Bible Bigots, Stadium Gods, And Vatican Vampires

One thing about 21st century days, there’s hardly a dull moment. On Tuesday I was greeted with the story that Fargo’s First Lutheran Church is challenging the Evangelical Lutherans In America (ELCA) decisions made on participation of gays and gay ministers in governance and the pulpit. A resolution stating that the church “will not participate in the ordination of pastors and calling of pastors in same-gender-relationships” was passed unanimously by the 24-member church council.

Corky and I were members of First Lutheran for almost 30 years from the 1970s to almost 2000. We had no idea we were surrounded by Bible Bigots at the time because most churches and organizations practiced the universal “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy presently used by our military. It was always that “Hate the sin, love the sinner” crap, used by many churches to sweep bigotry and sex discrimination under the altar carpet.

I see that First Lutheran members set the stage for Pontopiddan Lutheran and Hope Lutheran in Fargo to follow them down the Bible Bigot path. So far Hawley and Moorhead Lutheran churches are just talking about it.

It is generally accepted that five to 10 percent of the world populace is gay. So just these three Fargo churches with 16,000 “souls” must have between 800 and 1,600 gays sitting in pews and joining all the straights in the Lord’s Prayer and that beloved hymn “All Creatures Of Our God And King.” That is, unless the gays have gotten sick of having their sin hated while being “loved” by the hypocrites.

Blaise Pascal, a 17th century philosopher and mathematician, had a practical view of religion. He believed that people should believe in God–-even if they didn’t (!)–-because if God exists, only believers will go to heaven. He wrote “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.” Then he cited a real truth: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” (Witness the American and Muslim Talibans–and the rejections of the decision to allow gays in the ELCA ministry.)

It has to be coincidental that on the same day First Lutheran threw its red flag for the sex challenge, I got the Sojourners daily Bible passage (Romans 14:10-12): “Why do you pass judgment on your brother and sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’ So then each of us will be accountable to God.”

Along with this verse was a passage from the Book of Common Prayer that had some additional meaning: “God, see your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world; give them strength to hold their faith in you, and to keep alive their joy in your creation. For peace, for reconciliation, for wholeness, for grace, for love–may these things characterize your children.”

To Add to “An Unsteady and Confusing World” We Have Discovered GRB 090423

On the same day Hope Lutheran nailed its anti-gay resolutions to the front doors of the ELCA offices, astronomers discovered a gamma-ray burst from an extremely violent explosion that blew up a star 13.1 billion light-years away from earth. When this explosion took place our universe was nine times smaller than it is now and was only 630 million years after the Big Bang. The astronomers said that the burst identified as GRB 090423 “is an invitation to unfetter our imaginations.” If we were near that burst and had survived we would have the chance to observe what has happened in our universe the last 13 billion years. When we have such exciting things happening in God’s universe, worrying about being ministered to by a gay pastor seems trivial, irrational, and pathetic.

Also on this day Spain was beginning the process of finally resurrecting one of its own heroes, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who at the age of 38, was killed by the Dictator Francisco Franco’s Fascists because he had joined the revolution against Franco–-and was gay. Two of his killers later bragged that they fired two bullets into his head “for being queer.” During my days as an undergraduate—and since—I have thoroughly enjoyed the poetry of Garcia Lorca because of its simplicity, power, and passion. His play “Blood Wedding” is a classic. The Spanish government wants to find his body in a mass grave where thousands of revolutionaries were killed so it can build a proper monument for him. As Spain’s leading literary figure of the 20th century, the government wants to “extend a strong rebuke to the enemies of liberty who killed him and to all their kind.” Actually the family wants his body to stay with the thousands of others who were killed. They feel that is a better common memorial.

A Remarkable Girl Handicapped by Bigotry

It was also revealed this week that 17-year-old Ceara Sturgis of Jackson, Mississippi will not have her graduation picture in her high school yearbook because, being gay, she had her picture taken in a tuxedo. Her mother Veronica Rodriguez has been fighting the school’s ruling for a year. She describes her daughter as “a perfect child, a straight-A student, star goalie on the soccer team, a trumpet player in the band and active in Students Against Drunk Driving. She just feels more comfortable in boy’s clothes. She’s not a troublemaker. She is gay. She wants to wear the tuxedo because that’s who she is. She’s not ashamed of that.”

Ceara will be attending Mississippi State University next fall. Should she be treated as a second-class citizen? Should she be denied appointments to the Navy Academy, West Point, or the Air Force Academy because she’s gay? According to certain Bible verses each one of us is checked out by God in our mother’s womb. If God were against gays, why did Ceara and millions of other gays pass God’s “perfect” and “no-fault” physical? Perhaps some Bible Bigots could answer this question.

