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(US) Washington DC’s Highest Court Rejects Challenge to Gay Marriage Washington DC’s highest court has rejected a challenge against the district’s equal marriage law. Same-sex marriage was legalised in the district in March but opponents wanted to put an initiative on the ballot asking voters to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
(ARGENTINA) Protests as Argentina Votes on Gay Marriage Thousands of people demonstrated in the streets today while Argentina’s Senate debated the merits of a bill. (ARGENTINA) Argentina Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage Argentina became the first Latin American country on Thursday to legalize same-sex marriage.allowing same-sex marriage.
MCC CHRIST THE LIBERATOR is a proud supporter of GARDEN STATE EQUALITY At our 30th Anniversary Celebration, we gave our CTL FREEDOM AWARD to STEVEN GOLDSTEIN, GSE Chair
MCC CHRIST THE LIBERATOR...embraces the 8 Points of Progressive Christianity. www.tcpc.org
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we are Christians who...
1. Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us. 3. Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples.
4. Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including ...
5. Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.
6. Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes.
7. Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's ...
8. Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.
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“Homosexuality in the World Religions”Part 5 of a Series
When one examines homosexuality in Buddhism, the religion founded upon the spiritual awakening of Siddhartha Gautama (“the Buddha”) in India ca. 540 b.c.e., it is important to realize that there is a “dearth” of scholarship regarding Buddhism and sexuality. Gautama, disillusioned with Hinduism, found through meditation that one’s worldly pain ceases when one is able to overcome earthly cravings through moral and spiritual discipline. Thus, according to the Buddhist mindset, the “best” or most successful Buddhist is a celibate monk who is undistracted by the pleasures of the world or the flesh, hence its emphasis upon world denial and renunciation. From India, Buddhism spread into China and Japan; modern Buddhism is primarily descended from the Buddhisms of Tibet and Japan.
Buddhism is a religion of diversity and adaptability, however, and one consequently finds different attitudes, customs, and religious practices, depending upon the culture of the geographical locale. For example, Indian Buddhism was essentially neutral on the subject of homosexuality; this basic neutrality was the foundation upon which developed the toleration of sexual diversity in other Buddhist cultures and the actual extolling of male love in Buddhist Japan.
Implicit in many of the views against homosexuality expressed in the other world religions is an underlying sexism and misogyny, which manifests itself in disdain, hostility, and outright violence against those who are perceived as acting like women (i.e., male homosexuals) or subverting gender expectations (i.e., lesbians). In many ways, Buddhism has avoided this due to its basic teaching that gender, like caste or class, posed no barrier to religious freedom, which was a revolutionary assertion in its historical context. Nevertheless, as Buddhism adapted itself to the various cultures in which it was situated, there were varying attitudes of repression and tolerance both of women and of homosexual activity. Thus, we find the attitude that any sexual activity that deflects one from a spiritual path is to be avoided but that heterosexual relations within marriage are permitted due to the need for procreation. However, one also sees the extolling of same-sex love (as in Islam), the acceptance of same-sex genital activity, and an ambivalence toward those who are considered a type of “third sex.”
Historically Japan has been the Buddhist environment most accepting of same-sex relations. Pederastic relations and noble love (shudo or nanshoku) between an adult male and an adolescent boy flourished in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries of the Common Era under the rule of the samurai and did not become an object of prohibition until the modernization and industrialization (i.e., westernization) of Japan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier arrived in Japan in 1549, he was horrified by the widespread practicing of the “sin abhorred by nature,” particularly in the Buddhist monasteries; religious acceptance of homosexuality was so established that Lord Yoshitaka cast the Jesuits out of his presence when they began to preach on “the sin of Sodom.” It has been suggested that the widespread homosexuality among Japanese Buddhist monks was considered by them a “way out” of the contradiction between the traditional injunction to celibacy and the avoidance of women and the Tantric encouragement of sexuality.
Modern Buddhist attitudes toward homosexuality are ambiguous. The Four Noble Truths and the Middle Way are espoused by the majority of Buddhists in Mahayana Buddhism, which one may refer to as the “lay” movement, while Theravada Buddhism is the monastic strand. In examining these attitudes, one must again divorce oneself from modern western views of sexual orientation; for example, the Pali canon from Theravada Buddhism contains references that disapprove of homosexual behavior. However, these do not match contemporary notions of homosexuality or homosexual people and must be understood against the general disdain for all sexuality found in Theravada, which is concerned with clerical celibacy, seeing any sort of lust as a betrayal of dispassionate equanimity; homosexual and heterosexual acts are viewed as equally repugnant. Mahayana attitudes vacillate between the conservative belief that homosexual tendencies result from a willful sin which can controlled, and the liberal belief that those who reveal a proclivity for same-sex affinity “can’t help it” and are paying for something in a past life.
Contemporary Buddhist groups in America have been sporadically welcoming and rejecting of gay and lesbian adherents. On the one hand, Buddhism has an attractiveness for gay and lesbian refugees from Christianity, due to the widespread misapprehension that Buddhism is silent on the issue of homosexuality, leading to the formation of exclusively gay/lesbian Buddhist groups. On the other hand, there has been intolerance from those who have been Buddhist for longer duration, who see this as a “fad” and a gay/lesbian co-opting of their tradition. Moreover, there has been recent controversy as to the status of gay and lesbian people in Buddhism due to remarks made by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who stated in an interview that sexual acts involving the mouth and the anus as well as masturbation are examples of sexual misconduct for Buddhists. His Holiness has since added that even though he stands by his statements, to persecute or discriminate against any person is antithetical to the spirit of Buddhism.
For Further Reading:Jose Ignacio Cabezon, ed., Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (State University of New York Press, 1992) Bernard Faure, The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Princeton University Press, 1998) Winston Leyland, ed., Queer Dharma: Voices of Gay Buddhism (Gay Sunshine Press, 1998)
Wishing You Peace and Joy, ~Rev. Tom~
Rev. Dr. Tom Bohache Pastor, MCC Christ the Liberator "Living Whole / Living Full / Living Free" North Brunswick, New Jersey, USA http://www.mccctl.com Cell Phone (302) 745-7909
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“Homosexuality in the World Religions”Part 4 of a Series
“Hinduism,” the term used by Western students of religion for the traditional religion of India, is really not one faith but many. Thus, it is not surprising that there is no one attitude or text regarding homosexual relations in Hinduism. In general, Hinduism is possibly the most sex-positive religion in the world. One of the reasons for the splitting off of Buddhism and Jainism from Hinduism was that both valued asceticism and celibacy, which their founders did not believe Hinduism afforded. In India, the literature of sex is believed to be of divine origin, creation itself having resulted from divine sexual arousal: “In the beginning there was desire, which was the primal germ of the mind” (Rg Veda, X, 129). On the Indian subcontinent almost all forms of sexual behavior were practiced or encouraged by one sect or another, due to the predominant belief that all desire was holy if the mind was pure.
According to the first Upanishad (another scripture of Hinduism), sex is ritual and ceremonial. The Indians regarded the male semen as having mystical powers, and certain texts directed how spilled semen was to be cleaned up so as not to be wasted. Swallowing of semen (but not the act of fellatio itself) was strictly forbidden. A method of coitus reservatus, whereby the urethra was pressed at orgasm so that the semen would not be expelled, was counseled due to the belief that it was sacred fluid and should therefore remain in the body unless one was seeking conception. Thus, one finds that, unlike Judeo-Christianity, traditional Indian religion did not believe that sexual activity was for procreation only. This would therefore open the way for a more accepting view of homosexuality, which is demonstrated in the following attitude toward anal intercourse: The anus is one of the most important chakras in the body, the source of artistic, poetic, and mystical faculties; therefore, anal intercourse is seen as a way of stimulating that chakra. This attitude is not the only one to be found, however. There is ambivalence among certain Hindu sects; for example, followers of Manu said that men who engaged in anal intercourse with other men were reborn unable to procreate. It is reported that lesbianism was punished (probably because it did not involve the sacred semen) and that during certain periods male homosexual acts required some sort of cleansing bath. In interpretations of mythological tales, “intercourse” between females is said to result in a child which will lack bones and just be a ball of flesh.
Certain motifs in Hindu mythology, while not involving homosexual acts per se, nevertheless do involve issues that are tangential to discussions of homoeroticism. For example, androgyny, an actual change of physical gender, and masquerading as the opposite gender are characteristics of the god Shiva found in Indian literature. Shiva’s “ambiguous sexuality” first appears in the Mahabharata (another sacred text), ca. 300 b.c.e. Hindu ritual was filled with eroticism, and one obvious way for the male worshiper to visualize an erotic relationship with a male god would be through homosexual imagery. Additionally, one finds male gods such as Vishnu serially transforming themselves into women and having sex with male humans. Clearly, the nature of gender is much more fluid in the East than in the West!
