Defining the emergent church

Much has been said and written about the emergent church lately. It is a very diverse group of mostly former fundamentalists and evangelicals trying out a new way of being church similar to what Progressive Christians have been talking about for the last few decades. Here is a video of Peter Rollins from the Ikon Community in Ireland doing an interview with the Inner Compass show from Calvin College. He raises some important questions.

• In what way is Christianity a set of beliefs that we give assent to to belong to the community, or does being a Christian make us different people and changes our ways of looking at the world?

• How would church be different if we could become more honest about who we are and what our motivations lead us to be?

• How do our actions lead to living out the way Jesus taught his disciples?

Explaining Emergent Churches - Inner Compass from Calvin College on Vimeo.

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California Youth Energy Services

Here is a video about a group coming to CPC on Sunday to offer help to parishioners in saving energy and natural resources in their homes through energy audits. Teenagers: consider joining this program next year!

The Presbyterian Church and the Civil Rights Question for LGBTQ Persons in America.

There are many within the church who choose to restrict the conversation of Marriage Equality to those of opposite genders. But I would like to ask: Does not such a conversation neglect our other Presbyterian commitments to universal equality, human rights, and the preservation of justice not only at home in the U.S., but abroad as well?

While the PC(USA) has not voted to approve of the celebration of same-gender loving marriage rites, we have allowed pastors and congregations to perform and host holy-unions. At the same time, we have reiterated our call for the church to preserve the full access to civil rights for every LGBTQ person.

Ironically, what we are now seeing in many American states is the recognition of civil unions for all as a form of preserving equal rights for each of their citizens, even though the Federal Government does not now recognize such rights because of the Defense of Marriage Act. While many in the church are discussing this issue as a marriage issue, what is missing is any conversation about the inequity between the many human rights and tax breaks given to heterosexual couples that same-gender loving couples do not enjoy. And what about the immigration rights of partners whose partners are of the same-gender? Furthermore, should people have to be married to be guaranteed health insurance and inheritance rights? Should not every American be able to live their lives free of discrimination and hate-crimes? Why are we not in the streets fighting to give every American the same civil rights?

Right now a state Proposition collecting signatures in California will allow the state to only recognize civil unions - restricting the term ‘marriage’ to the arena of the churches. This would effectively move the Gay Marriage Debate to religious institutions. While this Proposition would bring about an equality between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples, if this passes it will mean that the LGBTQ community will then ask which religious communities will recognize the full humanity of all of its members and which will not. Are we ready for this?



Marriage is usually discussed in Scripture, the Confessions, and the Book of Order in the context of covenant faithfulness. Those who make covenants are expected to remain faithful to those covenants. And, when in our human weakness we break covenant, God is faithful to restore us to faithfulness in love.

Such covenants are to be fraught with love - luring us into our best selves. While the context of biblical marriage is found mainly within polygamous relationships, as was the custom of the time (Patriarchs until circa 1000 CE), there is also a polemic in scripture against such marriage relationships, with a progressive display of the struggles between wives (ie, Sarah and Hagar, etc.). The prophet Hosea uses the metaphor of marriage fidelity as an example of the nation of Israel's lack of fidelity, and the lengths God goes to to redeem his beloved.

While the scriptures do include a polemic of the idolatry of the temple prostitution popular among the foreign nations (Lev & Romans), there is not a polemic against what we know today as same-gender loving couples because it was unheard of. The word homosexual was anachronistically imported into the RSV English translation, which is why we have a PC (USA) task force looking at creating a better version of the Heidelberg Catechism that doesn't import our modern biases into the our historic confessions. As believers who have made peace between religion and science, we will need to include our best human knowledge from both a social-scientific and scriptural perspective. Remember, that any 'natural argument' effectively becomes an argument from and for our cultural norms.

Jesus had some strong words about marriage and divorce, protecting the partner who was most at risk of being uncared for in a divorce during his era. I would contend that the real issue remains to be 'covenant fidelity' - do we keep our promises. Since it is clear that same-gender loving couples are as able to live in covenant fidelity as heterosexual couples, the question will eventually move from the state's rights arena into the church: Will this church recognize the covenants of every believing couple who desire to live in covenant fidelity?

Perhaps the real question remains: What if the Mainline Protestant Christian Tradition was not prepared to lead in the realm of human sexuality when it was most needed? We weren't ready to talk about the Sexual Revolution because we had been denying our sexuality for so long that we could only deny it. We had little understanding about the diversity of human sexuality, and so we gave a knee-jerk reaction. Perhaps today we are almost ready to offer a well-considered response. But if we lead with 18th century theology and biases, we will continue to be laughed at by the rest of our culture. We Protestants lost our chance to lead the culture 40 years ago because we were unprepared. Same-gender loving couples have shown that their covenants are as fraught with love as those covenants made by heterosexual couples. The question for us as a church remains: When we will be the church of Jesus Christ. When we will begin to live out our discipleship as a function of Christ’s love, rather than as a function of the culture wars at this particular time in the U.S.



Today, our only hope is to repent from our collective misrepresentation of sexual minorities, and reclaim those parts of our tradition that welcome all. Perhaps we need to reclaim Isaiah's 'House of Prayer for all Peoples' which included those priests who were made eunuchs in the courts of Babylon, and recognize Philip's preaching to the eunuch whom the Spirit of God fell upon and he could not refuse baptism. It is time to separate ourselves from those hermeneutics that have oppressed those least understood by our society, and to reclaim an ethic of covenant faithfulness that includes who have stood firm within Christ’s covenant even though we have not stood firm with them.

