progressive involvement

Fox News, Glenn Beck, Erick Erickson, Mona Charen, Sean Hannity--the usual suspects, in other words

 

Methinks thou dost protest too much

Rick Santorum must have read one too many Frank Peretti novels.  In Peretti's books, the Eee-vil One is usually an academic and a liberal who is ultimately defeated by a devout sweater-vested evangelical.

Santorum appears to be living in a Peretti-style Bizarro-World.  According to Santorum, President Obama is not in denial about climate change, which makes him an earth-worshipping radical environmentalist--and he used to be a member of the liberal United Church of Christ.  What more do you need to know?  The man is in league with the devil!

That was nutty enough, but someone found this little gem today.  Said Santorum in 2008: 

“Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. The prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom.”

This reminds me of a conversation I had with an evangelical pastor in the spring of 2004, and a subsequent conversation that was reported to me regarding the same individual.  Literally within seconds of meeting this guy, he smiled a spooky smile and began talking about sex-trafficing in Asia.  This is a legitimate issue, but generally not one you smile about or bring up right off the bat with a person you've just met.

When this same individual found out that I was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he later said to a common friend, "Do you know what these people do there?"

So I was pretty hyped up at the possibility of going to a real-live orgy, but this was Boston, 2004, and the Bostonians have apparently never gotten over their puritanical past.  I searched high and low for an orgy and the best I could do was that one of John Kerry's step-sons flirted with my wife.  This was disappointing.  These are Democrats, after all.  He should be flirting with me.

Alas, then in 2008, I signed up for the Orgy Caucus at the Denver convention, but it didn't meet even one time.  I was forced to walk up and down the 16th Street Mall asking perfect strangers where the orgy was, but got no help at all until I ran into a member of the Fred Phelps family who told me where to go--or better, where I was going to go--but not where to go for the orgy. 

The upshot was that I'd been to two national conventions of the libertine party, and never once even met a single libertine.  I was forced to this incontrovertible truth:  The Democrats ain't sexy.  To their credit, however, at least they don't obsess about it.

It made me appreciate the truth of Martin Luther's remark:  "I'd rather be governed by a smart Earth-worshipping liberal than a dumb altar boy culture-warrior."

The "best construction"

Luther's explanation of the 8th commandment encourages us not only not to bear false witness against our neighbor but also to defend our neighbor, speak well of them, and "put the best construction on everything".

The respective press offices of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) did just that.

The two sides met February 8 in Chicago to discuss the LCMS's ending of their cooperative ministries with the ELCA.  They're opting out because the ELCA approved partnered gays in the ministry.

At their 2010 convention, the LCMS passed a wordy 15-page document--"Principles for Cooperation in Externals with Theological Integrity"--which basically asserts that the ELCA is so far gone down the road of perdition that good self-respecting people can no longer find any way of doing good with them. 

How did the respective head offices spin the recent meeting?  LCMS:  "LCMS, ELCA reps discuss cooperation."  ELCA:  "ELCA and Missouri Synod leaders continue conversations together."

 

Photo:  ELCA News Service

Esteemed Catholic, who knows what he's talking about, begs to differ

Garry Wills, one of the nation's most prominent historians, and also one of the nation's most prominent Roman Catholics, slices and dices the bishops in a blog post at the New York Review of Books.  Here's what he had to say about the phony "religious freedom" argument:

The bishops’ opposition to contraception is not an argument for a “conscience exemption.” It is a way of imposing Catholic requirements on non-Catholics. This is religious dictatorship, not religious freedom.

Contraception is not even a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture or the Creed is it forbidden. Catholic authorities themselves say it is a matter of “natural law,” over which natural reason is the arbiter—and natural reason, even for Catholics, has long rejected the idea that contraception is evil.

That's merely a teaser.  Read the whole thing.

 

Yet another reason to be proud of our country

Our State Department supports equal rights for all, and wants you to know it.

   

 

The Archdiocese of Chicago has fallen a long ways since the days of Cardinal Bernardin

First, Chicago's Cardinal George said:  "You don't want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism." George said.

