Pat Robertson Takes an Odd Break from The Crazy

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Is this whole Christian leaders not judging people becoming a trend? I don't know. Maybe.

The 83-year-old televangelist [Pat Robertson] sat down on Sunday for the "Bring It Online" advice portion of his Christian Broadcasting Network show, "The 700 Club." A viewer named David wrote in asking how he should refer to two transgender females who work in his office and have legally changed their genders. Instead of criticizing the trans individuals, Robertson approached the situation in a seemingly level-headed manner.

"I think there are men who are in a woman's body," he said. "It's very rare. But it's true -- or women that are in men's bodies -- and that they want a sex change. That is a very permanent thing, believe me, when you have certain body parts amputated and when you have shot up with various kinds of hormones. It's a radical procedure. I don't think there's any sin associated with that. I don't condemn somebody for doing that."

. . .

When his co-host said the viewer doesn't know the intentions or medical history of his co-workers, Robertson rebutted, "It's not for you to decide or to judge."

It seems a strange exception to his usual judge, condemn, and blame everybody rule.

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Pope Francis Won't Judge Gay People

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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"Judge not, that ye be not judged." ~ Matthew 7:1

Pope Francis has once again shocked the world with a message of tolerance.

Pope Francis opened the door on Sunday to greater acceptance of gay priests inside the ranks of Roman Catholicism as he returned to the Vatican from his maiden trip overseas.

Fielding questions from reporters during the first news conference of his young papacy, the pontiff broached the delicate question of how he would respond to learning that a cleric in his ranks was gay, though not sexually active. For decades, the Vatican has regarded homosexuality as a "disorder," and Pope Francis' predecessor Pope Benedict XVI formally barred men with what the Vatican deemed "deep-seated" homosexuality from entering the priesthood.

"Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?" the pontiff said, speaking in Italian. "You can't marginalize these people."

Am I the only one who finds it a little alarming that when the leader of the Catholic Church says he won't judge people, it's front page news? Or aren't popes supposed to at least give a little lip service to that whole judge not thing.



It does imply a real departure, though, from Pope Benedict's crackdown on gay clergy and from the Church's history of diverting blame for their sex abuse crisis onto gay people.

Pope Francis's comments pertained to the "gay lobby" scandal that erupted into headlines in the waning days of Pope Benedict's reign. When pressed, he handled the issue with all the deftness and grace that so completely eluded his predecessor.

The pope addressed the issue of an alleged "gay lobby" within the church. Hints that the Holy See contained a network of gay clergy surfaced last year in reports about a series of embarrassing leaks to Italian journalists.

The "Vatileaks" scandal factored in Benedict's shocking decision to resign this year, according to some church experts, as it impressed upon the 86-year-old pontiff that the modern papacy requires a vigorous and watchful presence.

"There's a lot of talk about the gay lobby, but I've never seen it on the Vatican ID card!" Francis said.

"When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn't be marginalized. The tendency (to homosexuality) is not the problem ... they're our brothers."

It remains to be seen whether the Vatican will walk these comments back as it has with previous eruptions of compassion and dignity from the new pontiff.

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National Cathedral Celebrates Gay Marriage Victory

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Once again, I find myself very proud of the Episcopal Church I was raised in.

The Washington National Cathedral will hold a special service Wednesday night to celebrate the Supreme Court rulings that struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and the California proposition banning gay marriage.

"Today’s rulings announce a new era for our country, one in which married lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans can finally enjoy the same federal recognition and protection that our laws have for so long extended to their fellow citizens," said Rev. Gary Hall, the dean of the National Cathedral, in a press release Wednesday.

. . .

At noon, the Washington Ringing Society rang the cathedral's bells to the tune of "Gloria in Excelsis," and according to Cathedral spokesman Richard Weinberg, many other D.C. churches plan to do the same, CBS DC reported.

"We are ringing our bells at the Cathedral to celebrate the extension of federal marriage equality to all the same-sex couples modeling God’s love in lifelong covenants," said Hall. "Our prayers for continued happiness are with them and with all couples who will be joined in matrimony in the years to come, whether at Washington National Cathedral or elsewhere."

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Biblical Scholars Shred 1 Man, 1 Woman Argument

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I've been saying for some time -- notably here, here, and here -- that the Biblical case against gay marriage isn't very strong. The case for polygamy and female slavery is much stronger and to say otherwise is to really cherry-pick the good book. But I'm not a religious scholar. These three men are and they've taken their case to Des Moines Register.

The debate about marriage equality often centers, however discretely, on an appeal to the Bible. Unfortunately, such appeals often reflect a lack of biblical literacy on the part of those who use that complex collection of texts as an authority to enact modern social policy.

As academic biblical scholars, we wish to clarify that the biblical texts do not support the frequent claim that marriage between one man and one woman is the only type of marriage deemed acceptable by the Bible’s authors.

. . .

In fact, there were a variety of unions and family configurations that were permissible in the cultures that produced the Bible, and these ranged from monogamy (Titus 1:6) to those where rape victims were forced to marry their rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) and to those Levirate marriage commands obligating a man to marry his brother’s widow regardless of the living brother’s marital status (Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Genesis 38; Ruth 2-4). Others insisted that celibacy was the preferred option (1 Corinthians 7:8; 28).

All three, Hector Avalos, Robert R. Cargill and Kenneth Atkinson, are  professors at prominent Iowa universities, but that hasn't insulated them from hostile reactions.

He explained that it is obvious to scholars (and some religious leaders) that the Bible endorses a wide range of relationships. But he noted, however, that professors are "terrified" of the potential backlash that might result from opening a dialogue about these relationships. Cargill also noted that the initial response to the Register column has included its fair share of vitriol.

