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 Rabbi Bernard Barsky
This past Sunday I went to my church to hear a rabbi talk about Advent. Though that doesn’t happen at all in most churches, it wasn’t the first time in mine, as it’s become a bit of a tradition at Cross Creek Community Church for us to invite a local rabbi to speak during December. In the past we’ve had Rabbi Judy Chessin of Temple Beth Or; this year our Jewish guest was Rabbi Bernard Barsky of Beth Abraham Synagogue.
In the times that I’ve heard Rabbi Chessin speak, I’ve quite enjoyed her, so I have to admit to being a bit disappointed beforehand that she wasn’t going to be our guest again this year, but diversity is good, and Dayton is lucky to have not only multiple Jewish congregations and religious leaders but also more than one willing to be associated with a radical church like Cross Creek. Indeed Rabbi Barsky stood with Cross Creek in 2004 in speaking against Ohio’s “marriage protection amendment.” So, although it would have been easy enough for me, having given a party the night before his visit, just to have slept late, I got myself up and to church on time to hear him (at the 11:00 service).
I’d remembered one of Rabbi Chessin’s messages at Cross Creek as being rather apt for the Advent season, which is one of waiting, and looking back at my blog entry mentioning her visit, I see that I wrote that “it was our similarities, not our differences, that Rabbi Chessen wanted to stress,” that whether we were Jews waiting for the first appearance of a Messiah or Christians anticipating the annual birth or the eventual Second Coming of one, we shared that sense of waiting.
Rabbi Barsky, too, started by noting a similarity between Christianity and Judaism, specifically that each religion has a liturgical calendar, but he did so in order to point out some differences between Christians and Jews. That the Jewish liturgy does not include anything from the New Testament is obvious, but Jews also treat the Hebrew Bible differently than do Christians, placing an emphasis on the Torah, the five books of Moses or the Pentateuch, all of which Jews read every year over the course of their liturgical calendar. The second part of the Hebrew Bible, the Nev'im or Prophets, is not read each year in its entirety, and the rabbi said that most Jews look to the writings of the Prophets not as texts predicting the future, as texts to which later events must be tied, but rather as commentaries on the times in which they were written. Our liturgical text for the service included a passage from one of the minor prophets, Micah 5:2-5a. Portions of Micah are included twice a year in the Jewish liturgical calendar, but this particular passage—predicting the coming from Bethlehem of a ruler of Israel, one of peace, who shall be great to the ends of the earth—is not one of them and thus is not read by or known by many Jews.
Although the writer of the Gospel of Matthew found this passage in Micah to be so important that he quoted it in his writings, Rabbi Barsky implied that the author of Matthew was being rather disingenuous, picking prophetic verses that augmented the story he was telling. The reason Jews don’t normally care about Micah 5:2-5a is, Rabbi Barsky said, not only that Jews ordinarily care more about what prophets’ writings say about the prophets’ own rather than future times but also that normally Jews aren’t very messianic and don’t worry much about the coming of a Messiah. There are exceptions to this, he said, particularly during times of adversity, such as that faced when under Roman rule around the time of Jesus’s birth, times during which Jews have in desperation sought a Messiah who might save them, but determining who the Messiah might be is not a dominant part of Judaism.
Indeed, Rabbi Barsky pointed out that asking him whether he thought Jesus was in fact the Messiah would be asking for a Jewish response to a Christian question, a question of concern to Christians but not to Jews. Instead, the rabbi suggested it would be better for him to give a Jewish response to the Advent story. To do so, he returned to the Gospel of Matthew, still in the second chapter but after the part in which the Gospel writer used Micah as a proof text (not a phrase the rabbi used but appropriate, I think), to Matthew 2:16-18.
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The story in the second chapter of Matthew is at once both familiar and unfamiliar to Christians. We, of course, remember that Magi came from the east to worship the baby Jesus and bring him presents, for that is a part of the Christmas story we hear each year. We may also remember that King Herod felt threatened by this baby king and that Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled to Egypt, thus allowing Jesus to escape the fate befalling all other boys in Bethlehem two years old and younger, namely death by King Herod’s henchmen. You did remember that a part of the Christmas story was the mass slaughter of baby and infant boys, didn’t you?
Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t remember that, since most Christians don’t, and most of us certainly could not tell you the passage to which the author of Matthew turned to show that this slaughter was predestined, Jeremiah 31:15, about “[a] voice […] heard in Ramah, […] Rachel weeping for her children [who] are no more.” Talk about a mighty example of proof texting! By pulling a single verse referring to a town eight kilometers away from Jerusalem, where conquered Israelites were staged before their exile into slavery in Babylon, the Gospel author can dismiss mass slaughter as fulfilling the words of an ancient Jewish prophet. You see, Jeremiah wasn’t really talking about slaves being gathered in Ramah for exile but instead was talking, without even mentioning it specifically, about a future attempt to kill a baby king of Israel in his crib.
Rabbi Barsky was not as willing as the author of Matthew to gloss over the deaths of so many innocents and suggested that this tragedy might well have been something which Jesus also would have had a difficult time putting away. Jesus would surely have learned how close his escape was from being murdered as a baby and would probably have wondered why he was spared when so many of his peers were not. That Jesus would have been concerned about the memory of his murdered neighbors might be more apparent to those who know of a Jewish custom which Rabbi Barsky pointed out to us. The rabbi explained that when Jews speak of the dead, they often say something along the lines of “may their memory be for a blessing” (this practice of uttering honorifics for the dead is something Judaism has in common with Islam). Jesus might well have wondered whether he owed anything in his life to honor the memories of those who had not been so lucky as he.
Having given something of a Jewish response to a Christian question, Rabbi Barsky turned, though he didn’t term it as such, towards asking for a Christian response to a Jewish question. The rabbi said that Jews ask themselves how their convenant with God is made apparent through the actions they take. Addressing us Christians at Cross Creek, he asked how we make it apparent in our lives that Jesus is indeed our Messiah. How may Jesus’s memory (or His continued presence in our lives, if you prefer to phrase it that way) be a blessing?
How we answer that question can show whether or not our Christian faith is in fact similar to Rabbi Barsky’s Jewish faith. If, as many conservative Christians are apt to do, we point towards particular passages in Hebrew scripture as having been fulfilled by Jesus (proof texting), then our faiths are more different than similar. If, instead, we look at what prophets and Jesus had to say not as prophecies to be fulfilled but as commentaries on our communities, as challenges for us to make our communities better places, bringing about the kindom of God here on earth (that’s not a typo of “kingdom” but rather a phrase I learned from former Cross Creeker Lisa Wolfe), then our faiths are more similar than different.
That the faiths of us Christians at Cross Creek and of Rabbi Barsky and his congregation are more similar than different is something we’ll have more opportunity over the coming year to examine. Both Beth Abraham and Cross Creek have been involved in the efforts to organize a Dayton-area affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a grassroots community organizing network which has worked on justice issues across the country. The next meeting of the Dayton group will be in January at Beth Abraham; for more information, visit the new Cross Creek IAF team’s new webpage.
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Candace Chellew-Hodge provided the message part of Holy C.O.W., and Jason & deMarco provided the music part.
This morning I attended a workshop at my church by the Rev. Candace Chellew- Hodge (the first part of whose last name rhymes with “shoe,” not “chew”), author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians. Frankly I’d been a bit reluctant to go. I’m quite secure in my faith and don’t need what I thought Chellew-Hodge would have to offer, but because I chair my church’s Justice & Witness ministry, whose Equality Cross Creek team arranged the big Holy C.O.W. (Celebrate Our Welcome) Weekend of which this workshop was a part, I felt obligated to go. However, having gone, I can say that I did enjoy hearing Chellew-Hodge speak (if she ever wanted to give up preaching, she could take up a career in stand up comedy) and learned a thing or two.
What I’d thought Chellew-Hodge would have to offer (and my thinking this probably shows that I did not read her book) was a bunch of refutations to the various Bible verses so often trotted out by people who believe homosexuality is a sin, but that’s not what Chellew-Hodge’s talk was mainly about. She did offer one fun refutation, however. If someone cites Romans chapter 1 to show that God disapproves of homosexuality, you can ask whether that person has read Romans chapter 2, which talks about no one’s having any excuse to pass judgement on anyone else.
