The "gay agenda" observed

Yesterday, folks from several Lehigh Valley Episcopal Churches staffed a booth at the Pride in the Park festival, the largest gay pride event in Northeast Pennsylvania, including some members of my own parish. I observed a few things which sharing: one is old news that bears repeating and the other indicative of a healthy trend.

But first, here is what the Rev. Scott Allen (at left in the picture), priest in charge at St. Andrew's, Bethlehem who once again organized this years effort, wrote to all of us in a thank you note:

Thank You

To all the stalwart, faithful and courageous souls

Who to Cedar Beach Park on a Sunday did go

To lend support, a smile and care

To our LGBT sisters and brothers gathered there

While the weather was HOT you performed with grace.

Shaking hands and connecting with every face.

From Mickey who gave the shelter

And with the help of Ken and Jeff, helped us not to swelter

To Michael's graphic creativity

You witnessed with power to inclusivity

Mediator, Andrew, Anne and Nativity

Grace and two who bear the Holy Trinity

Gave witness and with your bodies and made true

"The Episcopal Church Welcomes You!"

Thanks for all your help, words, sweat, dog biscuits, flyers, dog sitting, sun standing, holy cards, banner holding, tape cutting, welcome giving, flyer passing and incarnate love for Jesus this year at Pride In The Park 2009! I am always humbled by your commitment.

Six Episcopal congregations from the Lehigh Valley took part. From my own parish, five people volunteers and several others came by and said "hi". This was very heartwarming to me.

This leads to my first observation, the one that gives me great hope: The Episcopal presence was not the only Christian or even the only religious presence at Pride in the Park. Congregations from the NE PA Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was present. I don't know how many, but I did see that our neighbor from Downtown Easton, St. John's Lutheran, was present in a big way. The United Church of Christ was also present in a big way, as well as the Unitarian Universalist Church. Roman Catholics were represented by the Dignity booth (although the local chapter meets in an Episcopal Church). I had a very nice talk with a Mennonite pastor, an MCC pastor and her spouse, and a Baptist minister and his wife. I noticed that a Jewish group was present, too.

Which means that there were many more faithful Christians and people of other faiths present and engaged inside the gates than the handful of mean-spirited and angry religious protesters just outside the gates. I counted about a half-dozen protesters who said some angry, insulting and obnoxious things to me and others in God's name. The group called Silent Witness accompanied people up to the entrance with their rainbow colored golf umbrellas to offer a moving safe space from hate. A ministry of the Metropolitan Community Church in the Lehigh Valley, I realized that there were also many more Silent Witnesses than protesters.

The variety and quality of the religious presence tells me that religious community is being less and less fearful and allergic to being seen with and ministering among GLBT folks. We still have a long, long way to go but the strong positive religious (and Christian) witness on the inside has grown to the point where it has begun to balance if not overshadow the angry, the hateful and the nuts.

A related observation is how profoundly welcome I felt. The members of our parish who have taken part this year and in the past have said the same thing. Not once did anyone chew us out or shun us for the awful treatment gay folk have experienced at the hands of Christians and the Church. More often than not we were thanked for being present.

My other observation is not a new one. In fact, it is a statement of the hugely obvious but it is still worth repeating. It is a lesson that the straight folks in my parish who have little contact with the gay community needed to experience first hand.

I realized as I walked up and down the festival and talked to and stopped by vendors, exhibitors and activities, that I was walking in a living expression of the dreaded "gay agenda" that others have warned me about. If the vendors there were indicative of the "gay agenda" then it consists of things like vinyl siding, heating and plumbing, banking, real estate, pet grooming, life insurance, cars and car repair, recreation and resorts, restaurants and banquet facilities, health care, local politics, and on and on. The so-called "gay agenda" consists of all the everyday stuff of everyday living. Religion included.

Pride in the Park reminded me once again that the "gay agenda" is really rather simple and in no way sinister: to live everyday life, peaceably and with dignity as the person you are with the person you love without someone getting in your face.

The new evangelicalism

Updated. Last month, on SoJoNet, Edward Gilbreath interviewed Soong-Chan Rah, who says that the church can no longer think of itself as centered on Europe and America, and that if the church is to have any vitality it must begin to think in terms of a true ethnic and cultural diversity.

Gilbreath describes Rah (who is assistant professor of church growth and evangelism at North Park University in Chicago) as someone who "ruffled a lot of feathers over the years by calling attention to issues of racism and cultural insensitivity in the evangelical community." Among other things, he called out Zondervan/Youth Specialties when they published an insensitive and racist vignette in a book of skits for youth groups.

Rah says in his book that the Emergent Church movement as "overhyped" and "lacking diversity." Galbreath observes that "it seems as if Christians involved in that movement are extremely culturally bound, even more so than “mainstream” evangelical Christianity." To which Rah responds:

Any organization can change and adapt if they desire, and if they are willing to pay the price. There is also the importance of self-awareness. I think when there is a new thing that comes up, its advocates should exercise enough self-reflection to say, “We’re saying some really exciting things, but what are the unintended negative consequences of what we are saying? What are our blind spots and the areas that we need to grow in?”

