In 1994, when the Rev. Katrina D. Foster became pastor of Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bronx, she threw herself into ministering to her small, mostly Caribbean-born congregation. She not only preached to them on Sundays but lived in the neighborhood and showed up to support them in everything from surgeries to legal matters.
But Pastor Foster was keeping a secret from her congregation. She held onto it even after a woman came to live with her in the parsonage, then joined the church choir…
But in 2002, when the woman, Pamela Kallimanis, became pregnant, they knew the time had come. So Pastor Foster sat her congregants down one by one and told them that she and Ms. Kallimanis were partners and were expecting a child.
Not one person openly criticized her, she said. Instead, “they threw us the most wonderfully outrageous baby shower in the side yard next to the church,” she said. “The woman I was most anxious about telling” — the church president — “I thought she was going to leap across the table and hug me.”
Sounds like the kind of acceptance and tolerance these United States used to stand up for.
Now Pastor Foster and her roughly 100 congregants face a new challenge: the possibility that she, along with four other pastors in the New York area and 81 nationwide, could be defrocked in 2009 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The country’s largest Lutheran denomination, it allows openly gay pastors but forbids them from being in same-sex relationships…
“I think we’ve all grown because of her,” said the church president, Emilie Ramdhanie, 61, a Virgin Islands-born social worker. “She’s made us a lot more aware of what it means to be gay and have a full life like anyone else.”…
I think the bigots who clutch their prejudice as some religious commandment – would be just as bigoted within any other philosophical framework. Rationale, excuse – whatever. It still stinks.
Matt Garrett said, >> You can’t just take out a black bible high lighter and blot out scripture every time you disagree with what it says.
No only can you — every Christian and every church tradition does so. All the time.
Including you.
There is TONS of stuff in the bible that you have effectively taken a marker too.
Some we ignore because they are hard: welcoming immigrants is one. Loving our enemies is another.
Others we ignore because they are outdated: head coverings for women, is one. Banning remarried divorcees is another.
I’d include the gay-ban as another one of those “out dated” things.
You guys can discuss your various versions of Bible Thumping. I’m sticking with my Church of the Double Cheese PIZZA, (Northern Indiana Synod).
How to talk out of both sides of your mouth – or at least one side at a time
#36, San Fransisco,
In our Church that is not frowned upon. It is quite common at a service during a football game for everyone to cheer out of one side of their mouth while chewing or holding the delicious Double Cheese PIZZA in the other side.
Long live PIZZA !!!
I’m a little confused by this thread. Is there some perceived hypocrisy here?
This church is simply stating that the sin is in the act, not the desire. This seems relatively self-consistent.
They are a bunch of fucktards for thinking that any act that increases love and joy while not hurting anyone.
The church leadership is also a bunch of fucktards for asking that anyone deny their own natural biological urges for the church, as the Catholic church does, as well.
However, I see nothing about this that is hypocritical. Nor do I see in this an issue as huge as the rampant violence in the name of god, the backward policies that attempt to stop abortion while actually encouraging it, or any of many other silly, stupid, or harmful policies of various flavors of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion. The worst of religious policies is probably ‘be fruitful and multiply’. That one alone has caused tremendous death, destruction, disease, poverty, and starvation.
gregallen, yet there have been many gays that have gotten married and had children, including Lincoln if some historians are to be believed.
[Deleted, duplicate entry. -ed.]
You could make the argument that homosexual sex is forbidden in the Ten Commandments:
1. adultery (extramarital sex — sex outside of marriage) is forbidden in the Ten Commandments
2. Christian marriage is only between a man and a woman
3. therefore, homosexual sex is adultery
If you follow this, you could reasonably see how it would be OK to be homosexual, as long as you did not practice homosexual sex.
The depiction of Christian love as an all-loving free-for-all is wrong, in my opinion. It’s a love free of many conditions, but it’s a tough love that has standards, expectations, and responsibilities attached to it. It’s a love similar to the love you have for yourself, with the understanding that any reasonable and rational person challenges themselves to do better and is unhappy with themselves when they do wrong.
You can’t isolate pieces of a religion and attack them separately, and many people that do so don’t have the interest or capacity to understand the whole system.