Yet proof text fighting, countering one Bible verse with another, was not the point of Chellew-Hodge’s talk. Instead, her main idea is that people who use the Bible or other arguments to condemn homosexuality are trying to offer a gift and just because one is offered a gift does not mean that one has to accept it. In other words, for those of us who are secure in our faith, for those of us who have come to an understanding that we too are made in God’s image, for those of us who find value in trying to live as Jesus taught and are comfortable doing so without having to try to change our sexual identities, (and, I imagine, also for those who are comfortable not being Christian) there shouldn’t be anything anyone can say that will bother us. I pretty much knew that already because the example she gave was already true for me — if someone tells me I’m going to hell, it doesn’t bother me. I know, for a lot of reasons, that I’m not going to hell. What I also know, but more often need to put into practice, is that I can’t change the minds of most people who do think I’m going to hell and thus usually shouldn’t bother to try to do so.
Chellew-Hodge also pointed out that if we are bothered by something that someone else says about our faith, that we are bothered is not about the person who said something but rather is about ourselves and is something we need to work on for ourselves. She told us about having been motivated to go to seminary in order to learn how to refute the various things fundamentalist Christians say about homosexuality, to be able to change their minds and convince them they were wrong, but she finished her studies, having gotten weapons that might come in handy for proof text battles, with the conclusion that she didn’t need to engage in battles to defend her faith, in part because such battles usually cannot be won but also because there are better things she can be doing with her time, better ways she can serve God.
Thus, often, Chellew-Hodge said, when she gets hate mail explaining she’s going to hell for her “lifestyle,” she just uses the DELETE button. Sometimes she uses gentle humor—tell her she’s going to hell, and she’ll tell you she’ll save you a seat.
Chellew Hodge also realizes that, just as our being bothered by something someone else says is more about us than it is about them, so too is what someone else says more about them than it is about us. So sometimes when she’s challenged by someone about homosexuality, she really disarms her opponent by using Dale Carnegie’s magic phrase and saying, “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.” People who feel compelled to speak out against homosexuality often are looking to do spiritual battle and are surprised when instead their words are simply acknowledged as having been heard.
That’s not to say that Chellew-Hodge never engages in debates with those who disagree with her theology. She warns against doing so in anger and with the intention of coming away right because that leads to frustration and unhappiness. A debate is less about changing one’s opponent’s mind than about quietly influencing bystanders, some of whom might also think as one’s opponent does and others of whom might be, for example, closeted young queers. Gentle and respectful disagreement can open minds.
An example Chellew-Hodge gave is one I too recently found myself using, though perhaps not as gently and respectfully as she. In 2006 Chellew-Hodge spoke on panels in South Carolina against the proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Once an African American man spoke up to urge that gay men and lesbians wait until public opinion had changed in our favor before pressing for our rights. Chellew-Hodge told him that after the 1967 Supreme Court decision striking down bans on interracial marriage, polls still showed over 70% of Americans disapproving of such marriages; she pointed out that civil rights shouldn’t be subject to the will of the majority. As Chellew-Hodge pointed out to us at Cross Creek this morning, one can still refute nonsense but should do so gently and respectfully.
Another thing Chellew-Hodge said that stuck with me was that people shouldn’t have to say, “I’m a Christian.” If you have to say it, you might not be acting in the most Christ-like manner. I think that this goes along with the rest of her message, that by striving to live one’s beliefs one can change more minds than by talking about one’s beliefs. It goes along with the best way to get people to be in favor of equal rights for all people including queers—the more queers non-gay people see going out our lives gently, respectfully, trying to work for justice, the less a big deal equal rights for queers will be. It’s probably also the only way to convince people that one can be gay and Christian.
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I’m sure some people (probably many of the same people who’d be surprised a church like mine does river baptisms) would say this cool October-like weather in August means global warming isn’t real. What they don’t realize is that it isn’t global warming but rather climate change and unusually cool August days are not evidence there’s no climate change (plus what about the unusually hot summer in the Pacific Northwest?). At any rate, the show must go on, and Cross Creek’s annual river baptism did go on, as witnessed by the photos I took. |
 
The results of my gardening
(Click to embiggen)
Today I did two things:
1) I participated in work-ship at my church, where during worship we bagged household supplies such as toilet paper, paper towels and dish soap to be given away to clients of our food pantry, Feeding Friends.
2) I bought some gardening supplies and planted some flowers on my balcony.
You can see the results to the left and the right.
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This evening was my church council's summer potluck. Food, of course, is important at churches, and our church is no exception. In fact, food's so important that we're putting together a 10th anniversary cookbook to collect recipes for the various good things we've had to eat over the life of the church. Since the council was gathering this evening to eat together, our cookbook coordinator had us prepare items from submitted recipes for testing and for photographing. I made Mexican deviled eggs.