Hinduism has also recognized a form of sacred prostitution, whereby a male could have a sexual encounter with a female temple attendant in order to make a connection with a male god. However, a far more widespread phenomenon is the religious coupling with “boy” prostitutes and those who are considered “third sex” or “female men” (a phenomenon also found in indigenous religions), the most common examples of which are the hijra and the kliba. Hijras are males and physically indeterminate individuals in present-day Pakistan and northern India who worship a mother goddess figure and live together in collectives. As those who are “between genders,” they trace their origin to the fourth book of the Mahabharata and fulfill a religious role for many Hindus by calling down the goddess’ blessing upon newlyweds and newborn males. Some are actually transgendered rather than homosexual, inasmuch as they practice ritual castration; these are not regarded as women, however, but as a third gender. Many also engage in secular prostitution for their livelihood.
The kliba is a different, though possibly related category of individuals that includes a wide range of meanings under the general homophobic rubric of “a man who does not act the way a man should act,” a man who fails to “be a man.” It is a catchall term that ancestral Hindu culture coined to indicate those who are in some way sexually dysfunctional – the sterile, impotent, castrated, transvestites, hermaphrodites, and those with mutilated or defective organs or who produce only female children. Hindu scholar Wendy Doniger notes that “[w]hen a culture does not want to confront an issue, it produces a haze of obfuscating terms that can be used for a wide range of pejorative purposes. Cultures are often nervous and vague about extremes of sexuality and tend to equate them rather than look closely at them. Kliba is such a term. Thus, though it is often correctly pointed out that Hindus recognize a third sex, this should not be adduced to imply that Hindus approve of this third sex or use it to counteract what we think of as ‘Western’ dualism and homophobia. Hindu ideas about homosexuality and klibas do not support a gay agenda.”
What Doniger says is true. Despite some textual and mythological openness toward homoeroticism on the one hand, there is still present in modern India a negativity toward homosexual acts. This may be due to the British bringing homophobic cultural assumptions with them when they began to occupy India. Moreover, encounters with Greeks, Muslims, and the British over time may have persuaded the Indians that “homosexuality” as a cultural phenomenon was a foreign influence having nothing at all in common with the homoeroticism in Hindu texts. Thus, homosexuality has come to be identified increasingly as characteristic of the dominant, non-Indian minorities and therefore reprehensible by association; Ghandi himself is said to have denounced homosexuality as a Western influence. In closing, I would like to made explicit a characteristic of Hindu attitudes toward same-sex love that could be inferred from the invisibility of lesbians in my discussion: Since India has been and continues to be a patriarchal society practicing male-dominated religion, lesbianism is scarcely a “blip” on Hindu’s radar-screen. Even though the feminine divine is widely worshiped, there is still a reliance on traditional, stereotypical male-female gender roles for human beings, as indicated by the creation of a “third sex” to account for those who do not fit neatly into structured gender categories.
For Further Reading:Wendy Doniger, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India (University of Chicago Press, 1999) Serena Nanda, Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijra of India (Wadsworth, 1990) Geoffrey Parrinder, Sexual Morality in the World’s Religions (Oneworld Publications, 1980)
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“Homosexuality in the World Religions”Part 3 of a Series for GLBTQ Pride
Islam originates from the same “family tree” as Judaism and Christianity, that is, from the patriarch Abraham. However, whereas the other two monotheistic faiths of the world trace their origin from Abraham’s primary wife, Sarah, Muslims believe by tradition that they are descended from Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar.
The primary source of Islam – its revealed scripture, Al-Qur’an – is very explicit in its condemnation of homosexuality, leaving scarcely any loophole for a theological accommodation of homosexuals in Islam. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, one finds in Islam neither theological discussion of homosexuality nor any attempt to include gay and lesbian Muslims in the faith. Muslims believe that the precepts of their religion were directly revealed by God (Allah) to the prophet Muhammed, who then “recited” (the meaning of Qur’an) these revelations verbatim; thus, Muslims leave no room for the kind of interpretation or textual criticism found in Judaism or Christianity, since for them the words of the Qur’an are the direct, unedited, inerrant words of God. Thus, in discussing the story of Sodom, the Qur’an in Surah 26 states: “What! Do you come to the males from among the creatures, and leave what your Lord has created for you of your wives? Nay, you are a people exceeding limits.” Muhammed here relates God’s view that men were not using the wives God gave them (highlighting the Muslim demand for strict fidelity in marriage). The Qur’an does not provide for a specific punishment for homosexual offenders, in contrast with other activities for which severe punishments are specified; it merely states that those guilty of homosexual acts should be punished and then left alone, for Allah is merciful.
Subsequent to Muhammed’s death, however, the religion of Islam was developed and administered by others, and two types of rules were adduced: (1) shari’a, the legal code developed by Islamic legal scholars based upon the Qur’an, which has become the civil law in countries such as Iran; and (2) hadith, sayings attributed to the Prophet which do not actually appear in the Qur’an. Both shari’a and hadith are condemnatory of homosexual acts; there are hadith that require the death penalty. Nevertheless, the prohibition seems to have applied only when both participants in an act are Muslim; since Islam means “submission” to God, for one Muslim man to “submit” to another’s penis would be idolatrous. However, part of the concept of “Holy War” (jihad) involved making non-Muslim men submit to anal intercourse, so from an outsider’s perspective there appears a deep contradiction in Islam between belief and practice.
This same contradiction is played out in actual Islamic society: Traditional and modern Arab states and non-Arab Muslim ones (except for Iran) have not attempted to remove homosexual behavior or practitioners from society. This is perhaps due to the requirement of shari’a that there be multiple (as many as four) eyewitnesses for guilt to be pronounced; only public transgression is condemned. Moreover, it is often difficult for an outsider to distinguish between what is genuinely secret and what is simply not politely discussed. The prevailing sentiment in many parts of the Muslim world seems to be “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it comes to homosexual behavior: Homosexual acts are virtually ignored unless they interfere with the continuing of the family line or the loss of property; most of those who engage in homosexual activity would not consider themselves “gay” in the Western sense. Overall, Islam is considered a rather sex-positive religion in comparison to other monotheistic faiths; however, all sexual activity must be within legal matrimony or concubinage, and chastity is regarded as the mark of a true believer.
Lesbian activity is even harder to detect in Muslim culture, inasmuch as its sexual mores are still tied up with patriarchal rules of marriage, dowry, and concubinage, in which the male (father, husband, or brother) has total control of a woman’s sexuality. Furthermore, in societies such as Iran where shari’a is the civil law, lesbianism is completely “hushed up”; to admit to lesbian desires would be an unforgivable crime since it does not respect the supposed hierarchy instituted by Allah in creation. Subsequent to the Khomeini revolution, Iran began enforcing the death penalty for homosexuality for both women and men.
Nevertheless, alongside the legal condemnation of homosexual acts, there has been the exaltation of same-sex love (especially between males as a noble ideal) in Islamic literature, especially in Sufi mysticism. Chaste romantic love seems to have been acceptable, and there is a tradition that the Prophet himself even loved young men but disapproved of any sexual manifestation of this attraction. There is thus a dichotomy in modern Islam between acts and emotions, reminiscent of the Christian “love the sinner, hate the sin” stance which allows homosexual orientation but not genital expression.
The final comment that must be made in a discussion of Islam and homosexuality is that one will probably never find the type of gay and lesbian movements in this faith that one sees in other religions. This is because of a deep-rooted suspicion of Western ideas in the Arab/Muslim world. Some devout Muslims see gay and lesbian orientation as yet another Western importation, alongside feminism, monogamy, and McDonald’s. (In Iran, such Westernization has been derided as “Westoxication.”) Islamic scholar Khalid Duran, who now teaches in the West, believes that the best hope for those Muslims who self-identify as gay or lesbian is to seek “theological accommodation” by establishing a new shari’a derived from the Prophet’s teachings on justice (much like the gay and lesbian Christian apologetic which seeks to overcome the biblical prohibitions through recourse to the love ethic of Jesus).
