Bob Cousy and the Medal of Freedom

 

Bob Cousy chokes back tears as he speaks of his late wife Missy.

 In spite of everything, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

Ok, it’s a stretch to call it heartbreak. It’s not really suffering.

But it is painful just the same. And in spite of Paul’s promise it is hard for me to see how this leads to hope. Although I will keep looking.

I know that in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter at all.

I am long past the time when I had a naïve belief that my heroes, especially my sports heroes, were likely to live up to my expectations.

But it was painful to read the stories of Bob Cousy receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom last week. 

Make no mistake. He deserves the award.

Cousy has always had a special place in my pantheon of sports greats. Part of it was because I learned that he was cut from his high school team as a freshman and then again as a sophomore. But he didn’t give up. He got a scholarship to Holy Cross, won an NCAA championship, became a consensus All-American, and an NBA star.

This led me to believe that in spite of my obvious lack of talent, with enough practice, I too could become a great basketball player.

Obviously, that didn’t work out.

But as a young child I became a fan of the Boston Celtics. Those were the Celtics of Cousy and Russell and Heinsohn and Sanders. After one of the games, the announcer was interviewing Bob Cousy, and he asked him about the two young guards who had just joined the team, Sam and K.C. Jones.

“Well,” said Cousy, “personally I’m prejudiced, but I think they’re two of the best young guards in the league.” Actually, he said “pwed-ja-dissed.” And he called them “gods,” not guards. But my young mind reeled. My hero, Bob Cousy admitted on national television that he was prejudiced. I was glad that in spite of his prejudice he could see their talent, but even so, I was deeply disappointed.

Of course it was not long before I realized that he meant he was prejudiced in favor of his teammates, not against black people.

As a basketball player he was amazing, winning six world championships with the Celtics, and leading the NBA in assists for eight years in a row. And he has led a great life off the court as well. In 1950 when black teammate Chuck Cooper was denied entry to the team hotel in North Carolina, Cousy also refused to stay there. By every measure, he has lived an exemplary life.

Cousy has said in the past that he felt guilty that he did not do more to stand up more for another black teammate, Bill Russell, who was the target of several racial incidents in Boston. And he reached out to Russell in a letter expressing his regret. But the truth is that probably says more about Bob Cousy’s sense of right and wrong than it does of a moral failing. Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Michael Jordan are the other three NBA stars who were previously honored with the medal of Freedom.

Bob Cousy deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

So far it’s all good. Bob Cousy received an award he richly deserves. An appropriate coda to a life well lived. After the ceremony he said, “this really is the cherry on the sundae.”

But then.

The news accounts told how Cousy choked back tears as he expressed his sadness that his wife Missy, who passed away in 2013 was not there to share the moment with him even though she “put up with me for 63 years.” And as Cousy sobbed at the podium, Donald Trump put his hand on Cousy’s back to comfort him.

What?

That venal man put his hand on Bob Cousy?

It is a strange juxtaposition because Bob Cousy is everything that Donald Trump is not. He really did rise out of poverty. He grew up in a diverse neighborhood that was basically a slum. He worked hard. He promoted racial equality. He is humble and smart and decent. And, to use a cliché, he is a great family man.

“Mr. President, I know in your world you’re well on your way to making America great again,” said Cousy. “In my world, it’s been great for 91 years.”

Earlier this month, he told NBA.com, “I simply feel, without getting into the politics of it at all, like many Americans — I agree with some of the things he’s done and disagree with others.”

That’s more affirmation than Mr. Trump deserves, but I could live with it.

And then.

Cousy said the honor was special in part because “it is being presented by the most extraordinary president in my lifetime and I’m a B.R., for before Roosevelt.”

According to the Worcester Telegram “Mr. Cousy, a long-time independent, said he respects the White House as the most powerful office in the world and he felt compelled to pay tribute to the president.”

“I understand how controversial Trump is,” Mr. Cousy said. “So I didn’t want to say something that was going to go viral and get all of us in trouble, but I thought that was a nice middle ground and ‘extraordinary’ I suppose can be interpreted in any number of ways in the mind of the listener.”

Maybe.

I can understand how someone could agree with some of the policies the president has embraced. But how can a person of such obvious fundamental decency countenance the indecency, racism, misogyny, and corruption of Mr. Trump?

I want to believe that if Missy had been there he wouldn’t have said that.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

This Is What Fascism Looks Like

The crowd chants "Send her back!" at a rally on Wednesday night

Woe to you who call evil good and good evil, 
who put darkness for light and light for darkness, 
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20

In his speech at the opening of the National Museum of African American History in 2016, former President George W. Bush said, "A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws, and corrects them." 

"This museum tells the truth,” he observed, “that a country founded on the promise of liberty held millions in chains, that the price of our union was America's original sin."

President Bush was not the first one to speak of slavery and racism as America’s original sin, but the fact that he said it is a reminder that this should not be a partisan issue and his use of the phrase “original sin” reminds us that the issue is about faith as well as politics.

Confronting racism is a necessity for Christians regardless of their political affiliation.

Racism is evil and it produces bitter fruit for the recipients as well as for the perpetrators. There is nothing about it that can be called good. And woe to us when we do not call it out for what it is.

According to Gizmodo, after Mr. Trump’s speech in Greenville Wednesday night, the two most commonly searched words were Fascism and Racism.

You can be a racist without being a fascist but you cannot be a fascist without being a racist. Sadly, both were on display in Greenville.

One cannot use those words without being accused of being an alarmist. 

But the association is unavoidable.

We cannot pretend that evil is not evil, let alone that it is good.

Half a century ago, Jurgen Moltmann, perhaps the last of the great German theologians of the twentieth century,  was visiting the United States for a theological conference when the discussion turned to segregationists in the South.

“They are Nazis,” Jurgen Moltmann declared, “and when you are confronted by Nazis you must defeat them.”

Nothing else matters, he insisted, until you get rid of the Nazis.