Ultimately, said Cargill, a Biblical "argument against same-sex marriage is wholly unsustainable. We all know this, but very few scholars are talking about it, because they don't want to take the heat."
He suggested that academics who continue to be cowed by a strident opposition do a disservice to their communities.

. . .

Anyone who argues that "the Bible speaks plainly on one issue, especially something as complicated as marriage ... haven't take the time to read all of it," he added.

I have wondered many times if the people who quote the Bible as the definitive source on a range of hot-button issues have actually read it. I don't think it means what they think it means.

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The Beautiful Church is Empty

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Religion is on the decline, and "nones" are on the rise. People with no religious affiliation, here in the United States is now at 20 percent -- double what it was two decades ago.

Even as the election of a new Pope in Rome dominated the day's news, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University reported that Americans are increasingly "parting ways" with religion.

In 2012, one in five people surveyed claimed no religious preference -- that's double the number who said that as recently as 1990. And religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since researchers began tracking it in the 1930s.

Not religious is not the same as atheist, however. Atheists are currently at 3 percent, according to the survey data. People are abandoning organized religion, not spiritual belief. As discussed, the number of those who define as spiritual but not religious is on the rise.

People are separating from religious institutions for a range of reasons, from their misalignment with changing social values, to hypocrisy about their own.

Jerome Baggett, a professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, said changes on three levels -- individual, institutional, and societal -- have contributed to declining American membership in organized religion.

. . .

Religious institutions themselves have lost their legitimacy in the eyes of many Americans due to sexual and financial scandals, or political overreaching "by the so-called Christian right," said Baggett. "Americans have a wariness to institutions in general, but a particular wariness to religious institutions," he said.

In other words, there are people who probably would be religious but have become disaffected. I know a lot of those.

I know, for example, a lot people who loved the Catholic Church but have lost patience with its intolerance for homosexuality, birth control, premarital sex, and other matters of personal morality -- even as it thoroughly bungles the problem of sexual abusive priests in its employ. It's a deeper irony than many people can stand to see in their religious leaders.

So I found this commentary from Bill Donohue's Catholic League particularly risible. Faced with polling that showed more than half of Catholics, 54 percent, now support gay marriage, Donohue pulled a Dick Morris and  attempted to unskew the poll. As per Donohue, Quinnipiac's mistake was in counting Catholics who don't go to church every Sunday.

This takes on added significance when we consider that 4 in 10 of the Catholics sampled do not practice their religion (28 percent go to church “a few times a year” and 11 percent say they “never” attend). That these nominal Catholics are precisely the biggest fans of gay marriage is a sure bet, though the poll fails to disclose the results.

The Quinnipiac Polling Institute has some explaining to do.

The weak impression of Ricky Ricardo aside, Donohue is articulating something very important about the Catholic mindset, which increasingly has more to do with purity tests from the hierarchy and a less to do -- okay, nothing to do -- with responding to the people who make up the Church. Who knows how many of these "nominal Catholics" could be brought back into the fold, if they felt like the Church wasn't totally out of step with the modern world.

As per Donohue, under journalistic scrutiny, Quinnipiac fessed up. If you only count those real Catholics, the numbers are about reversed.

After our news release was distributed, reporters from CNSNews.com contacted Quinnipiac. What they admitted totally alters the outcome: 55 percent of Catholics who are regular church-goers are opposed to gay marriage, and only 38 percent favor it. This is important because Quinnipiac’s Peter A. Brown was cited all over for claiming that “Catholic voters are leading American voters toward support for same-sex marriage.” Nonsense.

What I find kind of funny about all that is that 38 percent is still a pretty healthy chunk of the regular church-goers Donohue thinks of as legitimate. Anyone paying attention to the overall trend might be very concerned about the growing disconnect between the Church and even its most ardent followers. But people like Donohue, and it would appear the Catholic hierarchy, seem to be digging their heels in. As a simple matter of organizational theory, this seems short-sighted.

In the 1950s, a lot of companies had the same organizational structure as the Catholic church. You reported up the hierarchy, and you did what the leaders told you to do. And then, in 1961, a surprising study discovered that innovative companies were just the opposite:

They are adapted to unstable conditions....Interaction runs laterally as much as vertically. Communication between people of different ranks tends to resemble lateral consultation, rather than vertical command.

. . .

Maybe the Catholic church doesn't need to be innovative. After all, if you're following the word of God, if you have knowledge of the absolute truth, then perhaps you'd never need to change. And that's often the sort of statement that comes out of Rome. After all, the church is growing (although the new members come from developing countries), so the leadership can argue that it's been successful by sticking to an organizational structure that was invented a few thousand years ago, in the age of monarchy and serfdom--three or four major economic and societal transformations ago.

It's hard to miss that even in its election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy -- a departure for the Church in many ways -- they're still hewing strongly to the very regressive policies that are disenfranchising so many Catholics. Pope Francis may be a breath of fresh air when it comes to respect for the poor, but when it comes to gay people, he's a fire-breathing hater. Frankly, it seems sort of incongruous to me. In so many ways, he seems like such a sweet man. Then he says things like this:

In 2010, as Argentina debated a marriage equality bill, Bergoglio called on Catholics to oppose the move, calling it the devil's handiwork.

“Let's not be naïve, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God,” Bergoglio wrote in a letter calling on followers to join a protest rally in Buenos Aires.

