A Queer Pilgrim

After following several stories of the collapse, splintering, schism of the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA), The United Methodist Church, Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), it is good to end Pride month with a “feel good” story of a church that is celebrating and moving forward in embracing those of us who are LGBTQIA2S+. The Unitarian Universalist Association’s (UUA) new President is a womanist theologian and ethicist who is a lesbian, the Rev. Sofia Betancourt.  For years, there was criticism within the UUA about it’s hiring practices. The first woman elected to be President was the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray. Rev. Peter Morales is the predecessor to Rev. Betancourt, who was appointed interim President after the brouhaha over the hiring practices regarding people of color in the UUA. About her tenure as President of the UUA, Betancourt told Kathryn Post of the religionnews.com, that her priorities are as follows: “C ommuna...

In seminary, I do not remember any class telling us that the best way to grow a church in terms of numbers was by telling a group of people they were not welcome. When I taught in a seminary, I did not tell my students to be sure certain groups of people were not welcomed. And as a pastor, I do not tell congregations to be sure certain people are not welcome to grow a church.  Why is it, then, that denominations are telling certain groups of people they are not welcome, will not be affirmed, and any church that welcomes such people will be kicked out of the denomination? Last week, I posted a blog on Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) which was going to ask Quest Church in Seattle to leave the denomination. Why? Because they are welcoming and affirming of LGBTQIA2S+ people of faith. I also made a reference to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) which kicked out two prominent churches because there were women in roles of pastoral leadership. Both the ECC and SBC leadership are...

We celebrated our first Pride Sunday at La Mesa Presbyterian Church on Sunday, June 11, 2023. It was the first time that I, as a pastor, celebrated an entire worship service on the theme of Pride. We are a congregation with plenty of LGBTQIA2S+ people and non-LGBTQIA2S+ allies, but it had not been celebrated in worship in this church until I became pastor of the church. And I had never celebrated it before in worship in a PCUSA church, though I did the Pride marches in Portland, OR with the Community of Pilgrims. I wore a black t-shirt that says, “This Pastor Loves You,” in which the word “Pastor” is in rainbow colors. I expressly bought the shirt after I knew I got the position at the church. We had a rainbow flag draped over the Communion table, and also smaller rainbow pendants on the pulpit and lectern. The banners were rainbow banners, too. The day before, on June 10, 2023, there were fourteen members of La Mesa Presbyterian Church who walked with a group of Episcopa...

A first! And not of the good kinds of “firsts.” The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an LGBTQIA2S+ civil rights organization based in Washington, DC, has put out the first “National Emergency” on LGBTQIA2S+ rights in the US. In its 40 year existence, HRC has never put out a “state of emergency” declaration. But the time has come now to do it, because of what Republican state legislatures and Republican governors have been doing around the US. More than 75 anti-LGBTQIA2S+ bills have been signed into law in 2023 alone. This is double the number that were passed in 2022. As reported on the website, joemygod.com, “The sharp rise in anti-LGBTQ+ measures has spawned a dizzying patchwork of discriminatory state laws that have created increasingly hostile and dangerous environments for LGBTQ+ people, prompting HRC today to also issue a national warning and downloadable guidebook for the LGBTIQ+ community--including health and safety resources, a summary of state-by-state la...

David McKenzie and Eve Brennan posted a story on advocate.com about the latest bill that was signed into law in Uganda regarding the treatment of LGBTQIA2S+ people. President Yoweri Museveni signed a bill that included the death penalty for “'aggravated homosexuality,' which includes sex with a minor, having sex while HIV positive, and incest. The bill also criminalizes sex education for the gay community and makes it illegal not to expose what it calls perpetrators of aggravated homosexuality to the police. It calls for ‘rehabilitation’--widely discredited conversion therapy--for gay offenders.” The seeds of this anti-LGBTQIA2S+ bill that were sown and grew into this bill were largely sown by Scott Lively, a well-known US anti-LGBTQIA2S+ pastor and evangelist, who spent years in Uganda and other countries on the African continent, sowing hate. Civil society groups are looking for ways to challenge the law. And President Biden and other world leaders h...

Shua Wilmot and Raegan Zelaya, two students and dorm directors at Houghton University (just southeast of Buffalo, NY and another Christian related institution of higher education of 800 students), just lost their jobs because they put their personal pronoun choice in the signature line on their emails. The reason they put “he/him” for Shua, and “she/her” for Zelaya was because of the peculiarity of their names. But there was a policy at Houghton University that forbids this naming of your personal pronoun choice. The University wanted them to drop the moniker, and the two people refused, which is why they were fired. The University defends itself, saying that no one who is employed by the University can have any "extraneous quotes,” including Bible verses, by their email signatures.  Seven hundred alumni/ae have signed a petition in support of Shua and Zelaya, with probably more to come.  Houghton University was founded in the 19th century, and is connected...

  Growing up in a home with a mom who was a Registered Nurse, RN, and hanging out with many medical doctors in training in various undergraduate and graduate schools in my college career, I was aware of the Hippocratic Oath. The father of medicine, Hippocrates, upheld high standards for treating patients and laid down these rules for all to-be physicians to follow. In short, it was, or is, “First, do no harm.” The longer version of it is here:  https://doctors.practo.com/the-hippocratic-oath-the-original-and-revised-version/ One line I like a lot in the modern version of this Oath (in which people are not having to line up and praise a bunch of Greek gods) is this: Above all, I must not play at God. As a Christian theologian, I think this matters. I have been under care by some doctors and nurses who, I sense, have a Messiah or God complex, forgetting that I was, a) human, and b) had feelings and thoughts which were to be honored and recognized, and that, c) they were a g...