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The first thing to know about making deviled eggs, Mexican or otherwise, is how to make hard boiled eggs, and the first thing to know about making hard boiled eggs is not to use extremely fresh eggs because if you do, you'll have a devil of a time peeling them. You want eggs that are at least a week old.
So you have to plan ahead a bit to make deviled eggs, and not having done so, I had no eggs on hand, week old or otherwise. But a great thing about the apartment building in which I live is that they have a little convenience store, and so yesterday (I did plan ahead a little) I was able to buy some old expensive eggs, $0.99 per half dozen, expiration date 8/3. Perfect age-wise, if not price-wise, because they were still fairly fresh but old enough to be easy to peel. I boiled them yesterday evening, gave them a quick cooldown afterwards under running cold water and then stuck them in the fridge to peel today.
I stopped by Krogers later yesterday evening to get some more eggs, not for this recipe but to have some more on hand and out of curiosity as to how old the other eggs were. The eggs I bought at Kroger had an expiration date of 8/21, about 2 1/2 weeks out, which means the eggs I bought at my building's store had been sitting around about that long. Also, the Kroger eggs cost $0.99 per dozen, meaning my building's store's markup is 100%. Ah, well, you do have to pay for convenience.
Though I took some pics today at various stages in the preparation of my deviled eggs, I'm not going to give you the recipe — if you want that or the recipe for anything else you see, you'll have to buy the cookbook. I will tell you that Mexican deviled eggs have salsa, mayonnaise, sour cream and cheddar cheese in them.
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No, not from Martha Stewart Living but by Cross Creek's very own Dan Carl!
Today was my church's annual summer picnic, and you can see lots of pictures in the galleries, but I wanted to point out one photo in particular, namely that of the delicious Watermelon Bowl O'Fruit, a creation of our pastor's wifepartner, Dan Carl. Doesn't it look just fabulous?
If you want to learn how to make this yourself, look for the Cross Creek 10th Anniversary Decade of Daring Cookbook, to be published this fall!
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I teach Sunday School at my church, and today my class (9 and 10 year olds) volunteered to help the older youth out with their car wash, so I got roped into moving cars. You'd think pulling cars up wouldn't be very strenuous, but we washed 35 cars during worship service, so we had to hustle! |
Real Christians only, please
If you read my blog last month, you know already what ChMS stands for and that some ChMS companies don't care for churches who cater to alternative lifestyles. Despite a few setbacks my church's search for the right web-enabled ChMS has been continuing, with the latest possible candidate being Ekklesia 360, a system that does everything from managing web content to attracting online traffic to involving your community in the ministry to spreading the gospel.
Yes, gospel is spelled with a lower-case "g" on Ekklesia's website, although as it turns out, I'm thinking they should be capitalizing it, because The Gospel's pretty important to them. You see, after we contacted Ekklesia, they took a look at our website and told us they didn't want to do business with us, though not for the reason you might expect, that we're soft on homosexuality. No, it's because of the shocking news, featured on the front page of our website, that a Jew was coming to Cross Creek to preach, and not to preach the Good News that Jesus is Christ.
Rabbi Judy Chessin
Our Jewish guest this weekend was none other than Temple Beth Or's founding rabbi, Rabbi Judy Chessin, an interesting choice for the first weekend of Advent, the season during which we anticipate Christ's birth.
Rabbi Chessin did not come to proclaim that she was a Jew for Jesus but rather explained that she does not believe Jesus was the Messiah. She was quite tactful about it, explaining the criteria outlined in Jewish tradition for what it takes to be the Messiah. A person must fulfill every one of these criteria to be the Messiah, and at least one of them, worldwide peace, is a humdinger. Logically, Rabbi Chessin said, we wouldn't expect there ever to be someone who could qualify. Even Christians don't believe Jesus achieved world peace during his time on Earth, hence the need for a Second Coming.
However, it was our similarities, not our differences, that Rabbi Chessin wanted to stress. We all are waiting for the Messianic age, whether it is marked by the Messiah's return or by his (or her, Rabbi Chessin said) initial arrival. We all need to work together to bring about this time when there'll be no more injustice or ignorance or disease or poverty.