Then, a day later, given a chance to modify or take it back, he said:  “The rhetoric of the KKK and the rhetoric of some of the gay liberation people -- Who is the enemy? The Catholic Church,” George said.

The comments were made in the context of a Catholic priest who worried that a gay pride parade was going to march past his church, which, he said, would force them to cancel Sunday morning mass.

Yes, the KKK and gay pride marchers are just alike.  The KKK hates blacks, browns, yellows, reds, liberal whites, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews, and has used violence against them.  

The gay pride marchers don't hate anybody, but would appreciate it if people would acknowledge them as human and stop beating them up.  Yep, just the same.

Which is why gay pride marchers should be burned at the stake for heresy.

Remarkable speech by Secretary of State Clinton in support of the administration's policy to include gay rights as human rights

 

Today would have been Matthew Shepherd's 35th birthday

In Matt's honor, we kindly ask that you please take a moment to support the Matthew Shepard Foundation, a wonderful non-profit organization founded by the Shepard family that is so close to our hearts, and vote for them in the American Giving Awards. As a small but passionately dedicated organization, the substantial grant they could be awarded would greatly impact their tireless efforts to protect bullied youth and “Replace Hate with Understanding, Compassion and Acceptance” through a variety of educational and outreach programs. Your vote will make a difference in their mission to Erase Hate.

You can vote DAILY from now through December 8th at www.VoteMatthewShepard.org

As always, we cannot thank you enough for your help.

With much love and gratitude,

Michele & the "Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine" team

 

The Joy of Seminary Sex

Even though Timothy Dalrymple says "the point here is not really about sex," he nevertheless titled his article, "The Young Christian's Guide to Sex at Seminary."  The seminary in question is Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) which is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Dalrymple, an evangelical, expresses shock at finding out that some of his Princeton Seminary classmates had sex and drank beer.  This is the first half of the article.  The second half is that these seminarians' moral laxity is an outward symptom of mainline protestantism's vacuous moral center.

While saying, on the one hand, that Princeton seminary is a "fine institution" and that his fellow seminarians were "good people" whom he loves and respects, he managed, on the other hand, to accuse them of disobeying God and not loving Jesus very much either.  With such "friends," who needs enemies?

I'm a graduate of Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.  My seminary, at least in regard to sex, was nothing like the Princeton that Dalrymple describes.  It's been awhile since my seminary years, but I don't remember being aware of any pre-marital sexual activity, for example, and certainly not any extra-marital activity.  

Then again, it wasn't a topic that was of very much interest.  Unlike Dalrymple, most of us Lutheran seminarians were not raised to regard premarital sex as "grave sin" against which we "were most gravely and constantly warned."  Sexuality is just like everything else.  It can be, and often is, tainted with sin.  We didn't see anything particularly special about it.  

We did drink beer, however.  Wartburg is a Lutheran seminary, after all, and we Lutherans have never been particularly abstemious about alcohol.  Lutheranism began in Germany, and trying to get the Germans to stop drinking beer is not the path to peace and prosperity.  (Katie Luther herself made the brew in the Luther household.)

In fact, Wartburg had a tradition of "spiritual formation" on Thursday evenings which amounted to making the trek across the Mighty Mississip to East Dubuque to Mulgrew's bar.  The former seminary president, the late and beloved Bill Weiblen, is the one who initiated me into this hallowed practice.  In my world, beer and theology have been partners for at least 500 years.

Dalrymple's more interesting point is that the faith and ministry that were modeled at Princeton (PTS) were mostly about "the aesthetics, the atmospherics, the experience, the rites and rhythms of church life, and not enough about plunging ever-more deeply into (to use the dreaded evangelical language) a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, by which I mean the day-to-day and moment-to-moment yielding-to and being-with Jesus." 

I take exception to the language with which he expresses it--more later--but his basic point seems to be that mainline seminary life can be hazardous to your spiritual health.  I think he is wrong on the point, but it is certainly true that seminary life can be a challenge to your faith.

