Editor’s note:
This issue of ADVENT features two essays by David Weiss concerning the ELCA’s study guide Journey Together Faithfully, Part Two: The Church and Homosexuality. Lutherans Concerned/SFBA urges you to engage in this study and use Weiss’s insights as an aid.

When I set out to review Journey Together Faithfully, Part Two: The Church and Homosexuality (JTF2), I tried to be thorough, and found myself being pathetically dry instead. I tried to be upbeat ,and found myself sounding hopeful in a very strained sort of way. So I will just get to the point. This study is mediocre in a moment when the church can ill afford mediocrity. It is not terribly offensive, just quietly disappointing. And not because it is “balanced,” but because it seems almost determined (despite its lofty aims) to remain banal.

Before I tell you why JTF2 is such a disappointment, let me urge you to still make the most of the opportunity it does present in the church. Actively participate in your church’s study of it—and look for every opportunity to tell a story rather than talk about an abstract idea. Urge your church to supplement the study by viewing “This Obedience” and perhaps “What do you Say When Someone You Love Says, “I’m Gay?” (a short video featuring Bishop Emeritus Paul Egertson relating the journey toward his acceptance and celebration of his gay son) or “Tim and Patrick” (a short video about the blessing ceremony of a gay couple, one of them the son of Bishop Emeritus Darold Beekman). All the videos are available at www.lcna.org/infox. Bottom line: insure that in your congre-gation the study of homo-sexuality has a human face on it.

And then also be sure to offer your written response to the Task Force (via the form in the study booklet or online: www.elca.org/faithfuljourney)—and soon. The earlier you give your input the greater the chance you have to impact the way the Task Force will frame its further work.

In this respect the study fails to reckon honestly or adequately with the level of fear on both sides of this issue or with the legacy of judgment, intimidation, and covert and overt violence against homosexuals in church settings. It notes that gay and lesbian persons are already welcome in the church—per churchwide Assembly actions—but never actually asks whether that legislative action has translated into the genuine parish level hospitality that is the prerequisite of any faithful journey. Stories of faith—of alienation and hope, of desperation and joy, of anguish and integrity—told by gay and lesbian persons will be the breath of the Spirit in the days ahead, and this study does not go very far out of its way to make sure they’re told.

Pretense of balance
Another shortcoming is the pretense of “balance” by repeatedly offering a spectrum of viewpoints held by ELCA believers. We should, of course, be aware of this range of views, but it is an illusion of “balance” when the vast majority of negative views about homosexuality are held by non-homosexuals. This is not a conversation about whether heterosexual activity is right in the eyes of God. There are no gay or lesbian ELCA voices asking whether straight people can have their unions blessed or can be both married and ordained. So the stakes of this question bear entirely upon the lives, the loves, and the vocations of gay and lesbian persons. And to claim a “fair” balance by giving equal time to all perspectives without being clear about whose life, love, and vocation is at stake is simply dishonest. We have learned enough from feminist and liberationist theology to know that there are no playing fields untilted by power. But when we talk about sex, we’d like to pretend that there are.

(I recognize that conservative Lutherans do have things at stake here. Things like their view of the Bible, their sense of morality, their faith in the church, or even their faith—period. But against the imperiled lives, the unblessed loves, and the ruptured calls of other human beings, these things pale in importance. I am not disdainful toward these fears, but I will not pretend they are equal in weight. They are apples and oranges. Healings and Sabbaths. And at some point the prophetic task of the church and the pastoral task of the church must come together in a clear compassionate voice and make that clear.)

Godspeak
Because this is a church study, it’s inevitable—and appropriate—that theological language creep in. But we need to be brutally honest here, even if it disappoints us. Phrases like “law and gospel,” “orders of creation,” and, yes, even “justification,” are not the vernacular of most baptized Lutherans today. And every time the study drops these terms into the conversation it acts as a subtle reminder that this is really a conversation for the specialists, or at least for those confident in their theological vocabulary. Because, if you can’t keep up with these words you can’t possibly assess the morality or acceptability of homosexual behavior. The study’s readiness to frame matters in less than transparent theological terms serves to silence the very mundane yet spirit-filled experiences of gay and lesbian Christians who may not know what the “orders of creation” are or how “law and gospel” fit together, but know crystal clear that God’s love moves between them and their partner—if only the church would quit using its godspeak long enough to listen to the Spirit as its blows where it wills.