As my theology professor told the story, Moltmann had insisted  to his fellow theologians that they had no business discussing theology until they had first done something about the Nazis.

I remember thinking that although the segregationists were certainly bad, it was hyperbole to call them Nazis. 

Perhaps it is hyperbole to speak that way of the Greenville rally. I fervently hope so. But by the time we know for certain it may be too late.

Jurgen Moltmann grew up in a secular family in Hamburg. As a teenager he was drafted into the German Army near the end of World War II. He was captured by the British and spent several years as a prisoner of war. During that time his captors presented him with descriptions and pictures of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and he was overwhelmed with guilt for what his country had done.

While he was held prisoner an American Army Chaplain gave him a New Testament and it transformed his life. “I did not find Christ,” he would later say, “Christ found me.” After the war he completed a doctorate in theology and his reflections on Nazism and the war led him to develop “A Theology of Hope.”

Moltmann could see, as Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, and others had made clear before him that the absolute claims of Nazism were theological as well as political. And that those absolute claims made it antithetical to Christianity. 

When Moltmann insisted that there could be no theological discussion until Nazism had been addressed, he wasn’t introducing politics into theological discourse. He was recognizing that until they were dealt with, the absolute claims of Nazism made authentic theological discussion impossible.

In an interview published in Newsweek.com, Chantal Da Silva spoke with Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, one of the leading scholars of Fascism. And Stanley called the Wednesday night rally “one of the single most racist moments in modern American history.” He also said that the country is “facing an emergency.”

"The word 'emergency' is tricky to use because 'emergency' is a word that anti-democratic people use all the time to justify non-democratic measures," he said.

Stanley said that he was “shocked” when he watched the video of the Greenville rally where the crowd chanted “send her back” after Mr. Trump attacked Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali refugee who came to America as a refugee who came to American when she was eight years old. 

The chants came after Mr. Trump had devoted considerable time to attacking Representative Omar along with three Democratic colleagues, Representatives Aryanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Aexandra Ocasio-Cortez. The women are all persons of color, and Representative Omar is a Muslim.

Mr. Trump initiated the controversy at 5:27 a.m. last Sunday when he unleashed this tweetstorm:

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”

Apart from the obvious racism of telling anyone to go back where they came from, it misses the obvious fact that three of the four women were born in the United States. Rep. Omar is a naturalized citizen (like two of Mr. Trump’s three wives).

In the Newsweek interview, Stanley observed that Mr. Trump was expressing his “deep-seated commitment to fascism” as well as racism. "This whole administration has been orienting itself around attacking and vilifying ethnic minorities," he said. "It's horrifying to see."

"Fascist ideology is based upon the vilification of 'outsiders,' you know. It's an ideology that has, at its very center, panic and fear about outsiders. All fascist movements are toxically anti-immigration.”

"Fascist ideology says there's the nation and the members of the nation and they are ethnically defined and they face this mortal threat from leftism, communism, socialism and foreigners and so you would think the president has a choice: he could run saying well you know the economy's strength or he could run with one of the most toxic ideologies the world has ever seen... and that's what he's doing.”

In the Newsweek interview, Stanley insisted that today's journalists cannot equivocate in calling out Mr. Trump’s speech for what it is: racism.

"Journalists have two competing pressures: one is to represent the different sides in political debates and, two, is to tell the truth. These run into conflict with each other when you have a very extreme situation like the one we now face where, with one political side, there is no reasonable way to represent it."

Stanley argues that Mr. Trump “is utterly clear about his white nationalism and his racism.”

“You just have to call it what it is and not suggest that it's being misunderstood," he said.



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

*The Jurgen Moltmann story was first included in a post originally published on August 16, 2017 in response to the Nazi demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Casting the Vision

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. 
Then the LORD answered me and said: 
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. 
If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:1-3

Several years ago in a sermon at Annual Conference the late Bishop Dale White talked about the lonely task of the pastor, whose job it is to always take the lead and cast a vision of justice on controversial issues.

We are supposed to be ahead of the curve. 

To be a leader is to be out in front, and it is a lonely task. If Moses had waited until his vision of freedom had broad support, the Israelites would still be in Egypt.

The Rev. Dr. C. Chappell Temple, Lead Pastor of Christ Church (UMC) in Sugar Land, Texas, seemed to take a different tack on this issue in a post titled, "Fun with Math." Writing in the Juicy Ecumenism blog of the IRD (Institute on Religion and Democracy), he points out that in the recent voting for General Conference delegates the elected clergy are more progressive than the laity.

This is not surprising, if we take Bishop White’s exhortation seriously. Pastors are supposed to be out in front. 

(Just to be clear, when we speak of the division between progressives and traditionalists in the church, we are not talking about national politics. The Progressive movement in American politics grew out of the Social Gospel in the  late nineteenth century and today’s Progressives share that heritage, but they should not be confused with the progressives and centrists in the church.)

Dr. Temple argues that although 76% of the elected delegations are progressive or centrist and more than half of the Annual Conferences passed resolutions opposing the Traditional Plan, that does not accurately reflect the perspective of those who sit in the pews.

Maybe it doesn't accurately reflect the perspective of the laity, but 76% is a big number. 

And it is significant that more than half of the Annual Conferences passed resolutions against a plan that passed by a narrow majority at General Conference.

But Dr. Temple argues that if we look more closely at the numbers they tell a different story. He points out that the Texas Conference elected a mostly progressive or centrist delegation of clergy and a wholly traditionalist delegation of laity. Eight of the nine clergy from the Texas Conference are progressive or centrist, but by our system, each one required only 50% plus one vote to be elected. If we looked at the actual vote totals we would find that the real margin was closer to 5-4 than 8-1.

And then he makes an important observation:

“The point is that in a system involving multiple candidates for multiple positions each requiring a majority vote it’s simply not possible to draw conclusions as to the true mind of the whole church when it comes to controversial issues.”