“We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a move by the Father of Lies which aims to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

Bergoglio went on to say that gay adoption is discriminatory to children: “At stake are the lives of many children who'll be discriminated against in being deprived of the human growth that God wanted to be given through a father and a mother.”

Agrentina went on to ratify gay marriage, which underscores just how out of step the Church is on this issue. President President Cristina Fernandez de Kircher called his statements a "throwback to the Inquisition."

Pope Francis is also stridently opposed to birth control and abortion rights. I doubt that anyone could have been elected pope who wasn't completely regressive on these issues of sexual morality. That seems to be the litmus test of. And the farther behind that puts them with new generations, the more rigid and unyielding the Church becomes. This, according to Joan Chittister of the National Catholic Reporter has made Catholics weary.

The problem is that weariness is far worse than anger. Far more stultifying than mere indifference. Weariness comes from a soul whose hope has been disappointed one time too many. To be weary is not a condition of the body -- that's tiredness. No, weariness is a condition of the heart that has lost the energy to care anymore.

People are weary of hearing more about the laws of the church than the love of Jesus.

People are weary of seeing whole classes of people -- women, gays and even other faith communities again -- rejected, labeled, seen as "deficient," crossed off the list of the acceptable.

They are weary of asking questions that get no answers, no attention whatsoever, except derision.

They suffer from the lassitude that sets in waiting for apologies that do not come.

There's an ennui that sets in when people get nothing but old answers to new questions.

So, yeah... I know a lot of lapsed Catholics.

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Five Bishops Agree: Violence Against Lesbians OK

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Read it and weep.

Five key Catholic bishops are opposing the newly authorized Violence Against Women Act for fear it will subvert traditional views of marriage and gender, and compromise the religious freedom of groups that aid victims of human trafficking.

But for the first time since the original act became law in 1994, it spells out that no person may be excluded from the law’s protections because of  “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” — specifically covering lesbian, transgender and bisexual women.

Yes. According to five signing bishops, compassion is conditional. Catholics can't risk their "conscience" by serving the needy if that in any way interferes with their right to discriminate against entire groups of people.

“Conscience protections are needed in this legislation to ensure that these service providers are not required to violate their bona fide religious beliefs as a condition for serving the needy,” reads the statement of the bishops, who have supported previous versions of the act.

Five bishops -- Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Archbishop William E. Lori, and Archbishop Jose H. Gomez -- have a very strange idea of what it means to have a conscience.

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Cardinal O'Brien Comes Clean... ish

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I thought it was fairly safe to assume that Cardinal Keith O'Brien was guilty of something when he abruptly resigned and withdrew from the conclave. Accusations by several priests and one former priest of his making sexual advances stood in sharp relief against the backdrop of his notorious anti-gay views. A report last Friday in The Scotsman claimed the Vatican had received a report months ago of yet another incident dating back to 2001.

Yesterday the cardinal publicly announced that he was guilty... of something. We're still not sure exactly what.

"In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them," O'Brien said.

"However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal," he said. "To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness.

So here's my question: What constitutes the "standards" expected of a Catholic priest? Wouldn't that be any sexual conduct at all? It just strikes me as a bizarre and excessively couched statement by a man who is still just refusing to name the love that dare not speak it.



This career ending brouhaha erupted immediately after O'Brien had made dicey statements questioning the wisdom of a celibate priesthood. But it would seem that this is not the first time he has gone afoul of official doctrine.

O'Brien has at times had a rocky tenure as a cardinal.

In 2003, as a condition of assuming that rank, he was forced to issue a public pledge to defend church teaching on homosexuality, celibacy and contraception. He was pressured to make the pledge after he had called for a "full and open discussion" on such matters.

There seems to be little about which the cardinal has been consistent through the years. In addition to wavering on contraception and priestly celibacy, he at one time seemed to extol celibacy... for gay priests.

O'Brien appeared to take an accepting stance toward homosexual priests around the time when he was appointed cardinal in 2003.

"If they are leading a celibate life, God bless the men," he was quoted as saying at the time.

He then became a fire-breathing critic of gay marriage. And while he has wavered on contraception, he appears to have held a very firm line against abortion. But who knows what the man is really thinking? He seems to be a walking, talking embodiment of the conflicts and contradictions within a Church incapable of reconciling its doctrinaire policies with the modern world and the majority of Catholics.

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Robert Jeffress Questions Tim Tebow's Manhood

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

It's getting ugly between Robert Jeffress and Tim Tebow. Well, Robert Jeffress is getting ugly. Tim Tebow seems like a decent enough guy. But he bowed out of a scheduled appearance at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, when Jeffress's record was made clear to him. And Jeffress, who made a series of more politic statements in the immediate aftermath, seems to have finally snapped. Some of the statements in the sermon posted above seemed to be aimed a bit south of the belt-line.

Jeffress is no stranger to controversy. During the Republican primary, for instance, his anti-Mormon views created a little trouble for his good friend Rick Perry. But his belief that Mormonism is a cult wasn't as controversial as his belief that Catholicism is "a Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult," which demonstrates "the genius of Satan."

He says things like that but somehow he always manages to look completely mystified when he gets push-back. In the video above, for instance, he explains that he just doesn't understand why anyone thinks he's antisemitic simply because he believes that all Jews will go to hell unless they accept Jesus. It's not like he's singling Jews out. He believes Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists... they're all going to hell, too. He's not antisemitic. He's anti-everything that isn't Christianity, because it's all evil and hellbound. What's wrong with that? And he doesn't know why people think he's anti-gay just because he says that sex should only be between a man and a woman.

You see? It's so crazy the way people take the things he says out of context like that.