Essential texts sidestepped
The study, of course, treats the obvious biblical passages: the creation accounts and the “condemnatory” texts. Yet it manages to sidestep the account in Acts of the dispute over circumcision in the early church. This may well be the most applicable and instructive biblical evidence for us to consider, but it’s not there.

JTF2 discusses the biblical texts it does treat in a fair and balanced way—which is to say it blithely ignores the toll of spiritual desperation, self-immolation, and violent incitement that are the unhappy but undeniable companions of the “conservative” interpretations. However, the deeper shortcoming is that the study fails to ask what it means to call the Bible “authoritative” in a way that truly respects the biblical text as the product of sincere human desire to respond to God, but one that is equally shaped by the finite viewpoints and the cultural biases of its authors. To be honest about this is not to be disrespectful to the text. On the contrary, to hold back from making critical judgments about these things is itself to be disrespectful toward a text that bears the Infinite only through very finite means.

Granted, the study does attend to questions of responsible biblical interpretation, but throughout this discussion it regards the Bible as a text that will solve its own problems if we just handle it responsibly. If we simply allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, recall the literary or historical context, consider the genre, or discern the key point, we will see that the Bible is authoritative in complex but not problematic ways. I can’t buy that. The Bible has been problematic historically for countless victims of Christian imperialism, and you can’t excuse that by saying those people failed to interpret it properly. If God only meant for Joshua to initiate the slaughter of whole villages, but nobody else was supposed to copy that, that’s still a pretty problematic order to place on the lips of God even once. Until this church acknowledges honestly and humbly the human frailty of our holiest text it will continue to betray us.

We have a better path. When John claimed that in Jesus the Word became flesh he asserted that in the life of Jesus—in the scandalously inclusive ministry of the messiah—the capacity of the written word to contain the breadth of God was decisively eclipsed. Jesus’ ministry does not make the Bible irrelevant, but it does require that we measure these written words—as did Jesus himself—against the requirements of unconditional compassion.

Our legacy of embarassment
Finally, as though I haven’t said enough already, the study seems not to notice the legacy of sexual embarrassment and/or discomfort and/or guilt and/or shame that most straight Lutherans have been formed by in their growing years. By ignoring this, the study overlooks the way that this not only limits our ability to discuss anything related to sexuality very well—but direly limits our ability to discuss the normative edges of sexuality without projecting and magnifying our own feelings toward them. If we really mean it when we say that in our sexuality “We are part of God’s good creation,” then why do we have a study document on sexuality that is 50 pages long and never once openly discusses any human sexual experience?! If we did nothing but sit in small groups and read out loud in turn around the circle the Song of Songs in contemporary English we would at least become uncomfortably aware of how uncomfortable we really are with the goodness of our sexuality. And then we might begin to grapple honestly with the question of how we can learn to be more gracious toward the sexuality of others.

The silenced texts
It’s noteworthy that in Journey Together Faithfully Part Two: The Church and Homosexuality (JTF2) all of the biblical texts treated are passages that can be read to either explicitly or implicitly (e.g., the creation account) condemn same-sex sexual relationships. So the “balance” presented comes down to one side arguing that these texts are irrelevant while the other argues that they’re conclusively against it. All those who favor the full inclusion of homosexuals can do is defend themselves against the way the other side wants to “attack” with these texts.

