January 20, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

I am not used to watching much TV, so this day of saturation in the Obama presidential inauguration felt very different indeed. Being on the west coast, we had to pop out of bed and run for the TV to catch the first coverage this morning.

For one thing, I was embarrassed and underwhelmed by Rev. Rick Warren [see also post 307, “Obama, the Whirwind and the Serenity Prayer“] who gave the Invocation this morning. It was embarrassing because he didn’t follow the assignment, but used his few minutes not as a prayer but as a head-down speech about what a great time it was to be a Christian. On a day when President Obama’s vocabulary was lofty, Warren’s was chatty, in that made-for-television pious “wejeswanyataknowJeeezus” folksy way of praying. And of course, in exclusionary and utter tasteless terms, he insisted on offering his prayer in the name of Jesus/Yeshua and a few other versions of the name that immediately segued into The Lord’s Prayer. I bet the transition team never asked for any of that, and expected something with more refinement, charity and grace out of Warren.

In contrast, the Benediction offered by the Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery was inclusive and dignified, in a way we have come to expect from black Pastors who can speak to and for a wide variety of human longings in the public space, and especially from one such as the “dean of the ciivl rights movement.” Lowry’s prayer was memorable, I thought, but Warren’s was completely forgettable.

Mr. Obama’s speech was far-reaching and, to be sure, critical of the immediate past yet without a sharp edge to stab his predecessor. Read the full speech here, courtesy of ABC News. All new presidents like to claim the high ground, make great claims and offer great dreams. What impressed me this morning was that Obama’s claims and dreams were very grounded in the reality of our immediate challenges (two inherited wars, American financial/moral meltdown and what is being called The Great Recession, an outgoing administration with historic low public approval ratings) but built from that ground up on the basis of his faith in personal integrity, responsibility and character : his, and every other citizen’s.

In a less-quoted line, President Obama simply pushed America to grow up and to face its global challenges as a mature nation:

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

It was a great day to catch up on history, of course. At one point, the analysis on MSNBC that drew out some of Obama’s historic references about slavery, President Lincoln, racism and discrimination mentioned in passing the Dred Scott Decision. At my age that is only a label on a segment of my brain labeled “High School/American History Class” that I don’t often think of. For some reason, I decided to Wikipedia and Google the Dred Scott case before the Supreme Court, and what unfolded in a few seconds was another of those portraits of national shame like the slaughter and forced relocation of American Indians or the World War II-time internment of Japanese-American citizens.  Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom because his master has relocated him from a slave state to a free state. His case was complex, and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which came down with a decision that ought to still shame us for its lack of justice. It was bad enough that the Court determined that Congress did not have the authority to free slaves in U.S. territories, or to grant “negroes” citizenship (and therefore legal standing to sue!). But the Supreme Court went on to describe black people as

“beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

As if that wasn’t the supreme insult, the Court made it utterly clear why blacks should be denied justice:

It would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other state whenever they pleased, . . . the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.

I don’t think the implications of this last reactionary view was lost on the white population, i.e., if the negroes had rights, they would use them, and they would arm themselves and come after us.

The more I read the more I understood why the Dred Scott decision which enforced the deprivation of human rights to an entire race of people outraged and inflamed the debate over slavery in 1857 and continued to fuel racism in America for another century. Is it any wonder that it is taking so long for LGBT people to gain full civil rights and the respect of other human beings in our society?

Above, Lincoln reading a draft of the Proclamation to his cabinet.

As horrible as the Dred Scott decision was, it took five and half more years for President Lincoln to issue a presidential Proclamation that the slaves in the mutinous Southern states were free—really only a war-time measure under his authority as Commander in Chief—and another three years before the Thirteenth Amendment legally abolished it. And another three years (1868) before the Dred Scott issues of citizenship in both the nation and the state were settled by the Fourteenth Amendment.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Rights, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

January 14, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Now I have to put “big church” in the same dreaded column as “big government” and “big corporations.” Big churches are making the case that “big is bad.”

Have we not been abused and insulted enough that big Saddelback Church Rick Warren made himself famous by inviting McCain and Obama to a debate before his fundamentalist audience, then got into bed with the “Yes on 8″ people, and now has invited the break-away Episcopal parishes to get into bed with Saddleback?

(Never mind that Warren is the honored kick-off prayer man for Obama’s inauguration. I am sure the Obama team thought they were being uniters by picking somebody right of center for that honor.)

But, according to Monday’s Associated Press story,”Warren has offered the use of his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., to conservative Southern California parishes that left the national Episcopal Church.”

