Category Archives: Faith

Why I Am Not Flipping Out At The Moment

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New York Times: Lutheran Group Eases Limits on Gay Clergy

Yes, I am a conservative Christian. Yes, I would have voted against this. (All my GLBTQ peeps know this.) However, I’m not having a massive hissy fit over this.

Why you ask?

1.) I’ve got too much going on in my life to flip out over anything else at the moment. Jon is in the process of finding another call, I have a 4 1/2 month old baby who is teething, I’m working 3 days a week, I’m still dealing with the emotional and mental schtuff from Daniel’s birth and stay in the NICU, and I’m tired to the point where sleeping all day would be sooooo nice. While I’m aware of the implications of this, I’m really having a hard time caring right now.

2.) The language of the decision is as such:

The first step asks the assembly whether it is committed “to finding ways to allow congregations and synods that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships,” said the report.
The second step asks the assembly whether it is committed to finding a way for Lutherans in committed, same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA professional leaders — clergy, associates in ministry, diaconal ministers and deaconesses.
If steps one and two are accepted, step three asks the assembly to commit to implementing steps one and two “in such a way that all this church bear the burdens of the other, love the neighbor, and respect the bound conscience of any with whom they disagree.” According to the report, “decisions about policy that serve only the interests of one or another group will not be acceptable.”
Step four presents a proposal for how the ELCA could move toward change “in a way that respects the bound conscience of all,” said the report. The fourth step is different from the previous steps in that it is “not simply a commitment in principle, but makes a specific recommendation for flexibility within existing structures and practices of this church to allow for people in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to be approved” for professional service in the ELCA, stated the report.

In none of the bolded passages does it state that members will be forced to call a gay or lesbian pastor to their congregation. My bishop (the most awesome Jessica Crist) actually states it best:

The resolution on Ministry Policies is actually a series of 4 resolutions, moving from committing the ELCA to begin the process of finding ways to recognize and support life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships, to finding ways for rostering appropriately prepared and qualified persons. Even if all 4 parts of the resolution pass, there will be a lengthy process for implementation. The resolution makes possible in certain instances the rostering of people who happen to be in same-gender relationships. It is important to note that the intent of this is to open possibilities for ministry. Congregations have a lot of leeway in the call process now. They can accept or reject a candidate proposed by the Synod Office. That will not change. The intent of these resolutions is not to force congregations to accept pastors who do not fit. Rather it is to allow congregations to call pastors who do fit.

In other words, this isn’t something that will take place overnight and it isn’t something that will be binding on every congregation and every person. Congregations are always allowed to reject a candidate given to them just as candidates can reject a congregation profile given to them. If it were binding that a congregation had to consider every candidate given, that would be a different story.

3.) This issue has been talked to death for the last 8 years. I swear that some of the “yes” votes were cast on the condition that we could stop talking about sex at Synod Assembly. (At least… this is what my Lutheran peeps on Facebook are saying.) In the words of one of them, “one of these days, we might be able to get past sex and the church roof and onto the issue of Christ being crucified and raised from the dead.” At least there’s a decision on the horizon and we can stop dialoguing ourselves to death!!!

So… this is why I’m not flipping out like I normally would be.

Gone Home

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One of my people just “went home” so…

Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant, Dolores. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

She and I did butt heads while she was parish council president but… she really cared about the parish and she was going to make sure it survived! Despite any butting of heads that she and I had, she was the first person I called when I needed prayer because she was an AMAZING prayer warrior. My mom still asks about her because she kept all of us in prayer 3 years ago when my grandfather died. I think the reason Daniel did so well was that she kept him seriously in prayer. 🙂

Prayers Needed

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The call committee of [undisclosed location in Canada] votes today (August 6th). This is a congregation that is really open to discernment and the leadings of the Holy Spirit. For those who do, please pray that God’s will be done in terms of whether they call Jon or not. They are a seriously AMAZING group of people and we’d love it if they did call us but we want God’s will to be done in any case.

Life As A Mommy

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I’ve been lax about blogging lately because I haven’t had enough brain cells to do it, or (like right now) I’m typing one-handed because I have the big-eyed boy in my arms. (OK… I could put on my Moby wrap but I haven’t had a chance.)

