"Bathroom Lovin', Had Me a Bla-ast"

Ew.

Great column this week by Rhonda Chriss Lokeman regarding the Larry Craig mess. She and her female friends have discussed it and agreed that you'd have to look far and wide to find a woman who would solicit (or have) sex in a public restroom. I have to say I've never considered it myself.

So I guess this really isn't about sexual orientation. Or is it just gay men who like a little love in the washroom?

Nah. Actually, researchers have said that a lot of the men hooking up in semi-public venues are actually straight, and looking for a little release with no attachments.

Which means that Senator Craig could very well be telling the truth when he states--with emphasis--that he is "NOT gay."

It's interesting to me that he saved his big boy Senate voice for denying (yet again) that he is a gay man. Shouldn't he be more interested in denying that he solicited extramarital sex in a bathroom?

Or does he believe that the one will follow from the other? As long as people believe that he's not gay, they'll believe that he wasn't soliciting sex in the men's room.

Or worse, they don't really care if he was trying to get a little something in the restroom, they actually only care whether he's gay.

Is being gay really more disturbing than being an adulterer? Or a hypocrite?

We believe that we are justified by God's grace...

Mike Vick apologized yesterday. It was a good apology. It started off well, with Vick apologizing to the NFL Commissioner, his team, and everyone else he lied to when he told them to their faces that he wasn't involved in dogfighting. That apology was needed and expected.

What I appreciated, though, was the apology to the kids out there, and the suggestion that they "use me as an example." He admitted that he "needed to grow up." Yeah, maybe he's stating the obvious. But it's a good message, and one which may actually do some good. So much bad has come out of Michael Vick's behavior over the past few years; I hope some lesson can come out of all of this.

We'll hear about his "fall from grace" for a while now. He'll be referred to as "disgraced." In human terms, those are apt descriptors. But people of faith ought to be careful with them. The third chapter of Romans teaches that being "dis-graced" is an impossibility, "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." God heaps grace on us all, because there would be a lot left over if it only went to those who deserve it.

I believe that yesterday we saw a man who had sinned a whole lot, and fallen remarkably short of God's desires for his life. We saw him lower his head and offer a good apology that can't begin to make up for the harm he has caused and the pain he has inflicted.

And maybe we saw how hard it is to be God--to keep forgiving, to keep taking us back when we are unfaithful, to keep showering grace upon us when we screw up. I'm sure glad God is God and I'm not. I couldn't do it nearly as well.

Are You Feeling SSAD?

Hey--since satire keeps getting me in trouble, how 'bout a little irony? Or borderline irony--you know, kind of like that Alanis Morissette song "Isn't It Ironic?" in which almost nothing she listed was, in fact, actually ironic. "A no smoking sign on your cigarette break" is sad (or maybe not--the life you save could be your own), but not really ironic.

And speaking of sad, have you heard the one about the new disorder affecting 5-10% of the population? It's called Same Sex Attraction Disorder, or SSAD.

I hadn't heard of it either, until very recently. It was all the rage at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly--in certain circles.

It's a recent thing, I guess. Not same sex attraction. That's as old as the hills. But the redefinition of it as a disorder is new. In the early seventies, all of the major psychiatric and psychological associations stopped classifying homosexuality as a disorder.

So guess who is reordering us disordered?

If you said NARTH, take ten dollars from petty cash. If you don't know who NARTH is, take twenty dollars and stop reading now. Go to a movie. You are blessed and I don't want to corrupt you.

Okay, for those who are still reading, NARTH is the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality. NARTH promotes...wait for it...reparative therapy for gay men and lesbians. Members of the Association wear black capes and plastic face masks and duel with light sabers...oh hang on, that's a different group.

NARTH sells the snake oil of "conversion" to disturbed parents and desparate gay and lesbian people who believe that it is impossible to be gay and happy. (snicker snicker)

That's the point: the invention of this new disorder is an in-your-face reminder that those of us who are attracted to our own gender aren't gay, we're ssad. I can't quite figure out who invented SSAD, but if you Google it, the first thing that comes up is NARTH. If you try Wikipedia--which I do, but only for stuff like this--you won't find an entry on SSAD, but you will find a guy named Richard Cohen, who wrote a book in 2001 called Coming Out Straight. In that book, he used the term Same Sex Attraction Disorder. If you want to read about him, go to Wiki yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Cohen
Mr. Cohen is kind of creepy, and I don't want to take too much space on my blog for him, and his "holding therapy."

