I’ve been a member of a church my whole life.  My grandfather was a pastor, his brother was a pastor, and there were others before them.  And now I’m a pastor.  I serve a fairly large church in Grand Island, Nebraska.  The good life.  On a stick.

I’m also a United Methodist.  My grandfather & great-uncle were Methodist.  My parents chose United Methodist churches when I was growing up.  I attended the same United Methodist Church for more than 20 years before heading off to seminary at Claremont School of Theology.

I resonated early on with the idea that God is one who expresses love rather than anger or hatred or contempt, and God calls all of humanity to do the same.  I was most moved by Jesus’ final teaching in the Gospel of John when he gave that new commandment:  love each other, and that’s how people will know who you are.

Like a good Methodist, I think that the ancient and sacred Christian texts have everything I need to figure out God’s message for the world.  As a pastor and a preacher, I am a student of the Bible and continue to read and study.

And it’s hard.  It’s really hard to figure out what’s written there because it challenges me and it makes me think and it forces me out of my comfort zone and it transforms me.  God transforms me.  And I can’t help but keep working at it, because the more I do the more I become a better person.  That’s the way I think about it.  That’s the way I experience it.

I recently read a blog that made me see that I’ve been somewhat of a hypocrite, though.  I haven’t been doing all I can – as informed by sacred Christian texts – to show the love that Jesus teaches and that God calls me to give.  I haven’t been open to God’s transforming work as completely as I could be.  I haven’t been showing the world who I am because of the way I show love for all of humanity.

I have been silent in the face of exclusion and condemnation.  I’ve been afraid of offending people.  I’ve been afraid of pissing people off.  And this stops now.

The blog was from Dan Pearce’s Single Dad Laughing site titled I’m Christian Unless You’re Gay.  It’s an excellent read.  Please check it out.

He writes of judgement, hatred, and bullying for any reason and how it’s completely against the tenet found in a number of religious traditions to express love to one another.  He specifically discusses the Christian (and I see it from other religious and non-religious traditions) abuse of gays and lesbians.  And he’s right.  I see it.  All the time.

And I’ve been silent.  I’ve been afraid to say something.  And this stops now.

I’m a Christian pastor who loves the LGBT community.  I’m a Christian pastor who doesn’t believe that homosexuality is a sin.  I’m a Christian pastor who thinks that gays and lesbians and bisexuals and queers and transgendered persons are not only invited by God into faith communities, but who are essential to the meaning of true community.

And I would be remiss not to note that the United Methodist Church disagrees with me, and instead notes that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Even so, I refuse to be silent.  I refuse to give in to my fear of the response.  I refuse to give in to the fear of consequences.  I refuse to exclude these persons from the Christian community.  Because that’s not love.  That’s not life-giving.  That doesn’t show who I am by the way that I love the world.

Many of my friends will disagree with me.  Many will cite scripture to me.

They’ll reference the creation story in Genesis and tell me that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.  Even though that story is about creation and procreation, about addressing human origin.  It’s not about faithful same-gender relationships.

They’ll reference the Levitical laws, forgetting that we already ignore most of those laws based on Paul’s writing in Galatians that the law has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ or his writing in Romans that we are no longer under the law.  And even so, careful reading of the specific Levitical text seems to show that it upholds patriarchy instead of condemning faithful same-gender relationships.

They’ll reference the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is about gang-rape and fear.  It’s not about faithful same-gender relationships.

They’ll reference 1 Corinthians and Romans, two letters from Paul – who by the way was a very gifted writer and whose Greek is well known for its form and poetry.  But they won’t mention that there’s debate on the meaning of the Greek words used (and that weren’t even translated to “homosexual” until the 1940s).  Careful analysis reflects a likelihood that these texts are likely to reference pederasty (the ancient practice of enslaving young boys who would be sexually exploited).  It’s not about faithful same-gender relationships.

And yet I would still be a hypocrite if I were to say that I have the exclusive (capital-T) Truth of God’s will for the world.  If I exclude persons who disagree with me, I’m doing the same thing as those who exclude persons based on their sexual identity.

My particular passion is about exclusion of the LGBT community, and I won’t be silent.  And I don’t intend to silence anyone else.

Instead, let’s talk.  Let’s have a conversation.  Let’s be respectful.  Let’s show love to one another, because that’s how the world will know who we are.