If that sounds familiar it’s because Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter made that same argument several General Conferences ago when they proposed inserting a paragraph in the Book of Discipline recognizing that we were not of one mind on the issues surrounding LGBTQ inclusion. The Traditionalists narrowly defeated that proposal because they had no problem building church law on a slim majority and using that law to punish those on the other side.

He concludes with an observation and a suggestion:

“In the end, it’s pretty clear thus that at least on the question of human sexuality that we United Methodists are far more closely divided than the delegate count might imply.  What is incumbent upon us a church thus is to find a way to honor those differences and create new communities of faith that can live side by side, though with enough separation to stop our long internecine warfare.”

He is right on both counts.

We are closely divided on the issue of human sexuality and we need to find a way to honor those differences so that we can live side by side.

I agree.

Let’s do it.

We can call it the One Church Plan.



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

The Traditionalist Plan Was Designed to Do Harm, But It May Do Some Good

But Joseph said to them . . . “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”
Genesis 50:20

We have been a Reconciling Congregation for five years. But until very recently we had never displayed a Rainbow Flag. We never discussed it. But we’re New Englanders and we have an innate resistance to making a display of our religious convictions. Its just how we're built.

That changed rather abruptly after the Special Session of General Conference 2019 concluded at the end of February and we heard with finality that the delegates had voted (by a narrow margin) that they hated their LGBTQIA siblings even more than they loved Jesus.

We decided that we needed to have a Rainbow Flag in front of the church. We thought it was important to differentiate ourselves from those folks at General Conference. We are United Methodists (and still mostly proud of it), but we are not those people.

We did not have a real flag, but Pastor Carol, always a woman of action, searched through the Sunday School closet and found a rainbow colored fabric we had used to make a “coat of many colors” for Joseph in a children’s musical a few years ago.

It was not a very good representation of a rainbow flag, but it did make me think about the juxtaposition of the flag with Joseph and his many colored coat. 

And Joseph’s words to his brothers.

Many years after they sold him into slavery in Egypt, and after he had risen from slavery into prominence in Egypt, his brothers came to him in a time of famine begging him for food. When they recognized him they expected brutal retribution, but he gave them forgiveness instead.

They intended to do harm and yet good came of it.

With the power and prominence he gained in Egypt, Joseph basically saved the world from famine.

I don’t believe that God “planned” the triumph of traditionalism at General Conference but I do believe that something good can come from it.

Two recent gatherings give me hope. 

On May 17-18 350 activists met at Lake Harriet UMC in Minneapolis. Calling themselves “Our Movement Forward,” they adopted a statement that serves as a preamble to a longer proclamation completed by organizers after the summit:

“We dream of a just and loving church — one that is relevant, growing, and ignited by the life-giving and world-changing power of the Holy Spirit,” the preamble says. “Our passion for justice is only surpassed by our hope in Christ Jesus. And as people of faith, we proclaim that the Good News of Jesus Christ is for all.”

Then on May 20-22 600 Progressives and Centrists met at the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas for a gathering called “UMC Next.”

The group affirmed four core principles:

• To be passionate followers of Jesus Christ, committed to a Wesleyan vision of Christianity.
• To resist evil, injustice and oppression in all forms and toward all people and build a church which affirms the full participation of all ages, nations, races, classes, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations and abilities.
• To reject the Traditional Plan approved at General Conference 2019 as inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ and resist its implementation.
• To work to eliminate discriminatory language and the restrictions and penalties in the Book of Discipline regarding LGBTQ individuals.

The truth is that we should have gotten here sooner. Much sooner. And it should not have taken the debacle of General Conference to force the issue. But this is where we are. And in spite of the stony road that brought us to this point, there is hope for the future.

Rev. Dr. Adam Hamilton, Lead Pastor of the Church of the Resurrection and one of the conveners of UMC Next, echoed Joseph’s words to his brothers when he observed that this was one of the unintended benefits of the adoption of the Traditionalist Plan by the 2019 General Conference was that it pushed centrist churches to take action. Now, he said, the centrists are saying, “not anymore.” Those churches find themselves with no choice but to take a stand. And they are saying, “We’re not going to be quiet anymore. We’re a church for everyone.”

When asked what the UMC Next participants meant by their commitment to “reject the Traditional Plan” and “resist its implementation,” he said that some annual conferences will ordain LGBTQ persons as clergy, and that “thousands and thousands of churches will stand with LGBTQ people.”

And then he summarized that by saying, “We’re headed toward forming a church that my granddaughter will be proud to be a member of.”

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Making America Great: Harry Truman and the Marshall Plan

President Truman signs the Marhall Plan

Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of this world lord it over their people, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”
Matthew 20:24-28

Today is Harry Truman’s birthday.

He was born on May 8, 1884.

Although every politician wants to claim that he or she grew up in modest surroundings, in Truman’s case it was really true. He is the only president since William McKinley who did not earn a college degree. And there was little in his early years to suggest that he would someday become President of the United States. 

And yet he achieved great things for America.

He was not the president who won the war, although he presided over its conclusion. But he was the president who won the peace.

He established NATO. He integrated the Armed Forces and federal agencies. 

And he led what may well have been America’s greatest achievement.

On October 5, 1947, President Harry S. Truman delivered the first presidential address ever broadcast on live television.

And that first address may also be the greatest.

His address followed a presentation by the Citizens Food Committee concerning the starvation in Europe and the need for Americans to sacrifice in order to save their European sisters and brothers.

After the Second World War the United States embarked on one of the greatest achievements of world history, the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after the devastation. The Marshall Plan prevented economic collapse and led to a world-wide economic expansion and shared prosperity.

But when President Truman addressed the nation, the rebuilding of Europe was faltering. “The situation in Europe is grim and forbidding as winter approaches,” he said. “Despite the vigorous efforts of the European people, their crops have suffered so badly from droughts, floods, and cold that the tragedy of hunger is a stark reality. The nations of Western Europe will soon be scraping the bottom of the food barrel. They cannot get through the coming winter and spring without help--generous help-from the United States and from other countries which have food to spare.” If we do not act, said the President, all of the rebuilding efforts may be wasted. “I know every American feels in his heart that we must help to prevent starvation and distress among our fellow men in other countries.”