I just want to know why these folks can't simply accept the fact that a lot of gay and lesbian people are reasonably happy, productive members of society. We're not disordered (at least not because we're gay), and we're not hurting anybody. We make good teachers and soldiers and pastors, and, yes, florists and decorators.

Fix somebody who is broken, would ya?

Reasons I Need to Move, #27

I was about a mile from my home in beautiful suburban Lee's Summit, MO, yesterday when I noticed this bumper sticker on the car in front of me. At first I laughed, because I figured it must be satire--you know, kind of like the "Gay Shame Parade" article from the Onion that I posted, which apparently offended someone anonymous who took it literally, which one ought not to do with satire.

>Other empirical evidence which led me to conclude that the bumper sticker must have been satire: this car had no fewer than eight bumper stickers. The only people in Missouri who have that many bumper stickers, in my limited experience, are other leftist pinko Berkeley types like me.

>Empirical evidence which led me to conclude that the bumper sticker was, in fact, not meant as satire: well, I was in Lee's Summit (most recently made famous as the opening location of the movie Jesus Camp), AND the other bumper stickers all made specific reference to a particular branch of the military, except for the one which said "The Iraq War Is Keeping American Families Safe."

Really? American families are safer because thousands of members of those families are being killed and maimed in Iraq. Not to channel Jon Stewart too heavily, but really?

And you love wiretaps. Really? That's some effusive emotion to be ladling out on a surveillance technique. Whether the technique is invasive, unconstitutional, even immoral, or not, is beside the point. (Though worth considering sometime. Maybe the Congress will get on that in a few years...) But I've got to ask the person in that car in front of me one more time, because I just can't wrap my brain around this: do you really love wiretaps?

I love my wife. I love my dogs. I love my mother and my brother. I love our cat, though she just tolerates me. I've been known to say I love Lake Viking, our other residence in rural northern Missouri, where people are, generally, less right wing than my neighbors in Lee's Summit (see post title).

I've been known to say I love clam spaghetti. Yeah, that's a bit of hyperbole. But I think it pales in comparison to "loving" wiretaps. I think no matter your political persuasion, it should be troubling that people are willing to take the discourse to this level. The level which says "I think my government ought to be allowed to do whatever it wants, as long as it promises that its actions are promoting the general welfare. And I will support my government, most especially its ever-expanding executive branch, with inflammatory rhetoric."

See, 'cause here's the thing. I really don't believe that the person driving that car really "loves" wiretaps. I'm willing to bet that the person driving that car wouldn't know a wiretap if it was right outsider her house, which it very well might be, though I'm sure it is her assumption that the FBI has carefully avoided tapping the lines of any red-blooded American, and is only listening in on terrorist communiques.

I'm also willing to bet that the person driving that car is a good person, with fine values--a parent (it was a big car), a taxpayer, a citizen. I'm willing to bet that she just wants to feel safe, wants her family to be safe, and feels a little bewildered that the safety rug seems to have been pulled out from underneath us. And in the absence of viable courses of action, sometimes you've just got to rely on your government, which is, after all, tasked with the job of keeping us safe.

But who protects us from ourselves? Who protects us from becoming so afraid that we're willing to say we love wiretaps?

I really wish that bumper sticker had been meant as satire.

I LOVE The Onion!

Posted in The Onion Daily Dispatch today: an article entitled "Small Town Holds Annual Gay Shame Parade."

The Onion is a satirical newspaper. Don't read this if you don't have a warped sense of humor like mine. I'd link it, but sometimes their links shift, so I'm just going to copy it (and hope that's not illegal...):

GRAND PLAINS, NE—A tight-knit rural Midwestern farming community commemorated the demonization of homosexuality Sunday with its annual Gay Shame Parade, a three-decade-old tradition that has become a cornerstone of the town's cultural identity.
The second-place float in this year's parade cruises down Grand Plains' picturesque Main Street.