For Further Reading:Shahid Dossani, “Being Muslim and Gay,” in Que(e)rying Religion: A Critical Anthology, ed. Gary David Comstock and Susan E. Henking (Continuum, 1997) Khalid Duran, “Homosexuality and Islam,” in Homosexuality and World Religions, ed. Arlene Swidler (Trinity Poress International, 1993) Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, eds., Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature (New York University Press, 1997)
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“Homosexuality in the World Religions”Part 2 of a Series for GLBTQ Pride
Last week, in beginning the discussion of homosexuality in the world religions, we looked at how Judaism has regarded same-sex behavior, concluding that any supposed condemnation results from a narrow reading of the Levitical Holiness Code that was established to keep the Hebrew nation “pure” and undefiled once they came into contact with non-Jews. When one turns to Christianity, the traditional prohibition of homosexual acts is the same, but the scriptural emphasis is different. In addition, within Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism have addressed the issue of homosexuality in different ways and with varying emphases.
Christian tradition sees the story of the destruction of Sodom as the ur-text for the prohibition of homosexual activity. Even though the Bible itself interprets the Sodom story as an indictment of godless wickedness and inhospitality, nevertheless, beginning sometime after the books of the Old Testament were composed and before the New Testament was compiled, interpretations of this story began to change, continuing into the early centuries of Christianity. “Sodomy” became a synonym for homosexual activity, while “sodomite” became the term for those who indulged in such activity. This may be seen in the fact that many translations of the Bible use the word “sodomite” anachronistically to refer to those who commit same-sex acts, when in biblical times a “sodomite” would have merely referred to an inhabitant of Sodom.
This attitude was strengthened by two passages in the New Testament in which the apostle Paul condemns relations between those of the same sex; it is believed that Jesus never addressed the subject. Modern interpreters of these passages have focused on their social and historical context: Paul addressed Christians in the cosmopolitan cities of Rome and Corinth who were living amid practices that Paul believed would lead them away from their commitment to God in Christ. Thus, in Romans 1:26-27, Paul writes:
Therefore, God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (New Revised Standard Version)
The first verse is said to be the only place in the Bible where lesbianism is addressed; however, this is not a unanimous opinion. Lesbianism is assumed here only by analogy to what follows regarding men’s relations with one another. Paul uses that term “unnatural” to refer to the acts of both the women and the men. Nevertheless, this does not mean that he is referring to homosexual relations in both instances. The key to understanding these verses is what would have been considered “natural” in Paul’s day. In a patriarchal culture obsessed with gender roles and women remaining “in their place” (“under” the man, both literally and figuratively), it is more likely that Paul was referring to women being aggressive in their sexuality and performing heterosexual acts such as oral and anal sex that were considered “unnatural” because they did not involve either procreation or female passivity. As regards the men, “unnatural” relations in Paul’s day most likely involved the aversion to penetration of one man by another and to men assuming a passive role toward another man.
The other Pauline text used to condemn homosexuality for Christians is I Corinthians 6:9, where, in discussing the various types of people who will not merit entry into the kingdom of God, Paul states:
Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes [Greek malakoi], sodomites [Greek arsenokoitai], thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. (NRSV)
The difficulty with this passage is the two words malakoi and arsenokoitai, which are translated imprecisely in all version of the Bible and sometimes even conflated as though they were one word (e.g., “homosexual offenders” in the New International Version), betraying the ambiguity involved in these Greek words.
In the original Greek, they are two separate words of uncertain meaning. Malakoi (which simply means “soft” and must therefore be interpreted by the reader) could refer to those who were weak-willed or lacking in self-control; it is a term used by later Catholic and Protestant authors to refer to those who masturbate. It is possible that it referred to men who were “soft” in the sense of being “effeminate” (and thus in a patriarchal society looked down upon for not acting like “real men”), suggesting to some scholars that Paul is referring to the passive partner in a pederastic relationship.
Arsenokoitai (which comes from the words for “male” and “bed”) is a compound that was apparently coined by Paul, created to stand for a particular group in Corinth. Who this group is has been a matter of conjecture. One view is that if malakoi refers to the passive partner in a pederastic relationship, then arsenokoitai must refer to the active partner. Another position holds that Paul is discussing so-called cultic “prostitutes” in service at the pagan temples in Corinth, thus associating this term with a phenomenon of worship involving sexual acts between the worshiper and the temple attendants, both male and female. However, to me it is irresponsible to rest this argument on a phenomenon as disputed and misunderstood as that of temple prostitution; if there were indeed sexual acts performed in the context of pagan worship, to call them acts of prostitution displays a Western sex-negativity and an intolerance of other forms of worship.
Having examined Christianity’s scriptural prohibitions of homosexuality, it is important to note that these scriptures were not really discussed or subjected to historical critical interpretation until the mid-1950s; since then there has been a significant amount of study devoted to this topic. However, for the majority of the Christian Era, these texts were read literally, especially in Protestantism, as definitive condemnation of homosexual acts. In the past thirty years, however, many Christians have begun to question the correctness of the churches’ prohibition of homosexuality. Although conservative and fundamentalist Protestant churches exclude homosexuals entirely, caucuses have been formed in many of the major denominations to address the issue and to provide ministry for gay and lesbian persons. Some denominations are welcoming and affirming of gays and lesbians in every way, while others claim to be welcoming but still exclude gays and lesbians from the clergy and from marriage. Roman Catholicism has fortified its scriptural prohibition of same-sex affinity with a theology of natural law as enunciated by Thomas Aquinas, whereby acts not found “in nature” and which did not lead to procreation were consequently not of God. The Vatican has continued to insist that active homosexuality is incompatible with Catholic salvation, while at the same time urging an attitude of compassion for gay and lesbian persons.
For Further Reading:Bernadette J. Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, University of Chicago Press, 1996 Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament, The Pilgrim Press, 2003 Gareth Moore, A Question of Truth: Christianity and Homosexuality, Continuum, 2003 Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, Fortress Press, 1998
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“Homosexuality in the World Religions”Part 1 of a Series for GLBTQ Pride Month
In discussing homosexuality in the world religions, one must begin by acknowledging that the term homosexuality has only been in use for a little over one hundred years, while sexual orientation is of even later origin. Further, homosexuality as a category usually reflects a Judeo-Christian cosmology in which persons are divided into homosexuals (male/male and female/female affiliation) and heterosexuals (male/female affiliation); this is not necessarily so in other cultures. In order to enter into meaningful dialogue beyond a North American and Western European milieu, one must differentiate between one who “engages in homosexual activity” and one who “is a homosexual,” for the phenomenon of same-sex sexual activity is universal, while such categorization is not. By condemning or accepting such behavior, religion has attached value to it. Power is bestowed upon what is different: When this difference is viewed negatively, that power manifests itself in classification as taboo or sin; if the difference is regarded positively, that power results in sanctification of the individuals involved. Thus, in addition to being shunned and punished, those involved in homoeroticism have also played an important role throughout the world when it comes to religious ritual and celebration.
It has been remarked that, compared to Christianity and Islam, Judaism is a sex-positive religion. This might be true from a heterosexual perspective: Ancient Hebrew tradition placed great emphasis upon the family, as might be expected in a society that valued its place in the world and, due to deaths from illness and warfare, needed to be constantly vigilant regarding the propagation of the race. However, the ancients were also very clear that any sexual act that did not result in the man’s semen being placed in the woman’s vagina was proscribed, and, in a religiously-focused society, this prohibition was called a “sin.” Moreover, there was ignorance regarding biology and anatomy that allowed the ancients to believe that the woman contributed nothing genetically to a child other than her body as a virtual incubator and that the entire person was included in the man’s semen. Thus, activity such as masturbation, coitus interruptus, anal intercourse, and oral gratification was regarded as not only sinful but also murderous, since these acts involved the “wasting” of the seed that contained the new life. With this tremendous emphasis upon progeny, barren women were greatly looked down upon, and those men who did not procreate such as eunuchs were barred from participation in Hebrew ritual.
In the patriarchal society that was Israel, there was a tremendous importance placed upon gender roles, and many of the biblical injunctions against homosexual acts and other gender-related issues such as cross-dressing originate in the belief that men should be men and women should be women. The God-given distinctions between the sexes must not be blurred, and, since men were believed to be the very image of God, acts that were seen as dishonoring another’s manhood were believed to dishonor God “Himself.” Further, as in many of the world’s religions, the reasoning behind the prohibition was very much connected to patriarchal abhorrence of anal penetration. Thus, the Holiness Code of the Torah states in Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” This is the biblical injunction upon which Judaism’s prohibition of homosexuality is based; its companion verse, Leviticus 20:13, establishes the death penalty for its commission (although scholars are almost certain that this penalty has never been carried out in Judaism, but was instead taken up by medieval Christianity).
This prohibition is in the Torah to remind the Hebrew nation that they are to be “separate” (the root meaning of “holy,” qdsh) and not commit various acts that are indulged in by their Canaanite and Egyptian neighbors; the story of the destruction of Sodom (Genesis 19) is used by the sages as an example of non-Israelites whose general wickedness was manifested in their antisocial behavior toward divine visitors. Throughout the centuries, however, this Levitical prohibition has been subject to expansion and commentary by interpreters both ancient and modern; for example, Talmudic law extends the punishment to lesbian acts, which are not addressed anywhere in the Hebrew Bible.