The implication is far more serious than the Proposition 8 issue. In that, Warren or any other conservative minister could stand behind some argument about the sanctity of marriage or the Christian tradition and make a case, however heartless or flimsy. I have read the opinions of gay people too that don’t think marriage is what we want or what we should be fighting for. But marriage is only one small piece of the pie.

But to welcome break-away Episcopal parishes to his sprawling campus has an altogether different symbolism. These are parishes that haven’t gotten over the consecration of V. Eugene Robinson as the first openly gay/partnered Bishop in the Episcopal Church in the U.S. Never mind the fact that Robinson’s own diocese in New Hampshire picked him as the first and best choice for the office. Individual congregations and dioceses elsewhere in the country, and in the world (specifically, Africa) immediately bristled. Robinson doesn’t serve those people, but they still couldn’t stand it that there was such a thing as a gay/partnered Bishop.

That was in 2003, by the way, and they still haven’t gotten over it. A handful of them rattled sabers, and finally left the denomination. Last week, the California Supreme Court settled the real estate lawsuits three of them were embroiled in, in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles (Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, Bishop), saying that the real estate of those congregations belongs to the Episcopal Church, not to the congregations.

So if they want to leave the denomination, they must get out of the buildings and off of the property which no longer belongs to them. The Supreme Clout case is merely upholding the law in accordance with the constitutions and bylaws which those congregations subscribed to. They only hold their local real estate in trust for the entire church, not as their private fiefdoms.

But Warren, at Saddleback Church, meanwhile, is itself a private fiefdom. The thing which many people don’t notice about so-called “non-denominational” churches is that they have accountability to no one. They do as they please because they are a denomination of one; they have no overseers, no bishops or national councils. Their relationships are at will according to their local pleasure. This is the way that a lot of the “mega-churches” like it.

St. Paul, of course, scolded them two thousand years ago, when he said, “What! Are you the only ones the word of God has reached….?” (1 Corinthians 14:36)  Pastor Rick doesn’t worry about that stuff, though. He has built a 30year old kingdom in Saddleback Valley, “fresh out of seminary” as his web site puts it, and does things exactly his way.

Ironically, Warren’s “News & Views” page for 2009 sates the obvious: “In 2009: Will You Build Bridges or Walls?” He has determined to build walls against the Episcopal Church, and all welcoming and reconciling churches, by symbolically taking in the disgruntled conservatives who would rather be church-homeless than abide by the thought that there is a gay man of faith in New Hampshire who is shepherding his flock.

I say symbolically, because the three congregations in Southern California who are legally church-homeless are in Newport Beach, Long Beach and North Hollywood. For a few of those folks, Saddleback Valley is a bit of a stretch.

Rick Warren’s über-conservative gesture is problematic for another reason: he is actively intervening in a dispute within someone else’s flock. Episcopal Bishop Bruno has not actually expelled these congregations from their real estate as a result of the Supremes’ decision. According to his pastoral letter, he still holds out the hope that they will reconcile with the national denomination. Even the three dissident congregations’ attorney says the fight is “far from over,” because he has other ideas up his litigious sleeve.

But Rick Warren, the grandstand-alone pastor in Orange County, can’t wait for either of those two scenarios to play out. He wants to gather in somebody else’s sheep right now. In most Christian circles, that is a pastoral no-no.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

January 5, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I met Leroy Aarons over 13 years ago at a book signing put on by one of those downtown L.A. gay/lesbian mixers.  Aarons, an award-winning journalist and playwright, had produced a remarkable book that looks at a fundamentalist Christian family with compassion and sympathy.  Bobby Griffith was a nice clean-cut American boy who discovered, much to his mother’s horror, that he was homosexual.  She tried desperately to change him, shame, him, pray him, force him into repenting of this terrible sin — as she saw it from the perspective of her religious stronghold, a very conservative suburban Califiornia church.  (And you thought only fringy-kooky liberals inhabit the Golden State?)

Bobby did two notable things which made Leroy Aaron’s book possible, and his Mother’s transformation imperative.  First, he kept a journal, a diary, of his pain, progress and setbacks in trying to understand himself and God.  And second, he took his own life.

Prayers for Bobby has just come out as a Lifetime Networks/Once Upon a Time Films production starring Sigourney Weaver, and is being screened at the Gindi Auditorium of the American Jewish University, on Tuesday, January 13, 2009.    The release poster doesn’t seem to have a website, so I’m posting it here.  You have to call for reservations by January 12.  Don’t miss it.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Fundamentalism, Bible & Interpretation, LGBT Christian, History, PRAYERS, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

January 5, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Do you remember the expression, “The Perfect is the enemy of the Good”?  People will never get Good stuff done if they are only satisfied with Perfect. The lust for Perfection makes us unsatisfied, even angry with what is Good.