"Every year, the whole town turns out to enjoy Nebraska's famous summer sunshine, sample foods, browse the craft bazaar, and shame homosexuals for their repulsive, decadent behavior," said Frank Mitchell, mayor of Grand Plains, NE and parade marshal. "This year was our biggest turnout yet. Everybody had so much fun ostracizing the gays."
The parade featured the usual assemblage of police cruisers, fire trucks, antique cars, and farm equipment, which local residents had draped in red-white-and-blue banners that read "Burn in the Eternal Flames of Hell!" City Councilman Fred Brandeen, this year's "Jesus," entertained children by making mock finger-wagging gestures of admonishment and passing out buttons bearing the parade's traditional slogan: "NO!" Members of the Grand Plains Area Wives Association followed behind with a 15-foot hand-sewn banner, cosponsored by Jerry's Auto Body, which read: "GPAWA and Jerry's Cringe To Think What You're Putting Your Family Through."
Organized every year by the Grand Plains City Council and a coalition of area churches, the Gay Shame Parade has been an annual event here since 1977, the year that citizens first became aware of gay people's existence.
"To see a whole community rally together like this around a good cause—it's really an inspiration," said Ellen Lundblom, a mother of four enjoying the festivities with her youngest son, first-time reveler Timmy, 3. "If I were a lesbian, this would have really made me feel awful about myself."
"My favorite part was the balloons," Timmy Lundblom said. "They had all different colors of angry frowny-faces on them."
The event got off to a rousing start with the Grand Plains High School Cougars marching band playing such classics as "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Onward, Christian Soldiers." The mood grew palpably more sober during the middle portion of the procession, as members of the Grand Plains Baptist Church marched with folded arms in stony, judgmental silence and stared at the spectators lining the streets as if to ask, "Are you gay?"
The spirit of levity returned, however, toward the parade's finish, which featured balloon giveaways, a float contest, and an appearance by 6-year-olds Christopher Weiland and Courtney Wendt, who were crowned "Junior Mister and Miss Heterosexual" on Saturday. The parade concluded with a group reading of Leviticus 20:13.
After the last bit of confetti fell, spectators praised the parade's highlights, including a float, presented by local Little League team the Tigers that depicts a mother, sitting alone with her head down on a kitchen table, crying. The first-place ribbon went to "Sodom and Gomorrah," a miniature version of the two Biblical cities engulfed in flames. The float's designer, McPhee's Department Store window dresser Bruce Carlson, was not able to accept his prize, however, as he was away visiting an aunt in Lawrence, KS for the weekend.
Despite the pageantry, parade organizers stressed that the event has a serious message.
"Everyone loves a parade," PTA chairwoman Agatha Buell said. "But it's about a lot more than the clowns, the decorations, and those Shriner fellows in their tiny cars. It's about making folks feel sickened by the deviant homosexual lifestyle, like God wants us to."
Spectators couldn't help but be delighted by the parade's surprise finale, when, after dutifully leading the marching band for the entire mile-long parade route, local music teacher Colin Atherton was marched past the county line and told never, ever to return.

Churchwide

I decided not to go to the Churchwide Assembly this year. The Assembly started on Monday, and I've spent the week wishing I was in Chicago with my ECP colleagues and other friends from all over the church. (ECP: Extraordinary Candidacy Project; a roster of Lutheran candidates and ministers who will not pledge allegiance to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's celibacy requirement for gay and lesbian clergy.)

There were good reasons not to go to Churchwide. I can't really afford it, since we made an unexpected trip to San Francisco for a friend's ordination in June. A good part of the Assembly's time will be taken up once again with the topic of "human sexuality" (which is Church Speak for "those gay and lesbian people." Just once I'd love to see the Assembly have a tense, emotional conversation about heterosexual sexual activity.)

It's hard to go to these things. People walk to microphones and offer impassioned pleas to keep openly gay and lesbian candidates from becoming rostered pastors in the denomination we love. It's hard not to take those pleas personally, even though (to my knowledge) none of those people have ever known me, and don't likely know any of us who are serving openly. They probably do know some closeted pastors, though they may not know they do.

Still, I wish I was there. There is a ministry in being present. So I will be present in prayer, and hope that others in my congregation and other congregations across the church are also present in prayer, invoking the Holy Spirit, who is most certainly spending the week in Chicago.

Truth is Beauty

Lindsay Lohan got arrested. You may have been in Outer Mongolia and not heard about it yet. She was driving on a suspended license, with alcohol in her system and cocaine in her pocket.

The cocaine wasn't hers. It belongs to a friend, she says.

Barry Bonds is about to break Hank Aaron's home run record. The steroids in his pocket are something he knows nothing about. All he's ever used is an herbal cream his trainer gave him. Completely legal...unless someone was lying to him...

The Attorney General of the United States was on Capitol Hill again this week. He was called to explain the continued downward spiral in that cabinet department known (with increasing irony) as Justice. He explained nothing, beyond the fact that he apparently can't remember what he had for breakfast. How the man ever passed a bar exam is beyond me.

Okay, it's really not. Because, like virtually everyone else watching his performance (and there is truly no other word for it) before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I didn't believe that he couldn't remember the things he said he couldn't remember.

Just like I don't believe that the cocaine in Lindsay Lohan's pocket belongs to a friend, and that Barry Bonds has never knowingly taken steroids.

In Bonds' case, it explains so much. I was a Big Time Giants Fan when we traded with Pittsburgh to allow Barry to come home to the Bay Area. I remember those first couple of years when my friends and I would marvel at his off-season conditioning. He just kept getting bigger. And we just thought he lifted a lot of weights. (Oh, and pinstripes are slimming, so a Giants uniform made him look bigger.)

Sometimes I long for that naivete. Because it sure seems like we're being lied to on a regular basis, and are becoming conditioned to simply accept it. The fact that Alberto Gonzalez is still the Attorney General is a travesty, but it seems like it's going to stay that way for a while. Just as we will continue an ill-advised, illegal, immoral war, the justification of which changes more than Lindsay Lohan's mug shots.

How Jaded Are We?

Got this quote in an email from Sojourners today:

"Not surprisingly, the poll data showed that white evangelicals were somewhat more permissive toward torture than other religious groups."

This quote is from the New York Times. The Times may be biased. Oh, heck, The Times is most probably biased.

But still, how can it be "not surprising" that people who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ are "somewhat more permissive toward torture." Is it "not surprising" to The New York Times, or to the rest of us?

And if it's not surprising to the rest of us, are we outraged?

Good Week Story

Last week was a good week, though you wouldn't have expected it. On Sunday, Rick, my lifesaver handyperson parishoner, put up the screen for our video projector. The projector is a bit late getting set up, but that is actually by design. We needed to feel out our new worship space in order to know how to set the thing up.

We thought we had it all figured out, but of course we did not. Rick installed the screen, then installed the shelf that he and his wife, Valorie--aka lifesaver #2--had bought. Then we turned on the projector and found that the projection was bigger than the screen. Spilling out on all sides. No matter what we did.

We did measure it; I promise. The projected image measured 66 inches when the projector was held up to where we were planning to mount it. After we got the screen, the image had expanded to some 100 inches, set on the smallest angle.

On to Plan B, which was going to involve some stuff about the ceiling and drilling and I lost track there--an involuntary reaction to despair about the fact that this would probably take a while and I was excited and wanted it done now as in right this minute. Oh, and I don't speak Handyperson.

So Thursday I'm at church and Tom, who takes care of our landlord's property, came in to look at the toilet, which makes a racket like I've never heard, which is not good, since it is more or less in our sanctuary. Tom looks at the new setup and says "every time I'm in here you've changed things around." (This is most certainly true.) Then he asks about the projector (which is actually sitting in the middle of the sanctuary on the bedside table which I liberated from home). I explained that the plan was to mount it on the ceiling, eventually. He says, "You know what you need..." and then some stuff about u-bolts and tightening with screws and electrical boxes and some other stuff I can't remember. Then he says, "I could do it for you." I heard that part.

And the next day, in he came, with some very long bolts, a shelf he spray-painted white, and all of his handyperson equipment, and up went a shelf on the ceiling, an electrical box right next to it to plug in the equipment, and holes so that we can run the cord from the projector along the ceiling to the computer, which now sits on the shelf we put up for the projector.

I offered several times to pay him for his time and materials. He said it was all stuff he had at home, and he did it as a gift for our congregation.

On Sunday, I got to run a little Powerpoint presentation--"Who is my neighbor?" And we had three visitors there to see it.

It was a good week.

"It's Not You, It's Me"

That's what Sprint has said to 1000 customers. Those 1000 people generated 40,000 monthly phone calls to the customer "care" center.

Here's what the letter said:

"Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information," the letter reads. "While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs."
"Therefore after careful consideration, the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement effective July 30, 2007."

Sprint has waived the early termination fee for these folks, and is cancelling their last bills.