Despite the prohibitions that have taken center-stage in most discussions of homosexuality and the Hebrew Bible, nevertheless, gay scholar Ted Jennings has recently shown that many traditional stories in our “Old Testament” may be read homoerotically. Thus, his analysis has suggested that stories dealing with Saul and David, David and Jonathan, Joseph and his coat of many colors, Jephthah’s daughter, Ruth and Naomi, and Elijah and Elisha contain elements which may be “queered.”
In the medieval and modern periods, Jewish legal and religious arguments have consistently rejected arguments that homosexuality is a disease or morally neutral, insisting that it is within the person’s ability to choose whether to engage in behavior that is sinful and biblically prohibited. In recent decades, however, there has been a lessening of this attitude among some segments of Judaism. While Orthodox Judaism still seems fixed in its condemnation of homosexuality, the Reform and Reconstructionist movements have sought to read the biblical and rabbinical injunctions in their societal context, noting that gay and lesbian lifestyles and orientation were not present in ancient societies. Conservative Judaism’s stance varies by congregation, with some synagogues retaining Orthodox beliefs, while others lean toward Reform and Reconstructionist understandings. Additionally, it has been suggested that, when the emphasis on compulsory procreation is eased in a modern context, perhaps the condemnation of homosexuality is unnecessary. This attitude is seen most tangibly in the establishment of gay and lesbian Jewish synagogues (such as Congregation Bet Mishpachah in Washington, D.C.) and the decision by the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 2000 to allow their members to officiate at same-sex unions.
For Further Reading:Lewis John Eron, “Homosexuality and Judaism,” in Homosexuality and World Religions, edited by Arlene Swidler, Trinity Press International, 1993 Tom Horner, Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times, Westminster Press, 1978 Immanuel Jakobovitz, “Homosexuality,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 8, Macmillan, 1971Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel, Continuum, 2005 Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, Fortress Press, 1998
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
It is a cliché that one should never discuss politics or religion. Nevertheless, many in our community seem quite comfortable discussing politics, but run for the door when religion is mentioned. One of the statements I hear frequently is, “I’m not religious; I’m spiritual,” and I have to say that this sentiment makes me cringe. Why? Because it reminds me of what a good “hatchet-job” organized religion has done on oppressed people, whether they be women, people of color, lesbians, bisexuals, gay men, the transgendered, or simply people of intellect of whatever color, gender, or sexuality who want to think for themselves without being tyrannized. I think it is unfortunate that many folks believe that it is an “either/or” proposition: Either one may be spiritual, or one may be religious, but never the twain shall meet. I have felt this myself at various times in my life, but have come to the conclusion in recent years that this situation can be a “both/and”: It is possible to be both religious and spiritual.
People have debated this for centuries; universities give specialized degrees in the philosophy and sociology of religion. Thinkers in most of the world’s major faith traditions have addressed the issue. What’s the difference? Quite simply, the difference is not one of organization or tradition or even belief. The difference between being spiritual and being religious is whether we relate to a Higher Power/Source/Force/God as individuals or in community.
Spirituality is what we do in our deepestheart-of-hearts, in our spirits, in our souls. We are being spiritual whenever we pray, meditate, study or read about Spirit (whatever we choose to call Him/Her/It). Religion is what we do when we move out of our individual selves and connect with a sister or a brother or a group. Thus, religious activity takes place in study groups, retreats, 12-Step meetings, yoga sessions, churches, synagogues, mosques, ashrams, meditation chapels, temples, or covens. Hopefully, some of these religious activities are spiritual, in the sense of putting us as individuals in touch with Spirit, but it is not necessarily so: Many religious experiences retard Spirit rather than empower It; and, on the contrary, many religious experiences are extremely spiritual merely by virtue of the fact that they are shared experiences.
In making this distinction, what I am getting at is that religion does not have to be a good or bad thing; in and of itself, religion is value-neutral. (Etymologically, “religion” comes from the Latin re-ligio, and simply means a “binding-back” to our common origins.) It is more a matter of the quality of one’s experience rather than its physical properties or description. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Why throw the bathwater out at all? Why not work toward making every religious experience among people a quality experience of Spirit? Why not try moving out of our individual comfort zones and bridging the gap between people? It is so easy to “cop-out” and use our anti-religious bias as an excuse for remaining solitary people; or, to use our narrow view of what religion is to exclude people or disempower their spirituality. However, as Shug tells Celie in TheColor Purple, wanting to be religious is simply “sharing a good thing.” It is not that we meet God or the Divine or the Ultimate only in a church or only among people. We can do so on the beach, on a mountain, or in the shower! Rather, our spiritual experience can challenged and deepened when it becomes a shared experience, and this, my friends, is what religion is all about.
Wishing You Peace and Joy, ~Rev. Tom~
For further reading:
-- Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, translated by James Strachey (Norton, 1989; originally published 1928)
-- John Hick, ed., Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion (Prentice-Hall, 3rd edition 1990)
-- William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Vintage Books, 1990; originally published 1907)
-- Grace Jantzen, Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion (Indiana University Press, 1999)
-- Mark Thompson, ed., Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning (St. Martin’s Press, 1987)
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
A couple of weeks ago my husband Tom and I, because of his Easter break from school, were actually able to go out and do something together! So we ventured outside the confines of our house; but did we take a walk, enjoy nature, do something romantic? No! Instead we did what we find stimulating for us and went to Barnes and Noble! Ever bargain-hunting bookworms, we made our way into the vast store and went our separate ways. I checked out the sections marked “Spirituality, Inspiration, Recovery, and Self-Help,” but found that this part of the store was so crowded I could not even get close enough to see the book titles.
Later on, I found myself ruminating on that experience. Why is it that people flock to these types of books? Why do nonfiction bestseller lists always feature a combination of spiritual, self-help, and diet books? Why do Dr. Phil and Oprah get such high ratings? I think it’s because human beings are so desperate for a “quick fix” to solve all our problems. Living in a fast-food, internet, reality TV culture, we are used to having things come to us quickly, without waiting. As the late comedienne Thelma Ritter once said about the new medium of television, “They don’t want it good; they want it Tuesday!”
When it comes to spirituality, though, I don’t think one can get a quick fix. Sure, we can read books that give us a sure-fire plan for success and happiness. But, as they say in AA, it is still up to each one of us to “do the footwork.” Developing a plan or program for spiritual fulfillment takes time; it is often a lifetime quest. I like to think of it as a journey: We start off, we wander, we take short-cuts and detours, we look for places to pause. We encounter peaks and valleys, oases and desert territory. Sometimes we cut short the journey before reaching the destination; often we just sit down by the side of the road and give up. But the journey goes on, if we are serious about wanting that spiritual fulfillment.
There are many ways to develop a spiritual plan, but each requires consistency and dedication. Like learning a language, spirituality must be practiced every day in order to become familiar and effective. The three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – encourage adherents to both read the scriptures (Bible and/or Quran) and to pray. Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism recommend meditation and contemplation as well as spiritual readings. Native and earth-centered traditions include rituals of various sorts, chanting, and self-introspection. Some spiritual paths are communal; others are solitary. Some are organized into hierarchical churches or focus on the leader of the group, while others such as twelve-step groups concentrate on principles rather than personalities. Spring and summer are wonderful times to embark on a spiritual plan. There’s plenty of opportunity for solitude: walking in the woods or at the shore, sitting on your deck or porch, gardening or yard work, swimming or other exercise. I don’t think the type of path or whether it fits into traditional religion or spirituality is important; what is important is that the journey is begun.
Wishing You Peace and Joy, ~Rev. Tom~
Recommended Reading:
· Diana L. Eck, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras (Beacon Press, 2nd edition 2003)
· Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ (Riverhead Books, 1995)
· Tom F. Driver, The Magic of Ritual (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CTL-SPIRIT #9 / April 23, 2009
“Connect To Life in the Spirit”
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
I recently read a book by Stephen Prothero entitled Religious Literacy: What EveryAmerican Needs to Know—and Doesn’t (HarperCollins, 2007). Prothero, chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University, believes that it is a shame that very few people anymore are as religiously proficient as most Americans used to be. He relates that he has given “religious literacy” quizzes to student in his introductory religion courses, and they have failed miserably. The quiz results are humorous; for example, one person believed that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, while another thought Jesus had parted the red sea. Some believed that Isaiah was one of the four gospels, while another thought the four evangelists were John, Paul, George, and Ringo! As amusing as this is, nevertheless it is also a shame, for, as Prothero asserts persuasively, even though the United States is no longer a Christian country (if it ever was), many of the cultural trappings we take for granted were founded upon Judeo-Christian roots. We turn our back on religion at our peril, for the majority of the world’s disagreements in fact have religious components. Moreover, the founders of the American republic and the framers of the Constitution, even as they were providing for a separation of church and state, were nevertheless very proficient in religious matters (John Adams was a minister!); what they were after was no an irreligious nation, but rather one in which no religion was given any priority over another.
