On heterosexual privilege

Last week I did something that I am not proud of. I got into a social media spat with a friend of a friend about why the shooting in Orlando was a hate crime.  I linked to a description of hate crimes and hate groups as identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center . And I texted an apology to my friend for instigating a fight on her Facebook feed. Then I went to the gym and lifted heavy things to direct my anger somewhere. Because nothing makes me more indignant than when I am trying to explain privilege to someone who refuses to listen.

The thing about privilege is that its really hard to understand when you have it. By way of example, I have white skin. This privileged status affords me a huge number of advantages. They are as far reaching as seeing people with white skin on television, having teachers and professors who look like me, and having a "white sounding name" on my resume.  These privileges are as small as being able to purchase bandaids and underwear that are called "nude" and also match my skin tone. My privilege allows me to drive or walk pretty much wherever I like, or shop in stores without being scrutinized. I don't even have to think about white privilege, because it is intrinsic to my experience. You can learn more about white privilege in this article by Peggy McIntosh, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

Heterosexual privilege functions in much the same way. Because I identify as a member of the LGBTQ community, my status as a member of an oppressed group, this difference is particularly marked to me.  I am only able to speak to a very small window of this experience. I defer to my friends and colleagues to speak more fully about what it is to identify as transgender, genderqueer, or the intersectionality of what it is to be a person of color who also identifies as LGBTQ.

I've been really frustrated by the inability of the media and of many people to claim the Orlando attack as a hate crime. The main argument that I'm hearing is that "all crimes are hateful, particularly gun violence." 

This is not exactly incorrect, as I would say that a crime in which an innocent person loses their life is indeed hateful, but it doesn't instill fear like a hate crime does. Hate crimes are intended to terrorize a group of people & instill fear in their very existence. 

It is a profound example of heterosexual privilege that the fact that this shooting occurred in a gay club is so easily erased. 

I find myself troubled by cisgender & heterosexual people co-opting the phrase, "we are Orlando." Because, no, you are not. 

You don't know what it's like to need a sanctuary club where you can dance with  same gender partners. 

You don't know what it's like to have strangers glare & shout at you in public for holding the hand of your partner. 

You don't know what it's like to be looking over your shoulder while walking together or glancing around to see who is around before kissing your partner in public. 

You don't know what it's like to be misidentified as sisters. 

You don't know the chore of coming out repeatedly.

You don't know what it's like to have your life sexualized and fetishized by heterosexual men. 

You don't know what it's like to be in fear.

You can stand alongside us, but your privilege allows you to leave. 

So please don't erase this as a hate crime committed against the LGBTQ community.  

Are LGBTQ clergy fit to serve in the church?

Are people who as identify lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer fit to serve as leaders of the church in the world?

Before you stop reading because I am asking in this question, first know that I identify as a member of the LGBTQ community and as a member of the clergy of the ELCA, so for me, the answer is an absolute YES.

                                *******

But I am asking this question to try to get to some sort of understanding for myself about why the in the world we are still even having this conversation.

This post was inspired by some ongoing conversation in the social media world by other Lutheran clergy who note that it is still extremely difficult for LGBTQ folks to find congregational calls to live out their vocation to serve God and neighbor through the ministry of Word and Sacrament.  It is clear that the system is broken and undoubtedly favors heterosexual white men, just like nearly every other institution.

I am absolutely enraged that this is still up for debate. But in conversing with others online, I am beginning to realize that we are often not communicating about the same thing using language that both sides can understand.

First, I think it is important to begin with looking at what sexual orientation means.  For me, it is an immutable, unchanging, part of who I am and who I was created to be. It is "against nature" (my nature) to attempt to be heterosexual. I know this because I tried it and I was downright miserable for many years. Sexual orientation is not a choice.  However, much of this debate begins with a misunderstanding of this very critical point. In order to have a productive conversation, we need to begin with this mutual understanding. With this understanding, it is just as offensive to ask if an LGBTQ person is fit to serve the church as it is to ask if a person of color or a woman is fit to serve.  This is atrocious.

