For today's reflection I'd like to share the story of Darlene Bogle, a former leader of Exodus International, a group dedicated to the "conversion" of LGBT women and men to the purportedly normative heterosexual paradigm of sexual and gender identity. Thankfully, witnesses like Darlene demonstrate with their lives the truth of the wondrous diversity of God's creation - that as children of God we're called to live a life that glorifies our Creator as we become fully alive in our bodies, minds, souls, and spirits.
Below is a quote from Darlene and her website is also well worth checking out.
"Now it's been twelve years since I've been out of Exodus Ministry, but I don't know anybody that was involved in my ministry who's still going strong as a heterosexual. And I think what happens is that you can want to please and be accepted by God so much that you choose not to act out behaviorly, but then that gets confused with, are you really healed or are you just so dead inside that it takes an act of God, really, to ignite your soul - to make you realize that he created us to be warm, loving human beings."
Darlene Bogle
Former Exodus leader, quoted in film God and Gays: Bridging the Gap
Blessings,
Padre Chuck
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Some Good News
For today's posting I'd like to share an encouraging article about a recent meeting of leaders in the Episcopal church. Hopefully similar movement toward equality and inclusion will happen within other denominations soon as we continue to move toward ending prejudice and discrimination in our churches and places of worship.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Telling Our Stories
This moving story shows how important it is to realize LGBT people are human - are people like everyone else. We're people who are flawed and broken just like everyone else but also people who have a deep hunger and longing to know and love God and to do so in a way that doesn't violate our dignity as God's beloved children by attempting to stifle or deny who we really are.
May this story and others like it continue to change hearts and minds as we each walk the path of love and service of God and neighbor we're called to in our lives.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Friday, July 17, 2009
Going to the Source
For today's reflection I'd like to share a compelling video interview with Rodney Powell, a pioneer not only in the LGBT movement but also in the fight for equality for African-Americans in the 1950s and 60s. The video and the following brief biography of Powell are provided by Soulforce, an interdenominational religious organization dedicated to eradicating violence and prejudice through non-violent action:
"Rodney Powell is a gay, African American, who has lived in Hawaii since 1976 with his partner of 30 years. While a medical student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee during the years 1957-61, as a student protest leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement, Rodney had the privilege and honor to learn and apply the philosophy and strategies of love and nonviolence under the guidance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other dedicated ministers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference" (Source: http://www.soulforce.org/article/rodney-powell-video).
As Rodney Powell says, we need to get to the source of much of the prejudice directed against LGBT people - namely, the misuse of scripture and religious belief in the service of intolerance and bigotry. Only as we each stand up in the ways we feel called to and speak the truth in love will this situation begin to change in our communities, our churches and places of worship, and our world.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
"Rodney Powell is a gay, African American, who has lived in Hawaii since 1976 with his partner of 30 years. While a medical student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee during the years 1957-61, as a student protest leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement, Rodney had the privilege and honor to learn and apply the philosophy and strategies of love and nonviolence under the guidance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other dedicated ministers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference" (Source: http://www.soulforce.org/article/rodney-powell-video).
