, hierarchal structures of the Vatican:

To judge from either the most outspoken voices of the Catholic right, or from the anti-Catholic opposition, you could easily think that Catholicism’s most distinctive features are an insistence on blind obedience to the Pope and Catechism, and puritanical sexual ethics.  The empirical evidence from actual research, shows a very different picture … [Weldon cites two reports which gauge parishoner’s own sense of what it means to be Catholic] Once again, I do not see in there any reference to automatic obedience, still less to compliance with “official” sexual ethics. But in both these characterizations of Catholic “identity”, a sense of social responsibility and concern for the poor ranked high (emphasis added)- which is what the Ghana contribution to clean water is all about.

And then there is the silly charge by conservatives that progressives don’t uphold the moral standards of the Bible.  Jesus called his followers to a higher morality that upheld the spirit of the law often in conflict with its letter, to uplift the alien and the outcast, and to love one’s neighbor.  Braxton quotes author Amy-Jill Levine who imagines Jesus chiding a narrow minded, exclusivist Christian who wrongly believes his status is based on offering an appropriate creedal confession:

If you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew … you’ll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison …  [Jesus continues] I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John’s Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue?