Christ Quits Christianity

Well, it was really only a matter of time:

...the Christ himself has come forward to announce that he is leaving Christianity, effective immediately. The reasoning: The 2008 Republican Platform. Reached for comment at a West Hollywood coffee shop, Christ said that he couldn’t deal with a world that so misinterpreted his words and actions.

I've honestly wondered why it took Christ so long to leave Christianity. The Crusades weren't enough, but the last straw is the Repubs? Well, they do have their own crusade going on these days to strip America of every last shred of dignity and intelligence.

The piece above is worth a full read. Some of my favorite, LOL, passages:

“John McCain has made it clear that he will not speak to or about Jesus Christ until Christ shows him the respect he deserves,” said Davis. “John McCain was a POW and deserves respect. Jesus obviously can’t understand the kind of sacrifice John McCain made.”

And ...

“Seriously, let him go,” said Hannity to co-host Alan Colmes on the popular show “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News. “If he doesn’t have the courage to face up to the Republican platform, how can he ever stand up to Osama bin Laden. This is a partisan attack, plain and simple.”

In response, Colmes vehemently disagreed with Hannity.

“But, but, but … , ” said Colmes.

Again, read the whole thing. It's brilliant.

Blood on Their Hands

Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity, if they had any sense of morality - or souls - should be hanging their heads in shame today - or arrested. They are direct accomplices in the deaths of two decent people. Two people died yesterday because some man twisted by their idiotic worldview that "liberals" are responsible for the sorry state of our Republican run world got himself a gun and opened fire on a group of people who would have welcomed him with open arms.

Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."

Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."

Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

It is their continued language of violence against so-called liberals that put this man over the edge. He could not find a job and he blamed that on liberals - a group of people that has been effectively out of power for the last 8 years. It's not liberals who have shipped off jobs overseas and sought to destroy the middle class. It has not been liberals who cut off this man's food stamps. Liberals came up with this excellent ideas, and the Republicans who are now in charge, cut him off.

This continued ranting about some damn liberal media irks me to no end. Believe me when I say there is NO liberal media. There is CORPORATE media - and by it's nature it's very, very, very conservative. They are in love with John McCain and will do all they can to get him elected because they know their corporate tax lives depend on it. They don't want to pay more taxes under an Obama administration, so they'll fight it tooth and nail. Liberal media my left butt cheek. It does not exist. I worked in that field for 25 years and I know what I'm talking about.

I also know the gospel truth is that Sean Hannity will sleep like a baby tonight, untroubled by this news - simply glad this poor dolt shelled out the dough to buy his book and make him a little bit richer. It's just dead liberals, after all! I worked with Sean at WGST in Atlanta right before he hit the big time. He has no heart. Don't worry about him losing sleep over this. He'll blame the liberals for their own fates. If they were smart, they'd be selfish corporate Republicans too!

::deep breath::

This makes me angry. I know it's not obvious or anything. The violence of the language these right wing bigots spout caused this act. They are directly responsible for the deaths of these two people and the wounding of five others. They should be held responsible.

Odd Moment

Sitting in church yesterday morning, I had an odd and ominous feeling come over me. Service had already begun, we were probably about ten minutes in, when I heard our front door open and close and someone came in. Another late arrival - no big deal. But, just as the sound of the door closing hit me - so did one word: "Gunman."

As I sat in service I realized how easy it would be for someone with bad intentions to just walk in and set in on us. There are two doors to the outside on either side of the sanctuary. Too far for me or the choir to reach in time - there's no place for us to go at the back of the sanctuary.

It stunned me that the thought crossed my mind. I shook it off. Of course, it wasn't a gunman at our church - just someone running late. But, within the same time frame of my thought, a gunman did enter a Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, killing two and wounding several others.

Police are now saying the liberal stance of the church is what set the gunman off. Our church, along with the UU congregation here in Columbia, are probably the most liberal congregations in town. Our church has repeatedly been the target of vandals who have broken our front door windows, broken the fountain on our property, shot out the passenger window of one of our parishoners, and threw a brick through the back window of another.

I didn't read about the attack in Tennessee until late yesterday - well after my own thought about a church gunman crossed my mind. I told a good pagan friend of mine about my experience, and she told me I should continue to pay attention to those feelings, and not shake them off. My gunman premonition (had in the same time period as this actual attack) is evidence of our universal connection to one another, she told me. Somehow, my intuition knew a gunman was going to attack, or was in the process of attacking, kindred spirits - fellow human beings simply seeking to open God's arms to everyone, regardless of human labels or prejudices.

Some days the depth of human hatred stuns me - other days it doesn't. Today it stuns me, simply because after experiencing this deeply empathic moment across a time zone and state lines, I grieve that we cannot feel those moments of universal connection all the time. I grieve that we shake them off as nothing more than odd moments - then go right back to our feelings of disconnection. Being disconnected certainly feels safer - we're not responsible for anyone else when we disconnect. But, I think if we practiced that emphatic connection with all living beings - we would experience the freedom of love. We are responsible for one another. Instead of being afraid of that - and letting that fear fester and turn in to violence - we need to embrace that, heed those feelings of connection and continue to reach out - even if we only receive scorn and violence in return.

I hope this UU congregation can feel that connection to this disaffected gunman and find it in their heart to see their own failings in him, and forgive him.

Pimping My New Book

My book, Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians got a great review from Publisher's Weekly - not something all books get. My sales numbers at Amazon.com improved for a little while.

If you haven't gotten your copy - do so now, please. Help me become a well-fed writer.

Also, check out the official site for the book where I'll be posting all the news that is news (and even some that isn't news) about the book.

Just another &*!#ing politician

I've never had warm, fuzzy feelings for Barack Obama. I never quite understood the fuss about him, but of course, given my contrarian nature, anything wildly popular is immediately suspect in my book. Aside from that, in my gut, I've always had a nagging bad feeling about him - that he's not what he appears to be.

(For full disclosure - in the primary, I had the historic chance to vote for a black man or a woman and I voted for the white guy. John Edwards has always been my first pick - since Kucinich has no chance in hell of ever being nominated.)

Too bad I've been right about Obama all along. I would have loved to have been proven wrong, but it seems Obama is just another &*!#ing politician like the rest of them. He'll say what you want him to say when you stand him up at the podium but when the rubber meets the road, he's just like any other disappointing politician these days, voting for FISA, talking about expanding Bush's idiotic faith based initiatives, backtracking on Iraq, and generally retreating to the middle where all political cowards meet.

The only thing that keeps me in his voting column is the Supreme Court. Despite all my misgivings about this man, I'd still want him picking justices over McCain - who is a complete guarantee of Bush's third term.

I simply can't understand why Obama is pandering to the 29% who still love the president-select. Poll after poll shows that the public is fed up with Bush, his economy, his war and his idiocy. We know we're headed to hell in a hand basket and we want someone who has the cajones to move us in a different direction. Apparently, the "change" Obama touts is just a code word for "more of the same."

Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.

I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. No one of integrity can get nominated as a presidential candidate and that is a sad state of affairs for a once great nation.

Update: For more on how Obama's support of faith based initiatives hurts poor GLBT people, check out Irene Monroe's excellent column here.

In Memory of George Carlin

Carlin was one of the greats, and one of my favorites. Here's one to remember:

"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating...

...and you finish off as an orgasm.

Amen.

Snow in June? Oh, Yeah ...

We're currently relaxing at the condo in Big Sky, Montana. The plane ride? Hated it. Went smoothly, but still hated it. The pilot landed like it was his first landing - very rough, very scary. Hated it.

Montana? Love it! It's beautiful here. Here's the view from the condo.