Ekklesia's not having any of this ecumenism (it can't be a coincidence that ecumenism about rhymes with secular humanism, can it?) though. If we're willing to have a rabbi, and a woman nonetheless, stand up in our church and say that Jesus isn't Christ, no matter what she might say about peace on Earth and goodwill toward men, then we're not Ekklesia's type of Christians, and God knows, if they took just any type of Christians, they might as well rename their software Ecumenia 360. |
Continuing the search for ChMS software, we came across a ChMS company based in Colorado Springs, which, as you may be aware, is the site of some conservative Christian homosexual hypocrisy lately, and Church Community Builder (CCB) seems to follow suit, apparently not practicing what it preaches.
What CCB preaches is 1st Corinthians 6:9, which CCB cites in their Terms of Service to show that homosexuality is a sin which "churches must take care" not "to affirm." If your church is "in conflict with [CCB's] Statement of Belief," as I would assume Cross Creek is, then "CCB reserves the right to refuse Service to" you.
Church Community Builder appears to condone lesbian couples
What CCB practices, however, is that their software, unlike ConnectionPower, will gladly allow you to set up a family with two persons of the same sex, designating one the head of household and the other the spouse. Each person can keep his or her own last name, although, presumably in keeping with 1st Corinthians, the last name of the head of household is the name used for the family. To see this for yourself, sign up for a CCB demo login today. |
Traditional families only, please
As you may know, I'm a member of Cross Creek Community Church. This past year we've been
Raising the Roof, a program based on the book of the same name
by Alice Mann and designed to help our church develop better processes as we grow from pastoral size to program size.
One finding of our Raising the Roof program was that Cross Creek needs better processes to manage our relationships with our visitors and members. Manage? Relationships? Visitors and members? If that makes you think of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, then you're not far off. There's a niche industry for church CRM software, though they don't call it CRM but rather ChMS or Church Management Systems. However ChMS websites and salespeople do still reek of corporate jargon, mixed in with some Jesus and Kingdom talk.
Our Raising the Roof team leader found some ChMS software that seemed promising, ConnectionPower, a package that includes four modules, PowerVisitor, PowerMember, PowerWeb and PowerGiving. ConnectionPower is not just a software package but rather is a theory for managing church visitors and members, the process for which is carried out through use of the software. Churches get volunteers willing to call visitors, and a membership director uses PowerVisitor to assign volunteers visitors to call. The volunteers get their assignments by e-mail and they log into PowerVisitor to report back on their interactions with visitors—what are visitors' interests or concerns, etc. PowerMember does stuff like notice when members' regular attendance varies, triggering alerts for them to be called to see if they have any life problems, etc.
Sounds cool, doesn't it? I'd never heard of ConnectionPower before, so I did some googling and discovered that churches who use ConnectionPower's PowerWeb module for their websites all seem to have the phrase "Copyright © ConnectionPower.com" at the bottom of their pages (and have a main directory of "/pwsite/"). I also noticed that these churches using PowerWeb have names like Trinity Assembly of God or Family Christian Center or The Pentecostals of Cooper City or New Life Covenant Pilsen Ministry. The names alone would make a guy like me wonder how welcome I'd be at these churches (sure, they'd welcome me, but I bet only if I were willing to repent).
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ConnectionPower founder
Allen Ratta
ConnectionPower's website, like its software, is about more than just a software package. In addition to information about the software, there's also a section, called PowerGrowth Plus!, devoted to the theology of the company and its founder, Allen Ratta, and featuring some rather revealing articles§ and book recommendations¶, none of which led me to think Ratta or his company would be so progressive as to embrace, for example, gay liberation theology.
I shared my concerns about Ratta's theology with the team evaluating ChMS software and asked if we couldn't find ChMS software companies run by or marketing to progressive Christians. The consensus was, however, that the team should continue to consider ConnectionPower because it seemed like a good package and we'd be buying the software, not the theology.
ConnectionPower
is based on a
"traditional family model"
A demo over the Internet was arranged with a salesperson from ConnectionPower, and we got to see more of the neat stuff the software can do, including allowing members to log into a private section of a church's website to update their addresses and the ability to generate an online church directory.
The pages we were shown seemed to include families whose names were all in the format "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," so I asked the salesperson whether the software could handle couples with different last names. She said she didn't know what I meant, and I said, what if a woman keeps her maiden name when she gets married. She said, "Wow, I've never been asked that question before," so I didn't bother continuing down the path to ask what if a couple were both men or both women. (No woman who goes to a evangelical church is allowed to use her own last name?!)