You don’t need to be offended by this unless you call yourself a Christian, because you’re not held to the standard. I presume you aspire to some other standard that you’re happy with.
gregallen,
Some of your points I agree with. While not a practising Christian (or anything else) I have been positively inspired by many outwardly religious people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They are great souls and I assume you fall into that group.
I do struggle with prescriptive a priori statements which are accepted as “truth” without critical thought, or even Christian mercy. For example, I cannot blindly accept that my children were born sinners (thieves, murderers, etc) and it’s my job as a parent to teach them right way. I think this is a natural psychological response from an adult who feels badly about mistakes made in the past and is looking for a way to set them right. Also, the logic of saying that “Most of us are born thieves” is equivalent to “Most of us are born charitable” which leads very quickly to a circular argument. The fall back plan when arguing this position is to quote scripture, which doesn’t hold water for me. If God gave me the ability the ability of critical thought and free choice why do I have to abandon it when the going gets tough?
The real problem I have with this type of thinking is that this quickly leads to a nasty conclusion of like Janky-o proposes where this minister (and by inference her congregation) are the moral equivalents of murderers since it’s innate in how they’re born. Don’t even get me going on the twisted logic there but it’s accepted at face value by too many people – because it’s easy and psychologically comforting.
And obviously not all Christians are created equal. Take a look at Mr Mustard and homer arguing over which sect, schism, and splinter group is politically correct. That sort of pompous chauvism must rub you the wrong way.
Personally, before I could take Christianity, or any other organized religion seriously again, I would like to see a little more healthy and positive skepticism towards fundamental positions. BTW, don’t think I’m picking on religion – theoretical physics has gone down an rabbit hole chasing untestable string theories. That has become as political as the SNL church lady.
Things would be alot easier if they just took the Buddhist approach. Clergy are not allowed to have spouses or sex or anything. I never felt that Christian preachers/ministers/etc. should have spouses/families or million dollar homes and such.
And I’ve never been able to understand how a gay person could WANT to be Christian.
>>I never felt that Christian
>>preachers/ministers/etc. should have
>>spouses/families
Why the fuck not? That’s unnatural, dude. Or are you in favor of them fornicating, and bypassing the whole spouse/ family thing?
#38, Uncle Ben,
We believe in enjoying our PIZZA to the fullest extent. The issue of cheese is as personal as is the choice of crust, although our congregation does lean towards the deep dish style.
I might be personally affronted by someone going overboard with an Edam or Gouda. If it brings a smile to their face though, the PIZZA gods have been satisfied and blessed.
QB,
Thanks for the thoughtful and kind response. We religious people don’t get much of that on this blog!
I didn’t mean to get tripped up on the doctrine of original sin. I was just tracking the Lutherin’s logic on this — that not a “born” inclinations are acceptable if acted on.
As for the doctrine of original sin — I’m well-aware that it’s unacceptable to a lot of people. (including many Christians, BTW.)
I, myself, need a theological explanation for evil and suffering. I also need a theology of justice over it.
The “sh*t just happens” explanation gives me no comfort and moral dualism gives me no hope.
More importantly, I find that the Christian explanation and solution for evil allows me to confront my own capacity for damaging others and gives me tools to not act on it.
BTW, I find that most parents have no trouble believing in original sin. It’s the childless ones who think those little darlings are pure!
BTW, here is an interesting article which indicates that babies lie to their parents before they can even talk!
http://tinyurl.com/2jgosh
gregallen (#34), you don’t know me, therefore you have no idea whether I use a black bible highlighter and used it on “TONS of stuff in the bible that you have effectively taken a marker too.” I never said she was sinful, nor going to hell, nor anything of the kind. I never said that because I am commanded to love and not judge. I am merely pointing out that as a leader of a flock, there are some things a pastor should be mindful to AVOID for the sake of the flock. And if she disagrees with scripture on some of those things, then perhaps she should step down.
What she does in her personal life is between her and God.
Greg Allen
That’s interesting research and many cognitive developmental psychologists have found creative and adaptable strategies in infants to get what they want. I see it simply as fascinatng behaviour by a clever species. To call in lying ascribes motivation. To confuse the observation of learning strategies with morality only muddies the waters needlessly.
Children are born with strong personalities – that was a big shock to me. And I also think the human species is capable of great good and evil. I’ve never been convinced that there are simpler, saner explanations for most things we see in the human condititon.
This doesn’t preclude the existence of God or a person’s faith. I could point to neurological studies of mystical experience and conclude that religious revelation is purely chemicals. But personally I think that the universe is far more interesting and complex than most religions portray (or even most physicists for that matter).
In a nutshell, Voltaire said “God created man in his own image, and man promptly returned the favor.”
The Bible says that homosexuality is abomination, period. It also says the same about the eating of shellfish. It says that you should kill your disobedient children in front of your townspeople, and that you should separate your menstruating women from the populace, and a million other horrible things. I’m an atheist, but I htink that if you’re going to believe in a god and its doctrines, you should go whole hog. Take your slaves from the Mexicans among you, but leave the Canadians alone. Or, you could stop sect-shopping and decide to throw the whole book out, since it was obviously pieced together from stuff that a bunch of almost-cave men wrote a long, long time ago.
I decided to reread some of the x bible’s best:
Leviticus 21 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain
[A Public Domain Bible] [KJV at Zondervan] [Zondervan]
Leviticus 21
1And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people:
2But for his kin, that is near unto him, that is, for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother.
3And for his sister a virgin, that is nigh unto him, which hath had no husband; for her may he be defiled.
4But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
5They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
6They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy.
7They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband: for he is holy unto his God.
8Thou shalt sanctify him therefore; for he offereth the bread of thy God: he shall be holy unto thee: for I the LORD, which sanctify you, am holy.
9And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
10And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes;
11Neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother;
12Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.
13And he shall take a wife in her virginity.
14A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.
15Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the LORD do sanctify him.
16And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
17Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
18For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,
19Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,
20Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
21No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.
22He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy.
23Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.
24And Moses told it unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel.
…and just imagine – the just, merciful, loving Creator of the Universe is concerned with these things, which only coïncidentally sound exactly like the sort of things that ignorant, primitive prescientific people would consider important. These piffling human concerns are of great importance to the all-powerful, all-knowing Lord of Creation.
Riiiight. Suuure.
Makes the Flying Spaghetti Monster a veritable paragon of rational good sense by comparison.
#51 – Rance M.
“…it was obviously pieced together from stuff that a bunch of almost-cave men wrote a long, long time ago.”
Obviously indeed – but only to those of us who weren’t brainwashed as children into blindly, naïvely accepting such pathetic, primitive, superstitious bilge.
What really happened according to the Bishop Fusion Version.
Fusion I
1 The Lord looked out and saw nothing. And he was unhappy as he couldn’t find the light switch.
2 So the Lord said “Let there be light” and clapped his hands twice.
3 And there was light. And the light was good
4 The Lord could see for fucking miles. He saw where he parked his chariot.
***
18 Then the Lord said, “Let there be rain”.
19 Then it pissed like hell all fucking day.
20 And the Carpenters union made their workers stay home.
21 And the Iron Workers union made their workers stay home.
22 And the Earth Moving union made their workers stay home.
23 The Lord saw this and was not pleased.
24 So the Lord sent out his workers into the rain and called them “Wetbacks”.
***
Fusion III
35 Then the Lord said unto Moses “Come Fourth”.
36 Then that fucktard Moses came in third.
37 The Lord was mighty displeased with Moses for he had wagered a bundle on the triacta. The Lord was right pissed off. You don’t fuck around with God. He is the father.
38, First the Lord cut off the tips of first born male’s weenies. Then he gave everyone boils and herpes.
39 The Lord in his mighty anger then buried the land in frogs, iguanas, and gecko commercials.
40 Then the Lord made it rain blood. That put a damper on the Gay Pride Day Parade but made the Goths happy.
41The Pharaoh then imported some Nubian Spear Chuckers. They drove their chariots through the streets chucking spears at perceived enemies. And many died from poorly aimed spears.
42 The people screamed unto the Penthouse, “Save us oh Lord from these drive by spear chuckings. For we have done nothing.”