We're planning horseback riding, a trip to Yellowstone and just doing a lot of nothing. Time is weird here - it seems like the days are as endless as the sky. That can be good and bad. I miss my animals terribly, especially my cat, George, who, I swear is just a little person in a fur coat.

But, I'm enjoying my first vacation in a long time - even though I had to go through the terror of a plane ride to get here. I'm anticipating the terror of the return flight, but in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy myself.

We went to a UCC church in Bozeman yesterday. Very beautiful sanctuary. The preacher was a bit ponderous for me and my vacation mates. He took about 25 minutes to tell us that no act of kindness, mercy or sympathy is ever wasted. There ya go - a sermon without all the odd, out of place illustrations.

So, now we're communing with God at the condo, amazed at some of Her best work.

It's in the 40s here this morning. Probably won't get above 60 degrees. Enjoy your heatwave East Coasters! :)

Back to relax mode ...

How Not to Use Your Faith

When I first moved to South Carolina, I was distressed and amazed at how much religious material - let me clarify, Christian material - there was displayed in places like doctor and dentist offices. After living in Atlanta for many, many years, I never saw such public displays of Christian faith in professional areas. I know that Atlanta is in the South, where proselytizing is akin to breathing, but as the "international city" it prides itself in being, such passive proselytizing in a professional atmosphere would never fly.

At a dermatologist's office several years ago in South Carolina, I saw a derogatory editorial cartoon about gays in the military posted in the waiting room. I finally snapped. When the doctor came in to the office (he was an old codger on the verge of retiring), I commented on the cartoon. I told him, "I find that cartoon in the waiting room offensive. I know many gay and lesbian people who have served this country with integrity and pride and they ought to be able to do it openly."

He grumbled something I couldn't quite understand before shoving a prescription slip in my hand and trundling out of the office. This is the same "Christian" office where I witnessed the rough treatment of an older lady. The receptionist (a sour lady if I ever met one) gave her the HIPPA forms to read and sign. The lady told the woman she couldn't read and the receptionist barked, "I haven't got time to read it for you," and slammed the glass window shut.

I sat down with the woman and read the form to her and helped her understand what she was putting her mark on. It was a stark reminder that though many say, "Lord, Lord," they have not a clue how to behave as a follower of Christ in this world.

I ran across an interesting example of this clueless and cowardly form of public proselytizing over at the Ragan.com site (a site for PR junkies like me). A blog post by Mark Ragan recounts his time in South Carolina and the endless number of, "Have you received Jesus as you personal Lord and Savior?" questions he was asked at inappropriate times.

He presents a video from a St. Louis television reporter, who is interviewing a public officials who shamelessly uses Jesus as a shield to avoid answering some tough questions. Have a look:



That wall of separation between church and state is about as thin as the walls in an old apartment building I used to live in. Sad.

At Least it's Not the Gays Fault This Time

Apparently our economy has gone to hell because of abortions. No, seriously, we're paying more than $4.00 a gallon for a tank of gas, the housing bubble has burst, people are losing their homes and jobs and consumer confidence is lower than Bush's approval rating, but our leaders and their selfish choices have nothing to do with it. Abortions. That's the cause.

This according to John McCain endorser John Hagee:

If you do not accept the blessing of children, and [you] do as America has done, is to curse the children through abortion, you will bring the judgment of God on your society.

The liberal mental midgets protesting for abortion-on-demand are too brain-dead to see that they have brought the judgment of God upon America’s economy. Why are America’s major universities right now recruiting students from abroad? Why? Because we killed ours.

How's that for some "God Damn America"???

Where's the media on this one, calling Hagee "McCain's pastor problem"? Hello? I'm waiting.

Like I've said before, everyone with half a brain understands that abortion isn't the reason the economy is in the toilet. It's the leadership wasting billions on an illegal war and allowing war profiteers to raid the national treasure that has busted the economy. Corporate greed and stagnant wages for workers ... all the choices of those in charge. Abortion has nothing to do with it. Abortion isn't even prohibited in the Bible - show me chapter and verse and prove me wrong, please.

This is why the loonies like Hagee get ignored - everyone knows he's full of shit. But, when Jeremiah Wright speaks the truth about America's ills - our selfish culture of greed and neglect of the poor - he gets trampled. You see, he's speaking the truth and people get pissed when someone speaks truth to power. We roll our eyes when idiots like Hagee make stupid statements, but take up arms when someone questions why we treat the poor and outcast horribly in the home of the free and the land of brave.

So, don't expect the mainstream media to make much of Hagee - they know he's just a nut. Wright is truly dangerous, because he's pointing out the truth of America's sins and it has nothing to do with abortion or gay people.

Go West, Gay Lovers

Time to book that plane ticket to California - where the Supreme Court has opened full marriage rights to gay and lesbian people.

"It's about human dignity. It's about human rights. It's about time in California," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, pumping his fist in the air, told a roaring crowd at City Hall. "As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. It's inevitable. This door's wide open now. It's going to happen, whether you like it or not."

The good news is that California doesn't have residency requirements like Massachusetts, so it's time to book that exorbitant plane ticket and get hitched!

Hopefully the judges won't stay their own order until after the elections in November like the bigots want them to. If they don't, gays and lesbians can get married within the next 30 days. As Massachusetts has proven, gay and lesbian marriage does not harm anyone else's marriage and has not yet brought the downfall of human society. Instead, it has help MA earned the distinction as the state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation. So there, right wing whiners.

This is not a question of "morality" or "sin." It is a question of whether or not in a free society adults can choose who they want to spend the rest of their lives with and share their love and property with. Marriage is a civil contract between two people and should be open to anyone, regardless of the gender mix of the couple in question. This is a matter of law, not religion - and the California court understands that - thank God.

The right wing is screaming about "judicial activism" but the court merely understood that California's constitution demands equality under the law. This is the correct ruling, creating equity for all couples, despite the gender configuration of said couple. Bravo!

The wingnuts will launch their constitutional amendment drive - and we must make sure they do not succeed. Voters defeated such an amendment in Arizona, so it can be done. Let's support California as it seeks to beat back the darkness of bigotry.

Support Equality California.

I wish I was a lesbian

A little Friday afternoon fun:

Contemplating Death

Hey everyone, I've been a bit shaken up today after my partner came home and told me that she almost died in a traffic accident last night. Construction had traffic stopped on the interstate around 10 p.m. last night when a tractor-trailer crested the hill at a high rate of speed heading right for my partner's car. She said the truck slammed on his brakes and fish-tailed down the hill before finally coming to a stop off the road right beside her car.

I held her a little tighter after she told me this - terrified that my night could have been very different with police showing up at my door instead of my love.

I've had trouble letting it go today, running the scene over and over in my head of how devastated I would be today if that trucker had been unable to avoid a collision. Surely she would have died or been seriously injured.

I've said before I'm not afraid to die and I still think that about myself - but what of those I love? I realize I'm terrified of them dying - especially my partner. Not just because my life would be devastated without her, but because of the legal fights that could possibly follow despite our wills, powers of attorney or body disposition papers.

How do you all cope? Have you lost loved ones before?

My partner watched her husband die a few years back and still misses the man she considered her best friend (even though she knew all along she was a lesbian - she still loved him a great deal). I just don't know how I would go on if my partner died suddenly.

Not to be a downer, but this has just been bugging me all day. I can't wait to get home tonight and hug her again and again and again. All we have is the present moment and I want to make all of them with her very special so I don't regret anything if the unthinkable should occur.

Love now, friends, because it's the only time we have to do it.

Hope I die before I get old ... um ...

Well, I don't think this is what Pete Townshend had it mind when he wrote My Generation, but then I remember, Pete could be one of the geezers in this video. It's a hoot. Check the old lady doing the Pete windmill and oh, the destruction at the end!!

It's Log!

Here's a blast from the past. I don't know why, but this song was in my head this morning, so I had to go out and find it.