We finished the demo, and the team decided that the ConnectionPower software would be a worthwhile investment for Cross Creek to make. A few weeks later our church council approved making the purchase, and it seemed that we'd be implementing the software starting in 2007.
Except that the question of what if a couple were both men or both women really was a question we should have asked at the demo because it turns out the answer is that in the eyes of ConnectionPower, same-sex couples are two individuals who aren't related. The software will not allow you to link two individuals of the same gender as a family. Such couples can of course be entered as individuals, but they'll be listed separately in the online church directory, receive separate mailings, etc. That may be acceptable, or even desirable, for the vast majority of churches using ConnectionPower, but it just won't work for Cross Creek.
Our Raising the Roof team leader, after having been ignored for several weeks by the salesperson about this issue and some other questions, finally e-mailed ConnectionPower founder Allen Ratta himself. Ratta replied yesterday that while he doesn't want to dictate theology, the ConnectionPower software is based on a "traditional family model" and would be difficult to change. Well, none of us on the team believe that changing the software to allow for same-sex couples in a family unit would really be all that difficult to change, and thus Cross Creek Community Church will not be juxtaposed alongside ConnectionPower customers like Antioch, the Apostolic Church.
One church, however, that Cross Creek is now positioned alongside is the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, the world's largest gay church, which was officially welcomed Oct. 29th into the United Church of Christ. With 4,300 members, Cathedral of Hope counts as a mega-church and probably knows a thing or two about ChMS.
What's the big comma about? Well, as Gracie Allen said, "Never place a period where God has placed a comma," or in other words, "God is still speaking." I'll update you further as Cross Creek continues to explore how we can connect powerfully to our visitors and members.
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§Some fun articles by Allen Ratta:
¶Some books Allen Ratta recommends:
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Yesterday evening I attended a Community Conversation put on by the Centerville Washington Diversity Council at Centerville High School on "Gay & Lesbian Issues at the Intersection of Faith & Public Policy." I would not have chosen to go to this on my own — I'm way past the point where I need to hear the same tired arguments brought out by conservatives that homosexuality is wrong and homosexuals need compassion and cures &mdash but my friend and pastor, Mike Castle, was on the panel and asked for people to come be in the audience to support him. Another friend and Cross Creeker called me at work a few hours before the event to see if I'd be going; he was worried about going alone. As you can see from the picture, he needn't have worried. Between Cross Creek and PFLAG there were lots of supportive people there.
Tom Harry
Normandy United Methodist Church
John Bradosky
Ephiphany Lutheran Church
Mike Castle
Cross Creek Community Church
Paul Pyle
Dayton Christian High School
I suppose it's good that Centerville and Washington Twp. have a diversity council and that they're willing to discuss gay issues. Still the diversity of the panel selected for the program was a bit ironic — four white men, all Christian, all Protestant. That last bit was unplanned; Dr. Brad Kallenberg, professor of theology at the University of Dayton was originally supposed to be a panelist (no, wait, Kallenberg may actually also be a Protestant), but his spot was filled by Mr. Paul Pyle, who teaches Bible and Yearbook at Dayton Christian High School. Rounding out the panel, in addition to Mike, were the Rev. John Bradosky of Epiphany Lutheran Church and the Rev. Tom Harry of Normandy United Methodist Church. I hadn't met any of these other panelists before. It was only upon hearing about the event that I learned that Harry is the father of a friend of mine at Cross Creek, and it was only after googling Bradosky that I learned he is Centerville's official chaplain (thank God I don't pay Centerville taxes or I'd be pissed).
The format of the evening was that the moderator, WDTN's Marsha Bonhart, posed six questions (presumably written by the Diversity Council), each of which was answered by two panelists (one from each side). Then after a break there was a very brief time during which she read selected written questions from the audience for various panelists to answer. I liked how Bonhart started her duties as moderator; she said she had to be impartial but implied (especially later) that she personally supported the pro-gay side. Rather than echo the questions and responses, I'll highlight some points that caught my attention.
Homosexuality is an abomination but incest is not!
(You still
shouldn't
fuck kids!)
Bradosky talked about the holiness code found in Leviticus and pointed out that although lots of sexual behaviors are banned, such as adultery and incest, it is only homosexuality to which the term "to'ebah" or abomination is applied. Since Bradosky took such care to point that out, I suppose he feels that homosexuality is worse than incest. I guess it's refreshing that unlike most conservatives he sees a difference between incest and homosexuality.