You find out that most of your brilliant theological insights were condemned as heresies in the fourth century--and for good reason too!  You find out that pious fluff might have impressed your relatives, but it won't get you out of Systematics 101.  This is upsetting! 

It's also good for you.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that if your faith isn't re-examined, re-wrestled, re-worked, and re-integrated through your seminary experience, then you missed the most important part of seminary education.

Basically, Dalrymple faults Princeton for not being evangelical.  His mistake is to assume that not using evangelical language, or not viewing the world through an evangelical lens, means that a person, or a seminary, is not sufficiently Christian.  

Faithful people can see things differently.  Dalrymple may not care for the "aesthetics" and "atmospherics," but, at my seminary, the "aesthetics" and the "atmospherics" were--and are--critical elements of our spiritual life and spiritual formation.  When evangelicals need encouragement in the faith, they talk about their personal faith in Jesus.  When Lutherans need encouragement in the faith, we do a liturgy.    

It is on precisely this point, in fact, that mainliners, and especially Lutherans, find evangelicalism lacking.  Evangelicals have gone out of their way to strip the faith of "aesthetics" and "atmospherics."  The early evangelicals threw out stained glass and statues.  Today, evangelical churches look like shopping malls.  

Without "aesthetics" and "atmospherics"--or, as we see it, without the richness and texture of the "catholic substance" of the faith--the Christian message is truncated.  Where is the beauty?  Where is that which engages not only head but heart?  Without art, Christianity is reduced to mere dogma.

It is not fair, of course, to hold Dalrymple to a Lutheran standard, any more than it is fair of him to hold mainliners to an evangelical one.  He writes, "I have always drawn closest to God when I have been obedient to him."  My guess is that such sentiments are common at an evangelical seminary, but might be unusual at a Lutheran one. 

"Lutheran irony" informs us that it is precisely when we are most spiritually cocksure of ourselves that spiritual danger is closest at hand.  As soon as you start patting yourself on the back for how righteous you are, the devil has you in his hip pocket.  

As Reinhold Niebuhr once put it, “Human pride and arrogance rise to new heights precisely at the point where the claims of sanctity are made without due qualification.”  Or, as my seminary advisor also put it, "Piety can be the deepest form of idolatry."

In taking mainliners to task, Dalrymple makes no reference to any particular Biblical teaching.  It appears he believes that his evangelical childhood was, without question, Biblical.  He seems to assume that the mores and customs he was taught growing up in an evangelical household pretty much are the Christian faith.

That being the case, it's not surprising that he thinks evangelicals understand the Bible better without seminary training than mainliners do with it:

For instance, students (like myself) who had attended Bible churches or belonged to evangelical fellowships knew the Bible on the first day of the year-long survey course as well as the rest of the students knew the Bible on the final day of that course.

Even allowing for rhetorical license, I doubt that very much.

First United hopes their trinitarian theology passes muster with the ELCA

First United Lutheran Church in San Francisco has been "suspended" from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for about twenty years.  (They had a gay pastor before having a gay pastor was cool.)

In light of the August 2009 vote to roster gays in committed relationships, they are now considering rejoining the ELCA.  First United has recently sent a revised constitution to the Secretary of the ELCA.  If approved, First United will schedule a vote.

Pastor Susan Strouse says that First United "hopes" their constitution is approved, even though it deviates from the ELCA model at certain points.  First United, for example, is committed to the use of inclusive language.  It is "near and dear" to the congregation's heart, says Pr. Susan.

All this means is that they do not use exclusively masculine terms for God.  In their statement, "Toward a Statement on Inclusive Language," the congregation states:

God may be addressed as Lord or Lover, Father or Mother, Creator or Spirit, or even Goddess. We believe, however, that God is not limited even though our language is; the names change, the truth remains the same. Our words are products of time and history, the context in which we encounter God. But our God is timeless. We welcome your contribution to our many ways of calling forth the divine love that unites us all.

One doubts that this would be very controversial.  To my knowledge, the church catholic has never said that God must be spoken of in exclusively masculine terms.  In fact, it's bad theology to do so.  God contains both the masculine and the feminine--and then some.