As Rodney Powell says, we need to get to the source of much of the prejudice directed against LGBT people - namely, the misuse of scripture and religious belief in the service of intolerance and bigotry. Only as we each stand up in the ways we feel called to and speak the truth in love will this situation begin to change in our communities, our churches and places of worship, and our world.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Lt. Dan Choi
Though there are issues beyond just marriage and the military in the LGBT movement, it is important to point out and work against blatant injustices as they occur. Unfortunately this is the case for Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate who was removed from the army recently simply for being gay. As Lt. Choi points out, this type of gross injustice is not only deeply wrong but in fact also harmful to morale and generally bad policy. As this story shows, there's still much work to do and we'll keep doing that work until we have justice - both for Lt. Choi and so many of his colleagues and also in so many other areas of our society, country, and communities.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Friday, July 10, 2009
Beyond Marriage and the Military
This video clip illustrates some of the ways in which the LGBT movement transcends just the two issues (marriage and the military) most frequently associated with it in the mainstream press. Although these issues continue to be crucial, it is also important to remember that the movement for justice and liberation is broader than just these two concerns and encompasses all who are oppressed by the systemic injustices in our society, country, and unfortunately sometimes in our churches and places of worship as well.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Outrage
The movie trailer I've included today comes from the recent documentary Outrage, an important contribution to the ongoing conversation in the U.S. over LGBT rights. Tragically, as this film demonstrates, many of the individuals who most vocally oppose liberation for LGBT people are themselves closeted and trapped in destructive patterns of self-hate. May God's Spirit move in all of us to keep opening the doors of closets and renewing our spirits.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Commitment and Love
As this story of one of the first same-sex couples to be married last year in California demonstrates, marriage really does make a difference. Separate is truly not equal and the fight for justice and equality goes on. What inspires me most, however, is the testimony and witness of couples like this - ordinary individuals who are just trying to live out their commitment to their spouses and families and contribute to the good of society.
Blessings,
Padre Chuck
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Further Reflections
In my entry from a couple days ago I shared some excerpts from an article by Luke Timothy Johnson on the role of human experience in helping the church discern how it is called to adapt the truth of the Gospel to each new age - holding to what is constant and unchanging and at the same time remaining open enough to allow the Spirit to move.
Although this point is a crucial one and has important implications for the work of freeing LGBT people in the church, I would like also to point out that even Scripture itself is not clear in its purported condemnation of homosexuality. Though Johnson seems reticent in his article to acknowledge this point, it is not at all clear that even the most seemingly condemnatory passages in Scripture have any relevance at all for what we know today as loving, monogamous same-sex relationships. The ancient Hebrew people as well as St. Paul and his contemporaries all participated in cultures different in many ways from our own- cultures in which, for example, one of the common experiences of homosexuality would have been pagan temple prostitution. Since this is clearly no longer the sole context of homosexuality in our own time, attempting to apply biblical sanctions and prohibitions to loving, committed same-sex relationships today is incongruous at best.
My essential point, then, is that we need not rely solely on our own human experience or even on Scripture alone. Rather, as thinking women and men of faith we can discern for ourselves, both individually and collectively, the truth that all of us are gifted with the sexuality we find at the deepest core of our being and called to live it responsibly and generously on behalf of others. This requires sacrifice and sometimes bearing our cross (ironically one not infrequently imposed upon us by leaders and members of the very church that should be our home and refuge) but when done courageously and generously it has the potential to transform our world into a foretaste of God's reign.
Blessings,
Padre Chuck
Although this point is a crucial one and has important implications for the work of freeing LGBT people in the church, I would like also to point out that even Scripture itself is not clear in its purported condemnation of homosexuality. Though Johnson seems reticent in his article to acknowledge this point, it is not at all clear that even the most seemingly condemnatory passages in Scripture have any relevance at all for what we know today as loving, monogamous same-sex relationships. The ancient Hebrew people as well as St. Paul and his contemporaries all participated in cultures different in many ways from our own- cultures in which, for example, one of the common experiences of homosexuality would have been pagan temple prostitution. Since this is clearly no longer the sole context of homosexuality in our own time, attempting to apply biblical sanctions and prohibitions to loving, committed same-sex relationships today is incongruous at best.
My essential point, then, is that we need not rely solely on our own human experience or even on Scripture alone. Rather, as thinking women and men of faith we can discern for ourselves, both individually and collectively, the truth that all of us are gifted with the sexuality we find at the deepest core of our being and called to live it responsibly and generously on behalf of others. This requires sacrifice and sometimes bearing our cross (ironically one not infrequently imposed upon us by leaders and members of the very church that should be our home and refuge) but when done courageously and generously it has the potential to transform our world into a foretaste of God's reign.
Blessings,
Padre Chuck
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