Next, is the sexual orientation of one's pastor a hindrance to completing the essential functions of the role of pastor? Does the gender expression of the pastor's partner have anything whatsoever to do with the pastor's ability to preside, hold the office of the keys, and tend to one's congregation in a pastoral way?  It seems really quite ridiculous to me to ask this question. My wife is an engineer.  She has received extensive education, passed several licensing examinations, and received training in the workplace to do her work.  The fact that she is married to me has no bearing whatsoever on her ability to be an engineer. I have received extensive education, completed the candidacy process, and completed an internship in a congregation. I have answered God's call to ministry and that call has been affirmed externally by a number of stakeholders including my congregation, my synod, my candidacy committee and faculty of my seminary. The fact that I am married to a woman has no bearing on my ability to serve God and God's people.

Also, is this a moral/theological/ethical issue?  Of course not.  But there are people out there who believe that I am living an immoral life, that I am living in such a place of sin that they cannot possibly hear the Gospel from me. I am living in sin, just as any one else is living in sin.  I sometimes hurt the people I love through my own stupidity or my sharp tongue.  I tend to think that I can fix everything on my own and I don't need help from anyone else. It is hard for me to admit when I am wrong. But what is not sinful is that I am in a loving, respectful, publicly accountable relationship with another woman.

So where does this leave the debate?  I find that most of the discomfort with a gay pastor can be reduced to what I will call the "ick factor."  For many people, it's icky to think about sex. This is a problem in our churches. And because of deeply entrenched heteronormativity, we don't automatically think about sex when we see a straight couple.  But same gender relationships are far too often just reduced to sex and this is beside the point.  What consenting adults do behind closed doors is no business of anyone else. How they live out their commitment to one another by being part of a congregation, by serving their neighbor, and how they live into the vocation of family is what is important.

Finally, the question of whether or not LGBTQ clergy are fit to serve the church is often based in fear of the unknown.  Public acceptance of same-gender relationships is still evolving, and same-gender couples are still working on feeling safe enough to be public about their relationships. Some people simply do not know any LGBTQ people (or perhaps more appropriately, do not THINK they know any LGBTQ people, but statistically they do).  There is fear that the gay pastor will shove some sort of gay agenda onto them.  That by calling a gay pastor, they get a one-person gay pride parade. That a gay pastor will be primarily GAY, and only after that, then a pastor. This could not be more false.


LGBTQ people are everywhere. We aren't scary. We aren't going to corrupt the children. We just want to live our lives in the way that we have been created to be.  We want meaningful work. We want to live and love and be part of our communities.  Some of us have been called to be clergy.

Of course LGBTQ clergy are fit to serve in the church.  And God has called us to serve one another and love one another, and we have work to do to care for our neighbors in need.

Biblical Marriage part 3: What can the Bible offer about marriage now?

Marriage has been on my mind a lot lately.  I am planning my own wedding to my lovely partner, Katrina. In the course of this planning process, I have been thrown into a world where everyone has advice and everyone has an opinion. In the midst of all of these minute details, we keep reminding each other, at the end of all of this, we get to be MARRIED.  To each other!

It might be subversive in some circles that two women are getting married to one another and being so damn excited about it.  But honestly, it is the most ordinary of things. We love each other. We want to spend our lives together. We want to make vows to that effect in the presence of God, our family and friends, and each other. We want the same legal and financial benefits and protection that are permitted other couples.

Marriage is a concept that has been hijacked by those who think it belongs to them and who have a desire to keep it from people like me.  The Bible has been used and abused to justify the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman only.  In my previous posts on the topic, I dug through the Hebrew scriptures, the Gospels and the Epistles to expose the variety of ideas of what constitutes "Biblical Marriage" and the non-existence of a monolithic concept of marriage much to the chagrin of a specific subset of Christians.