Bradosky also went multiple times to the creation story in Genesis (surely he realizes there are two creation stories in Genesis) and said that since the story's all about God creating Man and Woman for each other, homosexuality must be wrong. Sex, he said, is about the reunion of two parts. Penises and vaginas fit together. Poor guy doesn't seem to realize that penises and rectums fit together too, as do penises and mouths.
Bradosky certainly knows the party line on homosexuality. Other old faithful points he trotted out include:
- love the sinner and reject the sin
- marriage has always been defined as heterosexual (hmm, well marriage hasn't always been defined as one man, one woman, though, has it?)
- that the majority decides issues is the American way (too bad the majority in the South couldn't vote to continue slavery or Jim Crow laws?)
- Scripture doesn't promise that life will be fair (hmm, I guess there's no need to work for justice here on Earth; just believe in Jesus and you'll get your rewards in heaven)
- research on long-term same-sex marriage says such relationships last only 7 years, while the average heterosexual marriages last 21 years — pressed later for a source he said the Institute for Sex Research, which I couldn't find online (does he mean the old Institut für Sexualwissenschaft from Berlin? does he mean the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction?)
What I did find online says that marriages last an average of 9.4 years, not 21.
Pyle did pretty good for his team too. He kept insisting on two things, that we have to live our lives by Biblical authority and that homosexual behavior leads to destructive behavior. Pyle does acknowledge that the Bible is silent on some "disputable matters" on which people may disagree, but lest we think that Jesus was silent about homosexuality, we need to remember that Jesus went back to Genesis to answer a question about divorce and Genesis is, as Pyle's teammate Bradosky already pointed out, all about Man and Woman fitting together, so actually Jesus said homosexuality is wrong without having to resort to so many words. In the words of the Church Lady, how convenient! that we have Pyle to interpret the Bible for us.
Responding to a later followup question about what he would do if a child of his came out as gay to him, Pyle told us about his daughter who suffers from mental illness and how he struggles to help her find counseling that will help her avoid destructive behaviors. It's obvious that Pyle didn't get the memo that the American Psychiatric Association doesn't consider homosexuality to be a mental illness and that he doesn't know a whole lot of gay people. After the forum, I went up to Pyle to invite him to come to Cross Creek where he can get to know some gay people whose lives aren't all about destructive behavior. (I suppose I should hope Pyle never finds the pics I took at Folsom, though he can find plenty of pics of heterosexuals engaged in destructive behavior too if he cares to look.)
Harry did an okay job explaining what he saw the purposes of marriage to be (procreation, faithfulness, sacrament which points to God's loving nature, and support/companionship) and explaining that procreation was more than fertilization but also nurturing and caring for children. I'm sure he came across as wildly secular humanistic though to the conservative members of the audience because when asked in a followup question what the authority for his beliefs was, he said he'd sort of come up with his views on his own (an honest answer which probably mirrors my own thoughts but not appealing to people who like Biblical Authority).
Mike personalized the issue, talking about his partner Dan and their children Gideon and Jamie, about how Dan wouldn't receive Social Security spousal benefits if Mike died and about the difficulty in providing legal protections for their non-heterosexual family. Oh well, in the words of Pastor Bradosky, "Scripture doesn't promise that life will be fair."
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This year was the first year that my church, Cross Creek Community Church, participated in the annual Good Friday Stations of the Cross walk for justice and peace, along with people from College Hill Presbyterian Church, our partner church. The walk combines the traditional stations with important social justice issues of today and relevant contemporary quotes about each issue. Our church's Justice and Witness committee thought it would be good for us to participate; we got to sponsor station 8, where we talked about discrimination.
So many people think that this week is all about Jesus' having died as part of some convoluted way through which his father could forgive us all for our sins (God couldn't just choose to extend grace to all of us?). Whether or not that is true, I do think that the historical Jesus was a witness for peace and justice, and by calling attention to issues he would have cared about, we take a step towards following his example.
You can see more pictures from the walk in the galleries. |
  It may or may not surprise you to learn that I went to a river baptism today. |
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Marty and Linda are moving to Kenne-bunkport, Maine, and so Mark and Patty and Judy and Roselin hosted a going away party for them.
To help Marty and Linda fit in, they got them pearls like Barbara Bush's. Roselin wore a pig snout to warn them not to cast their new pearls before swine. I taught them how to do the drag queen wave -- wrist, wrist, elbow, elbow, clutch the pearls (sorry, no pic).