Prospero contends that there are several reasons for Americans’ lack of religious knowledge: When Protestants have sought to band together against Catholics and Jews in the past, they have needed to downplay the doctrinal differences that made them Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, or Baptist. The same goes today when Protestants and Catholics join in religious dialogue with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists; they need to find common ground upon which they can agree, which frequently involves morality (doing good to others, preserving the planet, etc.) rather than beliefs (Jesus was God, Mohammed was the greatest prophet, etc.). Another cause of Christians’ lack of knowledge about their own faith, according to Prospero, was the emphasis placed upon a personal relationship with Jesus during the Second Great Awakening in the 1800s. Faith was trumpeted as the be-all and end-all; you didn’t have to know anything, just believe. We see this today when so many evangelicals harp about Jesus on every issue from abortion to capital punishment to gay marriage, but seem woefully unprepared when it comes to discussing the events of Jesus’ life. Sometimes folks quote the Bible without having the faintest idea what the words mean or why they were written in the first place.
With this in mind, I would like to challenge you to start learning something new about religion. Have you ever picked up the Quran? Do you know anything about eastern religions? Do you read the Bible with an eye toward understanding its context, or just to get through it because you’ve been told you should read it? Do you know the meaning of such key Christian concepts as “justification,” “sanctification,” “original sin,” or “biblical inerrancy”? What’s the difference between the Virgin Birth and the Immaculate Conception? What are the three types of Judaism (or are there four)? What are Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths?
There are many ways to start learning. There are lots of books that recommend themselves, especially those by Bishop John Shelby Spong of New Jersey, who is on a self-proclaimed mission to reclaim a place in Christianity for those intellectuals who find themselves “in exile.” Individual, private learning is important. But so is corporate learning—the kind you can’t really do during a 20-minute sermon on Sundays when there is no forum for asking questions. I’d like to suggest that you take a look at one of our new CTL Connect-to-Life groups. The Friday night group, led by Teresa Haering, is looking at prayer and meditation practices common to eastern religions and Christianity. The Wednesday night groups, which begin next week, led by me, will specifically focus on imparting knowledge about the Bible and Christianity. We will begin with a basic overview, such as you would receive in a college-level introductory religion course—who wrote the Bible, when, where, and how; what are its components; how was it published; how do we read it; what translation is best; etc.
At the start there will be two Wednesday groups, which are geographically based: The first, serving the northern part of our congregation, will gather on the last Wednesday of the month at Betsy and Debbie’s home in Metuchen (beginning April 29th at 7:00 PM). The second, serving the central part of our congregation, will take place on the first Wednesday of the month at the Church Office in North Brunswick (beginning May 6th at 7:00 PM). These two sessions will be identical in content; choose whichever is more convenient for you. I hope to add a third in the southern part of our congregation in the near future. (Maybe you would like to host one?)
In addition to helping us all learn more and get to know one another better, these groups will be excellent ways to grow the church. Try bringing a friend whom you think might want to learn something new; maybe this group will in turn whet his or her appetite to get more involved with our church. Let me know what you think about this concept—as well as what ideas you might have for future learning. To paraphrase an old cliché, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste”!
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
Happy belated Easter! CTL-Spirit is later than usual this week due to some ongoing computer and internet problems I am experiencing, and I offer my apologies for the delay.
Last Sunday marked the most important celebration in the Christian Church’s calendar--the Feast of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. As I noted in my Easter sermon, belief in the Resurrection is what makes us Christians. We share some common beliefs with other faiths, but that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead by God is not one of them.
New Testament scholars believe that the Easter story is actually not one tradition but two, which have been consolidated to form one doctrine. The first tradition is that, when the women went to Jesus’ grave to anoint his body, the tomb was empty. This is what we see in Mark, the earliest gospel. The second tradition is that Jesus was seen alive after his death by certain of the disciples. This is reflected first in Paul’s witness in I Corinthians 15 and then in the later gospels of Matthew and Luke. The two traditions are commingled in John’s account of Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty and then almost immediately encounters the Risen Christ.
That these were separate traditions is demonstrated by the fact that the two earliest documents, Mark and I Corinthians, each feature only one of the traditions and seem ignorant of the other. What made it necessary to join the two? Either tradition on its own would not necessarily “prove” a resurrection: The empty tomb could be explained away by robbers stealing the body, while the appearances might be discounted as a manifestation of hysteria or extreme grief. In contrast, the two traditions taken together--the finding of the tomb empty followed by multiple witnesses seeing Jesus--would be enough to convince the first Christians that their Lord had been singled out by God, that God had rewarded his pious life by raising him from the dead, the “first fruits“ of the eventual resurrection of all the faithful.
In my mind, the resurrection really says more about God than it does about Jesus. Jesus was a passive vessel who was acted upon. Nowhere do the gospels claim that Jesus raised himself; it is always attributed to the activity of God Almighty. And this is the kind of God we worship--the God who would not allow His/Her special messenger to die as a humiliated, despised political prisoner. This was the God of Justice saying “no” to the hatred manifested in the torture and crucifixion of Jesus. This was the God of Love saying “yes” to the ministry Jesus practiced during his short life. And this is the God to whom we owe our devotion all these centuries later--the God who is with us in our circumstances, who carries us, lifts us up, loves us through our trials, and ultimately frees us from our burdens and raises us to new life. The first Christians knew that their lives were different because Jesus had been raised, and so are ours.
CTL-SPIRIT #7 / April 9, 2009: Special Holy Week Edition
“Connect To Life in the Spirit”
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
Because this is a special edition of CTL-Spirit, you may find it longer than expected; if that’s the case, I encourage you to read it in segments according to your individual needs and desires.
Holy Week is probably the most solemn time of the Christian year. The seven days leading up to Easter, Christianity’s highest holy day, take us from the triumph of Palm Sunday to the desolation of Good Friday.
What does it mean to follow along in the footsteps of Jesus during this week of weeks? I think it helps us to put our daily lives into perspective: No one’s life is happiness and joy all the time; nor is it ever exclusively misery and disillusionment. Each of us lives our lives as a series of ups and down, challenges and disappointments. Experiencing the final days of Jesus helps us see this in microcosm.
Palm Sunday: The crowd welcomes Jesus to Jerusalem. After a long journey of teaching and feeding, healing and exorcizing, Rabbi Jesus has come to the focal point of his journey—the place where his simple message and mission meets the powers-that-be of the status quo. How tired he must have been, but how exhilarated to be received in such a fashion. We feel this when we strive to accomplish something in our lives and it is well received. We glow when we are accepted by our sisters and brothers for who we are or what we have done.
Holy Thursday: Jesus gathers with his nearest and dearest for the Passover meal. Suspecting that it might be his last with them because of clashes he has had with the religious authorities, he makes the meal special by likening the food they are consuming to his very life force (body and blood), which he intuits will be taken from him as a political scapegoat. The Last Supper was one of those “liminal” (in-between) moments, when Jesus could experience joy and pain at the same time. Don’t we encounter those moments in our lives—when the happiness of being with friends might be clouded by losses we are suffering in other areas of our lives? The triumph of a promotion is muted by a friend’s battle with cancer; the joyousness of a family reunion is marred by the absence of one who has passed on. Yet still we enjoy these simple moments of grace.
Good Friday: Late on Thursday extending into the wee hours of Friday morning, Jesus is betrayed by a friend and arrested by an armed band. Tried in a kangaroo court, he is handed over to the Romans for execution as a political prisoner. Forced to carry his own cross, he is crucified—one of the most brutal and sadistic forms of capital punishment known to humanity. We endure the betrayal of those we love, sometimes on a daily basis; there is so much unkindness and incivility in our world that it intrudes even into our most important relationships. We are sometimes tempted to give up on intimacy entirely. But at those moments, the example of Jesus urges us to forgive those who hurt us and to continue our journey even when it might mean pain and suffering.