I’m a Christian pastor who doesn’t think homosexuality is a sin.  Let’s talk.

Today I saw a couple of tweets from Todd Rhoades (no relation to me) that spoke of church growth & membership.  In one, he linked to a blog post titled “Mainline Desperation” and quoted J. Barrett Owen, beginning:

We look at the work it’s going to take to rebuild our mainline churches and we’re met with anguish, difficult times and frustration.

We feel little to no creativity after examining the debt and despair that creeps past the sanctuary doors.

We feel the work it’s going to take to become a necessary influence on the community is enough to cause anyone to give up and walk away.

So instead of influencing anybody, we just tell stories of how it used to not be this way.

Later, Owen suggests:

If we choose, though (and I believe it’s our choice), to become passionate about social justice, offering peace instead of war, giving hope to a future that needs it, educating all people, loving all people, blessing all people, practicing authentic spirituality, worshiping as a community, and praying for the brokenhearted, then the church is forever needed.

We can escape the turmoil in our own exile when we realize the church isn’t dying.

…
When our collective consciousness changes, the church will, too.

I think Rhoades is right on quoting Owen who seems to see very clearly both the membership decline of mainline churches and a real opportunity for hope.  To me, it echoes John Cobb‘s thoughts in his book Reclaiming the Church.  Cobb writes of the failure of mainline (he calls them “oldline”) churches to stand firm in conviction on theological and social issues, and instead observes a tendency for churches to water down their theology into “lukewarmness” in an effort to be more inclusive.  The consequence for this is that people haven’t felt as though churches take stands for issues to which they as members of humanity can be passionately committed.  And so they leave.

Cobb suggests that a church’s stand on any particular issue does not necessarily have to exclude persons who disagree, and instead he illustrates that reclaiming theology from the academic institutions in a way that broadens dialogue within a congregation – creating a safe place to share differing views rather than asking people to keep their mouths shut to avoid confrontation – is the key to church growth.  This kind of passionate and spirited conversation raises in people an openness to transformation, a commitment to their faith and their church, and is essential for overall growth.

And it doesn’t fall far from Owen’s vision, either!

And so Rhoades’ other tweet – which is a question asking if a particular church advertisement is “good or bad” – is an image from a subway:

To me, this is taking a stand, opening the possibility for spirited conversation, and an offering of hope to declining churches.

As part of a class last semester, I had to describe what has become known the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to a current issue facing the church.  John Wesley – founder of Methodism – would view the things going on in his time through the lens of this quadrilateral: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.  Be warned.  This is a long read, but (in my opinion) worth it…  Here is the question and my response:

The United Methodist Church holds that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.  What is your understanding of this theological position of the Church?  Demonstrate its application in at least one current issue of the Church.

As one who grew up in the UMC, I don’t have a memory of a specific time that I chose this practice of Wesley’s theology over another tradition.  Even having gone through confirmation and the variety of congregations and faith traditions visited as part of that class, I felt aware of other possibilities; but none seemed as perfect a fit for me as the UMC.  In hindsight, I think the reason has a great deal to do with the way United Methodists approach scripture and the application of scripture to the world.  In short, my comfort at the earliest stages of faith with the UMC has a great deal to do with the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral stresses scripture as the primary source for all we know about God, the life of Jesus Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit and about faith.  The way I understand this is that the scriptures contain everything that I need – and that we as a community of faith need – in order to lead a life according to God’s call, and so the difficulty lies not in where to find God’s message but how to understand God’s message.  The texts we read today come from a long line of storytellers and scribes who have painstakingly and prayerfully worked to share this message, even across social, cultural, temporal, and linguistic boundaries.  The difficulties in bringing such a message lies not in the scriptures themselves, but in our own human limitations.  In light of these limitations, what a wonder it is that God – who has given us all that we need to know through the scriptures – speaks to us even beyond those scriptures.

Through the tradition of generations of Christians, we can be in dialogue with a community across time.  As an individual, I think it is foolish and even narcissistic to think that I alone – even with the guidance of scripture – am able to discern all there is to know about God and God’s wishes for humanity.  Instead, reading from ancient and contemporary theologians and following the example of traditional practices offers a broader perspective for the Christian faith and experience.  It is important to note that part of being in dialogue is the understanding that we may not always agree with every member of our community.  Rather than seeing this as troubling, I find this to be a sign of God’s grace and God’s infinite ability to relate to humanity and to creation.  I don’t mean to say that God is different depending on individual human perception, but instead that God responds to us according to our needs and relates to us each independently and completely.