. . .

I think even new things like emergents or new monastics can get stuck in a vacuum and not recognize that there are divergent voices that can contribute to the dialogue. I would encourage any new movements to consider and hear from disparate — and even oppositional — voices.

. . .

I would look for places of interaction across cultures. Many of us may find these opportunities at our place of work or in our neighborhood — it’s probably our church and Christian world that is more likely to be segregated. I would encourage the building and deepening of healthy cross-cultural relationships in your current context. My recommendation has been to seek out mentors or spiritual leaders from a different ethnic/cultural background. There will be different contexts (single-ethnic churches that are of a different ethnic background from you, or multi-ethnic churches with a diverse staff) where you may be able to find cross-cultural mentors. These relationships should not be forced, but it really needs to have the foundation of a genuine relationship and commitment.

Read the rest of the interview here and here. See Episcopal Cafe here on the same topic.

More from the Suffragan Bishop of Baseball

The Suffragan Bishop for Baseball has posted the following rubrics for the observation of baseball in the Episcopal Church:

Every game is a double-header. The early game is played by National League rules. The later game is played by American League rules.

Before the game, we sing the National Anthem. All four verses.

The most popular seats are in the back. If you come late, you may have to sit immediately behind the plate or one of the dugouts.

Our team does not rush organizational decisions. We have had an interim manager for three years.

Every month or two, the team wears a different color.

Even though not much happens in most games, we are always standing up and sitting down.

During the “seventh inning stretch” half of us stay standing at our seats and the other half make elaborate circuits around the ballpark, greeting their fellow game-goers.

The concession stand is quiet for most of the day, but is mobbed at the conclusion of the game.

These rubrics are adapted from those promulgated by Mark MacGougan, who is said to be “One of the Top 50 Episcopal Liturgical Comedians in Central Connecticut.”

Mission work is an essential part of Episcopal baseball. The following is a worthy example:

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On Taking the Leap of Faith

My friend Nathan Humphrey has answered, in a manner far more gracious than the way in which I initially posed it, my question regarding whether the Covenant is, from a progressive standpoint, a suicide pact. As is his wont, Nathan skillfully finds a way to pose the question to both sides of the debate, urging us to transcend anger, frustration, and distrust:

It doesn't really matter, then, that some people are attracted to the Covenant because they want to use it as a bludgeon. If it's a real Covenant, then that means that those who enter it will be equally responsible to be committed to each other. What this means for the various agendas of either left or right is uncertain: In the current political atmosphere, the left is betting that a Covenant would hinder their agenda, while the right is betting that a Covenant would further theirs, but God has a funny way of turning the tables on both the left and the right if given half a chance. And that's what a Covenant does: it gives God a chance to work in all of our lives at once, rather than only here or only there. I can't say how God will resolve our current conflicts. But I can say that if we trust in God and demonstrate our trust in God through a Covenant, greater things than we can either ask or imagine will happen.

So, for instance, with Gamaliel's counsel in Acts 5:38b-39: "[I]f this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!" If SSBs and all that is of God, then it seems to me that it is better that we all be committed anew to each other in a covenanted life as God works it out than that we should be impatient and untrusting, either of each other or of God, and try to go our own way and do what we're sure is God's will and to hell with the rest of the world.

There is much wisdom here. I would suggest, however, that there are two difficulties here which need to be addressed. The first is, what are the terms and conditions of the actual Covenant, and will it allow for the Primates or other juridicial bodies to be used as means of oppression? The current draft suggests perhaps so; but we do not have a final text, yet, and therefore speculation is premature. How can we agree to a Covenant in the abstract?

Perhaps a more fundamental problem can be gleaned from traditional contract law theory. (I'm a lawyer, remember? Deal). In The Paper Chase, fictional contracts Professor Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr. described a "spectrum of relationships" across which, with varying levels of difficulty, parties could reach functioning agreements. To his students' surprise, relationships which were the most intimate were the hardest; those where the parties thoroughly distrusted each other were marked by greater (external) civility and, far more importantly, cooler and thus more pragmatic levels of dealing with each other. Interestingly, C.S. Lewis, in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, posits something rather similar--the smaller the doctrinal difference, the more heated the debate.

Here, of course, we have a combination of family-level intimacy (bad for cool negotiating) and a lack of trust (surprisingly helpful). But the problem is that the entire Covenant process has been on a "trust me" basis, with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the only negotiator. In other words--and here we're back with Lewis at pp. 20-21)--neither side feels heard, and thus each keeps shouting the louder.