Christians the world over are conflicted as to the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ death. One bumper sticker humorously suggests, “Jesus paid for our sins—Get your money’s worth!” Sunday school teachers from time immemorial have taken the easy way out by simply telling their pupils that Jesus was sent to earth to die for our sins, never stopping to think what this says about God. What parent would ever knowingly will that his/her child be killed in such a brutal fashion? Too many explanations of Good Friday turn the scapegoating of Jesus into an excuse for making God a scapegoat, blaming God for the death of “His” beloved son, when in reality it was human hatred and corrupt power dynamics that killed Jesus. Perhaps the outcome of Jesus’ suffering and death was the remission of sin; perhaps in the Resurrection God ultimately changed the negativity of the cross into the triumph of the empty tomb. But why do we need to say that God intended this all along? Doesn’t that turn God into a sadistic practitioner of divine child abuse? If God is truly God and the human race needed to be “saved,” couldn’t God as God find another way to save us? I would like to think that the way that God “saved” the human race was by sending Jesus—not in order to die but to demonstrate through his inclusive love, his teaching, and his healing that this was what God Him/Herself is really like. We must never overlook the life and ministry of Jesus by focusing exclusively on his death, as many churches and theologies do. I will never believe that his purpose in becoming Christ was merely to die as a sacrifice or substitution for us. The Christic power of his life had to mean more, and this is why I am a Christian. Because God “christ-ed” the life of Jesus, so can my life become “christ-ed” through following in the footsteps of Jesus—from the triumph of Palm Sunday to the pain of Good Friday. And beyond.
What does this Holy Week mean for you?
Shalom, ~ Rev. Tom ~
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CTL-SPIRIT #6 / April 1, 2009
“Connect To Life in the Spirit”
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am not a gardener! My best friend Bruce loves to work in his garden; he has a green thumb and has developed his yard into a showplace with lush greenery, a pond with goldfish and a fountain, benches and chairs for quiet enjoyment and meditation. Sometimes he loses himself and realizes he has been out there for seven hours without a break, digging in the soil, getting in touch with nature. I, on the other hand, am barely willing to sit outside—only when it is cool and where I won’t get dirty. I avoid at all costs any kind of yard work. I guess it goes back to childhood when my dad shamed me and berated me for not being able to cut the grass in a competent fashion. Family issues! The troubled past of Little Tommy! But I digress….
The reason I bring up the whole gardening thing is that spring is such a beautiful time to be alive and to appreciate God’s creation. Until I was thirty-five, I lived on the west coast and never experienced four seasons. Now I am mesmerized when I see the barren, empty branches of trees give way to new buds and flowers burst through beds that had been clogged with snow just weeks before. When I was on I-295 yesterday I noticed that the median had a mixture of both. There were scraggly branches but there was also blazing yellow forsythia; there was some frozen water but also some traces of pink trying to appear on trees.
Isn’t that the way our lives are sometimes? We can be in the doldrums and then God’s grace comes shining through, not only brightening us but causing new growth to begin. We are able to flourish because of God’s tender nurturing care; yet sometimes we self-sabotage, taking shelter in the familiarity of being unhappy or depressed or fearful or angry. How many times are we like the trees that cling to winter and refuse to bring forth their new leaves? We do this when we hang on to bitterness in relationships or when we refuse to allow healing to take place in mind, body, or spirit.
Lent is a time of introspection, and, as it draws to a close this coming week, let us all take stock of how we have done during these six weeks: Have we grown closer to God? Have we deepened our spirituality? Have we bettered relationships with our sisters and brothers? I think the last is perhaps the most important, because an authentic spiritual path (a vertical relationship with the Divine) often depends upon healthy horizontal relationships with those around us. When we close ourselves off to the ways God is manifested in our friends, both human and animal, we miss out on an aspect of divinity that is beckoning us. When we hold onto grudges, we are missing out on the abundance that God has in store for us. I remember seeing Dr. Maya Angelou on Oprah one day. She told the story of how she had a (former) friend with whom there was “bad blood.” She related that at a party one night she saw this person across the room, “and you know what?” Maya said. “She wasn’t even thinking about me. She was laughing and having a great time, whereas I was burdened by hard feelings and was having no fun at this party.” This was a wake-up call for me concerning my tendency to hang on to things that are truly insignificant and how I can make something “all about me,” when there are billions of other people in the world and lots of problems greater than mine.
I hope your Lenten journey has been productive, and I pray that your life is a pleasing Easter offering to our loving God.
Wishing You Peace and Joy, ~ Rev. Tom ~
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CTL-SPIRIT #5 / March 26, 2009
"Connect To Lifein the Spirit”
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
Thirty-one of the forty days of Lent this year correspond to Women’s History Month. I believe this is a wonderful, Spirit-filled coincidence, inasmuch as Lent is a time of deep spiritual introspection, while women’s history of the past forty years has seen tremendous strides in the re-imagining of philosophy, theology, and biblical studies by women of faith.
Many locate the beginning of a new women’s consciousness in religion in the publication of an important essay in 1960 by Valerie Saiving, entitled “The Human Situation: A Feminine View” (The Journal of Religion). Noting that most Christian theological reflection up to that point had been performed by men, she suggested that women’s differing life experience results in different religious sensibilities concerning such issues as sin, grace, and the nature of the human person. Specifically, Saiving noted that male theologians describe our estrangement from God (“sin”) as a result of pride, whereas women’s experience of sin is quite different. For women, struggling to develop self-esteem and self-actualization in a patriarchal world, pride is not a sin; on the contrary, lack of pride is the sin. In this way, Saiving deconstructed the notion that there is a “common” humanity irrespective of our own social location, a belief that is essential to liberation theology, especially when discussing the issues of sin and salvation.
Nearly fifty years later, philosopher Mary Daly in her boundary-pushing book Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2006) suggested that women must “dare to sin . . . and sin big,” for the words, acts, and mindsets that are classified as sins by church tradition are for many women their entry-points into a fully-realized, self-actualizing spirituality. This is what I love about the work that has been done by feminists in religion: They are unafraid to deconstruct and reconstruct in the interests of pursuing human wholeness for all people. As a gay man I find this liberating, for I know that much of the oppression of GLBTQ people derives from the sexism and gender stereotyping of our society. My sisters’ visioning and re-imagining gives me permission to do some que(e)rying and boundary-breaking of my own.
Biblical scholar Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza of Harvard encourages readers of the Bible to realize that they are not always receiving the whole story when they read the biblical text, since the stories there have been told from the perspective of the white, male, heterosexual majority. The reactions, mindsets, and beliefs of others (the non-white, women, and those who were differently sexual) have been silenced. We therefore must try to “read the silence” and imagine what those Others were doing and thinking in a particular biblical text. (Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation, Beacon Press, 1984) The late gay historian John Boswell likewise urged gays and lesbians to look for same-sex love in the history of Christianity and brought to our attention the fact that there were homoerotic saints and same-sex weddings in the early Christian church. (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, University of Chicago Press, 1980; Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe, Villard Books, 1994)
All of this is a long way of saying that, largely because of the daring work that others have done before us, each of us is free to imagine for ourselves an authentic journey toward and with God. This God does not have to be the image of an old, vengeance-seeking white man we were raised to believe in. This God can be a fluffy white cloud, a nurturing Mother, the wind soughing through the trees, or something else entirely. We are free too to “sin big” by realizing that what we have been conditioned to believe is a sin—our very way of relating to others in the form of our sexuality—is a gift from God that it would actually be a sin to deny. Jesus is quoted as saying that the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit; if each of us is created in the image and likeness of God, we contain God’s Holy Spirit in our being. We blaspheme that Holy Spirit when we do not embrace all of who we are, when we silence it or mute it by denying our God-given birthright to be all of who God has created us to be. I am always disappointed when I hear people I respect cop out in the discussion of homosexuality by saying that “everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” While this is certainly true in the sense that each of us has things to be sorry for and to eliminate from our lives, my sexuality is not one of them. This is what has always made Metropolitan Community Church so special to me. From its first day in Rev. Troy Perry’s living room, MCC has never looked at our sexuality as anything less than a gift from God. We do not get tangled in unnecessary theological quagmires because we do not start out, as many do, from the theological given that homosexuality is a sin. In this regard we, like Mary Daly, are daring to “sin big,” for we are going against the grain in order to save our own lives.
As Lent and Women’s History Month draw to a close, let us praise God for those brave women who have gone before us as trailblazers, and let us too ask God for the courage to ourselves become trailblazers in our own time and space in whatever way Spirit calls us to do so.
May it be so! ~ Rev. Tom ~
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CTL-SPIRIT #4 / March 18, 2009
“Connect To Lifein the Spirit”
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
Yesterday as I was doing my spiritual reading I came across a thought-provoking quote which made me pause: Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “He [or she] has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.” I thought about this quote for a while and realized how very true it is and how important it is to address the issue of fear during the season of Lent. For I believe that fear is the most significant stumbling block to our spiritual becoming. Fear is what holds us back from fully entering into relationship with God and blocks us from establishing intimate bonds with our sisters and brothers. Fear is what prevents us from accepting our struggles and challenges and moving forward into our destiny. Fear paralyzes us so that we are unable to apprehend the grace of God that pours into our lives every day.