Truman called on the nation to give up meat on Tuesdays, to give up poultry and eggs on Thursdays, and to give up one slice of bread per day. He also called on distillers to save grain by stopping the production of alcoholic beverages for 60 days. And he called on the Commodities Exchange Commission to tighten regulations and reduce the “gambling” in grain futures which resulted in even higher prices.

He told the country that Mrs. Truman had directed the White House staff to follow the food conservation measures. And he said that the same policy would be followed in all government restaurants and cafeterias throughout the country. “As Commander in Chief,” he said, “I have ordered that the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force shall also comply with this program.”

And he concluded by saying of the people in Europe, "I know that they will be waiting with hope in their hearts and a fervent prayer on their lips for the response of our people to this program. We must not fail them."

This morning, as I read Harry Truman’s brief address, I reflected on the present state of the world, from the immigration crisis, to the brewing trade war with China, to the continued violence in the Middle East and the war in Yemen, and the economic collapse in Venezuela. 

It is hard to imagine any leader, here or abroad, calling for the level of shared sacrifice that President Truman called for after World War Two. And we need to remember, that was after the great sacrifices required by the war itself.

But real greatness, for a country or an individual, requires sacrifice.

The food measures did not last long. With increased American help, the European recovery soon made such radical conservation unnecessary. Europe and Japan were rebuilt and America entered a time of unprecedented prosperity.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

*Some the material in this post was first published on October 5, 2011.

What Was Good about Good Friday?

Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
Mark 15:16-20

The most common (most frequent and crudest) explanation of Jesus' death on the cross is that God sent him to die for our sins. Someone had to pay for the sins of humanity. Jesus suffered so that I didn't have to. He was perfectly sinless and it was a perfect sacrifice.

That is a caricature of what is called the theory of "substitutionary atonement." I have deliberately used the caricature to make a larger point. In spite of the fact that it's the theology I grew up with, and it's still the most common theological understanding of the crucifixion, I am convinced it is wrong. It is wrong biblically, historically, morally, and theologically.

On Good Friday, Jesus was tried, and convicted, and tortured, and killed. It was a triumph for the powers of darkness, and there was nothing good about that Friday. 

Or so it seemed. 

But in his death he exposed the moral bankruptcy of the Empire and the shallow religiosity of the chief priests and elders who collaborated with the oppressors. Good Friday is the story of a collision between the goodness of God in Jesus, and the evil of a violent empire.

Before we go any further, we need to clear up two major misunderstandings:

• The Jews did not kill Jesus; the Romans did. 
• He was not executed for blasphemy; he was executed for treason. 

The Jews did not kill Jesus. We know this as an absolute fact because they did not have the authority to carry out capital punishment. We also know this because if he had been sentenced to death by a Jewish court, he would have been stoned to death. The Romans were the only ones with the authority to kill him, and they did.

We know that the Romans executed Jesus for sedition because they crucified him. Crucifixion was a death reserved for those who committed treason against the empire. It was a form of state terrorism designed to torture its victims and terrify the populace. The Romans did it often so that the people were kept constantly aware of the consequences of defying the empire.

So why did Jesus die? And what does it mean?

I don’t believe that God sent Jesus to die. I don’t believe that it was God’s plan.

That’s partly because I think that speaking of God’s plan is too anthropomorphic. It imagines God as some sort of supernatural version of a human being. But it’s also morally suspect. It suggests that somehow God was sending Jesus on a suicide mission.

Jesus died because he was completely faithful to God and his faithfulness collided with the sinfulness of humanity in the form of the Roman Empire. He died because he proclaimed the Kingdom of God as an alternative vision of how the world could be. Against the normalcy of violence, he proclaimed nonviolence. Against the normalcy of self-interest, he proclaimed self-sacrifice. 

The commandment to love our enemies is about as subversive of what passes for normal as anything could possibly be. And two thousand years later, even those of us who claim to be his followers have a very hard time even imagining what that path looks like, let alone following it.

When he invited his followers to take us the cross, he invited them to follow the path of self-sacrificial love. 

And he promised that the way of self-sacrifice is also the way that leads to life.




Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 



*An original version of this post was first published on April 5, 2015

It Was Only a Flag

"If the world hates you, 
be aware that it hated me 
before it hated you."
John 15:18

When I arrived at the church this morning I discovered that someone had ripped down our Rainbow flag. Only a tattered fragment remained attached to the frame. The flag had survived less than a week. 

It was only a flag, of course. 

It’s not a big deal. No one was injured and there was no related property damage. 

But now that it is gone it feels like we have lost more than a flag.

How can anyone hate anyone that much?

We became a Reconciling Congregation five years ago. We did not do it sooner because it seemed unnecessary. We told ourselves that everyone already knew who we were and what we stood for, and we did not need to formally declare ourselves open to everyone regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.

When we had the meeting to formally vote to become a Reconciling Congregation, several people wondered out loud whether it was really necessary. But only one person spoke against the proposal. She was new to our congregation. She said that she felt she had been sent by the Holy Spirit to tell us that homosexuality was a sin. She not only believed that it was an abomination, she believed literally in the biblical punishment of death, although she conceded that was not possible in the United States.

Those who had doubted the need to take a stand were immediately convinced. As one person wryly observed, “I think maybe she really was sent by the Holy Spirit . . . though not in the way that she believed.”

We announced the decision in our monthly newsletter, we put a statement on our website, and we include a statement in every Sunday’s worship bulletin.

But we did not put out a rainbow flag.

Because. 

Again. 

It seemed unnecessary.

But in the wake of the recent vote at the Special Session of General Conference in St. Louis at the end of February, we felt like we had to do something.