43 Then the Lord finally said unto Moses. “Just get the fuck out of Egypt, asshole. Don’t let the Red Sea get your butt wet on the way out either. I’ll teach you to diss me !!!”
The Lutheran Church, guided by God’s certain Word (e.g., I Cor. 14:34-37, I Tim. 2:11-12, Gen. 3:16-17) and the clear understanding and teaching of the Early Church (e.g., The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles [c. 380 A.D.], Didascalia Apostolorum [c. 245 A.D.], The Council of Nicea, Canon XIX [325 A.D.], The Council of Laodicea, Canons XI & XLIV [343-381 A.D.], The Council of Quinisext, Canon LXX [692 A.D.]), rejects the innovation of female clergy.
“For this is one of the ignorant practices of Gentile atheism, to ordain women priests to the female deities, not one of the constitutions of Christ” (The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Ante-Nicene Fathers,” Vol. VII, pg. 429).
“Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church . . . the things I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.”
I Cor. 14:34-35, 37
With the Church Catholic, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther, TRUE Lutherans affirm that “children, women, and other persons are not qualified for this office, even though they are able to hear God’s Word, to receive Baptism, the Sacrament, absolution, and are also true, holy Christians . . . Even nature and God’s creation makes this distinction, implying that women (much less children or fools) cannot and shall not occupy positions of sovereignty, as experience also suggests and as Moses says in Genesis 3[:16], ‘You shall be subject to man.’ The Gospel, however, does not abrogate this natural law, but confirms it as the ordinance and creation of God” (Dr. Martin Luther).
So, Kartrina Foster may consider herself a “pastor,” but God and Lutherans know better!
>>So, Kartrina Foster may consider herself a
>>“pastor,” but God and Lutherans know better!
Gosh. That “god” sounds like a real asshole.
Right, you atheist bastard!
Now, who are you and what have you done with our Mister Mustard? 🙂
I’m a southern baptist lesbian, ie self-loather, but not really.
I have not come to a conclusion of a biblical homosexual relationship but I do know what Jesus said of marriage.
When asked if it would be better to be a eunich than married with a possibility of divorce. The response was typical of Jesus “What does the law say?” Moses had made them a law b\c they could not keep God’s law. Jesus points this outt to them with one of many verses used to condemn homosexuality. For this reason God made them man and woman that they will leave their family and become one flesh, what God has brought together let no man seperate.” that’s where we usually hear the end BUT Jesus kept teaching. It basically said that If a man or woman dicorces and remarries, they live in adultry is they consumate that second relationship (I assume even the best christians on their 2nd marriage have consumated it). Paul lists adultry everytime time he mentions homosexuality (the debate of the meaning of the original greek aside…let’s go fundemental for now). Why the push to hinder homosexuals and not adulterers? With the divorce rate in this country why are we wanting to hinder loving committed monogamous relationships? What if these relationships show a real Jesus to someone that’s never seen Him? The bible says the blind can’t lead the blind, she’s led her flock, I think we can deduct that she is not blind in the scripture and b\c of her commitments to Christ and her partner, she has been blessed and affirmed by God.
Oh, I’m right here, promulgating the same kettle of ghoti as always, THC.
I have always felt that the “god” of these nincompoops (or more accurately, the delusional nincompoops themselves who feel that God monitors their bedrooms for naughtiness and tells them to start wars) was an asshole.
Please don’t confuse the holy-rolling, bible-thumping, tongue-speaking, snake-handling, faith-healing, homophobic, xenophobic, hypocritical, hatemongering, narrow-minded, meth and man-ass loving cock knockers at the mega-church pulpits with my own spiritual beliefs. And I won’t confuse yours with Pol Pot, Stalin, or The Chairman (Mao). Okie doke?
Mister mus”TARD” – GLBT Banner carrier, etc.
If you don’t agree with mrs or mr. mus”TARD” heshe will give you a nice incoherent rant why you suck and he is superior to you! So let MR. Mus”TARD” foam at the mouth. Some day he will choke to death on his own bondage leather!
Many resources you probably won’t have all you’re searching for.