Yeah, it's probably a PR disaster, but I like it. People making, on average, forty calls a month to customer care are probably not interested in resolution. They're interested in complaining. If you've ever done customer service work (retail, restaurants, etc.), you've met these folks. They come to your restaurant time and again, complain most of the time, get free food, rinse and repeat. These are the folks who say things like "every time I come here something goes wrong." And as the service professional, you're actually not allowed to make the only logical response to this statement: "Gee, why do you keep coming here, then?"

I think Sprint is doing those folks a favor. They're probably not doing T-Mobile and Verizon a favor, but I guess that's not their concern. Perhaps the complainers will put some positive energy into finding a company that meets their needs.

Maybe Sprint is doing us all a favor, reminding us that complaining about that which cannot be changed is a fruitless effort. There's so much out there we really can change. Better to spend time on those things.

What's in a Name?

The NAACP held a funeral for the "N Word" on Monday in Detroit. I think this is a great thing. It seems like a way to move beyond an era in which people could be tagged with this vicious epithet in an attempt to take their dignity and power.

I think it's a good idea, but I say that from the privileged position of one who has never been subjected to the "N Word" and can't really imagine the totality of its power. Honestly, I really don't deserve a full say in this debate, and neither does any other person who can't really know what it is like to have the baggage of that word heaped upon him or her. Frankly, it's probably rather patronizing for me to say that this is a good thing. But hey, it's my blog, so I get to say what I want. We're talking about a very ugly word, and I think it would be good to bury it deep underground, as long as we don't now think that racism has been eradicated by a symbolic gesture. Sadly, racism is alive and well, and it will take a lot of pine boxes (and education, and dialogue, and changes of mind and heart) to lay it to rest.

This all gets me thinking about another debate in which I do have a stake. I like the word "queer." I find it to be a useful word, when applied in the proper context (in other words, when not hurled out a car window as a slur). It's inclusive, and avoids the alphabet soup of "LGBTQSAetc."

Or is it inclusive? "Queer" seems inclusive to me, because I think of myself as queer. There are a lot of folks who would accept one of the above soup letters, however, and would not ever in a million years call themselves "queer." So it is simultaneously an inclusive and exclusive word, depending again on the context. For many folks, that word is as offensive as the "N Word." This is generational and regional and surely cultural. When I was in Berkeley, I met almost no one who disliked the word "queer." Here in the Heartland, I have met several, and have taken to using the word much less often, so as not to run the risk of offending anyone.

"Queer" is an insider word, at least outside of academia, where "Queer Studies" programs are taking off. It's a word that certain people will get away with using, and others will not. That may be a problem; I don't know.

I actually don't know what to do with the word altogether. Should we bury it? Reclaim it? Use it selectively? Some other option I haven't considered?

Justice is blind, which means it can't see, see?

Q: Why did Scooter Libby lie to the Grand Jury?
A: Because he thought he could get away with it.

Q: How could he think that?
A: Because he was right.

Consider the Appostrophe

Woe is me! I just re-read my "Sortadox" post and noticed yet another missing appostrophe. Ugh! My pride quotient went down for sure.

I have bit...complained for years about our decline in punctuation dexterity. Semi-colons are a big problem. People shouldn't use semi-colons if they don't know what semi-colons do; they should just use a period or a comma.

But the most abused punctuation symbol by far is the lowly appostrophe. Professional signs are made--seemingly every day--with things like "Marys Rib's and Chicken," written on them. Shouldn't Mary--or the professionals who made her sign--know the difference between a possessive noun and a plural noun?

Sure, we all know what that sign means. Yes, I should just relax and go on with my life. But it grate's on my sensibility's.

So it is an exercise in humility to read my own blog and see that something I read through several times has two missing appostrophes. Perhaps now I will be less bit...irritated when Mary makes a mistake. It could happen to anyone.

Boomer's Not a Baby

Boomer Grigsby is going to play fullback for the Chiefs this year.

Perhaps you're thinking "So what?" You may even be thinking "Who the heck is Boomer Grigsby?" Perhaps you are one of the oh-so-unfortunate souls who don't live for football, and who therefore fall into a deep six month depression as soon as the golden rays of summer fade from the sky. (Football is a great cure for that. Seriously. Try it. Then you just have to get from February to April, and there's Easter in there to help.)

Boomer Grigsby is, or was, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs. He has played special teams, mainly, for the last couple of years. (Note to football challenged: The special teams are the prettiest and smartest fellows on the field. Okay, not really. They are the kicking and return squads.) Special teams players aren't on the field a whole lot. They were on the field punting too much last year for the Chiefs, but that's another story.

So Boomer wanted to play more, and he decided to talk to Coach Herm Edwards about switching to fullback, which he has sometimes played on the practice squad. But before he could approach the coach, Edwards came to him to ask if he'd consider moving over to the other side of the ball.

C'mon, admit it--that's a great story. You don't have to be a football fan to do a little "awwww" at that one. Especially if you hear what Boomer says about the switch: "I just wanted to play and help the team, do whatever I could to get out on the field."

That's a great attitude. If you've got an attitude like that, you're probably going to succeed. You may not succeed at the first thing you try. But that's part of life--trying things and finding we're not as good at them as we thought we'd be. Or finding that there are too many roadblocks along the way to success at that particular thing.

It's easy to give up and feel sorry for ourselves when we've given a lot to the pursuit of a particular dream and we come up short. But we can't do that. We've got to go on, to find another avenue, to try something new, to switch to fullback, if that helps.

I'll be praying for Boomer Grigsby this year. Not because I want the Chiefs to be successful--which I do, but I think praying for it would be a bit odd. I'll be praying for Boomer because he has shown courage and fortitude, and it would be nice for those attributes to be rewarded. I suppose they already have been. He's getting to take on a new challenge, and he seems like the type who will consider that reward enough.

Just Something Fun

Your Pride Quotient: 37%

You're a little prideful, but nothing out of the norm. Like everyone, you enjoy attention. But you're also good at sharing the spotlight!

How Much Pride Do You Have?

How about "Sortadox"?

We need some kind of name for the folks who live between a conservative orthodoxy and atheism. New York Times columnist David Brooks suggests that the space in the middle is the land of the "quasi-religious."

Yuck.

You can read his column here.

According to Brooks' definition, Yours Truly--Lutheran pastor, lover of Setting Two in the old green Lutheran Book of Worship--may be "quasi-religious." I don't &#$% think so. Okay, I really only meet one of the criteria for quasi-religiosity, but since the figureheads at the top of the two other categories are the Pope and Christopher Hitchens (author of one of the big anti-religion books on the bestseller list), I feel like a person without a country. I'm most certainly not an atheist like Hitchens, and the current Pope and I are not exactly philosophical soulmates.

Here's David Brooks' definition of the "quasi-religious:"

"Quasi-religious people attend services, but they’re
bored much of the time. They read the Bible, but
find large parts of it odd and irrelevant.
They find themselves inextricably
bound to their faith, but think some of the
people who define it are nuts."

Like I said, I can only check one of those boxes. I'm only bored in church some of the time. I only find small parts of the Bible odd, and "irrelevant" is a word I'd be hard-pressed to apply to scripture. I absolutely do, however, find some of the people who define Christianity to be totally bonkers. But that's more a comment on the media and the public imagination (not mutually exclusive categories, mind you), and whom they allow to "define Christianity." If the bishop of the ELCA, Mark Hanson, got to "define Christianity," life would be good.

Mr. Brooks speaks very highly of the "quasi-religious." He includes in that category Abraham Lincoln, "the Protestants...[who] built Victorian England" and the "Jews...[who] helped shape 20th century American culture."

Okay, so first of all, a lot of the folks who "built Victorian England" were probably Anglican. So they're not really Protestants at all--they live in another middle land that needs its own name. Queen Victoria herself may be excluded by David Brooks' description, which is pretty funny. Though she was German and known to attend Presbyterian services as well as Anglican, so maybe not. I digress, but the point is that a New York Times columnist ought to know that a whole lot of Anglicans don't consider themselves Protestants. At least if he's going to write with assumed authority about religion, that is.

Back to the matter at hand: we need a name for the folks who live in the liminal space between religious absolutism and atheism. I suggest "sortadox" with tongue firmly in cheek, but it's better than "quasi-religious." What we really need is a name that doesn't scream "relativism!"

That's the philosophy those of us in the middle get tarred with by those on the edges. We're just mired in relativism. We think we can pick and choose what stuff we like in the Bible. Or we don't have the guts to question the big propositions of the faith, like the atheists and agnostics do.

