a word for my congregation

[memelaina]

Last September my church, the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) did something that I have been waiting for and praying for my whole adult life - they opened ordination to homosexuals who are either celibate or in a committed relationship (the same restrictions made of heterosexuals). It was a time of deep rejoicing for me. I had watched for ten years as this resolution was discussed, dissected, rejected, and yet, always, it came back - and each time it did more church members, albeit some very reluctantly, opened themselves to support it.

I went to church that Sunday in September looking to share my joy with the members of my congregation whom I know, from personal experience, are loving and giving Christians. I was disturbed, let's openly say I was horrified, to find my beloved pastor telling us sadly but calmly that he did not agree with the church's resolution. I was ashamed when I found that my congregation was agreeing to allow, even encouraging, members to withhold their contributions from the church at large and to donate funds only to our little congregation. The shame built into anger. I was, and am, tempted to leave the congregation.

And yet I do not think that is the solution. These are not bad people. I have seen them act with amazing love and charity in the more than fifteen years that I've been part of this congregation. But they are so AFRAID that it astounds me. They huddle in a corner with their eyes closed and their ears covered while the very breath of God moves through the room where they are cowering.

The apostle John said, somewhat sadly it has always seemed to me, "Little children, love one another." He didn't give a categorical list of times and conditions under which to love one another. He just said "love", knowing that in the final analysis that was the only solution. We, as Christians, as Lutherans, are privileged to live in a time when the Holy Spirit is actively moving among us. How unbearably sad if when we finally meet our God the only explanation we have for our lack of love is "I wanted things to be like they always used to be."

Comments

[jcbemis.livejournal.com]

homophobia makes me very sad

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Good for the ELCA,and sympathy for your disappointment in your congregation. The Episcopal Church USA has been going through the same trials for years now -- it's kind of depressing, actually, the way that the news media always reports the story as something like "disaffected Episcopalians leaving the church" instead of "Episcopal Church ends discrimination, embraces diversity." (I griped back at the Obama inauguration about how as far as the media is concerned, Gene Robinson's official title seems to be "gay priest," not "Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire.")

My theory is that there are a lot of people out there who are perfectly willing for gays to openly exist, so long as they aren't allowed to be respectable. This would be why these people fight so hard against gay marriage, and gays in the military, and gays in the pulpit of their church -- because these are all things that respectable people do, things that in fact contribute to conferring respectability upon the people doing them.

Why these people value respectability so highly that they have to drive other people away from those things that they see as respectability's markers, I don't know . . . but I suspect that the guy who hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes and other not-exactly-upmarket types would not think much of their reasons.

[ashcomp.livejournal.com]

Religion has the same major weakness as does democracy: it's carried out and practiced by human beings, who can generally be counted on to distort and cheapen what was originally a good idea.

I'm kind of waiting for a great Christian crossover in this country at least. The one where disaffected Catholics come to Episcopalianism where their pastor can be a woman, and there's no excommunication for voting the wrong way on abortion (or having one). And the homophobic Episcopalians move to Roman Catholicism, where it's only ok to be gay if you don't, you know, do anything about it. Unfortunate altar boys only mentioned in passing, here.

Good luck to all of you out there who try to maintain and carry out their religious convictions; I'm afraid I lost mine a long time ago. I trust God to deal with me as He sees fit.

[(Anonymous)]

Wondering something...have you ever approached one and asked specifically what it is that makes them feel so strongly about this? Is there something they can put their finger on? Is it fear of change? If so, what is really changing? Seems silly to me if they can't even elucidate on the matter about what it is they are so against. And I really am interested in the answer if you get/got one.

[gilraen2.livejournal.com]

i have indeed done so, and the answer is that homosexuality is a sin. the most common quotation is Romans 1. that other sins (like divorce and forbidding slavery and the ordination of women) are no longer counted just doesn't seem to track.

[(Anonymous)]

History...is there anything it can't teach us?

From the MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail:


"Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of Harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an 'I-it' relationship for an 'I-thou' relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful."

What are they afraid of? More and more it seems to me that those opposed to gay marriage simply draw their strength from a definitional argument rather than an empirical one.

-Minds are like parachutes...

Mem's Letter to the Congregation

[(Anonymous)]

This is a beautiful letter.

I'm glad that your religion gives you the comfort and support you are looking for, even if the congregation itself may not. It must be lonely to worship with people whose love is less generous than yours.

Suz