This little dust-up is further evidence of a growing divide in the evangelical community that is, at least partly, defined along generational lines. As I wrote here, young evangelicals are not so much about the social issues that defined the rise of the Christian right. That's puts someone like Jeffress at odds with a growing segment of what he fully expects to still be his base.

Tim Tebow is well-known for his Christian views and it's a little unclear where he stands on all the various issues that were cited after he agreed to appear at the dedication ceremony for Jeffress's new church in April. But something in Jeffress's documented history of hate speech pushed him too far and he canceled his scheduled appearance in a series of tweets.

While I was looking forward to sharing a message of hope and Christ's unconditional love with the faithful members of the historic...
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

... First Baptist Church of Dallas in April, due to new information that has been brought to my attention, I have decided to cancel my...
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

...upcoming appearance. I will continue to use the platform God has blessed me with to bring Faith, Hope and Love to all those...
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

...needing a brighter day. Thank you for all of your love and support. God Bless!
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

At around the 7:00min mark in the video, Jeffress takes on Tebow's namby-pamby, lovey-dovey faith for the wimpianity it is. Oh, he doesn't mention him by name. He doesn't need to. He makes it abundantly clear what a "real man" of God is.

"I am grateful for men of God like these who are willing to stand up and act like men rather than wimping out when it gets a little controversial and an inconvenient thing to stand for the truth," said Jeffress, who received a standing ovation before he spoke. "God bless men like that."

. . .

"There are some people who would say,'God's given me a different ministry. God has called me to go preach about the love of God. I'm not called to preach about sin and controversial things. I've been called to preach about the love of God.' And they're sincere when they say that. But they are sincerely wrong. The fact is you cannot talk about the love of God. The love of God has no meaning whatsoever unless you understand the judgment of God that all of us deserve."

Is it terribly wrong of me to think that deep down this is about this guy making Robert Jeffress feel like about a half a man?

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The Vatican and the "Ticking Gay Bomb"

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Click for Video

According to openly gay, former friar Mark Dowd, gays are "overrepresented" in the Catholic clergy. His back of the envelope calculation tells him that about half of the men drawn to Catholic seminaries and religious orders are men who love men. This, he believes, is a "ticking time bomb" in the Catholic Church.

Days before Pope Benedict XVI is officially set to resign from papal office, two bombshells rocked the Catholic Church. First, On Feb. 21, an article published in Italy's La Repubblica newspaper alleged that Benedict was influenced to resign by an unsourced report claiming the Vatican has been influenced by multiple internal lobbys, including a gay one.

The report also claimed members broke the Sixth Commandment, which is "linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts," according to The Guardian.

Then, three days later, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, known for his anti-gay rhetoric, was accused of "inappropriate" behavior with other priests and offered his resignation.

In a recent CNN interview, the former Dominican friar discussed the challenges of a half gay Church that doctrinally oppresses gay people.

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The Changing Face of Christian Evangelism

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Tammy Faye was a woman ahead of her time. May she rest in peace. As discussed here, her son Jay Bakker has been on the vanguard of a movement towards a far more tolerant evangelical Christianity. In fact, his name was floated recently, by a GLAAD spokesman, as a reasonable replacement for Rev. Louie Giglio to perform the Inaugural Benediction. Giglio was pushed out when his homophobic record came to light.

There are more and more indicators that the sexual politics traditionally associated with the evangelical movement are falling out of favor. Not just with the Presidential Inaugural Committee, or with the military (the Marine Corps in particular), or with the society at large, but with the evangelical community itself. While evangelical Christianity has attracted youth in large numbers, younger evangelicals are not rallying around the sexual morés of the old guard. Even those who accept those values on a personal level, don't want to their social agenda to be defined by them. From Buzzfeed:

Ricky, a 21-year-old evangelical Christian college student, isn't necessarily committed to abstinence before marriage: "If two people are in love and are willing to take the next step, I believe God would approve." He respects both sides of the abortion debate, but thinks churches shouldn't have a say in the matter. And he's an enthusiastic supporter of gay marriage; he thinks Christian opposition to it will be "a black eye on our religion for decades."

He may be progressive, but Ricky isn't alone. A variety of experts say young evangelicals care less and less about the issues of sexual politics — abstinence, abortion, and same-sex marriage — that their forebears brought to the center of the political conversation. And churches that keep focusing on these issues may risk becoming obsolete.

A study released in December by the National Association of Evangelicals found that 44% of unmarried 18-29-year-old evangelicals had been sexually active — but the study defined "evangelical" as someone who attends church at least monthly, believes Jesus Christ is the only path to salvation, and believes the Bible "is accurate in all that it teaches," requirements that may leave out some who still consider themselves part of the group. Another study puts the figure at 80 percent. And a recent poll found that 44% of 18-29-year-old evangelicals favor same-sex marriage, lower than the national figure but much higher than their elders.

An accurate statistical representation of this very broad movement seems to be lacking, and much of the reporting is anecdotal, but there is a pronounced feeling on both sides of the cultural divide that evangelism is going to have to shift its messaging in order to stay relevant in the coming years. Younger evangelicals want to talk about the environment, poverty, war, and stopping sexual trafficking. In other words, they seem much more interested in helping people who are hurting than preventing people from doing the things that make them happy. What's evolving looks more like a compassion agenda.

The Giglio incident has sadly been very polarizing, pitting evangelism, once again, against the prevailing cultural climate. It has sparked outrage amongst the usual suspects about the perceived marginalization of Christians.

Over at Lifeway Research, Ed Stetzer pens a blog on the topic. "This Louie Giglio moment, and the Chick-Fil-A moment that preceded it, and the Rick Warren moment which preceded that, raise the question: Where do people of faith with long-standing traditional religious/scriptural convictions go from here?," he writes.

 And Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council opines:

This is another example of intolerance from the Obama administration toward those who hold to biblical views on sexuality. Why is the president surprised that an evangelical pastor would teach from Scripture on homosexuality? One would be hard pressed to find an Evangelical pastor who hasn't preached on what the Bible teaches about human sexuality.

But Perkins is mistaken. There are a number of evangelical ministers who don't share Perkins's cherry-picked and blinkered interpretation of the Bible. There's the aforementioned Jay Bakker and others recommended by GLAAD's Ross Murray. There's Jim Swilley, the now openly gay megachurch pastor. The evangelical community is changing all around Tony Perkins. He just hasn't noticed.

Meanwhile, the cultural conservatives are starting to age out of the system. Jerry Falwell, who once upon a time led the charge of the culture warriors, has gone to his reward. And some who are still with us seem to be in the horrible grip of senility -- which is my backhanded way of saying that I'm really starting to worry about Pat Robertson.

I recently wrote about Robertson's jaw-dropping comments on General Petraeus's adultery, which basically amounted to, come on, the chick was hot.

Now comes a diatribe from the ever-moralizing 700 Club preacher on the marriage killing powers of unattractive women. Asked to respond to the Maxim letter of a 17 year old boy who was concerned for his lonely mother, due to his father's immersion into online gaming, Robertson offered this penetrating insight: It's probably your mother's fault, kiddo.

“You know, it may be your mom isn’t as sweet as you think she is; she may be kind of hard-nosed. And so, you say, it’s my father, he’s not paying attention to mom, but you know mom …” he trails off and offers a spiteful little chuckle.

. . .

He launches into another story: “A woman came to a preacher I know — it’s so funny. She was awful looking. Her hair was all torn up, she was overweight and looked terrible …”

So far, this story sounds hilarious Pat, Please continue.

“And she said, ‘Oh, Reverend, what can I do? My husband has started to drink.’”

The hateful punchline is coming. I can feel it. I’m on the edge of my seat.

“And the preacher looked at her and he said, ‘Madam, if I were married to you, I’d start to drink too.’”

Methinks the reverend's Freudian slip is showing. Anyone who was paying attention to Robertson's agenda over the years had to know that underneath it all was simple misogyny. But if you had any doubt, now would be the time to the let that go. (Who is it who's always telling women to stay sweet? Oh. Right.)

Anyway, I think the one-time presidential candidate is losing control of his mouth. It's a hard call, given his long-time propensity for saying incredibly offensive things. But it looks like now he's even offending his sidekicks. It's time for him to retire before he ruins his own dubious legacy.

Many of the stalwarts of the Christian Right are not aging too well. But the evangelical movement seems to be maturing.

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A Tale of Two Anglican Churches

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Here in the US Capitol...

The Washington National Cathedral had been ready to embrace same-sex marriage for some time, though it took a series of recent events and a new leader for the prominent, 106-year-old church to announce Wednesday that it would begin hosting such nuptials.

The key development came last July when the Episcopal Church approved a ceremony for same-sex unions at its General Convention in Indianapolis, followed by the legalization of gay marriage in Maryland, which joined the District of Columbia. The national church made a special allowance for marriage ceremonies in states where gay marriage is legal.

Longtime same-sex marriage advocate the Very Rev. Gary Hall took over as the cathedral's dean in October. Conversations began even before he arrived to clear the way for the ceremonies at the church that so often serves as a symbolic house of prayer for national celebrations and tragedies.

The Episcopal bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, authorized use of the new marriage rite in December for 89 congregations in D.C. and Maryland. Each priest then decides whether to marry same-sex couples.

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Meanwhile, back in Merry Old England...

The Church of England on Friday (Jan. 4) confirmed that it has dropped its prohibition on gay clergy in civil partnerships becoming bishops -- but only if they agree to remain celibate.

Speaking on behalf of the Church's House of Bishops, Bishop of Norwich Graham Jones said in a statement: "The House of Bishops has confirmed that clergy in civil partnerships, and living in accordance with the teaching of the Church on human sexuality, can be considered as candidates for the episcopate. There had been a moratorium on such candidates for the past year and a half while the working party completed its task."

Jones added that the bishops agreed it would be "unjust" to exclude gay men from becoming bishops if they were otherwise "seeking to live fully in conformity with the Church's teaching on sexual ethics or other areas of personal life and discipline."

Ah, well. Baby steps, baby steps.

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Putting the Hate Back in Christmas

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Pope Benedict has a heartwarming message this holiday season. Let's put a stop to the gay... or words to that effect. In his annual State of the Church speech before the Curia yesterday, his holiness made clear that the top priority of the Vatican is to stop the march toward modernity that has already displayed itself in numerous countries and a growing number of states in the US.

Gay marriage is a threat to "traditional marriage" says the Celibate in Chief.

Benedict XVI made the comments in his annual Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, one of his most important speeches of the year. He dedicated it this year to promoting traditional family values in the face of gains by same-sex marriage proponents in the U.S. and Europe and efforts to legalize gay marriage in places like France and Britain.

In his remarks, Benedict quoted the chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, in saying the campaign for granting gays the right to marry and adopt children was an "attack" on the traditional family made up of a father, mother and children.

Well. At least it was ecumenical. But I can't help wondering what these Jewish-Christian allies in leadership are basing their ideas of "tradition" upon. Not their holy books, certainly, wherein those "mothers" are little more than transferred property and often consigned to large harems.



