Who really is queer?

We worry a lot about sex. A friend of mine from the U.K. reminds me this is because his ancestors sent us the Puritans! He may be right.

But when it specifically comes to sex and GLBT people, we get a little crazy about what they may be doing sexually. Seldom do I hear anyone question about what heterosexual couples may be doing. But if we want to worry about something, shouldn’t be concerned with the relationship that is going on between two people?

I recently heard a pastor talk about a young man who came to him confessing that he was strongly attracted to other men. The young man didn’t know what to do because he felt that God must have made a mistake in creating him. He felt so bad about this that he had considered killing himself. The pastor said he didn’t know what to do either, because what his church had taught him and what he thought Jesus would have done, were two different things. As a person of faith, what would you tell that young man? What if that young man were your son? Is God making mistakes by creating homosexuals?

Well, I for one don’t think so. I am over seventy years of age now and I am tired of seeing and hearing people of faith struggle over issues that I really don’t think matter much anymore. It’s a lot like evolution, it’s passé to me. And so is the issue of homosexuality.

But I would tell that young man, as I have others over the years struggling with their sexuality, that they are not mistakes. We are all children of God and loved by God. If we shall be judged one day it will be not be by our sexual preference but rather by how we have related to God and one another. Period. What we should be concerned about are sexual relations without love or commitment whether they go on between people of the same or opposite sex.

I know what the Bible says and many of the passages that deal with “abominations” (acts which are abhorrent, detestable) not only concern a man lying down with another man, but also a mixture of other acts humans may particularly not like -- eating certain prohibited foods like shellfish, charging interest on loans, wearing clothing of the opposite sex or clothes which mix linen and wool, or women who grab men’s testicles, and those who miss church. All of these acts are biblically prohibited as well. And lest we forget, the bible also permits fathers to kill their “stubborn or rebellious” sons, sell their daughters into slavery, and stone to death any woman while being raped fails to cry out. How are we to read these passages today?

There are also specific instructions as to who must be excluded from community worship: those with crushed testicles (eunuchs), those who have had a recent nocturnal emission, and those who are children born of an “illicit union” (bastards) and, incidentally, all their descendents down to the 10th generation. As well as bankers, stockbrokers, or anyone who charges interest on a loan (so much for capitalism!).

Jesus seemed to disregard many of the old religious rules of his day and criticized those who religiously kept the letter of the law but did not practice love to others. So, I am not convinced that the few sentences that appear in the bible about “abominations” can over-shadow what Jesus brought to the world -- his teaching that we love one another and be merciful and compassionate -- even to “outsiders” like aliens, criminals, and sick people. Jesus told us to love those whom society marginalizes.

I choose to look at the quality of person’s relationship – whether it is loving, committed, exclusive, non-abusive and with a life-long intention. And if those criteria apply to persons in relationship who are of the same sex, so what!

What people of faith should be doing is helping people strengthen their close, intimate relationships along those criteria. If we determine all same gender, intimate relationships are sinful, only because the couple is of the same sex, we are committing a grave error today.

Instead, as people of faith, let us model God’s relational love to the world by being very intentional about our own relationship – that it is loving, committed, exclusive, peaceful, and life-long.

I hope that young man eventually found a clergyperson who was able to share God’s love with him, help him clarify his sexuality, and tell him that the church will help him strengthen his ability to love be it with persons of the same or opposite sex.

If I follow my conscience, I have to believe that this difficult matter before the Church is best viewed in the context of the quality of one's relationship! To do otherwise, appears, well, rather queer.

Caging Jesus

In C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, there is a scene in which the children ask one of the animals about the lion, Aslan, who is the Christ-figure in these stories. They warily ask, “Is he dangerous?” To which Mrs. Beaver responds, “Yes, he is dangerous, but he is good!”

I am afraid we have caged Aslan. We know he is good, but we also know he is also dangerous -- he asks us to turn away from what we are doing and follow him. We know how dangerous that is – Jesus asks us to loose our selves, to be transformed into new creatures, and to understand that the world and its empires will come to hate us. How much easier it is to put Jesus in a cage! In the cage, we can visit him each Sunday, adore him, praise him, and get away before he puts a paw on us, before he, like Aslan, asks us to climb onto his back and enter an entirely new existence.

How tame our faith has become. The only excitement we seem to get is fighting with other Christians and disparaging people of other faiths. The result of this is that we are seen as being narrow, mean-spirited, judgmental exclusivists who are more comfortable with the sword than the cross. If I am not mistaken, that is not the Jesus we meet in our Holy Scriptures.

The image of caging Jesus has remained with me. It’s a troubling image. A magnificent lion is caged up. He yearns to be free and run with us (even up through a waterfall that flashes multi-colored, radiant lights in which we emerge into a new land as Lewis’ depicts in the last book of his Narnia series).

But to keep Jesus in a cage is also very dangerous in another way -- it is dangerous to our souls. But who of us will let him out? We are so comfortable admiring him from a distance.

Tune Up Your Relationship!

As many of you know, Sabine and I have taught “The Marriage Course” for the past nine years (see http://relationshipcentral.org). It is an eight-week evening course for couples to help build strong primary relationships that will last a lifetime and we strongly recommend it. During the course, we use a workbook that covers these important relationship areas:

-- Recognizing each other's needs,
-- Learning to communicate effectively,
-- Resolving conflict,
-- Healing past hurt,
-- Knowing how to make each other feel loved,
-- Relating to parents and in-laws,
-- Good sex,
-- Making time for each other, and
-- Having fun together.

At the end of the course, there is a monthly relationship check-up. Having “right relationships” doesn’t just apply to our relationship with God. It also has to do with our relationships with one another. Sometimes to maintain a right relationship with God is a lot easier than with one another – particularly our partner!

The Monthly Checkup

1. Are you booking dedicated “relationship time” with your partner each week?

2. Have you met his or her “top three desires” this month?

3. Have you talked about your feelings with your partner more than twice this month?

4. When you listened to your partner’s feelings this month were you able to do it without interrupting, criticizing, or giving advice?

5. How many times this month have you expressed appreciation for your partner?

6. During times of conflict, are you able to discuss the ISSUE rather than attacking your partner?

7. How many times this month have you taken time to generously listen to your partner’s point of view?

8. Have you spent time this month to express support for your partner?

9. How many times have you talked about your hurts with your partner?

10. When was the last time you apologized to your partner?

11. How many times this month have you made love to your partner in a way that communicated your love and commitment to him or her?

12. How many times have you been able to show love to your partner in your partner’s primary or secondary “love language?” (See www.fivelovelanguages.com).

Some Longer Term Issues to Work On

13. Have you been able to truly forgive your partner for hurting you? The criterion being that the offense no conditions our relationship with them. (See http://www.forgiveness-institute.org).

14. Have you been able to maintain independence from your parents and your partner’s parents?

15. Have you been able to forgive your parents for the ways they have hurt or failed you?

I encourage you to take a look at “The Marriage Course” website and think about reading Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages (see above).

Working on improving and strengthening our marriages and partnerships is the most important thing we can do this side of heaven. We know that... but... You’ve witnessed break-ups among your friends, and, perhaps it has even happened to you. Remember? By the time a couple takes action to save their relationship, it’s often too late!

We shouldn't be surprised. Most of us spend more time and concern about maintaining our automobiles than our marriage. When our car breaks down, it’s inconvenient. When our marriage breaks down it’s a ong-term disaster! It's a tsunami -- it's a Katrina! But often it is a disaster we saw coming and chose not to do anything.

The above checklist should help you to prevent that disaster – to begin to do something -- and a good action plan first begins with spending quality time together (without kids!). If you are not doing that, you may already be in trouble! Look at the Checkup List again. Talk about it with your partner -- today!

Torture? Not in my name!

It seems that many people of faith become silent when it comes to the issue of torture. There is even a nation poll which reveals that Evangelical Christians are more in favor of using torture than non-believers. Strange in that Christians follow Jesus who was unjustly tortured and killed by the state. Therefore, wouldn’t Christians have a certain abhorrence (or at least a distaste) regarding the use of torture? But perhaps being a supporter of torture may be more about a person’s politics than their faith.

Nevertheless, I want to say one thing to the folks in Congress, the Pentagon and the CIA – I don’t want you to use torture to carry out our nation’s objectives. No torture. Did you hear that? Never!

I was a cop for over thirty years and I always distinguished smart cops from dumb cops when I was a young rookie by whether or not they would use torture to obtain a confession from a suspect. I liked to think of myself and those whom I worked as smart cops who could get both information and confessions from suspects by treating them with decency and respect and using our brain rather than our brawn. Torture seemed like such a distasteful thing to do to another human being. I found that some police officers, who were little short on intelligence, would often resort to torture – use it as a way to “get the job done.” I always questioned their results along with that of their basic intelligence.

Prof. Darius Rejali, one of the world’s leading experts on torture, has recently authored a comprehensive work called Torture and Democracy. In it, he acquaints the reader with the history of torture from the late 19th century to the present time. Rejali argues that democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture – moving from torture which left “marks” on the subject to a style of torture which left no marks (electric shock, waterboarding, sensory deprivation, etc.).

While dictatorships may have tortured more people and did it more indiscriminately, the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported torture which left no external scars or broken bones. Rejali also examined the controversial question of whether or not torture works. Citing the lack of documentation on whether torture is effective, Rejali concludes it is not. Torture does not achieve what some believe it does. It is grossly inefficient in gathering verifiable intelligence or true confessions of wrongdoing.

Lest we forget, on the domestic front, torture is illegal and if the police use it what they obtained could not be used in a court of law. And police who used torture on suspects could find themselves in court facing charges of criminal assault. Does that mean that while it’s illegal to torture our citizens it’s okay to torture citizens of other countries?

But what we must never forget is that torture not only has a devastating, long-term effect on those who are tortured, it also destroys the lives of those who do the torturing. In addition, the use of torture by a democratic society tears away at values on which it was founded – due process of law and the dignity of the human person.

Recently, legal scholar Alan Dershowitz proposed that if we in America are serious about using torture, then we should develop a legal process to do it, remove it from secrecy, and never allow low-level people to administer it. Dershowitz proposes the use of “torture warrants” (similar to court warrants for an arrest or a search or seizure of private property). Yet he also believes that torture should only be used as a last resort – like in the case of a “ticking time bomb.” And each and every time torture is used by the state it needs to be authorized by a court of law and documented.

While I remain an absolutist with regard to torture, Dershowitz has an interesting solution. If we chose to do torture, we should do it openly and with accountability. Then, Dershowitz argues, we perhaps would not appear to be such hypocrites in the eyes of the rest of the world.

While his argument is intriguing, I am still not convinced that under any circumstances our nation should torture. My first reason is that it a terrible assault on a human person and, as a Christian, I cannot condone such treatment to a human being under any circumstance. Secondly, in all the years torture has been used there is no evidence that it works. And, finally, torture has a devastating life-long impact (and this can be documented) on both the tortured and the torturer

I guess the question here is that if we cannot speak out against torture, what does that say about us? What does it say about that which we say we believe about the human person? What does it say about our nation’s word when we are signatories to the Geneva Convention?

If we remain silent and cannot speak out against torture it may mean that the ways of the world have greater influence upon us than what we say we believe about God, Humankind, and the World to Come.

Healthcare -- The Right Thing to Do

Let’s see now, as I recall some basic Christian theology, we are in the “in-between” time – the time between the Resurrection of Jesus and the Second Coming. And if I am not mistaken, we who have chosen to follow Jesus are to work during this “in-between” time to bring about the Reign (or Kingdom) of God.

Throughout the centuries, that is why Christians have worked to help those who are poor, unfortunate, and despised by the world – all those acts of love and kindness that Jesus talked about. The first social services were often provided by Jesus’ followers – hospitals, places to care for the mentally ill, the homeless and abandoned children. Most every Christian knows the story in the 25th chapter of Matthew in which the King relates that the caring acts done for the least of the people in his kingdom are also done for him.

I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

The meaning being that whatever we do for the needy, we also do for Jesus. Now we know that, but do we do it? And the thing we seem to have trouble doing is caring for the sick.

Let me say this, and say it strongly -- there is no reason on earth that we in America should not be able to provide basic health care for everyone. I don’t care how we do, but it must be done. And this needs to be on the top of every person’s agenda.

Congress -- just get it done. No more excuses. No more rationalization. No more mean-spirited reasons. Just do it.

When our founders declared independence from England they strongly believed that were certain human rights that were “inalienable” for human persons. They wrote in the Declaration of Independence that among those rights was the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to pursue “happiness.”

I don’t know about you, but knowing that I can afford good health gives me great happiness. Without the prospect of obtaining care when we are sick, how happy can we be? We talk about the right to life and we talk about the right of liberty, but I tell you that the right to pursue happiness is just as important. We are a rich nation. We can afford it. When an American gets sick he or she should be able to obtain adequate medical care at a cost that will not result in financial disaster for that person.

As children of God, we are to care for our brothers and sisters. And that means every American should have a decent job which can provide food, clothing, shelter and healthcare. Whether you think of yourself as a “child of God” or not, this simply is the right thing to do.

And if you are a priest or pastor, I hope that you have preached this message at least once this year. And it might be time to preach it again.

Christian Exclusivity

I know the doctrine and it seems pretty exclusive in a world in which exclusivity often leads to violence. If we think everyone else is going to hell, what kind of people will we become? Is Jesus really the only way? If it is, then what is the “way?” Is it the way Christianity or is it the way Jesus lived his life?

As a clergyperson, I am puzzled by the way my faith approaches other faiths. We work awfully hard for conversion and someone to come to believe in only Jesus. Is God that narrow? Would God really turn my friends away at heaven’s gate because their names are Moses, Mohammad, Krishna, or Joji? I have trouble with this. I have trouble because I have come to understand God as a benevolent creator who calls to love one another; in short, that God is a god of peace. Exclusivity leads to separation, forced conversions, and violence. After all, most of us Christians can’t call each other brother and sister because of our theological differences – and we call ourselves disciples of Jesus?

So what about this statement Jesus made (and is cited by almost all Christian exclusivists), “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me? (John 14:6)

Is Jesus really saying that unless you are a baptized Christian you don’t get to God? Or is he saying something else? St. Paul tells us that Jesus is one “in whom the fullness of God resides (Colossians 2:9). Surely, this means we should “practice” Jesus; that he is, therefore, someone to follow and emulate. But when I look around at my friends who practice faiths other than mine, I can also see Jesus in them as well, whether or not they specifically know or follow Jesus. I see Christ living in many other people (Galatians 2:20).

When I was a trustee for the International Peace Council I accompanied a number of other religious people from a number of other faiths on a peace march in Cambodia. It was in 1996 and it was done to raise awareness in the world about the manufacture, proliferation, and crippling effect of land mines. In the city of Phnom Penh, I was struck by the number of amputees on the streets and in the marketplaces – all victims of landmines during the Khmer Rouge era.

As we left Phnom Penh and walked the dusty roads of rural Cambodia, we were led by the late Maha Ghosananda, leader of Cambodian Buddhists. Each day at noon, we would stop for a meal and rest. Each day, Ghosananda would sit under a tree in the village, with all the villagers around him, and teach.

During the Khmer Rouge persecution and killings, Ghosananda lost all his family members, and thousands of his fellow monks. Yet he continued to preach peace and reconciliation, not hate, until the day he died on March 12, 2007 at 83 years of age.

For a number days, I watched this routine in every peasant village in which we stopped. Suddenly, it came to me, this is just like Jesus? As I watched Ghosananda, he was truly Christ-like, although he was a Buddhist. Is there a difference? Is he not with God? Did he not follow the way of Jesus?

Ghosananda once said, “If we cannot be happy in spite of our difficulties, what good is our spiritual practice?” He believed “loving kindness” would overcome the world and he eschewed all forms of violence. So did Jesus. When I do my Christian practice, I need to keep this in mind. This humble man was always a simple monk, despite being a leader of millions. He always had a smile on his face… and he may have been the closest person to Jesus that I have ever or will ever see.

Accusing Stones

Let me state right out that I supported our intervention in Afghanistan (that’s where the terrorists were, right?) but was opposed our military to going into Iraq. Saddam wasn’t a very nice guy, but many other nations are led by bad guys, too. If we are going to rid the world of bad guys, we have a very troubling future ahead of us.

But now, as we note our 8th year of war in Afghanistan, I say, “enough is enough!” It’s too much like Vietnam for me and I don’t know what “winning” in Afghanistan means.

Besides, the war now has gotten very personal. My daughter, a captain in the U.S. Army, is now preparing for deployment in either Iraq or Afghanistan. I have a friend who lost a son to this war. I have seen his pain. I don’t want to have to experience it.

I also worry about how we have trained government officials, particularly the police, in those countries. When I saw this video on YouTube all my fears were confirmed. It is a five minute video of a U.S. military leader talking to Iraqi police officers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOIwl5G9lRo.

If you were one of those Iraqi police officers what would you think? What are the cultural imperatives here? I feel that some stones are about to cry out as this soldier with all his support, armor, vehicles and close air support berates the Iraqis for not being more aggressive in their own country. Will do they really expect we will stay forever in their country? One day we will have to leave, what then? But most important, are these the kind of democratic values we want to export to the world?


The Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk, spoke out about these kinds of things: injustice, plunder, ruin, and oppression:

You've engineered the ruin of your own house.
In ruining others you've ruined yourself.
You've undermined your foundations,
rotted out your own soul.
The bricks of your house will speak up and accuse you.
The woodwork will step forward with evidence. (Habakkuk 2:10-11, From The Message).


Are these not ancient truths? Can we not look at the history of the world (and accounts in our Bible) to remind us that plundering other nations never works out? If we say we follow the “Prince of Peace,” then let us do it – lest the bricks accuse us.

Jesus cited Habakkuk on the day we Christians call Palm Sunday. When the people acclaimed Jesus as reigning over the coming kingdom of God, the religious authorities asked Jesus to rebuke them, but Jesus did not. Instead, quoting Habakkuk, he replied, “If they keep quit, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:37-40, New International Version).

This is how I feel about our intervention into Iraq and Afghanistan. If you and I keep quiet, the bricks in our own walls will accuse us. You and I need to speak out in order to get our country out of there because there is no good ending to forceful oppression.

I know the objections about loss of face and dishonor. But enough is enough. We will never stabilize that country (or any other) by force. If we are serious about helping Iraq and Afghanistan let us do it by sharing both our wealth, our know-how, and by practicing our values. We must stop being Empire; stop trying to control the world by intimidation and force.

When we, as a nation, act like we really care about others around the world rather than controlling them, there is a good chance the rest of the world will come both to respect and emulate.

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

Here's an interesting clip about a new movie out which puts that question Mahatma Ghandi answered about Christians. When asked what he (a Hindu saint) thought about Christianity, he said that he loved and respected the teaching of Jesus, but he was puzzled that he never seemed to be able to experience that love and teaching in those who called themselves Christians.