The authors of the New Testament were not unmindful of the powerful grip fear has on those who would seek to follow Jesus Christ. The First Letter of John (ch. 3) reminds us that “God is love” and that “Perfect love casts out fear” because fear has to do with torment and punishment, which Jesus Christ came to eliminate by proving once and for all through his life, death, and resurrection God’s abounding and unconditional love. The Gospel of Luke (chs. 1-2), in relating the events leading up to the birth of Jesus, depicts angels from God telling first Zechariah, then Mary, and finally the shepherds, “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid, God tells humanity through the angels, for I am doing a new thing; humanity could not—or would not—feel my love, so I am sending them a tangible reminder of what I am about. This reminder is my Son, Jesus, fully human and fully divine, who will show through his teaching and healing my love for all people. This Jesus, because he is a part of God, shows us as nothing else can the very nature of God, which is love; but, because Jesus is also human just like us, he demonstrates that we who are created in God’s image and likeness are bodily representations of love, too.
But before we can embrace these truths, we must banish the overwhelming fear that is present in our world. At the time of Jesus, ordinary people were afraid of the Roman Empire, the poverty that nipped at their heels daily, the constant violence that threatened their world, and the eternal damnation their religion often promised them in the world to come. We today are similarly afraid of our world situation: Even though it has been exaggerated out of all proportion by the government, global terrorism is still something to fear; widespread poverty is a frightening reality as we watch corporations and banks fail while jobs and other possibilities for advancement dry up; higher education is expensive and competitive, with no assurance that a degree will mean any job let alone a good one; religions and churches meant to offer solace often offer only more doom and gloom.
Well, now that I’ve thoroughly depressed you, let me turn to my reason for bringing all this up. I agree with Emerson that part of life’s lesson is that fears must be overcome. My way of doing that is by seeking to follow the Christ Way. Jesus would have accomplished nothing if he had given in to fear (and he had plenty to be afraid of). Yet each day he put one foot in front of the other and went out and met people where they were. He looked them in the eye and told them to believe in the good news because they had certainly had enough of the bad news. He healed them because he was able through his own confidence in God’s love and grace to make them have faith in that same love and grace. He was able through his integrity and strength to make people dig down deep inside and find the blessed assurance that they had possessed all along but had been buried by their fears. As I look back on that description of Jesus I just wrote, I realize it could apply to many of those people who have been prophets to hurting people, those “heroes and sheroes and queeros” of the various liberation movements past and present. These words could easily apply to Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Harvey Milk, Cesar Chavez, Troy Perry, Nancy Wilson, the Dalai Lama, or Barack Obama.
I believe our church is being called to help liberate people from their fears. How might we do that? One way is by encouraging folks to get to know one another. People fear what they do not know. Studies of discrimination, hatred, and intolerance have revealed that bigots, racists, and religious extremists are often driven by a deep-seated fear of those who are different from themselves. Gustav Niebuhr in a recent book tells how opposing soldiers in World War I during a Christmas cease-fire exchanged Christmas gifts, sang carols together, and shared holiday snacks. (Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America, Viking, 2008) I imagine it was difficult for these soldiers to go back to their respective sides and resume firing upon each other after they had a human face to attach to “the enemy.” Niebuhr suggests that if we first got to know our enemies on a social basis perhaps we would not come to the point of hostilities, violence, or war. He advocates extreme and intentional interreligious dialogue as a way of bridging the yawning gaps between groups here and abroad, inasmuch as so much of the hostility between religions results from ignorance and fear.
Gay theologian John McNeil says this about fear: “From my own experience as a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II, I concluded that fear is the primary weapon that evil people use to paralyze the good and prevent their liberation. As long as we remain in the grip of fear, we are prisoners of the night; . . . The fear that we should seek to be liberated from is that kind of paranoid fear that impoverishes our conscience and cripples our response to those around us, numbing us to their needs because of anxiety about our own needs, blinding us in such a way that we fail to recognize those around us as our brothers and sisters.” (Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Lovers, Families, and Friends, Beacon Press, 1988)
When we ignore our fears or pretend they don’t exist, it is impossible to move forward in any meaningful way. One of the delightful things about Jesus was that he was vitally in touch with all of who he was. He was a truly “whole” person. Our Vision Statement at Christ the Liberator includes the words “Living Whole.” I believe that “wholeness” is the intersection and integration of the past, present, and future—the ability to live fully in the present with appreciation of the past and hope for the future. We attain this wholeness when we are able to approach each day unencumbered by fear. That’s a tall order, but I think we are up to it, one day at a time, with God’s help.
This week, I encourage you to look into your life. What or whom do you fear? How might you look those fears right in the face? What is keeping you from doing so? How might you bridge the gap between yourself and one who is different or thinks differently? How might you mend the little rifts that fears or misunderstandings might have caused? How can you take the first step or “be the better person” in a troubled relationship? How might we tear down walls erected by unfounded fear and unexamined pride?
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
Last Sunday’s Gospel reading gives us some interesting food for thought for our Lenten journey. In Mark 8, Jesus says, "If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his or her life will lose it, but whoever loses his or her life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
First of all, Mark states in no uncertain terms before the quote from Jesus that he spoke this to the crowd “along with his disciples.” This is important because biblical interpreters often differentiate between a “word of the Lord” which is a “dominical command” to all his followers in every time and place and those instructions from Jesus that were meant just for his inner circle, such as details about how their outreach mission was to be run. (See, for example, Dale C. Allison, “The Problem of Audience,” chapter 2 in his book Resurrecting Jesus, T&T Clark International, 2005.) Thus, whether we like it or not, we are stuck with this hard saying about taking up the cross and being ready to lose our lives for Jesus’ sake. How much easier our Christian walk would be if Jesus had not said things like this! But he did.
Secondly, did he really mean we have to be ready to lose our lives? Did he really mean that we should be prepared for martyrdom if we are really serious about the gospel? Well, folks, I really think he did. I think Jesus was one of those people who are so intense that they expect that everyone else should be—and will be!—just as intense. But before we become too excited and overwrought about it, we must place Jesus in his context. He lived in a time period and geographical location that was politically and religiously volatile (as it still is today). Like Martin Luther King when he delivered his final speech in Memphis the night before he was assassinated, Jesus knew that his words and deeds could get him killed any moment. The Romans were not going to let Palestine go without a fight; it was too lucrative. And the Jewish religious authorities were not going to stop consorting with their Roman oppressors any time soon either; there were too many benefits for them. And so the rich got richer, and the poor remained poor. Anyone who challenged the status quo or tried to advocate for the poor in any way was subject to silencing by imprisonment and crucifixion, as Jesus found out the hard way. Jesus—like every true prophet of every generation—was not willing to keep silent. The message he had received from God was too important. He believed that, through his actions and those of the people who followed him, a new world might be not only envisioned but even put into practice—a world he dared to name “the Empire of God.” This Empire of God was entirely different from the Empire of Caesar; it was a place of goodness and compassion and justice, where captives went free and everyone had enough. And in daring to name this, Jesus was indeed “taking up his cross,” because he was well aware what his punishment might be, and he expected that any who were serious enough to follow him around and hang on his every word would be serious enough to know that by being committed to him they too were taking up their cross.
But what about us? Most of us don’t live in a world like this. Saying we are followers of Jesus Christ in all likelihood will not carry a death sentence. In a sensibly-run democracy, our words or actions for justice will probably not get us executed. (Under the Patriot Act that was thrust upon us after 9/11, we might have been detained for advocating for justice or for speaking against the government, but I’m not going to go there right now….) So what do we do about Jesus’ words? I think for our circumstances, we can re-imagine them, and I would like to suggest that we do so as we live our Lenten lives this year.
What do we consider “life”? What makes us happy and brings us wholeness and contentment? Is it our job or career? Money? A spouse/lover/partner/companion? Delicious and plentiful food? A nice car? Unlimited shopping? Surfing the net for hours on end? Is it keeping up with the Joneses and exhibiting a certain lifestyle? Is it being gay? Espousing political causes? Having unlimited sex? Drinking whenever and wherever we want? Is it having so much self-love as a result of so much self-introspection that we feel superior to others? When we begin to equate “life” with any or all of these situations or mindsets, we are in trouble. Jesus is right: If this is our circumstance, the only way we will truly save our life (in the sense of our overall existence) is to lose our life (in the sense of our narrow wants, needs, and desires). When we expend energy and resources in maintaining the pseudo-lives we have erected over the years, Jesus is there to tell us it’s not worth it. We will lose them.