For those of us who are LGBTQIA and for those of us who love and respect our LGBTQIA siblings, the news was heartbreaking. 

The Special Session rejected a compromise that would have allowed each congregation to choose their own path, and by a narrow majority (53% to 47%) delegates passed the Traditionalist Plan which rejects marriage equality and makes mandatory penalties for clergy who officiate at same sex weddings. It strengthens the rules against ordaining or appointing LGBTQIA clergy. It also requires clergy and bishops to sign a loyalty oath stating that they will uphold those provisions of the Book of Discipline.

The new plan doubles down on what was already a bad policy. It is hateful and unchristian and we felt like we had to do something to make it clear that we were not them; that our local United Methodist Church was not in alignment with the vote in St. Louis.

Pastor Carol Reale found a large rectangular piece of fabric that had previously been used in a Sunday School program as part of Joseph’s “coat of many colors” and put it up out front. 

Then last week we got a real rainbow flag and Carol attached it to a frame by the church sign next to the road.

Last night at youth group, one of the kids, who is transgender, told her how much it meant to him to come to the church and see that sign. “It makes me so happy,” he said. “We have to keep it up forever!”

Yes. Apparently we do have to keep it up forever.

The flags are not expensive. We will buy more.

The hatred is a bigger problem.



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

The Way We Were: Remembering Bishop White

He has told you, O people, what is good; 
and what does the LORD require of you 
but to do justice, 
and to love kindness, 
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

Bishop C. Dale White passed away yesterday, March 29, 2019, at the age of 94.

For many of us the loss is personal, but it is also a loss for our denomination and for the larger church. In remembering Dale, we remember the way we used to be and we remember what we have lost.

In his lifetime he embodied the best of United Methodism. He was a faithful and effective witness for social justice, and a fearless advocate for the core values of the Gospel. He had deep faith and uncompromising integrity. He always spoke the truth, even when the truth was hard to hear, and he always spoke the truth in love, with genuine caring for those who did not see things as clearly as he did.

Dale was my first District Superintendent. He called me to go to my first appointment, in Mansfield, Massachusetts. And I called him for advice more times than I have called all of the District Superintendents since then. And he was always patient and helpful. Just before he left for the Jurisdictional Conference at which he was elected Bishop, he called and asked me to go to Mathewson Street in Providence to work with Bill Ziegler.

In an article in UMNews, Linda Bloom reports that Jaydee Hanson, a longtime friend and former staff member of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, described Dale as having a “gentle fearlessness” that engaged people. “Dale had an abundance of vision but offered it in a way that people could adopt it,” he told United Methodist News Service.

Dale was genuinely pained by the way that the causes he advocated so relentlessly were unsettling and disorienting to those who were stuck in old paradigms. He knew the cost of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly in the ways of God.

After his retirement as a Bishop he preached at our Annual Conference about the role of the pastor in the life of a congregation. One of the most difficult aspects of our calling, he said, is the responsibility to always be ahead of the curve on issues of social justice. If we are faithful we will always be in the lonely position of advocating for causes that have barely entered the consciousness of many of the people we serve. 

Retired Bishop William Boyd Grove, a friend and colleague of Dale’s, spoke of his interest in interfaith relations, international affairs and the lives of people everywhere which landed him in some unusual places. In the early months of the Iran hostage crisis, Grove recounted, Dale was part of a seven-member U.S. delegation that traveled to Iran in hopes of helping the situation by “reaffirming and restoring friendship between the American and Iranian peoples.”

Grove observed that one of Dale’s most significant contributions was the 1986 public statement of the United Methodist Council of Bishops called "In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace."

More than any other bishop, said Grove, Dale was responsible for that pastoral letter and study guide. “It was Dale’s idea and he chaired the task force, and it was really his baby.” And it had a profound impact on the church and beyond the church, by moving the nuclear arms debate beyond politics and foreign policy.

In 1996 Dale joined with fourteen other United Methodist Bishops who chose to break their silence and speak out in opposition to the prohibition of LGBTQ persons serving in ordained ministry.

Not surprisingly, Bishop White was not just the embodiment of everything that the church has traditionally stood for, he was also the incarnation of everything the right-wing groups have opposed.

If you knew Dale, you knew him to be a person of deep faith. But for those who equate faith with right-wing politics and quasi-fundamentalist theology, they could not believe that he was a “real Christian.” He was frequently asked if he was “born again.” He would smile and say, “Yes, just this morning.” Faith was, for him, a constant process of renewal and rebirth. We are continually being made new.

Finally, or maybe we should say, “firstly,” there was his marriage to Gwen. Gwendolyn Ruth Horton and Clarence Dale White were married on August 25, 1946. They were married for more than 70 years before Gwen’s death in 2017. They shared the same deep faith and the same openness to the spiritual journey. Together they raised six children and left a legacy of shared love and discipleship.

The way they were is the way the church ought to be.

Jesus Was a Pharisee (Really. He Was.)

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
Luke 13:31

Why were the Pharisees warning Jesus?

Weren’t they his enemies?

Like everyone else in my generation and like almost everyone who went to Sunday School and grew up in the church, I learned early on that the Pharisees were the bad guys. They were self-righteous and hypocritical, obsessed with observing the letter of the Law, yet utterly tone-deaf to its spirit. They were rich and powerful, and they colluded with the Romans in opposing and eventually killing Jesus. They were ritually clean, yet morally corrupt.

And I learned in seminary that they were the perfect foil for preaching. Every narrative needs a good villain, and the Pharisees were the perfect villains for almost any preaching topic. 

It was perfect, with the slight problem that it was wrong.

The Pharisees were reformers.

They had a three-fold belief that God was a loving father, who loved humanity so much that he gave us the Torah, the Law, so that everyone who followed the law would have eternal life (fellowship with God, now and forever).

Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with John 3:16 will see the parallelism of construction. And beyond the similarity of form, the substance of the first and third points is basically identical. Each speaks of God as a loving father and each points toward eternal life. The difference is in the way. The Pharisees believed that following Torah was the way: John’s Gospel sees the way as believing in Jesus as the Christ.