Mostly, His Holiness seems to be distressed by the all the gender-bending that goes on.

In his speech, the pope cited Bernheim as lamenting how a new philosophy of sexuality has taken hold, whereby sex and gender are "no longer a given element of nature that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society."

He said God had created man and woman as a specific "duality" – "an essential aspect of what being human is all about."

This follows his "peace message" of a week ago, in which he cited gay marriage as a key threat to world peace. Nothing like a demonstration of love and compassion as the Church prepares to celebrate the birth of Christ.

The pontiff did, however, grant an act of kindness to his former butler, whose Christmas-time pardon was widely anticipated. He will also secure housing and employment for this fallen angel somewhere safely away from Vatican property.

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Adultery, Pat

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Remember that great scene in The Crucible when John Proctor is pressed to recall the ten commandments and prove his devotion to God? He can remember them all, save one. He stammers, repeating some, but can't seem to come up with ten. His wife, Elizabeth, quietly chides him, "Adultery, John."

Such was playwright Arthur Miller's brilliant, psychological insight. The husband, whose affair with the young Abigail Williams has set a catastrophic sequence of events in motion, can't remember the commandment that names his sin.

Well, Pat Robertson seems to be revealing more and more of the strange, inner workings of his mind, lately. Last week it was a cringe inducing discussion about Shades of Grey. (Women like pornography? Since when?) And now comes this shameless apologia for the career ending indiscretions of General David Petraeus.

Robertson's reasoning goes like this: David Petraeus "is a man." Paula Broadwell is an "extremely good looking woman" and she was "throwing herself at him."

Such boys will be boys defenses of Petraeus's actions are to be expected... just not so much from an evangelical Christian minister on live television. I mean... has Pat Robertson actually read the Bible? It's only the seventh commandment. You know, that list of moral precepts that Robertson and his ilk have been demanding we all need to get back to?



This is varsity level cherry-picking of the Bible. I have been very critical of fundamentalist dissonance on issues like homosexuality -- which is only condemned in obscure passages and not entirely clearly -- and abortion -- which not only isn't forbidden in the Bible, but actually seems to be endorsed. I have yet to see Christian hardliners get as het up about pork, shellfish, polyester blends, and the numerous other things that are forbidden in the holy scripture they claim is the infallible word of God. But most of them at least have the good grace to condemn adultery.

Bear in mind this is the same Pat Robertson who has said things like this:

“When you see the rise of blatant open homosexuality and lesbianism, what you also know is God has given a society up...and we’re at the mercy of the elements, the mercy of war, the mercy of economic disaster.” - 700 Club, 4-26-93 (source: People for the American Way Foundation)

And this:

“The concept, the word for homosexual behavior is sodomy. That is what is used in the official documents. It is sodomy. It is repugnant. It has been prohibited and proscribed by sane society throughout countless millennia, centuries. People have understood that it is wrong. Now in America, not only is it happening, it is getting civil rights protection in the law, and these people are invading churches.” - 700 Club, 1-18-94 (source: People for the American Way Foundation)

And my all-time favorite:

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." - 1992 Iowa fundraising letter opposing a state equal-rights amendment ("Equal Rights Initiative in Iowa Attacked", Washington Post, 23 August 1992)

Cheating on your wife, though. That's cool. You know. If a chick is hot, sometimes you just have to hit that. I'm sure God will understand.

It would be tempting to write this off to senility, but Robertson has too long a history of spouting insane, sexist, patriarchal, nonsense, not to consider this of a piece with his ramblings. The creepy lasciviousness, though, seems new, and less than morally upright. So now we know, Pat Robertson isn't just a hypocrite. He's really just a dirty, old man.

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Missouri Preacher's Speech Against Gay Rights

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Wow.

At first, this Missouri pastor's anti-gay speech seems akin to those delivered by a number of conservative preachers and other right-wing pundits nationwide over the past year.

. . .

But, as video of his speech reveals, the pastor has a few surprises up his sleeve.

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Anglican Archbishop: We Were Wrong on Gays

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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"We've not exactly been on the forefront of pressing for civic equality for homosexual people, and we were wrong about that," said Rowan Williams, the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury. He apologized for not doing more to hold together the fracturing Anglican Communion as the Episcopal Church here in the States advanced and other Anglican bodies... did not.

"I don't think I've got it right over the last 10 years. It might have helped a lot if I'd gone sooner to the United States when things began to get difficult about the ordination of gay bishops, and engaged more directly," he told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper in an interview published Saturday. "I know that I've, at various points, disappointed both conservatives and liberals."

The archbishop reiterated the church's opposition to gay marriage but said it had been "wrong" in its past treatment of homosexuals.

So, wrong on gay rights but still right on blocking marriage equality. I guess Church politics are still something of a balancing act -- even at retirement. Ah well. Baby steps. Baby steps.

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Episcopalians Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The other day I posted the exciting news that the Episcopal Church has green-lighted the ordination of transgendered people and taken a step toward gay marriages. This news was less well received by Rob Kerby who quickly pronounced the Church dead... and then he proceeded to dance on its grave. The insufferable post can be found here. The church founded by that wife-killer Henry VIII is on the brink of financial ruin because it's driven all the real Christians away with its liberal agenda... blah, blah, blah... Whatever. Talk to the hand.

True to form Kerby has also been busily blocking and deleting any dissent. Yes, it's not only Pagans and the gay-positive who get chucked down the memory hole on the new Beliefnet. Episcopalian? Gone.

I posted a comment and learned, for sure, that I'm being blocked. My comment was sent straight into moderation. It was deleted without ever seeing the light of day. As you can see, there were only two comments showing, but four comments in the counter, so I'm clearly not the only one who's been marked for moderation.