It's log,
It's log,
It's big, it's heavy, it's wood!



Everyone loves a log ...

Earth Day Sermon

To celebrate Earth Day, I would like to reprise my sermon entitled: Becoming Hafta Farmers

An excerpt:

The Earth is alive, and like any live thing it needs care and tending for it to grow and thrive. We human beings have been falling down on the job - and mainly because we don't truly understand our job. I was taught that human beings have "dominion" over the earth - and when we say "dominion" we mean that we have ultimate power over what happens on the earth. That means we can bend nature to our will through clear cutting forests if we want to - it doesn't matter if we destroy habitats of rare species. We have dominion. That means we can pollute the air just as much as we want to. It doesn't matter that we're raising the temperature of the planet. It doesn't matter that we're polluting at such a pace that we're poisoning ourselves. We have dominion! And besides this isn't our home anyway - we have our true home in heaven. And at this pace we'll see it fairly soon!

Read the whole thing!

Pre-order your copy of Bulletproof Faith today!

Hey everyone, my new book Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians is now available for pre-order. It comes out in mid-September, but it's never too soon to get those orders in.

As GLBT people of faith, we are constantly under assault. Whether we hear "Love the sinner, hate the sin" or it's equivalent, "God Hates Fags!" we are told both in church and society that we are somehow inferior. How can we defend the hope that is within us without losing our cool?

My book helps our community reclaim the spiritual self that criticism from society and religion has led many of us to surrender. Instead of focusing on apologetics or giving advice on how to better debate our opponents, this book is a guide on being Christian and gay - not by having the best apologetic or proof-text but by shoring up the inner life and one's self-esteem as one who is loved by God regardless of what others have to say on the subject. Bulletproof Faith empowers readers to withstand even the most aggressive assaults without fear, doubt, or anger.

Here's what Archbishop Desmond Tutu had to say about the book:

"Gay and lesbian Christians are constantly demoralized and told they are not children of God. In Bulletproof Faith, Chellew-Hodge reassures gays and lesbians that God loves them just as they were created and teaches them how to stand strong, with compassion and gentleness, against those who condemn them."

Amazon is running a discount for those who pre-order the book. It's due out in September from Jossey-Bass. Use this link to order and Whosoever will get a little kickback from Amazon.

http://tinyurl.com/6dt4ln

It's not too early to start planning for a tour to support the release of the book.

I've already set up a reading and book signing in Knoxville, Tennessee for the weekend of October 18-19, thanks to Rev. Ray Neal at MCC Knoxville. I'll be doing a workshop, book signing and preaching that Sunday. I hope you'll join us there.

If you're not close to Knoxville and want me to come to your area, please contact me at editor-at-whosoever.org so we can begin making arrangements now. The cost is simply travel expenses and lodging (I'm always willing to stay with host families to save costs) and a love offering for Whosoever taken up during the workshop or during Sunday service.

Let's spread the word that God's unconditional love covers us all, regardless of sexual orientation. This is Good News that our community is still very hungry to hear.

I look forward to hearing from you and visiting your area soon!

Now, go - pre-order!

New Language, Same Message

It was pointed out to me that Desmond Tutu may be behind the curve in apologizing to gay and lesbian people. (The suggestion was tongue-in-cheek, but let's explore it anyway.) A couple of weeks ago the pastor of a Baptist church in a town where I spent a few years as a child, Sugar Hill, Georgia (about 40 miles north of Atlanta), used his sermon to apologize to everyone from gays and lesbians to pro-choicers.



You can hear the full sermon here, after fast forwarding through some garish praise music:

http://www.fbsh.org/archives.htm

While I applaud the change in tone at the Sugar Hill church, it's clear that their message is the same - gay and lesbian people are sinners who need to repent. This kind of talk from churches is a direct result of the Barna Group research I posted yesterday in the Tutu post. Younger people see the church as homophobic and judgmental. This pastor is doing his best to change the face of evangelical Christians. Good for him.