The three-fold belief of the Pharisees gives rise to the animating question of Matthew, Mark and Luke: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” If the way to fellowship with God now and forever is found in following Torah (the way), what does it mean to follow Torah? What specifically must I do? And the answer is the same in each of the three Gospels: love God and love your neighbor.

Every three years on the second Sunday in Lent, the Lectionary has us reading about how some Pharisees came to warn Jesus that Herod was after him. And after cycling through that text a couple of times I began to wonder. Why were the Pharisees warning Jesus? Weren’t they his enemies?

Two possibilities presented themselves in my mind. The first was mildly unsettling, given everything I had learned up until that point. What if the Pharisees and Jesus were not such bitter enemies?

There are many occasions where he judges them harshly. At one point he tells his followers to listen to what the Pharisees say, because “they sit on Moses’ seat,” but be careful not to imitate what they do. On the other hand, there are also instances in which they invite him to dine with them. Some are attracted to Jesus and believe that he is the Messiah, and the Book of Acts records occasions on which the Pharisees protect early Christians.

The second possibility was even more unsettling. What if Jesus himself was a Pharisee?

If you grew up, as I did, with the image of Pharisees as self-righteous hypocrites, it may be hard not to reject that idea out of hand. 

But think about it.

We know that it was Jesus’ custom to go to the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and we know that the Synagogue was a Pharisaic institution. Jesus and the disciples are in the Synagogue a lot.

We know that the Pharisees believed in the two-fold concept of the Law as written and oral. The written law was understood to be eternal, but the oral law had to be reinterpreted for each generation. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus first declares that he has not come “to abolish the law or the prophets.” On the contrary he says, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Then he seems to contradict that by launching into a series of teachings in which he says first, “You have heard it said,” followed by a commandment, and then, “but I say to you,” followed by a new teaching. It only makes sense when we recognize that in the first statement he is reciting the written law, and in the second statement he is giving a new oral interpretation.

Finally, we know that Jesus was called rabbi. And we know that rabbinic Judaism grew out of the Pharisaic movement. As one of my rabbi friends said, “If he was a rabbi, then he was a Pharisee.”

The Pharisees gave birth to two great religions, Christianity and rabbinic Judaism, the only form of Judaism to emerge from the ancient world. They gave us the animating question for the synoptic gospels and the belief structure for the fourth gospel. They also gave us a model for Bible study and for the focus on scripture as part of the worship service.

Clearly, Jesus did have many arguments with the Pharisees as individuals or in groups. And he criticized the movement as a whole. But those disputes and disagreements should be understood as internal to the Pharisaic movement itself, just as Christians disagree with other Christians and sometimes criticize Christianity as a whole.

And Jesus was not the only Pharisee looking critically at the movement. His scathing criticism in Matthew 23 are mirrored almost exactly in a passage in the Talmud which records a description of seven different types of Pharisaic behavior, only the last of which is an example of the high standards of belief and practice to which they were called.

1. The “Shoulder Pharisee,” who wore his good deeds on his shoulder.
2. The “Wait a Little Pharisee,” who always put off doing good deeds until a later time.
3. The “Bruised Pharisee,” who shut his eyes to avoid seeing a woman and was bruised from stumbling and falling.
4. The “Humpbacked Pharisee,” bent double by false humility.
5. The “Ever Reckoning Pharisee,” who was always counting up his good deeds.
6. The “Fearful Pharisee,” always quaking in fear of God’s wrath.
7. And finally, the “God-loving Pharisee,” who lived with faith and charity, whose deeds matched his professed beliefs.

Whether or not one believes that Jesus was a Pharisee, how we view the Pharisees is very important for modern Christians. 

Apart from the basic idea that historical accuracy matters, a reassessment of our attitude toward the Pharisees is critical for two reasons.

First, when we can see more clearly the Jewish context of Jesus’ life and ministry, we can better understand his teachings. We can see him as a rabbi advocating for his people against an occupying empire, rather than as a religious iconoclast rebelling against religious traditionalists. His religious and political views both come into sharper focus when can see him in his Jewish context.

The second point is also of great practical importance. Many Christians do not understand that modern Judaism, across the spectrum from the Orthodox to Reform and even Reconstructionist, all have their roots in the Pharisaic movement. When Christians slander the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, they are also implicitly criticizing modern Judaism. This is oddly ironic, since both Christianity and modern Judaism share a common beginning in the Pharisaic movement. Although the irony may be amusing, the practical result is that the historic Christian slander of the Pharisees has contributed to anti-Semitism.

A more accurate historical appreciation of the Pharisees can give us a clearer understanding of Jesus’ life and ministry and open the way to a more helpful relationship between Christianity and Judaism.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

*An earlier version of this post was published on February 16, 2019.

The Traditional Plan and the Bible: Even the Devil Can Quote Scripture

Jesus Is Tempted in the Wilderness

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Luke 4:9-13

The Lectionary text for the first Sunday in Lent provides a good excuse to revisit the biblical argument with regard to the Traditional Plan and same sex relationships.

The problem is not with the scripture, but with how it is used, by whom and for what reason. The use of scripture to control and manipulate others is a great temptation for people of faith, and it is made even more tempting when it appears to come with deep sincerity and the best of intentions.

In Luke’s version of the temptation story, the devil quotes scripture when he presents the last temptation. 

This is worth noting because the original story must have come from Jesus himself. There were no other witnesses. He was alone in the wilderness, fasting and praying. Shakespeare authored the famous quotation: “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” But the idea originated with Jesus.

The importance of the detail is not diminished by the fact that the struggle was taking place within Jesus’ mind and soul. The devil or “tempter” was not some external spiritual being, but an inner experience of the spirit. It is useful to remember this story when we contemplate what the Bible says about homosexuality. It is widely accepted that “the Bible condemns homosexuality,” but the reality of the biblical witness is more complex and nuanced.