My good friend Andy challenged me this week to see if there was anything salvageable in the Bible about marriage. Is there anything that it can offer pertaining to marriage now? Katrina did not ask my parents for a whole bunch of cattle as a bride price for taking me off their hands, just as I did not give her parents seven years of servitude for her hand in marriage.  We are both wearing gold rings on our fingers, so we failed at that too. And furthermore, our sort of marriage just would not have happened in the ancient near East, or in the early Christian church.  Marriage at that time was about an exchange of property and about strategy for improving one's position in the world.  It was not necessarily about love, but it was a lot about faithfulness.

So that is where I start.  I am a Lutheran, so I value the contributions of Martin Luther to theology and to an exploration of what God is up to in the world.  Martin Luther writes that marriage is a legal estate, but also a sacred estate for living out one's vocation in this world.  Martin Luther's theology is clear that marriage is about serving one another in Christian love.  Each spouse belongs to each another.

(I will concede that Luther described marriage as between a man and woman, but he too was a product of his time, with regards to gender roles, sexual orientation, and so on, so I will continue in his revolutionary spirit and apply the spirit of his work to my own marriage.)

It is in this deep belonging and sacred commitment that we can come as close as to the fidelity and faithfulness of God to us this side of heaven. And scriptures have a lot to say about faithfulness...

From Ruth 1:16, "…where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God."

From Psalm 89:1-2, "I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.  I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens."  

And scriptures have a lot to say about emotional support as well, another sacred task of the estate of marriage...

From Galatians 6:2, "Bear one another's burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ."

From Psalm 68:19, "Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up; God is our salvation." 

And contrary to what some people would have you believe, the Bible contains some pretty erotic stuff as well, for the purpose of marriage is the mutual consolation and companionship of both, and the intimate expression of that love...

From Son of Solomon, 8:6-7, "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, passion as fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.  If one offered for love all the wealth of one's house, it would be utterly scorned." 

Scriptures do not offer a literal prescription for what marriage is in our world. But they do offer guidance on faithfulness, emotional fidelity and support, physical intimacy and expression of love, and God rejoicing in unions of love and mutual respect. God rejoices in the love that Katrina and I have for each other (even if some of God's people decidedly do not) and blesses our union.

Thanks be to God!

Called to Proclaim Belonging: A guest post for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries

Photo credit to Emily Ann Garcia

A few weeks ago I was asked to write a guest post for the Proclaim blog on the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries site.  The post can be viewed here in its context on that blog or appears in full text below.  

As I write this post I am just a few short weeks away from finishing my internship at First Lutheran Church, in St Peter, MN. I am the first intern for this congregation. When the congregation began discerning the possibility of having an intern long before my arrival, they compiled a profile that said, “We believe that our conviction of welcome and designation as a Reconciling in Christ congregation makes us makes us an ideal site for an LGBTQ intern.”  My interview went very well, and as I walked home, I thought, “I have found my internship site.”  On that very same day, Pastor Alan stated to the congregational council, “I have found our intern.” 

One of my fears prior to internship was that I would be known only as “the gay pastor.”  I was afraid that all of my work and my pastoral formation would be filtered through that part of my identity.  In a world that so often forces LGBTQ people to apologize for who they are, before they can even begin to live into their vocation, I have seen, heard, and experienced something exciting at First Lutheran Church.  This congregation’s convictions about hospitality and welcome are real, and they are living out the Gospel. In this place, I am Pastor Amy first, and a gay pastor second.

Like most LGBTQ people I have struggled with belonging.  Belonging in our families, churches, communities, and workplaces. The church is a particularly painful place for many of us. In representing my congregation as a Reconciling in Christ site at the Southwest Minnesota Synod Assembly, I had the opportunity to talk with many people about what it means to be a safe place of welcome for all people. As many lamented that their congregations might never openly welcome LGBTQ folks, and tears were shared for family members and friends who left these congregations, I was able to share some hope that there is a new day dawning in the church.