Healing from Prop 8

Yesterday was a busy day for many leaders in the faith community. For those of us who serve congregations with Gay and Lesbian parishioners, it was a day of tending torn hearts, and helping people find their voice. For those in the Yes on 8 campaign, it was celebrating that discrimination could be so easily written into a state constitution to protect heterosexual superiority in California.

My day began with an Interfaith prayer service at St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco, where we were encouraged to be hopeful and peaceful, whatever decision came down from the California Supreme Court. We then marched together, singing songs down to the Supreme Court building. There were already hundreds of people there by then, with signs both pro and con. So, we kept singing, supporting those present whose actual relationships were being decided upon by the court.

I was hopeful that the Supreme Court would invalidate Prop 8, as I believe they should have before the election. But their decision on the narrowest portion of the question of the referendum created three classes of people in California. Heterosexual couples, same-gender loving couples (who were fortunate enough to get married while available), and those same-gender loving couples who would like to marry but now cannot do so. Will these couples really have all the same protections of their rights that the other two classes now enjoy? They will not be able to file joint tax returns in California, though married same-gender loving couples are still not able to file jointly on their federal taxes. One married Lesbian friend mentioned how difficult it is to file taxes when they have to be prepared multiple ways to fill out the forms correctly.

The other item lost in the conversation is the portability of marriage rights. While an increasing number of states recognize the marriages of all from other states, for couples traveling in those that do not means that they go without hospital visitation rights or prepare a half-an inch thick wad of paper documentation to keep with them wherever they go. This is why genuine Marriage Equality will not be fully achieved until this civil right is recognized by the Federal Government.

So in the meantime, as a pastor, I find my role is two pronged. I must be available for my gay and lesbian parishioners during this time of grief and anger, and I must lend my voice and position to calling this country – and my denomination – to accept the full humanity of every citizen and member. This is why I joined the civil disobedience in the streets of San Francisco after the decision was made public. If the church cannot stand up for its own members and families, then how can we call ourselves the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. I am sure that there are those who don't understand why anyone would do this – or what difference this will every make – but at least I can sleep at night knowing where I was on that day. I was listening to the stories, hearing the pain, and walking in solidarity with those that the well-funded Christian Fundamentalists want to strip of their humanity. There is another way to follow in Christ's footsteps, and that is the way of the outcast, the foreigners, and the aliens.

Below is a brief video from the Contra Costa Times, which did an article on the different responses around the county. After this brief time out on the street, our group of 30 or so went into the church and had an opportunity to share about how it felt to hear the news. People who haven't set foot in a Christian church in years decided to join us for the conversation, because we decided to be the church and provide a sanctuary for them.

The Pope and Condoms

The Pope commented on condoms during his recent trip to Africa. But saying that the use of condoms contributes to the spread of HIV AIDS is just plain irresponsible. Perhaps even Jesus is against such unscientific malarky.



Instead of being afraid of sex, perhaps it is time for the church (Protestant and Catholic) to make peace with human sexuality. One way to do so would be for the Pope to recognize that of all the commandments in the scriptures, the only one we have kept is "be fruitful and multiply." In fact, we have been so good at keeping this command, while ignoring the others like caring for the poor, the widows, and orphans, that 33,000 children die each day of hunger and waterborne illnesses. If we were to celebrate how well we have filled the earth, perhaps we could focus our energy on reducing the number of children we have - to spend more time with them. If we recognize that the gift of our sexuality provides an intimacy that is essential to human flourishing, we could reclaim the beauty of our sexuality. Then protecting our sexual partners with the use of a condom would be seen as an act of love and respect, not as a threat to a biblical mandate we have already kept.

What do you think?

Against Gay Marriage? Don't Get One.

Last Sunday we talked about Gay Marriage in our Adult Ed Sunday School class. We recognized that people come at the question from many different angles and social locations, including: the scriptures, linguistic arguments (accepted definitions of the term marriage), a place of fear of otherness, sociological, psychological, anthropological, biological (nature/nurture debate), but mostly we have heard cultural arguments (both religiously cultural and socially cultural).

Now, one of the arguments we didn't hear was this one made by Portia De Rossi, Ellen Degeneres' partner. Have fun with it, it was on Jimmy Kimmel live.

Irony of Gaza

Lately, I have run into multiple interfaith circumstances that have become fraught with tension around the issue of Gaza. Sometimes this is because one party wishes to enforce the language of their understanding of the conflict – usually in defense of the military strikes of their religious or ethnic compatriots. This has been true of Jewish friends who insist that Israel was reacting to previous strikes from Hamas. It is hard for them to hear that I was leaving Tel Aviv the day that Israel broke the cease fire (Nov. 4th). And why does such arguments always focus on Hamas when other groups in Gaza, including Islamic Jihad and others, have been firing rockets into southern Israel.

On the other hand, some Muslim and Christian friends have been responding with their own reactions to the conflict. Some are hypersensitive to any statement about the conflict, including any criticism of Palestinian armed resistance such as the firing of rockets. Others are just as sensitive about who started the Gaza conflict, or insist that the disproportionality of those wounded and killed on both sides proves which side is right.

Both people are indigenous to the region. Both people have been traumatized. And the future hope of a settlement depends just as much on the U.S. becoming an honest broker for peace. Polemical statements against Hamas because they don't recognize the right of Israel to exist never question why Israel has never recognized the right of a Palestinian state to exist. Those who have been there know that the growth of Settlements in the West Bank and the cordoning off and siege of Gaza make a viable Palestinian state impossible. But until a negotiated, just peace is restored both peoples will continue to live in conflict: and until there is genuine hope for a peaceful resolution, perhaps we who have loved ones on every side of the conflict need to learn how to live out support for every victim of the conflict - especially the nonviolent civilians caught in between.

Here is a video from a Jewish friend in Israel called "Closed Zone":