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Someone named Mike slipped under their radar and got a not terribly favorable comment up.

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It was later deleted.

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So, some comments have come and gone. As of this writing there are four comments showing out of nine. The other five are presumably languishing in moderation.

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A particularly special comment from one Robbins Mitchell refers to the Church's first gay archbishop as Archfaggot Gene Robinson. So, that's nice. I doubt it will be deleted. I've seen worse anti-gay slurs left in place as the mildest of questions about the news section's direction are deleted. Hatin' on gay people is perfectly cool on the new Beliefnet. Because, you know, they're Christians and we'll know them by their love.

You know, I really have no problem with moderators deleting rude, offensive comments. And, in principle, I have no problem with Kerby hating gay people in the name of Christ. He has the right to cherry-pick the Bible and juggle contradictions the size of watermelons. The problem, as I've said before, is that he is representing a site that is still pretending to be an ecumenical, interfaith destination. And not only is he spouting bigoted and blinkered nonsense, he's enforcing an environment of group-think. The mildest disagreement is silenced and swept from Beliefnet's page.

Kerby, for his part, is unrepentant, and has been dishing on Episcopalians on his Facebook page. There we learn that he's offended 2.3 million Episcopalians. "Ah, well." And he was called for an interview with Australia's ABC Radio to discuss "the collapsing US Episcopal church." But it didn't go so well.

I learned what little I know about dealing with the broadcast media from the legendary Ed Wheeler of the Oklahoma Natural Gas Co.'s PR department. He said "Give 'em a six-second sound bite, then shut up and refuse to utter another word." Tonight, I stupidly talked with a reporter in Australia for 15 minutes. I was over my head on a subject I know little about. If I came across as an idiot, at least (hopefully) nobody in this hemisphere will hear it!

Yet he knew enough to pronounce the Church "near collapse!" Perhaps he spoke to a reporter who actually knew a little something about the history of the Anglican Church... or history, period... or a little about critical thinking. Any of the above and he'd be sunk.

One of the things I noticed in looking at this particular "news" post is that Beliefnet has added a Facebook commenting feature. I don't know that he can delete those. I say that because my comments in that thread and other somewhat critical ones are there. And the thread makes for some interesting reading. Commenters also noticed that Kerby was in over his head when it came to, um, facts. I, personally, didn't spend a lot of time parsing his drivel but this made me chuckle.

This is no longer George Washington’s Episcopal Church – in 1776 the largest denomination in the rebellious British colonies. Membership has dropped so dramatically that today there are 20 times more Baptists than Episcopalians.

You mean the George Washington who almost never went to church? The one who refused to take communion and left early on those rare occasions when he did go so that his carriage had to make a second trip to pick up his church-going wife? The one who preferred to spend his Sundays drinking wine and smoking cigars? That George Washington? Maybe it would be fairer to say Martha Washington's Episcopal Church?

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Episcopal Church to Ordain the Transgendered

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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One of my earliest career goals was Episcopal priest. I was a very young, very idealistic gal watching the epic battle over women's ordination from the sidelines. I resolved, in a way that only a young idealist can, that if my Church decided the right way, I would one day join the growing ranks of female priests. Obviously, I went another way, but it was something that was still very much under consideration into my early twenties. My spiritual life took me through many twists and turns that outstripped the confines of Christian dogma -- even the very tolerant, ecumenical beliefs of the Episcopal Church. But I am still constantly surprised and gratified to see the Church growing and evolving in ways I could never have expected all those years ago. Yesterday the Episcopal Church approved a measure that would allow ordination of transgendered people.

At its triennial General Convention in Indianapolis, the church House of Deputies approved a change to the "nondiscrimination canons" to include "gender identity and expression." The move makes it illegal to bar from the priesthood people who were born into one gender and live as another or who do not identify themselves as male or female.

. . .

The vote by the House of Deputies -- which includes lay people and clergy -- followed Saturday's approval of the non-discrimination clause by the church House of Bishops. Both groups have to approve new legislation.

. . .

"It is not just a good day for transgender Episcopalians and their friends, families and allies. It is a good day for all of us who are part of a church willing to the risk to continue to draw the circle wider as we work to live out our call to make God's inclusive love known to the whole human family," the Rev. Susan Russell, a deputy from the Diocese of Los Angeles and an activist who supported the legislation, said in a statement. 

Also approved was a provisional standard liturgy for blessing same-sex couples. It is the first Christian church to do so. It's a step towards what I'm sure will be an approval to perform gay marriages as they become legal around the country.  It's only a matter of time.

I'm sure this will hasten the great bigots exodus from the Church, but as ever I say, go with God.

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Carrie Underwood on Marriage Equality

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I'm not even entirely clear about who Carrie Underwood is. I don't follow pop country and American Idol makes me puke, so she's just never been on my radar. But at this moment I'm loving her. A number of evangelicals aren't, apparently. And only time will tell if she faces the sort of backlash Dixie Chick Natalie Maines did when she dared to speak her mind on controversial subjects. But Carrie Underwood has come out as unabashedly pro-gay marriage.

"As a married person myself, I don't know what it's like to be told I can't marry somebody I love, and want to marry," she said. "I can't imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly, the people that we want to love."

Yeah. You know how Christians are supposed to be all about love? And make no mistake. Underwood is a deeply committed Christian.

She said, however, that her liberal attitude towards same-sex marriage comes because of her Christian values, rather than in spite of them. Though raised a Baptist, a church that tends to oppose homosexuality, Underwood and her husband Mike Fisher, a professional ice-hockey player, now worship in a non-denominational congregation.