But JTF2 provides not a single text that can be read to assert the rightful place of gay and lesbian persons in the church, not a single text that reverses the roles and forces those who favor excluding them from full life in the church to take the defensive position and argue that this text is simply irrelevant. It is not that no such texts exist. The Acts texts are one such example. And they were under consideration for inclusion in the study, but as Jim Childs told some folks at one point, “They didn’t ‘make the cut.’” With these texts (Acts 10 and Acts 15; and Galatians as well) the roles do reverse, because they precisely concern how the church wrestled to overcome its own theological and culture prejudice in another era. But the Task Force chose to silence these texts; to make them unavailable to us—or to the whole church—in these discussions. If this does not constitute a betrayal of the Task Force’s very commission, it comes very close.

Reading the activity of God
Let’s begin in Acts 10 with Peter and Cornelius. It seems significant that Luke records Peter’s vision (in which God invites, then orders Peter to feast on foods previously viewed as unclean) twice, both in Acts 10 and Acts 11. Luke seems intent on emphasizing the importance of this vision in shaping the life, mission, and self-understanding of the early church. In fact, there are two central visions that animate Luke’s story. This one by Peter and the vision Paul receives on the road to Damascus—also repeated twice in Acts. Both visions have to do with how the church relates to its Jewish roots. Recall that Paul is persecuting the early (at that time still Jewish) church out of his own zeal that they were betraying the fundamentals of the Jewish faith. Both visions also have to do with moving the church toward a posture of openness and welcome toward the Gentiles—a catch-all phrase for the Jews that meant basically “everyone not like us.” (In the church today “gentiles” might mean “anyone who isn’t straight.”)

I think the key verse in the whole section is perhaps 10:44-47 where Luke records how the “proof” that the Gentiles have been welcomed by God—with no strings attached, no cutting required—was established by the outpouring of the Spirit on them just as they were. Peter affirms this stance in Acts 15 (vv. 8-9) and Paul and Barnabas chime in with their accounts of how they have seen first hand God’s gracious and miraculous activity among the Gentiles.

For none of Peter, Paul, or Barnabas does the question of circumcision hinge on reading the word of God rightly—there would be no way to read the written word to allow for uncircumcised Gentiles to become believers. Rather they see that the question hinges on how they read the activity of God in their midst. And they see that God is active in places and ways that the written word could not have led them to anticipate. (James does go looking for a biblical text to help support this—Acts 15:13-18, but that’s an after thought in the text; it isn’t what drives the scene.)

Considering the offenses
Even if the importance of these texts is granted, some will then focus on the “offenses” that the Gentiles are asked to avoid and suggest that same-sex activity is one such “offense” today that the church is asking homosexuals to avoid. Before going there it’s worth noticing that Peter frames the whole discussion as a matter of putting God to the test. For Peter any restrictions at all come precariously close to undermining the claim about God’s grace. For him, to require circumcision of the Gentiles (or “straight” / “celibate” behavior of gays) is not so much an affront to the Gentiles as it is an insult to God because it challenges the core claim that God’s grace is enough—period.

So whatever “offenses” the church might want to ask gay and lesbian persons to refrain from should be made with the explicit awareness that in making such request the church is moving in the direction of putting God to the test.

Well, what would it mean today to avoid meat offered to idols? It might mean to avoid clothing made in sweatshops – those are the goods in our marketplace that are produced under conditions of idolatry in which profit is god. This has nothing to do with sexuality. Such a request could be made by the church to all its members. And the fact that it would strike most US Christians as excessively “political” says something about how acceptably idolatrous our culture has become to us.

What would it mean today to avoid blood or strangled meats? This prohibition is grounded in the Jewish sense (Lev. 17:11, a passage with atrocious implications of its own in regard to atonement theology) that the life-force of a creature resides in the blood and that it would somehow misuse that life force to consume it as food. The life force was sacred. Besides a literal reading, the passage might well suggest that the church should ask homosexuals to avoid any meat that has been factory-farmed or inhumanely butchered since such processes fail to respect the sacred life force that resides in other creatures. But again, this is a prohibition that has nothing to do with sexuality, and is one that the church could make with credibility to all its members (but would never dare to).