I have seen this in people’s lives — in the search for that Perfect boyfriend or husband material, in endless shopping sprees, in home improvement projects that went 200% over budget, you name it.  Most of all I see it in how people treat people.

This seems to be an endemic trait with gay men, especially. The image I have of the “best little boy in the world” is someone who grew up trying to be Perfect in order to be loved and accepted.  Even before we could understand why we wouldn’t be loved, why we might be rejected, we intuitively started striving to be Perfect.

And as we got older and began to suspect “it” at the deepest levels of our consciousness, we hoped maybe that if we were Perfect in every other way, somehow our variant sexuality could be overlooked or condoned.

(I use the term variant sexuality because it is non-judgmental.  I have spent too many years deflecting criticism of what others defined as deviant sexuality.  The denotation of “variant” and “deviant” is practically the same — meaning something that varies or deviates from a “norm.”  But the word “various” does not have the same connotation as “devious.”  But, hey!  Am I just searching for the Perfect adjective because of a lifelong habit of not being satisfied with a Good adjective?).

At some point maybe a dozen years back I began to try to unload this Perfectionism.  Was it an acquaintance who told me I was a Perfectionist?  And I argued, Perfectly of course, that I am not a Perfectionist.  It’s just that other people are all such slackers!  But like heavy baggage with no handles or wheels, I began to set down this Perfectionism.  I have just as much right to breathe the air on this planet as all other living beings.  I do not have to earn my right to be a live and be myself anymore than I have to “earn” God’s grace (which after all is defined as a “gift”).

As the years go by, of course, I’ve never gotten completely free of Perfectionism, mine or others’ stifling desire to be better, superior, ultimate.  As a friend recently said of the gay people in his congregation, “it’s never done until it’s overdone.”  I’ve gotten sucked into projects or jobs with other people who are obsessed with Perfectionism, and will bring the Good to a grinding halt if it can’t be Perfect.
Perfectionism seeps into relationships, I have found, when I do something Good (a good deed, a good job, a good time, or a good look) but my friend or spouse or co-worker almost subconsciously points out that it might have, or could have, or should have been done better.  And the words of a wise counselor of years ago come back to me:  Don’t “should” on people!

The Perfect devalues the Good. And the Perfect guy looks down his nose on Good guys. But since none of us is actually Perfect —not in God’s sight and not in one another’s finely -tuned tastes and sensibilities—we keep up a pretense of Perfection, or the pursuit of Perfection, which deep down is eating away at our humanity, eroding our self-esteem, and poisoning our friendships, intimate relationships and loyalties.

But shouldn’t we always strive to be “better” human beings?  I think that’s the Calvinist Sunday School lesson which so many little gay boys internalized like homophobia (and as gay men wind up pouring out of their memories on therapists’ couches).  Well, perhaps.  But maybe being a “better” human being would actually mean to better accept people for who they are (think:  Serenity Prayer), to better know my own limitations, and to make the world a better place just by getting Good stuff done in my life rather than being blocked by a desire for the Perfect.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Sex, Homophobia, Living by Grace, PRAYERS, Recovery, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

January 3, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I met Leroy Aarons over 13 years ago at a book signing put on by one of those downtown L.A. gay/lesbian mixers.  Aarons, an award-winning journalist and playwright, had produced a remarkable book that looks at a fundamentalist Christian family with compassion and sympathy.  Bobby Griffith was a nice clean-cut American boy who discovered, much to his mother’s horror, that he was homosexual.  She tried desperately to change him, shame, him, pray him, force him into repenting of this terrible sin — as she saw it from the perspective of her religious stronghold, a very conservative suburban Califiornia church.  (And you thought only fringy-kooky liberals inhabit the Golden State?)

Bobby did two notable things which made Leroy Aaron’s book possible, and his Mother’s transformation imperative.  First, he kept a journal, a diary, of his pain, progress and setbacks in trying to understand himself and God.  And second, he took his own life.

Prayers for Bobby has just come out as a Lifetime Networks/Once Upon a Time Films production starring Sigourney Weaver, and is being screened at the Gindi Auditorium of the American Jewish University, on Tuesday, Januayar 13.    The release poster doesn’t seem to have a website, so I’m posting it here.  You have to call for reservations by January 12.  Don’t miss it.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, PRAYERS, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »