Pride and Shame

I was one of two original grand marshals of the 

2009 Atlanta Pride parade. That's Wade in the front seat.

Along with others, Dean Lewis has been the longtime conscience and “better angel” of the Presbyterian Church on multiple social justice issues. He was on the staff of the Advisory Council on Church and Society of the former United Presbyterian Church under whose auspices the Task Force to Study Homosexuality (1976-1978) was formed and did our work. Knowing of my intern work for the Christian Association at the University of Pennsylvania with LGBT people on campus (1975-1976), I believe Dean was the one or among those who recommended me for the task force.

I served as its only openly gay member, appointed by the first African American woman to serve as General Assembly Moderator, the Rev. Dr. Thelma Adair, and Elder Jeanne Marshall, chair of the advisory council, who became a good friend and later advisor and board member of the Lazarus Project, a Los Angeles based ministry of reconciliation between the church and the LGBT community that I served as founding director.

In his birthday greeting to me last week, Dean reminded me that this year was the 40^th anniversary of the delivery of our task force report to the 1978 General Assembly meeting in San Diego, a report whose majority of 14 recommended that homosexuality not be considered a bar to ordination.

The minority report recommended the opposite, and the view of that minority of five held sway at the assembly, putting in place a ban on the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and, by inference, transgender candidates for professional ministry and lay leadership within the denomination that lasted nearly forty years, and lingers in the less inclusive presbyteries and congregations of the church to this day.

Tomorrow, October 11, is Coming Out Day, a day inviting LGBTQ people and our families, friends and allies to come out about our “faith in the idea that God had when God made” us, in the words of Isak Dinesen (nee Karen Blixen) in Out of Africa and her Immigrant’s Notebook.

Atlanta’s Pride festival and parade/march come this weekend, moved some years ago from the traditional observance on the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion the final weekend of June because of the Georgia drought that prompted concern about the lawns and grounds of its venue, Piedmont Park. Unique to Atlanta Pride, I believe, is that it has always been an invitation for all to express pride in our diversity, regardless of sexual orientation.

Sunday I was invited to encourage the community of Ormewood Church to attend both festival and parade/march in support as part of a year-long series on “Loving Our Neighbors.” The Sunday before, Ormewood Church had celebrated our first anniversary meeting together thanks to the leadership of many fine people, including organizing pastor, the Rev. Jenelle Holmes.

When the Task Force to Study Homosexuality announced its majority/minority divide on the ordination of LGBT people in the winter of 1978, many opposed to that ordination said that, if the task force had included more lay people, the vote would have been more clearly opposed.

But the minority of five who opposed ordination of LGBT people were all straight, white, older male clergy. The majority of fourteen who saw no reason to exclude LGBT people from ordination were lay and clergy, male and female, black and white, old and young, straight and gay. Diversity welcomed inclusion.

This is especially relevant as we face this week a U.S. Supreme Court which will be dominated by five straight white men.

During the hearings on the nominee for Supreme Court justice, my spouse Wade expressed his continuing dismay that the Senate is mostly old white men. “We need a Congress that is as diverse as the American people,” he said. Amen to that!

I recently lost as a Facebook friend one of my best friends from high school when he questioned “identity politics” and I responded politely that “identity politics” has always been with us: as long as you were a straight, white male, you were welcomed into the power structures of government, business, military, and church.

I wrote in my first book, Uncommon Calling, that it was the Rev. Dr. Thelma Adair who gave me a helpful perspective on the LGBT movement as we waited in line for “The Women’s Breakfast” at the San Diego General Assembly. She said simply, “When I first started coming to General Assemblies, we [African Americans] were not allowed to stay in the same hotels with white delegates. We had to stay in private homes far from the venue.”

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Copyright © 2018 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Religious Liberty

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision broadening the understanding of marriage, those who have fought same-gender marriage now express fears that they will be called upon to do things their consciences will not permit and are clamoring for “religious liberty.”

It’s ironic that those who denied religious liberty to LGBT people in terms of church membership and leadership, ordination to ministry, as well as marriage, are anxious that this uppity minority will demand something of them.

I can’t help but smile at their naïveté that, when my partner and I marry, we would want other than a tasteful gay caterer, a lesbian cake designer, a bisexual soloist, and a transgender minister. And I don’t think any same-gender couple is likely to risk a pastry chef who might spit in their wedding cake batter!

Clergy and congregations always have the right not to marry a couple. I have declined officiating at weddings of couples I thought were not ready or entering into marriage for the wrong reasons.

In my years as a pastor, I have been called upon to serve adulterers, criminals, evangelicals, conservatives, and straight couples—after all, it’s the nature of ministry to serve all kinds of people whose lifestyles I might not emulate. Are the Christians crying “religious liberty” of such delicate character that they cannot bring themselves to serve or work or worship alongside those different from themselves? Are they afraid we might “rub off” on them?

Jesus spoke to this very issue when he criticized the self-righteous of his time for their obsessive-compulsive, over-the-top avoidance of ritual impurity, one that prevented them from dining even with each other lest they be rendered spiritually “unclean.”

Answering a lawyer’s question regarding the commandments and eternal life, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, contrasting his mercy with the priest and lay priest who passed by the roadside casualty, presumably to remain ritually pure, perhaps on their way to the temple at Jerusalem.

Jesus himself hung out with all the wrong people, allowed “unclean” women to touch him, and ventured into a cemetery, risking ritual impurity, to command Lazarus to “Come out!”

At Pentecost, the walls of the house where the disciples were meeting seem to disappear as the Spirit enables them to speak in the languages of the many foreign pilgrims on the streets of Jerusalem.

Later the Spirit falls upon disgusting and depraved Gentiles, prompting Peter to explain baptizing them to the earliest church council, “If God gave them the same gift given us, who was I that I could withstand God?”

Christians, get a grip. In Jesus’ simple admonition to greet strangers is your clue to do the same. “For if you greet only those you know,” Jesus said, “What reward have you? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?”

Today’s post also appeared yesterday on The Huffington Post.

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Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Does a Corporation Have a Soul?

The U.S. Supreme Court has launched an entitlement program for corporations. They are now considered individuals, and individuals with faith. Makes me wonder, if corporations go bankrupt, will they dream?

Will the Court soon assert that corporations have a soul, and cannot be aborted from the moment they are conceived?

If corporations have a soul, they have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do before the Supremer Court of the Heavenly Realms. BP, how dare you foul the Gulf coastline? GM, what took you so long on that recall? Walmart, kudos for your environmental policies, but why not share your huge profits by paying your employees better wages and benefits? Hobby Lobby, why do you impose your personal interpretation of your religion on your employees? Well, you get the idea. Supply the name and sin of your most offending corporation.

Of course, churches are corporations too. And too many times they have sold their souls to the highest bidder: those who can pay for that new building, those who withhold funds if the church doesn’t toe their particular line, or those who threaten to leave if the church is too prophetic or inclusive.

I can imagine corporate evangelists who offer businesses “come-to-Jesus” moments, exhorting them to repent of their evil ways. C’mon down the aisle while we sing a couple of additional verses of our final hymn: 

Just as I am, without one plea, but that we make more mo-ney

For our stockholders and our bonuses,

And super PACs we fund, we fund.

Maybe it’s time for corporations to live on free will donations, issue quarterly statements of confession, and be given penances serving the poor.

Jesus was once asked by a corporation, “What must I do to be saved?”

“Go and sell what you have, and give to the poor.”

And the corporation went away sorrowful, for it had many acquisitions.

There will be no corporations in heaven. No churches either.

Only souls.

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