By the way, if you run into Linda and Marty, of course you've heard of the tradition that going away honorees must feed each other goodbye cake.
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By the way... |
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any complaining
I did |
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about German summers |
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applies also to
Dayton weather
this summer.
(Happy fall,
anyone?) |
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The cute German is Linda's friend Friedeman, who will be studying law at Vanderbilt this year. |
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 If you're a regular fan of my blog (lol), you know that my church has dinner groups whose members take turns dining at one another's homes. Tonight was Anne and Lee's turn to host, and they succeeding in maintaining our group's high standards! |
You may know that I'm a member of Cross Creek Community Church, and you may know that Cross Creek is part of the United Church of Christ, but did you know that Cross Creek is also affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists? Just as some people make certain assumptions when they hear the word Christian so too do they make similar assumptions when they hear Baptist. There are of course Baptists and Christians who are pretty vocal about their beliefs, thus fostering those assumptions, but  there are other Baptists and Christians who put a different emphasis on their beliefs. Southern Baptists might be representative of the former group; the Alliance of Baptists is representative of the latter.
Cross Creek's pastor, Mike Castle, comes from a Southern Baptist background, and after leaving the Southern Baptists and coming to the UCC (with a brief visit to the United Methodists), he wanted Cross Creek to have a connection to the Baptist tradition, at least the parts of that tradition that Cross Creek could affirm. So Cross Creek has been affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists since Cross Creek's founding.  Last year the UCC as a denomination decided to partner with the Alliance of Baptists along with the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ (with whom the UCC already partnered for foreign missions).
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So to make a long story at least somewhat short, this year the 18th annual convocation of the Alliance of Baptists is being held here in Dayton, and Cross Creek is the host church, providing volunteers to staff tables, cook and serve food, house participants and other tasks. Since our building is too small for all the participants, the event is being held downtown at First Baptist Church, an American Baptist church that's also part of the Alliance of Baptists.
I chose an easy task for my volunteer duties, namely providing housing to a participant. My guest this weekend is David Reese, a religion major at Oberlin College. He's got an interesting web site, and apparently he's a comedian who's part of the group Piscapo's Arm.
I'm not participating in the workshops at the convocation, but I am going to the worship services. Tonight's started off fairly slow with all the officials of the hosting congregations and the three denominations taking a long time to say how glad they were that they, each other, and all of us were there. The pace picked up when Timothy Tutt, pastor of United Christian Church in Austin, Texas, explained ecumenism by comparing it to jazz, with some musical help from Winton Reynolds, Phil Borrero and Brad Taylor's jazz trio.
The highlight of the service was a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah H. Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ. This man has a style that's decidedly "African American Baptist preacher," which had me wondering where he was going (was he heading to Biblical literalism? Jesus as Christ is the only path to God?), but by the middle of his sermon he was saying some things I could definitely agree with. I'd be very surprised if any members of his congregation were ardent Bush supporters or strident believers that homosexuality is a sin.
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Today was my turn to host my church dinner group, and Derek planned the menu and organized the cooking (I was sous chef). As you can see, making a lemon tart is fun. We took a break in the middle of cooking to go to Goodwill to get Derek a sweater -- do you like it?
 
We follow Julia Child's advice when it comes to cooking with alcohol, which is that you taste the wine before using it, perhaps not a bad suggestion if you use better than $3 wine from Kroger.
 
I didn't take any pictures of our guests. It was a fairly quiet evening, and everyone was gone by 9 or so. Derek and I headed over to Stage Door to play some darts, and then, bored there, we headed up the street to Boston's, just in time for the Guiness toast. I declined a pint of Guiness on the grounds that I'm gay, earning me a laugh from the bartender and a punch in the shoulder from Derek. He had to prove his manliness and ordered a pint at the last minute. It took him a very long time to finish it, and he pulled a face after every sip. I did try one sip and vow that I'll never put Guiness in my mouth ever again. |
 Tonight was the first dinner of my new dinner group. People at my church, Cross Creek, sign up to participate in dinner groups where each person or couple takes turns hosting the others. After everyone in the groups gets a turn to host, everyone's mixed up and put into new groups. It's a great way to get to know people better and to get some really good food too! |
Saturday was the annual Cross Creek Church fall picnic. I took a lot of pictures.
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