"Our church is gay friendly," she said. "Above all, God wanted us to love others. It's not about setting rules, or [saying] 'everyone has to be like me'. No. We're all different. That's what makes us special. We have to love each other and get on with each other. It's not up to me to judge anybody."

It's kind of hard to disagree with the logic... unless you do. As per this brave soul who waded through the comments on The Blaze, some of them were real doozies.

Indeed sad, that now, Miss Underwood (yeah, we know she’s married) in attempting to “package” herself, and not peave off the gay-record-buying-public is leaving her principles behind in favor of the quick-buck. Many have already commented on the Biblical references to homosexuality.

Yes, Carrie it IS your place to judge others.

Well, the ironically monikered Snaker fails Christianity 101. Or, he/she doesn't understand the difference between judging and discerning. Underwood is talking about judging, as in:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged." ~ Matthew 7:1

It would seem that at some point in her devout Christian life, she got idea that it was for God to judge. Maybe it was from the Bible.

"Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?" ~ James 4:11-12

Well, it's challenging to be a fundamentalist, what with the Bible contradicting itself all over the place, but at some point, one has to choose between love and forgiveness and a highly selective reading of clobber verses. You know, just not the ones that condemn pork, shellfish, cotton/poly blends, shaving, tattooing, and so forth, and so on.

Carrie Underwood is emblematic of the changing face of Christianity -- and that includes evangelicals. As discussed, Jay Bakker and his late, lamented mother Tammy Faye Messner have quietly led a charge for a more tolerant evangelism. And gay evangelical Christians like Jim Swilley and Jennifer Knapp have been easing open closet doors. So, backlash aside, Underwood is not alone. And thank God.

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Cardinal Dolan Paid Off Pedophile Priests

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is rapidly becoming the poster child for hypocrisy in the Catholic hierarchy. This crusader for morality, whose public posturing against gay marriage and birth control keeps him at the forefront of the culture wars, goes strangely quiet when it comes to the cesspool of sex abuse that literally bankrupted the Milwaukee Archdiocese. Asked about the possible payoff of a pedophile priest, he deflected the charge as "false, preposterous and unjust." But it turns out that when he was Milwaukee's archbishop he, in fact, authorized numerous payoffs to known pedophiles in amounts as high as $20,000.

Documentation came to light as a result of bankruptcy proceedings that the archdiocese was paying off known abusers so that they would not contest laicization, aka. defrocking, and go quietly away. But victims groups are not amused.

A victims advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent a letter of protest to the current archbishop of Milwaukee on Wednesday asking, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”

. . .

The newly revealed document is the minutes of a meeting of the finance council of the Milwaukee archdiocese from March 7, 2003, which Cardinal Dolan attended. The archdiocese was facing a flood of potential lawsuits by people claiming abuse, and the church’s insurance company was refusing to cover the costs because it said the church had been negligent. The minutes noted that “unassignable priests” — those suspected of abuse — were still receiving full salaries.

. . .

The first known payment in Milwaukee was to Franklyn Becker, a former priest with many victims. Cardinal Dolan said in response to a reporter’s question at the time that the payment was “an act of charity,” so that Mr. Becker could pay for health insurance.

According to church documents, Mr. Becker was accused of abusing at least 10 minors, and given a diagnosis of pedophilia in 1983. The church paid more than $16 million to settle lawsuits involving him and one other priest.

Basically, they were stuck with known abusers on their payrolls because of the long, tedious process of Vatican approved defrocking. In that regard, Dolan was not alone.

What makes Dolan special is the stridency with which he deflects and obfuscates about his own archdiocese's payoffs and the degree to which it is matched by equally strident condemnation of the non-Catholic world for its "immorality." Dolan is a master of the Church as victim rhetoric that so defines its fight against marriage equality and, God help me, birth control. To hear Cardinal Dolan tell it, the Philistines are ever at the hedgerow, determined to drag the Church into the ways of sin.

Its a clever bit of jujutsu that constantly repositions the Church's attempts to dictate social policy as a defense of their own rights. Here, after making the preposterous claim that the government will force the Catholic church to conduct gay marriages, he outlines the reasons that the Church must fight gay marriage in society at large. In other words, don't force us to gay marry people. It's our responsibility to force our view of marriage down everyone else's throat. As I said here, the argument is always for their freedom to righteously control everybody else. Why? Because the Church always knows what's best and must protect society from itself. To tell them otherwise is somehow, magically, to trample their religious freedom.

The framing of the argument against marriage is always that it is somehow an attack on the institution of marriage, rather than simply a desire for a significant portion of the population to participate in that institution. Cardinal Dolan's warnings against gay marriage are some of the most hyperbolic available, frequently equating it with polygamy and, ironically, sex outside of marriage.

If you look at our pedigree of the faiths represented here this evening, you’ll note that we’ve been cogent in our defense of marriage against a lot of things — frivolous divorce, polygamy, adultery, forced marriages, cohabitation, just to mention a few contemporary threats to marriage.

Contemporary threats? That reads like a laundry list of Old Testament marriage standards. That he does not see the irony!

Cardinal Dolan has a gift for providing a patina of reasonableness to completely irrational arguments. He's smooth. But this time he was caught dead to rights in a lie about policies he authorized. Smoke your way out of that one, babe.

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Mr. Deity on Rights

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I haven't posted one of these in a while but this made me chuckle. It's certainly au courant. I particularly enjoyed the Romney quote at the end. Let's face it. Sometimes the satire just writes itself.

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