In most of our churches, the conservative movement calls itself "confessional," or something close to that. I guess "confessional" is the new "orthodox." They call themselves that not so much because they need a name for their movement. It's because they need a name for ours. "Confessional" is a feat of diction much like "Pro-life." Who in the world wants to oppose a group which calls itself "Pro-life?" Doesn't that make you "Anti-life?" Same principle with the "confessional" groups. If they call themselves "confessional Lutherans"--shall we say--then the rest of the Lutherans--the ones who don't believe that the church will turn into a pillar of salt if it blesses the marriage of two men--those folks are "unconfessional," or "non-confessional," or some other really insulting thing. As if those of us who want the church to err on the side of love have left the foundations of the church in the dust.

Actually, in the Lutheran church, I have to say, with all due humility, that the folks who aren't part of the so-called "confessional" movement, seem to know Lutheran theology a little bit better. At least when it comes to good old biblical hermeneutics (that's a fancy grad school phrase meaning, basically, the method we use to read and interpret the Bible). Lutheran theology teaches that we read scripture through the lens of Christ. Where scripture seems to show us something that opposes the gospel, we are taught that the particular text is not authoritative. What is most authoritative is the witness of Jesus Christ. And I'll argue to my death that he always erred on the side of love (sure, tough love sometimes, but always love, and always inclusion).

The "confessional" folks need to spend a little time with Jesus, I think. And a little less time with Leviticus. Or a little more time with Leviticus, which condemns a whole host of practices (yes, within the Holiness Code, right next to the "lie with a man" stuff). A whole host. Of practices. Which you all are practicing. Every day.

Like hypocrisy, for instance.

That's my quasi-religious take on that.

Check This Out!

Click above and check out a You Tube video on the Giraffe Heroes Project. Thanks to my friend Charlton for sending it. If you prefer to just look at a website, it's www.giraffe.org

We need to find and recognize heroes these days. There are so many people doing amazing things out there in the world. Maybe if we spend more time celebrating them and less time lamenting the mess our government is in and the high price of gasoline, we might just find that we're not in as much trouble as we thought.

Bizarre

We live in a strange world. Fred Phelps (or at least Westboro Baptist Church) picketed Jerry Falwell's funeral.

New and Improved! Gun Control

Apparently there is a new gun control movement sweeping the country. I read it in the paper. A bunch of wacky peace-lovin' fruitcakes. These people have the audacity to suggest (apparently for the first time) that perhaps we don't, in fact, need semi-automatic handguns in our country. Well, ordinary citizens don't need them. The militias invoked by the Second Amendment--police, Swat teams, National Guard--those folks might still need them.

While they're at it, these gun control nuts go way out on a limb to deny that the Second Amendment protects each and every American's right to own any gun he or she chooses and to carry it anywhere he or she damn well wants.

The suggestion that this is a "new" movement in response to the horrific tragedy at Virginia Tech--followed just a week later by a shooting at a mall here in Kansas City--would be laughable, if anything about this could be considered funny. It isn't. The NRA isn't funny. People who would argue for concealed carry rights and armor-piercing bullets and semi-automatic handguns aren't funny. The rising toll of gun violence in our cities and our township and our schools is not funny. None of this is funny. It is sad and tragic.

A lot of folks have been arguing for a long time that we need stronger gun control in this country. Much stronger. In case my sarcasm isn't sharp enough, let me say that I am one of those nutty people. Have been since before last week.

We gun control nuts start talking about gun control when mass murder happens in our country because we think maybe an appeal to emotion will succeed where all other appeals have failed. You know, appeals like reason, sanity, statistical evidence (as a letter writer to the Star pointed out yesterday, the per-capita rate of gun-related deaths in Great Britain, German, Japan, France and Canada is one in 390,000; in the U.S. it is one in 10,000), common sense, civilization, correct interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. There are other appeals, but those will do for now.

We have too many guns in this country. It is too easy to buy a gun in this country. Ordinary citizens (sane and not so much) who aren't actually members of the militias the Constitution protects are able to buy guns they don't need and shouldn't have. Far too many of the "legal" guns fall into the wrong hands. Some of those hands are small. Children are being killed by guns in this country and that shouldn't happen. Ever.

Almost no one in America wants to take guns away from law-abiding sportsmen and sportswomen. That is a straw person argument and the NRA darn well knows it. Almost no one in this country is hunting turkeys and deer with semi-automatic handguns and armor piercing bullets. This isn't about hunting and it isn't about militias. It's about the Cult of Personal Freedom--the idea that we're allowed to do whatever we want because we're Americans and that's why they fought the Revolutionary War after all. I hope it won't be much longer before we all realize what the rest of the world seems to have figured out: that dog won't hunt.