 Part of my sense of call is to unceasingly proclaim to all the beautiful, broken, and beloved people of God who feel pushed aside by our culture or the church itself, “You already belong.  You may feel like you are on the margins, but you are part of the Body of Christ.”  My call is also to baptize and serve Holy Communion to equip this Body for their own work for justice, peace, and mercy in the world.

My experience as an intern this year, as well as my participation in Proclaim, has given me the confidence to live boldly into my calling to ministry.  I no longer apologize for being who God created me to be, but instead give thanks that I am who I am, that I have this call and have this sacred task before me.

Not in my Bible...

A.Hanson, Central Lutheran
Minneapolis, 2014

I spent the last week at the Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis.  I heard so many wonderful preachers.  One preacher that made a huge impact on me is the Rev Otis Moss III.  In his sermon, he referenced a talk that was given by Howard Thurman.  Howard Thurman's grandmother (who was a slave in the deep South) was once asked how she could keep reading the Bible knowing that it permitted slavery.  She said, "That's not in my Bible."  She was pressed to explain and she finally said, "I ripped that page out.  So it's not in my Bible anymore.  I know that God is a God of love and a God of freedom."

I turned to my friend Scott and said, "I wish I could rip out Romans 1."  This is one of the clobber passages used to perpetuate hate and intolerance against me and others who identify as LGBTQ. And as I got to thinking more about it, I realized, Why can't I rip out that page from my Bible? (This is not literally going to happen, I sort of like my Bible intact. It has a beautiful purple soft leather cover.  But I digress, the God revealed in these eight verses is not the God that I know.)

Howard Thurman's grandmother was right on.  She knew that God is a God of love and of freedom from her own experience. I know that God is a God of love and freedom from my own experience.  This is made abundantly clear to me every single day. So I am done trying to justify my existence in this world to those who would hate me.  God is so much more a God of love and justice. I am loved no matter who I love. 

I could probably be accused of blasphemy by those who believe in biblical inerrancy.  But this is not between me and them, it is between me and God.  And my God is a God of love. I have agonized for many years about trying to make it all fit together.  To ignore or rationalize away the anti-gay passages in scripture.  But instead I am going with the revealed God of scripture instead of the literal scripture itself.  A God of love, a God of reform, a God of new creations.  A God that is continually revealing Godself in new places.  God is not static and not contained within a dusty tome.

And I think that when the God that we know from God's Word AND the lived experience of the Body of Christ differs from isolated passages in the Bible, we have a responsibility to share that God.

And that is the Gospel of our Lord.

Lent 3: Spirituality and Jesus in unlikely places

The reflection question this week is "Where are you encountering Jesus in the unlikeliest of places?"

Counter protest to WBC held at Lorde Concert
as reported by The Denver Channel

Last week, on March 19, Fred Phelps died in hospice in Kansas. Fred Phelps is one of the most hated men in America because of his highly controversial Westboro Baptist Church and his outspoken hatred of LGBTQ folks.  In the days before his death, it came out that he was excommunicated by his own church in August 2013.  There are a number of blog articles and conversations about how we should respond to his death.  Some people want to respond in kind, protesting his funeral, like his church has protested so many funerals (although WBC said there would not be a funeral), some people want to ignore them, and yet others are responding out of love.  The image to the left has been making the rounds of the internet for the last few days.  This is an example of Jesus in the most unlikely of places. I want to hate Fred Phelps because of the hateful vitriol that he has spewed and the fact that he hates people like me and so many of my friends.  Yet, I find myself unable to do so.  He seems like a lonely, miserable person.  And Jesus loves him too.

Nate Phelps, the estranged son of Fred Phelps who is now an atheist and outspoken advocate for LGBTQ rights, said it best in his public statement, referenced in this article, when he said he will mourn his father "not for the man he was, but the man he could have been" and implored us all to work for justice and "have his death mean something.  Let every mention of his name and his church be a constant reminder of the tremendous good that we are all capable of doing in our communities."