The problem is not new. In the decades leading up to the Civil War the Abolitionists and the slave owners both cited scripture. The Abolitionists built their case on the teachings of Jesus and on the broad themes of the prophets. The slave owners countered with the numerous specific references to slavery in the Bible. There are, in fact, 375 references to slavery, 82 of them are in the Gospels and another 58 are in Paul’s letters. Not once is the institution of slavery condemned.

If we reduce everything to biblical literalism, then the slave owners win, 375 to 0. But one would be hard pressed to find a Christian today who would argue in favor of slavery, and no serious student of the Bible would agree that the Bible is pro-slavery. The great themes of the Bible move in the opposite direction, toward freedom and mutual respect. Jesus’ simple commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” (taken from Leviticus 19:18) outweighs all 375 references.

The assertion that the Bible condemns homosexuality is built on just 7 references. Three are in the Hebrew scriptures and four are in the New Testament. These are the passages typically used to “prove” that the Bible condemns homosexuality.

The late Walter Muelder, who was Dean of the Boston University School of Theology for many years, and a pioneer in the discipline of Christian Social Ethics, was adamant that when we go to the Bible for ethical direction, we cannot pick and choose. Seven passages are not enough to construct an ethic. They are not irrelevant. But they cannot be determinative. On the other hand, if you believe in biblical inerrancy, and you believe that each verse is equally inspired and authoritative, then you cannot question the authority of even a single verse, let alone seven passages. I think it is a useful exercise, just to be clear on what those passages actually say and mean, rather than to assume that we know. 

The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. Ezekiel 16:49 

The first, and certainly the best known passage, is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. My guess is that when most people think about the sins of Sodom, they do not think about having “pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease,” and an unwillingness to “aid the poor and needy.”

But there it is.

We go to the Bible, looking for self-righteous moralisms and end up with social justice. Again. When it comes to the question of how we should be living our lives, it’s always about social justice. Or as Jesus summarized it in the Great Commandment, it’s about loving God and neighbor. (Loving God means loving your neighbor. And loving your neighbor is loving God.) We should keep Ezekiel’s commentary in mind as we review the narrative in Genesis. 

The story begins with a happy episode. Three strangers come to visit Abraham and Sarah, who are living in a tent by the oaks of Mamre. The men are messengers from God, angels, who have come to reaffirm the promise that Abraham and Sarah will have a son. They speak with Abraham outside of the tent. Inside the tent, Sarah laughs, because it seems preposterous that at her age she could have a child. And there is a wonderful interchange in which the men chastise her for laughing. She insists that she did not laugh and the episode ends with one of the men saying, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”

Then the men set out toward Sodom, and Abraham goes with them to show the way. God tells Abraham that the men are going to Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy the cities, because there has been such a great outcry over their sin. Abraham then begins to bargain with God. What about the righteous who live in those cities, will the LORD sweep them away with the guilty? Abraham drives a hard bargain, and God agrees that if they can find ten righteous, then the cities will be spared.

After the bargain is struck, “the LORD went his way,” and Abraham returned home, and “the two angels came to Sodom.”

At this point, things go downhill in a hurry. The strangers (angels) are met at the gate of the city by Lot, who insists that they spend the night with him. He makes them a feast, and they enjoy the meal together, but before they can lie down for the night, a crowd gathers outside. “The men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house.” The crowd demands that Lot send out the strangers, “so that we may know them.” In other words, so that we may have sexual relations with them.

Lot goes out to argue with the crowd and even offers to let them rape his two virgin daughters, rather than give up the men who have come “under the shelter of my roof.” But the crowd is undeterred and threatens to do even worse to Lot if he does not give up the strangers. At that point, the strangers reach out and pull Lot back into the house with them, and strike “with blindness” all those in the crowd, “so that they are unable to find the door.”

In the morning the strangers send Lot and his family away to safety, and fire rains down on the cities until they are destroyed.

It is a dark tale. There are rays of light, but they are not easy to find. No one would count this among their favorite Bible stories. It is not the Sermon on the Mount, or the Good Samaritan. It isn’t the Twenty-third Psalm, or the Ten Commandments. It isn’t Micah or Amos or Hosea or Ruth. It isn’t even on a par with Esther.

The story is not just Patriarchal; it is deeply misogynistic. It’s good that Lot offers hospitality to strangers, and it’s good that he tries to protect his guests. But in his attempts to dissuade the men of Sodom from attacking the strangers, Lot offers to let them rape his daughters. And the story implies that the gang rape and humiliation of women is not as bad as the gang rape and humiliation of men.

It is difficult to claim ethical guidance from a story which is fundamentally immoral. One of the challenges in reading and interpreting the Bible is separating the timeless truths from the stories that simply reflect the prejudices and limited perspectives of a primitive people. The story of Sodom clearly falls into the latter category. We need to recognize it as such, and let it go.

Alternatively, we can focus, as Ezekiel did, on the guilt of Sodom that (apparently) first led to God’s judgment: “she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” That is a biblical truth which stands the test of time.

Two Verses from the Holiness Code 

in Leviticus

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. Leviticus 20:13

Little Good Harbor sits on the southeastern coast of Georgetown Island. It is a charming place with an equally charming name. It is a small harbor, but contrary to what one might expect from the name, it is not very good. It is too shallow and has too many rocks. Though it looks inviting, it is almost useless. So it is of “Little Good.”

The Priestly Code of Leviticus is in many ways the Little Good Harbor of biblical wisdom. It is not as shallow as Little Good Harbor, but there are lots of rocks. In the storms of life it does not provide safe haven. The idea of a guide for living that sets God’s people apart, is a good one, but the actual code is deeply flawed.

Leviticus has two almost identical verses of condemnation. The first passage, verse 22 of chapter 18, says simply, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” The second passage, printed above, adds the penalty of death, and notes that those who commit such acts are responsible for their fate; “their death is upon them.”

The condemnation is clear and unmistakable.