I haven’t been to church in at least a month so I’m not having any really decent faith revelations. I honestly wanted to see my baby more than I wanted to deal with people and to make it to two care times, I had to skip the 11:00 service at Church #2. I prayed a lot on the way down and I listened to religious podcasts but I broke the Sabbath. (OK… sort of. I caught a midweek service some of the time before my month-long drought.)

I haven’t been out much since Daniel came home because we’ve had to quarantine him due to his compromised immune system. (Preemies have crappy immune systems. Ask me how I know this.) I’m home most of the time. I watch a lot of news when I can’t sleep and I’ve kept up on the outside world that way. Otherwise, it’s been a lot of getting out to make trips to the dump or to do things like get prescriptions.

My life does revolve around Daniel right now. I keep a separate blog for his stuff (located here) because I’d rather keep this blog about me and not post that OMG-HE-HELD-HIS-HEAD-UP-TODAY!!!!!! Mommy-blogging can get annoying and I’m respecting that some of my audience doesn’t really want to know the minutae of Daniel’s bowel habits or motor skills. By the same token, it was good to have the Caringbridge site so I’ve got Daniel’s blog up for people who want to keep tabs on him that way.

In terms of world events, I have been following the elections in Iran and my Twitter icon is green to show support for Mousavi. I think Ahmadinejad is on crack for thinking that the US sparked the protests and that Mousavi’s popularity was a plot by Obama but he’s always been a little daft when it comes to factual things… much like our last administration and Fox News. (Yes, I had to throw that in.) I actually care more about Neda’s death than I do Michael Jackson’s death.

So… that’s my world right now.

“The Unlikely Disciple”

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While I’ve had a sleepy dude on me, I’ve been able to get some reading done.

While listening to an episode of NPR’s “Religion Podcast” on my iPod, I heard about a book called The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose. His interview was pretty sweet so I decided to acquire a copy from Amazon.

The premise of the book is that Roose is spending a “study abroad” semester undercover at Liberty University, the evangelical liberal arts college founded by the late Jerry Falwell. While on a writing assignment with his boss, he visited Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church founded by Falwell, and found that he really could not communicate with the evangelical college students he met there. Realizing that this was a problem, he pondered the idea of spending a semester at Liberty as it was a foreign culture to him. He was able to arrange it and spent the spring of 2007 as a transfer student there. He lives in the dorms, takes part in prayer meetings, takes the core curriculum classes, sings in the choir at Thomas Road Baptist Church, and even goes on a short-term missions trip down to Florida over Spring Break to win the souls of the throngs of college students down there. He even does an interview with Falwell for the college paper and it ends up being the last print interview conducted by Falwell before he died in May of 2007.

I honestly could not put the book down and was forced to do it in order to get some sleep, to get the young prince to stop crying, or to eat — it was really that engaging. Granted, I’m a blog fan so I enjoy reading about peoples’ lives but this was definitely different. Kevin talked about his prep for heading to Liberty (his friend Laura doing a crash course on Evangelical Christianity for Dummies for him) as well as how he dealt with fitting in and not being conspicuous. One of the more interesting things was his attempts at not cursing — a book that had him using religious expressions instead of curse words which made him sound like a dork instead of blending in. 🙂

As a convert to Christianity, it was interesting to watch how his perspective on things changed as the semester went on. He doesn’t end up “being saved” but he’s moving toward that direction. He starts praying, he has a newfound respect for the Bible and for the faith, and he does start attending church occasionally. His friend Laura had told him that this semester could change him and I think it was a positive change.

The most interesting thing was his reaction when Jerry Falwell passed away. His interview had actually made him more human and I think having seen that side, Kevin was honestly sad when the news came down. I’m glad that he was there at the time because he talks about the two sides of the death. On one hand, Falwell was a monster to those with whom he disagreed (most specifically the GLBTQ community) and his death was a great thing. On the other hand, he was a person and definitely “not a hypocrite” (according to Kevin) and I think having seen him in person and talked to him, it was a real human being dying instead of this caricature in the media.

This is a book I’d recommend reading if you do want a semi-unbiased view of life in a hyper-evangelical environment. There’s no true way to be unbiased in this situation but Kevin does a really good job of it.