It is the nature of God’s intimate relationship with each person that makes it possible for us to experience God, and there is no shortage of written accounts of these kinds of personal experiences from the scriptures to Augustine to Wesley’s strange warming of the heart.  My own experience began – in a sense – with the understanding that I was called to ordained ministry.  This experience did more than open my mind to Christian service, and an equally important affect was that I began to become more aware of God’s movement in my own life.  As I continued forward from that time, I was able to experience more fully God’s specific presence and call on my life.  I was also able to look back to memories from before my call experience and – with newly opened eyes – could see that God had been actively present far longer than I had been paying attention.  Collectively, these experiences draw me forward to God and to what God calls me to do.

The way I find most effective to tie together these aspects of scripture, tradition, and experience is through the gift of reason.  As children of God, we have not been created to blindly love God, but to choose to love God, and I think the only way for us to come to this choice is to use reason to put together scripture with tradition and reason in a way that makes sense for us individually.  Using this gift of reason, we can assess whether our experiences fall in line with what we read in scripture; we can discern whether the traditional practices of our faith make sense in our current context and our own experience; we can examine our reading of scriptures in light of our tradition and experiences.  In this way, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral helps us to more fully experience God’s divine lure in our lives.

One way to apply the Quadrilateral to a current issue of the Church is in relation to the immigration bill recently signed into law in Arizona.  This law will require all immigrants to carry documentation and will give local law enforcement officials wide-ranging power to interrogate or even arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.  While I am sensitive to the ongoing national debate about immigration in the United States, this application will focus on the specific law itself rather than the broader issue of immigration reform.

When Jesus was asked about the most important commandment – written in the canonical Gospels – he cites Leviticus 19:18, saying that we should not only love God but that we should love our neighbors in the same way that we love ourselves.  In Luke, Jesus follows with the parable of the Good Samaritan – who reason and tradition tell us would have been considered in that context to have been an immigrant and an outcast – who acts out of love and compassion.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: to love each other just as Jesus has loved them.  As I reason through these scriptures, I think the core of the Christian faith is love!  Is it possible to love our brothers and sisters in Christ if we are more concerned with their immigration status than their wellbeing?  I don’t think so.  To add to the scriptural support, the same chapter of Leviticus that Jesus quotes when he says we are to love our neighbors says, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33-34, NRSV).

This passage reminds readers of the Israelites in Egypt and I also think of the Babylonian exile.  The people of God have been aliens in strange lands, and tradition reminds us of inhumane treatment, murder, and the unyielding injustice of those who have been under such oppression.  I think of Peter’s vision in Acts, and his experience that followed preaching to the Gentiles.  Though the early Christian leaders questioned his motives, his vision and the presence of the Holy Spirit silenced the critics.

I also think of the North American slave trade of the eighteenth century, and addressed directly by John Wesley who wrote, “If, therefore, you have any regard to justice, (to say nothing of mercy, nor the revealed law of God,) render unto all their due. Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to every child of man, to every partaker of human nature… Be gentle toward all men; and see that you invariably do unto every one as you would he should do unto you.” [John Wesley, “Thoughts Upon Slavery,” http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/thoughtsuponslavery.stm, 1774.]

And finally, experience tells me that I have been invited into a community of God.  In my experience, community is not only a place for dialogue and friendship, but is a place for safety; it is a place of sanctuary.  I do not see community as a place where everyone looks or thinks or acts the same, but I do see community as a place for unity and our common connection to our creator and redeemer.  Reasoning all of these together, I see no way that this law in Arizona is a showing of love, a recognition of the immigrant as citizen, or an invitation to community.  In that light, this is a law that I cannot – as a person of faith and good conscience – support or follow.

So yesterday I preached on Acts 11:1-18 (Peter’s vision that prompted him to preach to the Gentiles) and John 13:31-35 (Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: to love one another). In it, I applied the idea of “love in action” to the new immigration law in Arizona.

I have to admit that I was very nervous bringing something political into a sermon. Mostly, I’m worried about alienating people. Ok, really, I’m worred about pissing someone off and making them leave the church. I’m not sure I want that kind of responsibility!! And yet, I feel strongly about talking about faith and I think God calls all persons to speak boldly, to speak the truths that we understand from God.