Which leads me to ask: During the period in which the Covenant is knocked into its final form, why shouldn't the Archbishop, or some neutral figure, launch a series of reconciliation dialogues with TEC, the Church of Canada, his own progressive wing--and the reasserter wing? Not, I beg, the much-vaunted, but ultimately meaningless "Listening Process," which reasserters have watered down to the point of hilarity. (Remember Nigeria's response, which can best be summarized as "Shut up. I'm listening to you.") No, real face-to-face discussions at which we seek to find out what we need from each other, not to reach doctrinal agreement, but to maintain some form of relationship across the lines of doctrinal conflict--and let these discussions shape our relationships, whether Covenantal or "two-track" Communion.

A Covenant, in short, is a contract, and the best contracts are organic, drafted with the actual needs and desires of the parties taken into account, even though neither side ever gets all that it wants. A contract of adhesion--one imposed from above by one party, in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion, as the Covenant is now, is usually only grudgingly accepted, and rarely is a basis for a healthy, ongoing relationship.

So what, at this stage, do I say in reply to Nathan's response to my question? That he has convinced me that we are far too early in the process to refuse to do the hard work to try to keep relationships alive, and that we need to be more active in seeking to find out if accord is possible, and what that accord can and should look like. Also, that we owe it to God and to each other to approach this work in the spirit of Christian optimism and faith, and not in a spirit of fear.

I would urge, though, that all parties--liberal, conservative, "reappraiser" or "reasserter" start thinking in terms of directly engaged discussions with each other, with a goal of finding what common ground we can stand upon. That could provide the context for a Covenant, and create the meeting of the minds necessary for a contract to really exist.

Shaw and Schori

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has been has been catching a lot of flak (I know; big surprise) for her opening statement at General Convention 2009 that:

The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention

Interestingly, her view in this matter seems to me quite consistent with the Gospels, a thought that is captured for me in Bernard Shaw's Preface to Androcles and the Lion:

If we ask our stockbroker to act simply as Jesus advised his disciples to act, he will reply, very justly, "You are advising me to become a tramp." If we urge a rich man to sell all that he has and give it to the poor, he will inform us that such an operation is impossible. If he sells his shares and his lands, their purchaser will continue all those activities which oppress the poor. If all the rich men take the advice simultaneously the shares will fall to zero and the lands be unsaleable. If one man sells out and throws the money into the slums, the only result will be to add himself and his dependents to the list of the poor, and to do no good to the poor beyond giving a chance few of them a drunken spree. We must therefore bear in mind that whereas, in the time of Jesus, and in the ages which grew darker and darker after his death until the darkness, after a brief false dawn in the Reformation and the Renascence, culminated in the commercial night of the nineteenth century, it was believed that you could not make men good by Act of Parliament, we now know that you cannot make them good in any other way, and that a man who is better than his fellows is a nuisance. The rich man must sell up not only himself but his whole class; and that can be done only through the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The disciple cannot have his bread without money until there is bread for everybody without money; and that requires an elaborate municipal organization of the food supply, rate supported. Being members one of another means One Man One Vote, and One Woman One Vote, and universal suffrage and equal incomes and all sorts of modern political measures. Even in Syria in the time of Jesus his teachings could not possibly have been realized by a series of independent explosions of personal righteousness on the part of the separate units of the population. Jerusalem could not have done what even a village community cannot do, and what Robinson Crusoe himself could not have done if his conscience, and the stern compulsion of Nature, had not imposed a common rule on the half dozen Robinson Crusoes who struggled within him for not wholly compatible satisfactions. And what cannot be done in Jerusalem or Juan Fernandez cannot be done in London, New York, Paris, and Berlin. In short, Christianity, good or bad, right or wrong, must perforce be left out of the question in human affairs until it is made practically applicable to them by complicated political devices; and to pretend that a field preacher under the governorship of Pontius Pilate, or even Pontius Pilate himself in council with all the wisdom of Rome, could have worked out applications of Christianity or any other system of morals for the twentieth century, is to shelve the subject much more effectually than Nero and all its other persecutors ever succeeded in doing. Personal righteousness, and the view that you cannot make people moral by Act of Parliament, is, in fact, the favorite defensive resort of the people who, consciously or subconsciously, are quite determined not to have their property meddled with by Jesus or any other reformer.

Well, one might ask, where does Shaw--let alone Schori--get that from? Surely it is consistent with, one might even state compelled by, to pick but one source, Matthew 19:16-24:

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Shaw, like Schori, is trying to articulate the more that Jesus demands of us before we can rest easy. Shaw's point, that personal righteousness within the rules of a corrupt society is no more than what John the Baptist demanded of publicans and soldiers before the sdvent of Christ, is, I think, well taken, as his larger point that such "righteousness" can be, viewed in isolation, a way of eliding the broader scope of Jesus's teaching--a way of cutting it down to a comfortable size. Hence his .statement that "after 2000 years of resolute adherence to the old cry of 'Not this man, but Barabbas'.....'This man' has not been a failure yet; for nobody has ever been sane enough to try his way. But he has had one quaint triumph. Barabbas has stolen his name and taken his cross as a standard."

If the Presiding Bishop is a heretic she appears to me to be in good company.