Here, as in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, we see reflections of a patriarchal and misogynistic culture. To lie “with a male as with a woman” was to treat the male as if he were female. This was the ultimate humiliation. Judaism and Christianity have moved toward gender equality, but the subjugation of women remains deeply imbedded in Middle Eastern culture. The condemnation of male homosexuality is a reflection of the patriarchal devaluation of women.

“Abomination” is a strong word. And it is not used often. In the Priestly Code of Leviticus, it is an abomination to eat an eagle, an osprey, or a vulture. It is an abomination to eat a burnt offering after the second day. And it is an abomination to eat anything unclean. Eating such things may be unappetizing, but it hardly seems “an abomination.”

The death penalty is serious. In Leviticus, it is mandated for murder, for adultery, for blasphemy, for cursing one’s mother or father, and for “wizards and mediums.” In Exodus and Deuteronomy, the death penalty is invoked for breaking Sabbath, as well as for outsiders who come near the Tabernacle. Looking back across the millennia, that seems a little harsh.

We know from historical research that the death penalty was seldom used for these crimes. At this point, the Torah uses the language of death, not literally as a legal sentence, but metaphorically, to indicate the seriousness of the offense. Just as in our less enlightened moments we might say, “anyone who does that ought to be shot!”

When we read that it is an abomination and that it calls for the death penalty, we read it as a very strong condemnation. But that reading is at least somewhat tempered by the recognition that many of the other offenses that are described with that same harsh language do not seem as “abominable” to twenty-first century readers.

Leviticus is tough going. More than one well-intentioned and sincere Christian setting out to read the whole Bible from cover to cover has struggled through the long narratives of Genesis and Exodus, only to come to a grinding halt when confronted with the strange list of arcane laws that make up the Priestly Code of Leviticus. In order to understand it, we need to avoid getting lost in the details.

If we set out to construct a sexual ethic on the foundation of the two condemning verses in Leviticus, then we need to explain why we are picking and choosing those verses and not also including the admonitions about the ritual purification of women after menstruation and many other similar laws. And we need to explain our use of a code which is patriarchal and misogynistic. Its purpose is to set the people apart from the surrounding pagan culture, yet in its attitudes toward women it generally reflects that culture.

The premise of the Holiness Code is that God’s people should be holy as God is holy; that in our daily living we should remind ourselves of who we and whose we are. When the rabbis read these laws, they read them with that end in mind. The details are flawed, the product of a primitive world view and a pre-scientific understanding. But if we can focus beyond that, on the vision behind the details, then we can find light for our journey.

Paul told the church in Corinth that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. When it comes to the study of Torah, Rabbi Paul echoes the ancient rabbinic insight that God is found in the white spaces. Leviticus is about a people set apart and called to be different. The details may confound us, but the greater vision is of a life shaped by the calling of God.

Four New Testament References

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:26-27 

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. I Corinthians 6:9-10

This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching I Timothy 1:9-10 

Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1:7 

As a Christian, I find the New Testament passages more troubling. We claim the whole Bible as our sacred story, but we also want to believe that Jesus brought a cosmic change in our thinking. Rightly or wrongly, I think we expect more enlightenment when we read the New Testament.

The passages from Hebrew scripture are more easily dismissed. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is clearly primitive. And no one takes Leviticus seriously.

Although Christians sometimes over-emphasize the uniqueness of Jesus’ teachings, he did bring a new perspective on many issues. He also deepened and expanded insights previously found in the Prophets. And he revealed great truths about human beings. But he did not change human nature.

Regardless of what we may believe about the inspiration of the biblical writers, we know that the actual words were written by human beings. The people who wrote the Bible (who put the letters and words on the page) were not perfect. And they were subject to the influences of the surrounding culture.

When Paul wrote his letters, he did not write them as sacred scripture. He was writing to specific people in specific places, offering advice and counsel intended for their situation. He did not know that two millennia later Christians would be studying those letters and reading them in worship as sacred texts. And the same is true for the unknown authors of the other New Testament epistles.

Of the four texts cited above, the last three can be dismissed rather easily. The last two, from the First letter to Timothy and from the Letter to Jude, were written fifty to one hundred years after Paul’s death, and do not carry the same authority as a letter from the Apostle. The Corinthians passage, like the passages from Timothy and Jude is written with ambiguous language which makes the meaning unclear. These texts are talking about some sort of inappropriate sexual behavior, but it is not clear what it is. What is certain, is that they are not talking about a loving, consensual, committed same sex relationship between two adults.

The Romans text is more difficult. We know with nearly one hundred percent certainty that it was written by Paul. That makes it hard to ignore if you believe as I do that Paul was the greatest Christian theologian, that all subsequent Christian theology is a footnote to Paul, and that his inspiration and brilliance were the driving force behind the spread of Christianity in the ancient world.

These two verses from Romans have probably done more to harm Christian attitudes toward homosexuality than anything else in the Bible. So what do we make of this?

First, Paul’s primary interest in this passage is not homosexuality, he is writing about what happens when we turn away from God. When we turn away from God, says Paul, we do “unnatural” things. The sexual relations which Paul describes are the result and not the cause or our turning away.

Second, his apparent reason for rejecting same sex relations is that they are “unnatural.” But our sense of what is “natural” is not fixed. In the nineteenth century, it was thought “unnatural” for blacks to be equal to whites. A hundred years ago it was “unnatural” for children with learning disabilities to be in public school. Fifty years ago a majority of Americans believed that marriage between blacks and whites was “unnatural.” Our sense of what is natural has changed. Is it unreasonable to believe that if Paul were alive now, he would see things differently?

Paul wrote about what he saw in the context of his own time and place. What may have been true in his time is not necessarily true in our time. One of the great biblical truths from Abraham and Sarah onward is that God always calls us into the future. As Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward for what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus.”



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 


*The original version of this post was published in January of 2014 as our congregation was in the process of becoming a Reconciling Congregation.