Of course the same can be said about most religious/spiritual paths -- we all fall short! Nevertheless, the question we must always challenge ourselves with is this one: Are we merely admirers of Jesus or do we try to actually PRACTICE what he taught? Are we disciples of Jesus or "users" of Christiantity (as John Ortberg puts it so well)?

Take a look at this video clip and tell me what you think.

http://lordsaveusthemovie.com/

First Musing -- Work and Spirituality

So, how does God’s Spirit work in our lives? What are those nudges, happen-chances, and sudden revelations if they are not from above? Well, at least, I think I have learned over the years that an open, compassionate heart is the first step to living more spiritually – more God-like.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in a waiting room waiting for a doctor’s appointment at the Veteran’s Administration where I receive my medical care. Yes, I am fully at the mercy of a complete, government-run, socialized system of medical care. It’s been good for me and they’ve kept this old body functioning over the years.

Now back to the point. I picked up a magazine there and found it was an old issue of The Nation from last spring. But I decided to page through it. In it, I found an article by one of their editors, William Greider, entitled “The Future of the American Dream.” I started reading it and eureka! there it was a current essay which summed all that I both believed in and tried to accomplish when I was chief of the Madison P.D. During my last ten years, I was deeply involved in the Total Quality Management movement of the 1980s and 90s. Aha, I said to myself, maybe everything we learned during that era has not been lost and forgotten.

Work is important stuff. It give us not only income, but also a sense of accomplishment. Work is not only necessary for our bodies but also our souls and, yes, even our spiritual development. We live in a nation that declared over a century ago that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was our goal as a new nation. And work is certainly tied to life, liberty and happiness. Grieder listed two important things that America needs to do as we enter the 21st century and are recovering from the stunning realization that our economic system has collapsed due to a lot of dishonesty and greed.

Greider tells us that two things need to happen. First that

“every American who is willing and able ought to have the right to a job that pays a livable wage. If the private sector will not provide these jobs, then the public sector should be the employer of last resort.”

Work is important. It is so important that it must be a right and that right to a job must include a living wage (and health insurance!). If the private sector can’t make this happen, then the government should step in. Work is that important. Work is a right in America.

Secondly, Grieder said

‘that everyone who works, whether in the front office or on the assembly line, deserves to ‘own their work’--that is, the right to exercise personal responsibility for what they do and enjoy mutual respect and the capacity to contribute and collaborate in important decision-making within the firm. These elements of individual voice and status are critical to satisfaction in one's work, but democratic qualities are largely missing from American workplaces.”

Now here’s where the “rubber hits the road” and the screeching starts. Everyone not only deserves a job with a living wage, but also a job which fulfills the basic tenets of this society – that we all have voice, a right to be treated with dignity and respect, and we all can contribute to workplace decisions.

Far too long, American workers have been literally slaves to work that is pure drudgery, often abusive and, in some places, workers fear for their safety. Too often, workers are not treated with dignity nor respected. And their opinions on how to do a better job go unheard or trivialized. Democracy in America should not end at the doors of the factory or any American organization. Just because we can vote every two or four years doesn’t mean we truly live in a democracy if democratic practices don’t go on in our workplaces.

What I am talking about here is a system that can be crippling to a person’s spirit. We are all children of God, therefore, all people are worthy of being treated with dignity and respect. They deserve to have a voice and to be heard.

Now in our lagging economy, not many of us have any power to create jobs. But , for those of us who work (and especially those of us who supervise others) there are a lot of things we can do to humanize our workplaces. We can, ourselves, start practicing "mutual respect" for one another, gently press for more voices to be heard in making work decisions, and generously listen to those with whom we work. Everyone has a God-given right to be treated with dignity and respect and that includes people in the workplace!

This can be scary stuff when you stand up for this. Jobs come few and far between and fear permeates almost every workplace. But as Jesus said, what good is it if we gain the world and loose our souls?

[You can read the full text of Grieder’s article at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/greider. It appeared in the May 25, 2009 issue of The Nation.]