Finally, what would it mean today to avoid “fornication” (NRSV)? Countryman notes that the word behind this is better rendered “harlotry,” and that in its first mention (15:20) it is likely a more vivid way of prohibiting idolatry which in Leviticus (17:7) is described as “playing the harlot” in chasing after other gods. Nowhere does Leviticus (which is the source of the prohibitions against blood, idols, and strangled meat) use “harlotry” in a sense other than either idolatry or simple basic prostitution. So gay and lesbian persons should maybe be asked by the church to avoid idolatry and to avoid clandestine sexual encounters where money is exchanged. We might ask that of straight Christians as well. I doubt either side would balk much at this.

But, of course, people will want to read “harlotry” as “fornication” and will want to read “fornication” as condemning “illicit” sexual relations (that is, any sex that straight Christians don’t like). I think we need to be honest in acknowledging that what constitutes “illicit” sex is always culturally shaped. Is “petting” fornication? At what point does it become so? Is premarital sex “fornication”? What about post-marital sex between seniors? Is oral sex? Even between straight people? Is anal sex? Even between straight people? Is mutual masturbation? What about sex while menstruating? These are all questions that would be answered differently by Christians in different times and places. There is no universal timeless Christian sexual ethic; “fornication” is a moving target.

Sexual ethics
So what would make sexual relations “illicit” today? I would argue that an absence of justice, mercy, humility, compassion, procreative impulse, and joyful abandon all make for sexual relations that fall short of God’s intent. (But see the latter part of my essay on “The Bible and Homosexuality” for a fuller explanation of this—especially the way I treat “procreation.”)¹ Again, that’s a basic ethical stance–shaped by our understanding of gender equality (quite foreign to the first century) and the role of sexuality in human life overall—that I think is very defensible today as a God-pleasing approach to sexual ethics, but I never could have sold it in the middle ages (or even in the early 20^th century).

Yet part of what we have learned about sexuality over time is that it is a fundamental facet of who we are. And this does bring it into relationship with circumcision. For the Gentiles, despite their body-spirit dualism, the human body was an ideal of beauty. To be asked to circumcise the male penis was—from their perspective—a requirement that they practice male genital mutilation in order to become Christian. In fact, that’s the very language Paul uses in Galatians—mutilation—because Paul sees what’s at stake from their perspective (also in Phil. 3:2). They’re not just “trimming off the foreskin,” they’re being asked to mutilate themselves. In Galatians 5:12 Paul’s rhetoric reaches a high point in saying, “I wish those who unsettle you (over the “need” to be circumcised) would castrate themselves!” (NRSV) The Catholic Study Bible renders the verse like this, (paraphrased from memory by me) “I wish while these Jews were circumcising themselves that the knife might slip and cut off the whole thing!”

From this angle, Paul might argue today, “To those who wish homosexual persons to mutilate their very selves to become Christian—would that these straight people be forced to go through reparative therapy themselves!” That’s how angry Paul is, because for him, as for Peter, this whole topic threatens to compromise the grace of God—a grace that he is not simply convinced of in his head but which he has seen firsthand with his own eyes traveling in the midst of the Gentiles.

Signs and wonders
Which brings me back to my fundamental critique of JTF2. Nowhere does it compel us to listen to the “signs and wonders” (Acts 15:12) that have been occurring in the lives of gay and lesbian persons who are quite “uncircumcised” by the church’s standard. Nowhere are we compelled to listen to the stories of personal faith and church life renewed by their presence. Yet this is precisely how the early church wrestled with the issue of circumcision, and the Task Force has simply erased that model from the front and center place it deserves.

Who is welcome here?
If you are Asian, Hispanic, Black, or White . . .
If you are male or female or transgender . . .
If you are three days old, 30 years old, or 103 years old . . .
If you’ve never stepped foot in a church; or if you are Buddhist, Roman Catholic, agnostic or are a life-long Lutheran . . .
If you are single, married, divorced, separated, or partnered . . .
If you are straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual . . .
If you are a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist, or not registered to vote . . .
If you have, or had, addictions, phobias, abortions, or a criminal record . . .
If you own your home, rent, live with your parents, or are homeless . . .
If you are fully-abled, disabled, or a person of differing abilities . . .
You are welcome here!