Rather, Jesus implores us, store up treasures in heaven: Do good deeds; become a friend to the friendless; adopt a healthier attitude toward possessions and wealth; don’t become tied to passing fads or to creature comforts; give up addictive behavior, including the selfishness that permeates our 21st-century world. Resign from the “me” generation, and join the true Jesus Movement that has never stopped existing but may have gone underground because some deemed it uncool. This is a movement located in concern for the Other, in creating not the world that you want but a world that God would want.
Lent is about having these kinds of discussions with ourselves and one another. It’s about really developing a timetable for the kinds of things we usually only talk about or think about for an hour or so on Sunday mornings. In our postmodern world, maybe this is what it means to take up the cross. What do you think?
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
As many of you know, I do a lot of driving. I love to drive, and, as a matter of fact, it relaxes me. I find that my time in the car going from one place to another—particularly if the trip involves long stretches of highway—is often my time with God, when I am able to allow my mind to wander spiritually here and there. Today was one of those occasions, as I marveled at the recent snowfall and how different the snow looked during the course of my journey. Folks are often surprised at how mesmerized I am by snow. It fascinates me; I find it beautiful, pure, and refreshing. I love it! And I love the brisk cold snow brings with it; it seems to me that there is a kind of clarity I get after a good snowfall that I don’t get very often at other times of the year. Why do I feel this way about snow? I have no idea; perhaps it is because it is still relatively new to me, since I didn’t see snow until I was almost 35 years old. (And we all know that was only a couple of years ago….) In the ensuing years I have always looked forward to our snowfalls and felt cheated when the weather report promised snow that never arrived.
So today I went out to my car and got it all cleaned off. I live on a country road which doesn’t attract as much travel as a main road, so the snow was still pretty untouched. There were wide expanses of the fluffy stuff; it was white and pristine and still in lush, deep banks. But then as I left my neighborhood and approached a state-maintained road, I noticed that the snow had been plowed. It was piled by the side of the road and no longer looked as innocent and untouched. A few minutes later I got on a major highway, and the difference was startling: Not only was the snow piled high in an almost geometric fashion, but it had grown filthy from cars and trucks whizzing by. And I realized with sadness and resignation that it will only grow more and more filthy until the sun begins to melt it. Eventually nothing will be left, and everything will start over. After a while I began to realize that the snow could be a great metaphor for our lives and our relationship with God.
Might we not see what happens to snow as what happens to us? We are created beautiful images of our loving God, who blesses us and assures us of His/Her constant presence and abiding love. And then life happens. Our pure, beautiful selves become sullied by life in the world. If we are not vigilant in our self-care, we may grow filthier and filthier (however you choose to interpret that term). We are diminished by our own failings, those of others, and the societal breakdown which manifests itself in poverty, racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. But the good news of our faith is that it does not have to stay this way. Like the dirty snow that is melted away by the sun, our lives can be refreshed and transformed by God’s love, if we are willing to risk being so transformed.
Lent is that period of the church year when I believe transformation is especially possible. Christians around the world utilize these six weeks as a period of introspection, contemplation, and intentional growth and change; we allow ourselves through prayer and meditation to become transparent to God and susceptible to the re-forming of our spirits that is possible through greater communion with God’s Spirit. Other religions offer similar opportunities: Jews on Yom Kippur fast and pray all day long in order to embrace Rosh Ha-Shanah (the New Year) as changed persons. Muslims utilize the month of Ramadan as a time of intense fasting and deep prayer in order that they might better follow the Prophet Muhammed’s path of submission to God (islam) the rest of the year. Eastern spiritualities employ deep meditation whenever they wish to mold themselves to the great Silence that is the Divine.
Last Sunday I noted in my sermon that Mark 1:9-15 offers us a very quick overview of three incidents in Jesus’ life—his baptism, his temptation in the wilderness, and the beginning of his public preaching about the Reign of God. He was refreshed at his baptism, open to God’s love in a powerful way; but just a bit later he was tempted to stray from his path. Forty days in the wilderness with wild animals on one side and angels on the other helped him to gain perspective in order to leave the wilderness and take up his commission from God to help others become transformed in order that they might contribute toward the transforming of this world into the Reign of God. Moreover, he did not allow himself to be stymied or silenced by his experience of the negativity of temptation.
This is what can happen to us every day: Like the snow melting little by little in the sunlight, we can allow God’s love to transform us, to heal our brokenness and lighten our burdens, so that we might be in a better position to aid in the restoration of God’s world. With this as our goal, someday we might really see the Reign of God! Like Jesus, we can progress from positive experiences (the baptisms along our journey) to negative experiences (the temptations that get in our way) to an acceptance of the task God places in front of every Christian (building God’s Reign).
May it be so! Rev. Dr. Tom.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CTL-SPIRIT #1 / February 23, 2009
Greetings, friend of Christ the Liberator, a Metropolitan Community Church serving north/central New Jersey!
This is the first installment of “CTL-Spirit” which is short for “Connect to Life in the Spirit,” for I believe that by communication, education, and prayer together we can indeed “Connect to Life,” and life abundantly, as Jesus said. And this connection to life is always “in the Spirit,” for Jesus promised that he would not leave us abandoned but would send another Partner to be with us all our days (John 15). In this installment, I want to talk to you about Lent and Ash Wednesday. In future weeks, I will be providing Lenten reflections/devotionals to assist you in your journey toward Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ. LENT BEGINS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2009.
Lent is the six-week season in the Christian Church’s calendar leading up to Easter. Historically, churches throughout the centuries have utilized these forty days as a period of introspection, reflection, letting go, and building up. The medieval mystic Meister Eckhart referred to this as the via negativa (“the negative path”) through which we are able to cleanse our lives of that which does not bring fulfillment and might be holding us back from complete and loving relationships with God, ourselves, and others. This kind of fulfillment and intimate relating is what we mean when we say in CTL’s Vision Statement that we are “Living Whole, Living Full, Living Free”! But we cannot attain that wholeness, fullness, and freedom unless and until we weed out what has been clogging or blocking us from true life in the Spirit—a life free of constraints and restrictions. When we are in synch with God we are unlimited, and we are able to birth the New Creation.
During Lent, we are encouraged to pray and meditate daily and to read scripture or other uplifting spiritual writings, in order to grow toward more complete partnership with God. It works; I can attest to that! A few years ago, I was dissatisfied that I did not seem to be progressing in my study life; I was having trouble dedicating time toward in-depth study. So during Lent that year, I pledged to God that I would spend one solid hour each day doing some theological reading other than the Bible. Though it was hard to discipline myself to do so, God helped me to persevere, and all these years later (at least seven) I still to this day spend time each day doing that scholarly reading that I thought I was too busy for. What part of your spiritual life are you having trouble with? How do you wish to become more in synch with God’s plan for your life? Lent is a time to address these issues, to give something new a try, to ask God again and again for a process of spiritual discernment. If you would like assistance on your Lenten journey, please feel free to call or email me or set up an appointment to talk face-to-face. All of these efforts will result not only in stronger individual spirituality but also in a stronger, more committed church community where we do life whole, full, and free.
CTL WILL COMMEMORATE THE BEGINNING OF LENT WITH A SPECIAL “ASH WEDNESDAY” WORSHIP SERVICE.
One of the best ways to begin this Lenten journey is to join together for worship on “Ash Wednesday,” which this year falls on Wednesday, February 25. It was traditional in early and medieval Christianity for sinners to acknowledge their transgressions tangibly, by adorning themselves with ashes; this practice goes back to ancient Judaism, as we see in the book of Job, when Job “repents in dust and ashes.” In early Christianity, Easter Sunday was the only day a person could join the church as a member, so each potential convert used the forty days of Lent to repent of the sins they had committed in their past and to determine once and for all that they wanted to follow the Christ Way. The modern church remembers this practice by affixing a smudge of ashes on one’s forehead on Ash Wednesday to show one’s resolve to turn from troublesome elements of the past in order to become a better person during Lent.
I invite you to join me for CTL’s Ash Wednesday Worship, this coming Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the home of Paul and Chester at 16 Mayfair Court in Monroe Township. In this intimate setting, we will sing a few songs, have prayer and meditation, some scripture reading, and the imposition of ashes. Instead of a formal sermon, I will be guiding each one of us in an “examination of conscience,” so that each of us can decide privately what we wish to do to change our lives this Lent, so that, with Christ, we might emerge victorious on Easter Sunday into a life through which we live whole, full, and free!
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