So how do we reconcile this? How can we do ministry boldly? How do we do it without driving people out of our congregation, without excluding voices that do not echo our own?

Or should we be less bold? Should we smooth out the rough places so that all persons feel welcome and at home?

This is a difficult challenge, and I don’t think for a second that I have the answers. And so I ask the community to participate in this dialogue. To be cliche for a moment, what would Jesus do? What would you do?

Here’s a conversation I had with three UMC clergy from the Cal-Pac Conference on the upcoming Lectionary scripture.  The verses can be read at the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.  Voices heard are Rev. Krista Givens, Rev. Molly Vetter, Rev. J. Dan Lewis, and me!  This is a ”first-attempt” episode, so if you like it please forward a link to others and comment to let us know!

For those reading this on readers that don’t support media, you can view the original post here.

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I’ve had some ongoing dialogue with an atheist (I’ve also heard the phrase non-theist) friend of mine.  Yesterday he posted on my Facebook page a Daily Beast article quoting Orange County Pastor Wiley Drake who appears to be calling for the deaths of Congress members – and perhaps others – who support health care reform in the United States.

My own views on reform are clear in a post here, and so I wish to be clear that my point with this point is not to reiterate what I’ve already shared.  Instead, I wish to dialogue on dialogue!  I want to highlight this ongoing conversation, because I understand the perception of Christians today and I think the perception must change.

So the link to the article was posted with the comment from my friend: so, um, yeah…

My thoughts:  Wow. Sounds like a real wacko!! [Edit: 'Wacko is, as you know, a technical term.]  This is one of the many who give the Christianity that I affirm a bad name…

At this point, my friend pushed back: But that passage is in the bible, he is simply stating the intent of gods plan as detailed in that book. Are you implying that there are somethings about gods words that can be incorrect? The passage is pretty clear, I don’t think there is alot to interpet there. Is he wacko or is he following true to the un-erroring word of god better than your cult?

That’s when I suddenly had a lot to say.  So I share the following text hoping to further this conversation.  I invite conversation here, knowing that there are many different perspectives.  I differ from Drake in many ways, and one of those is the claim that I am right and everyone else is wrong.  So here are my thoughts, and I look forward to yours:

So, I don’t have much with me right now in terms of study resources. I’m shooting from the hip here. So let’s see what we come up with.

Many of the Psalms were written by King David, but I don’t know whether Psalm 149 (the Psalm Drake quotes) is a Davidic Psalm. It kinda sounds like it, so I’ll roll with that assumption.

So with that in mind the entire sentence in that part of the Psalm (verses 6-9) is, “Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron, to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones.” And to be honest, I’m not sure what it has to do with the healthcare bill. To me it looks like he took something out of context. Again, that’s what many people do that give the Christianity I prefer (or choose) a bad name…. See More

So I argue that the the passage isn’t clear. With that said, let’s continue with the assumption that this is a Psalm written by David. The same David who sent a guy to the front lines of a battle to die ’cause he wanted the guy’s wife. Not always a stand-up character, and something that indicates that he was clearly influenced by the world around him. And what was appropriate in his world? Violence and war, especially for a king.

Even if I took that text to mean what Drake says it means (which I don’t), I would choose instead to look at some of Jesus’ sayings and would put more weight there. Jesus (whether or not you believe in his divinity) had some profound ideas about serving the people around you regardless of their social station. He encouraged hanging out with the social undesirables, the sick, the poor, women and children (who were second-class during that time period), the disabled. And in my mind, passing healthcare reform fits right into that message.

With that in mind, do I claim that the bible is the complete inerrant word of God? Nope. There are contradictions in the bible itself, so how could that be? I do say that there are profound ideas, and I do believe that that the bible was inspired by God; and it was written by the hands of men who were influenced and pressured by the social norms. Then it was translated by people who had their own interpretations!

And finally… Cult? Come on… The faith I affirm is an idea, and it’s an idea that works for me. It’s an idea I share sometimes, but – as I hope you know by now – it’s not one that I say is the end-all-be-all Truth-with-a-capital-T. Is it true for me? Yup. Does that mean it has to be true for everybody? I don’t think so.

And those ideas may get me labeled a heretic. And have, honestly. And to that I say, bring it on!