This congregation is committed to being a radically loving and welcoming community of faith, centered in the Good News of Jesus Christ. Therefore, in faithfulness to the Gospel and our Lutheran heritage, and to the best of our ability, we promise to provide programs, ministries, and pastoral care to all who seek God in this place.

Nearly everyone fits into the “Philadelphia” welcome, and if not, there are those “dot-dot-dots” at the end of each line that invite additions. A congregation that proclaims such an unconditional welcome will be moving into uncharted waters, but isn’t that where God would have us? Blessings you never dreamed of will abound, as most RIC congregations will tell you.

Like everyone, people who are GLBT hunger to be welcomed as the unique and loved children of God they are. They don’t expect special treatment, but they long to be welcomed in a way that affirms who they are. Any congregation that is able to adopt an affirmation of welcome that includes “gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender” (GLBT) people is urged to contact Lutherans Concerned’s Reconciling in Christ program to be recognized as member of the RIC family. We’ll send you an information packet about the RIC program and arrange to have a resource person get in touch with you.

“All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:18, 20).

RIC Contacts:

Joe Haletky, RIC Chair
Lutherans Concerned
San Francisco Bay Area
joefreak "at" hotmail.com
info "at" lcsanfrancisco.org
www.lcsanfrancisco.org

Emily Eastwood”
RIC Executive Director
Lutherans Concerned/North America
ric "at" lcna.org
www.lcna.org

The following resolutions were adopted at the Sierra Pacific Synod Assembly, May 14-15, 2004:

Resolved, that congregations and members of the Sierra Pacific Synod engage in corporate and personal prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit at this 2005 Churchwide Assembly. Carried

Resolved, that the Sierra Pacific Synod in Assembly affirms the right of every American to marry, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples; and be it finally

Resolved, that the Sierra Pacific Synod in Assembly supports the efforts to make civil marriage for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples a reality in our country and opposes any attempts to discriminate against GLBT couples and individuals. Carried [On a vote of 279 in Favor and 197 Against (66 of whom requested that their names be recorded in the Minutes as having voted against the resolution)].

Resolved, that the Sierra Pacific Synod shall honor these pastors on the occasion of significant anniversaries with attribution and acknowledgment in a manner similar to that given all other clergy who serve in congregations and ministries of our synod; and be it finally

Resolved, that all official directories and lists published by the synod office shall list the names and other relevant information of pastors not on the ELCA roster who are under call to ELCA congregations and ministries within our synod. Carried

A report of all resolutions and other events at the Assembly 2004 is available on the synod’s web page at www.spselca.org.

EVENTS OF INTEREST

Pride Parade 2004 “Out 4 Justice”
June 27, 2004 in San Francisco
“Out 4 Justice” is the theme of Pride Parade 2004. Lutherans Concerned plans to march in the parade with our contingent of members and friends from the many Bay Area RIC congregations. Mark your calendar and watch here for more details as they develop. The official parade website is at www.SF-Pride.org.

AIDS Walk San Francisco 2004
July 18, 2004 in San Francisco
Members and friends of Lutherans Concerned will be participating in the AIDS Walk, which begins and ends in Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park On Sunday, July 18, 2004. The AIDS Walk is 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) and takes roughly 2-3 hours to complete. As our teams and other details develop, we'll post them here or you may contact Max Kirkeberg (415) 282-6022. General information is available now at www.aidswalk.net/sanfran/.

North American RIC Conference and LC/NA Biennial Assembly
July 22-25, 2004
Wow! What a lineup! (see p. 6) Join us on the campus of Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN. The theme is "Gather Us In: Receiving, Inviting, Calling." Featured speakers for the Assembly will be Bishop Robert A. Rimbo, Southeast Michigan Synod, ELCA; Rev. Heidi Neumark, Pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in Bronx, NY; and Dr. Erin Swenson, licensed therapist, ordained Presbyterian minister, and transgendered woman. The registration deadline is June 15, 2004. (www.lcna.org or 612-709-4117).