We were talking about the death of Fred Phelps in my church office last week, and my supervising pastor said, "He will be welcomed into heaven, but God is going to have some SERIOUS questions for him."

Jesus shows up in the most unlikely of places.  I am definitely NOT saying that God ordains the sort of vitriol spewed by WBC, but rather, that Jesus shows up in people who continue to love in spite of this hate.  For the Gospel is not just for people that I like.

Review of Queer Clergy by R.W. Holmen

Credit Cokesbury.com

Earlier this fall I responded to a call for people willing to review a new book, Queer Clergy by R.W. Holmen, that was hitting shelves in early 2014. I received an advance reader's copy. Life got a little out of hand (as is to be expected while working in a church over Christmas), so I am just now getting around to writing my review.  

Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism is a compelling history of the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and queer (LGBTQ) clergy in five major mainline Protestant denominations, the United Church of Christ (UCC), the Episcopal Church (TEC), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church (UMC). Holmen traces the arc of history in each denomination from the first murmurings of LGBTQ clergy to the present (or until about May 2013). He uses official documents of the denominations: minutes, resolutions, policy statements, and judicial decisions, as well as personal interviews with LGBTQ pioneers in each denomination.

Holmen himself is an ELCA Lutheran with a background in law, who is an ardent ally for LGBTQ persons. He writes in the preface, "Hopefully this book will help LGBT Christians and straight allies to appreciate our past and to remember the pioneers who have led the church to be a place of welcome."   This book is a straightforward and concise history text, but for me, its real value is in naming the pioneering and prophetic queer clergy who have gone before me.  Since I am a part of the ELCA, this review will focus on that portion of the text, part III.

In this forum, it is impossible to summarize all the information packed into this section of Holmen's book. It is a rich examination of the early LGBTQ activist groups in the Lutheran church (starting in the 1970s), the early explorations of social statements regarding human sexuality (although none considered LGBTQ ordination), and the introduction of many early clergy pioneers.  After the formation of the ELCA in 1988, Holmen traces an intensifying call for discourse.  Through reporting personal interviews with those involved and citing synodical documents, he traces the heartbreaking stories of defrocking of out glory, of congregations being expelled from the ELCA for calling openly gay and lesbian pastors. He discusses the process of extra ordinem ordinations and the ultimate formation of the group, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM), to provide a credentialing body for those clergy who had a call to ordained ministry and also happened to be LGBTQ.

A theme in this section is "Biblical obedience mandated ecclesiastical disobedience."  With rising crescendo, Holmen traces the history of resolutions and proposals until the ELCA Churchwide Assembly 2009 (CWA09) and what is referred to in ELCA circles even now as "The Vote."

This resolution is as follows, "RESOLVED that the ELCA commit itself to finding a way for people in such publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders of this church."

With 559 voting yes, and 451 voting no, the moment had arrived for queer clergy in the ELCA.  Holmen writes, "the reaction among a thousand voting members and another thousand observers was muted.  The plenary hall was suddenly sacred space, and the quiet interrupted only by weeping and the murmur of prayer.  By twos and threes and fours and fives, the children of God huddled together in tears and prayer, some in joyous thanksgiving and others in grief."  I remember watching this vote from my desk at work in Boulder, CO.  I remember weeping too with joy that my denomination had found a way.  Little did I know how important this would become for me personally.

Holmen also respectfully addresses the opposition to this vote in the years that follow.  I was impressed by both his treatment of this issue, but also the conduct of the ELCA and its leaders.  He also covers the emotional reinstatement process of those clergy who were defrocked and those congregations that were expelled.

I don't find myself moved to tears by books very often, and Holmen's book did this for me.  I have a lot personally invested in this history, and as I read this text, I gave thanks over and over again for the brave clergy, bishops and allies, who went before.  I know many of the people personally that Holmen writes about, Pastor Anita Hill, Pastor Bradley Schmeling, Retired Bishop Herb Chilstrom, and others, but this book filled in the rest, and I will never stop being thankful for these people.