However, don't be drawn by the sweet words - the underlying message remains the same: God hates fags. I suspect (and please, I'd love to be wrong) that an openly gay couple would still not be welcome in this church and not accepted as a couple. They would love the sinners, but still encourage them to turn from their "sin."

Desmond Tutu, on the other hand, has made a bold and courageous move, not just to change the tone used against GLBT people, but the message as well. Tutu has said before that if God is homophobic, he would not worship that God. For Tutu, God's acceptance of gay and lesbian people *just as they are* is a given. For the church in Sugar Hill? Not so much.

It's nice to hear a softer tone from the evangelicals, but don't be fooled. They haven't changed their stripes. Meet the new evangelicals, same as the old evangelicals.

Tutu to Church: Focus on Real Problems

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is an amazing man. I had the pleasure of briefly meeting him while I attended seminary and he was a guest lecturer at Emory's Candler School of Theology. What a gracious and gentle soul.

It comes as no shock to me that he is a staunch support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. In San Francisco, CA, last night, Tutu apologized to GLBT people on behalf of the church:

In his 30-minute address, Archbishop Tutu said that for his part it was impossible to keep quiet “when people were frequently hounded...vilified, molested and even killed as targets of homophobia...for something they did not choose—their sexual orientation.” In the face of this ongoing persecution, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient praised LGBTI people for being “compassionate, caring, self-sacrificing and refusing to be embittered.” He spoke critically of his Church, apologizing for the way it has ostracized LGBTI people, and for making them feel as if God had made a mistake by creating them to be who they are. “How sad it is,” he said, “That the Church should be so obsessed with this particular issue of human sexuality when God's children are facing massive problems--poverty, disease, corruption, conflict...”

That's the true message to the church - stop obsessing about the sex lives of some human beings on the planet and start worrying about the things that affect all of us. The church is so like society - always ready to pounce on the seemingly salacious and treat it like a dog treats a bone. Sex sells and sadly, the church believes it can only get people's attention by focusing on someone else's sexuality. The church, thanks to Augustine, has never really had a good, honest, cleansing talk about sexuality, so it remains something whispered about, speculated about and demeaned as "dirty" somehow. But, with humans, if it's dirty, then we're extremely interested in hearing about it, dreaming about it, and as Tutu rightly points out, obsessing about it.

It's a shame that the church believes it can only be relevant in the lives of people by titillating them with tales of sex or creating an "us" v. "them" mentality when it comes to GLBT people. The reason the church is falling into irrelevance is just this obsession with sex and condemnation. If the church truly cared about the predicament of humankind and really sought to bring about God's realm in this world it would be hard a work like Tutu, focusing on poverty, disease, corruption, conflict and more.

Christian: Born that Way?

Gay scientists discover the "Christianity gene." Another mystery solved.

Perspective on Rev. Wright

Jeremiah Wright preaches in the prophetic tradition - a tradition that isn't all that popular anymore and is widely understood. Over at AlterNet, there's a great piece that puts Wright and all who dare to pursue prophetic preaching (like Martin Luther King Jr., for example) into proper context. Too bad this piece can't be more widely read:

Now along comes the Wright "controversy" and Barack was forced to confront the issue of race. In doing so, he spoke to us like adults.

Unfortunately, some adults just don't want to have grown up conversation. They want to talk about Wright's "controversial" (prophetic) preaching.

Funny how nobody wants to talk about McCain's relationship with the controversial white preacher John Hagee.

I guess it's asking too much of "Christian" America to notice the huge difference between a preacher steeped in the biblical prophetic tradition and "Christians" like Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. You don't see members of Wright's church going out and putting "hatred and anti-Americanism" into practice by becoming domestic terrorists. Nope. Members of Wright's church just go out and do things like run for president and energize an entire generation of new voters.

You know the world's crazy when hope is confused with hate.

Amen ...