A teenager who wore men’s clothes and known as “the Maid” transfixed a nation with her leadership. She was Joan of Arc, born of poor peasants at Domremy, France in 1421. Joan was illiterate but was skilled in sewing and spinning. At thirteen the church claimed she started to hear voices directing her to lead the French in their war against the English. After leading the French in several battles she was handed over to the English through treachery. She was tried in an ecclesiastical court by twenty-two “learned” religious judges. One of the reasons for her being found guilty was the fact she wore men’s clothes. While imprisoned she was kept in chains by her jailors. She was sentenced as a heretic, and was burned to death at the stake on May 30, 1431. She was canonized in 1920 by, oddly enough, Pope Benedict XV. Well, the Catholic Church burned her for several reasons, including wearing men’s clothing, so I suppose they have the right to make her a saint.

God and Satan, Battling for First Downs

In the same week that Lutheran gays were told they had to remain second-class citizens because God said so in 171 major translations of his word, high school cheerleaders in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, who call themselves Warriors for Christ, were told by school authorities they had to stop using banners displaying Bible verses on the football field. The school district did not want to be sued by the American Civil Liberties Union.

I have been on 0-10 football teams and 10-0 teams. I suppose it would be handy to claim that God played a role in our wins and Satan played a role in our losses, but I think Voltaire was right when he said God was always on the side of the army with the most battalions. Am I cynical enough to believe that God could be on the sideline bench with the biggest offensive tackles and the fastest wide receivers? Some would say so. If God is in the stadiums, why do California atheists always seem to beat the crap out of University of Notre Dame religionists?

If these three churches maintain their position that gays cannot serve their churches in positions of leadership, I just might start to believe that Brett Favre was sent by the Holy Spirit to dash through spiritual banners held by Viking cheerleaders wearing purple and gold—burqas.

Seeking Fresh Blood Among the Spiritually Crippled Around the World

In this busy “religious” 21st century week Pope Benedict XVI sent an invitation to Anglicans , saying the Roman Catholic Church would gladly accept the bigots and pro-life fundamentalists who were opposed to the Anglican Church acceptance of gays in the ministry, women in the pulpit, and same-sex marriages. Like a Vatican vampire bat searching the earth for fresh blood, Benedict seems to be looking for anyone who can transfuse his rapidly declining church in both Europe and the United States. Example: Ireland had 160 Catholic priests die in 2007. Only nine replacements were ordained. Shouldn’t that be a message to the old inquisitor? The Anglicans are divided by the same sexual decisions the Lutherans are having a hissy fit over.

Although celibacy for priests is still the Vatican rule, Benedict has declared he will welcome married Anglican priests to his fold to serve in Catholic pulpits. Many Protestant church leaders were “shocked” by Benedict’s invite–-although it gave them an opportunity to keep the peace in their own church by dumping their sex bigots and women haters on the already overloaded Catholic Church. Benedict, known as the Vatican’s “Rottweiler” when he was head of the Congress of Doctrine of the Faith (Inquisition), has even enraged his nuns by questioning whether they are religious enough. What an attitude to have toward the women who are (or were) the absolute spine and servants of the church. When Pope John XXIII tried to open up the Catholic Church through the changes of Vatican II, women entered convents in droves. Not any more. The average age of nuns is now 70. And one wonders how the wife of an Anglican priest can love a husband who has such contempt for women he thinks them incapable of handling the routine chores of a priest–and then compounds his problem by joining Benedict in his anti-woman and anti-gay crusade!

A survey of why people leave churches indicates that the Catholic Church has had the greatest net loss due to religion switching. Six in ten former Catholics say they left the church because of dissatisfaction with teachings about abortion and homosexuality. Half cited teachings about birth control and its treatment of women. Evidently Benedict is trying to fill all these holes with people who could survive any Inquisition.

This is just a story but I think there is a lot of truth in it. A father who had been in a nursing home for decades and had seen many people die told his daughter he had never heard a dying person call for his father. The call was always for the mother. He added that calling out for the mother just seemed more natural. With Benedict’s attitude toward women, when he dies he might just call for his father. It’s also interesting that he headed up the same organization in the 21st century that came up with the plan to burn heretics such as St. Joan of d”Arc at the stake in the 13th and 14th centuries.

What Would Happen If We Taught a Composite of the 171 Major Translations of the Bible?

Having gone to catechism classes when I was a Roman Catholic boy and having listened to thousands of readings and sermons over the years I have never heard Numbers 31 from the pulpit or lectern. In Numbers 31 Moses instructed his men to kill all the little boys and non-virgin women, and to rape all the virgins after they had defeated the Midianites. I use this only to make the point that too often people use verses in a Bible to make a point while neglecting verses which might counter that point. The verse might be from a Bible that has been translated from many languages by hundreds of men. That’s what translations are all about. Hanging your hat on Bible verses when there is so much at stake would be like trusting your credit card company and banker to have only your interests in mind.

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