Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 18:57:30 -0400 From: Chris Ambidge Subject: *Integrator* files for 1991 INTEGRATOR, the newsletter of Integrity/Toronto volume 91-2, issue date 1991 02 06 copyright 1991 Integrity/Toronto. The hard-copy version of this newsletter carries the ISSN 0843-574X Integrity/Toronto Box 873 Stn F Toronto ON Canada M4Y 2N9 == contents == [91-2-1] ARE WE BAPTISED IN, OR OUT, OF THE FLESH? by Barbara Lundblad [91-2-2] ST HENRY'S (HOGTOWN) AND EVANGELISING LESGAYS THIS DECADE by Chris Ambidge [91-2-3] LETTERS [91-2-4] OOPS!! / Corrigendum to article 91-1-2, the venue of the conference [91-2-5] ANNUAL MEETING UPDATE ======== [91-2-1] ARE WE BAPTISED IN, OR OUT, OF THE FLESH? by Barbara Lundblad [BARBARA LUNDBLAD is a Lutheran pastor exercising her ministry in New York City. This is the second article excerpted here in *Integrator* from the keynote address that she gave to Lutherans Concerned's *Assembly 88* held in Toronto. Her words were addressed to a Lutheran audience, but are just as applicable to the Anglican Church. Copyright Barbara Lundblad 1988.] Are we baptised in, or out, of the flesh? Does baptism drown the flesh so that the body no longer exists? I sometimes have this image of baptism, of standing in a shower, and you're saying, "wash me, wash me that I may be clean, wash me, wash me", and pretty soon, my whole body is dissolved, and I'm standing there somehow a pure and rarefied spirit. Is that what baptism is, that sort of washing away? If it is that kind of washing away, then how do we live that? I don't even really know how to get out of the shower as a rarefied spirit, so that is a problem. The questions posed about the purification of women in childbirth, we could go through Leviticus also and find similar purification rites particularly related to sexuality. In addition to the uncleanness of leprosy and the uncleanness of touching the dead, the most common reason for uncleanness is something having to do with sex. Menstruation, intercourse, any kind of discharge (always sounds like some kind of battery to me). Now we can see that for an ancient people, this obsession with any kind of body fluids was a natural kind of thing, it wasn't all a bad thing. But also what has happened is this: the "unclean" part of those kind of rituals, the purification, the need to clean them and make them better, to fix them, later on in history got joined up with an understanding of sin as sexuality. We have surely heard this before, but it is so fundamental that there will be no changes in anything in our church or any other until that understanding can be re-formed. That sense of sex as the original sin must simply be rooted out. In these teachings, the fall becomes sexual. I've never understood how eating an apple could be so sexual, but I guess it is whatever turns you on.... This connection where sexuality becomes THE original sin is very deep and it is surely just below the surface in Luther's *Small Catechism*, if not right on the surface itself. I quote: "Baptism signifies that the old Adam in us is to be drowned and destroyed by daily sorrow and repentance, together with all sins and evil lusts". Now let me ask you a question: When you hear the words, "evil lusts", what first comes to mind? [Voice from the audience, "Sex"] Anybody mention economic greed? [Laughter] Just thought I'd ask. Absolutely! This is not Luther's fault, I'm not blaming Luther for this. The words "all our sins and evil lusts" must have just tumbled out on the page, they just went together. And when we do think about evil lusts, we are really first of all thinking about sex, sexual thoughts, sexual *being*. So this linking of the ancient purification rites, the waters which would cleanse one from the uncleanness of something having to do with sex, linking up with that sense of sex as THE sin, surely inform what baptism says to us today. At this point I refer to Carter Heyward, who has done some amazing work looking back on ancient councils of the church. She says "I want to mention briefly the particular church synod or meeting at which for the first time an explicitly anti-sexual code was made, law for western Christians". Please, hear this carefully, because I think it has everything to do with what I think is happening in the Lutheran church right now. "This took place early in the fourth century, 309 to be exact, on the eve of the Constantinian settlement, when the church formally made its peace with the state, and in so doing lost a major dimension of its identity." She's talking about the Council of Elvira, in Spain. "In this council, by establishing sexual codes, the synod meant to define the particular character of Christian life. By setting sexual taboos, the synod meant to create the image of an ascetic, clerical leadership. These texts were of far-reaching import for the history of Christianity." Why did this happen? She gives several reasons, I will read you only two: "First there was the need, especially for clergy, to carve out a new identity, as the old identity, which had put them over against the state, was fading away -- now they were the state. What would define them? Sexual taboos, said this council. Second was the determination on behalf of the clergy to establish themselves as powerful in a new society where the lay people were looking more and more to the leadership of the government." Her point is this, that the church's ordained leadership tightened the sexual reins of the church during a period of confusion and chaos. In effect it was the only control they had. Is it surprising to anybody in this room that the issue of the ordination of gay/lesbian people is probably the most pressing issue in every denomination in the United States? That Methodists speak about the fear of splitting the church, and that if you talk to many Lutherans you will find that same kind of fear? The power of sexual control at a time of chaos [is considerable]. I think that we are, in the culture, in a time when there is a need to tighten things up, and this is exactly where we are doing it. So it is not any surprise that the certification of three openly gay seminarians could cause such uproar in the church. Things threaten to get out of control. Now if baptism is to have any meaning for us on earth, and that is where most of us are living (I allow for other possibilities, but most of us are living here), then it must have something to do with our life in the flesh. I believe that changes in our language and the way we actually talk about the waters of baptism can make a shift for us, so it is true here. Some subtle changes in language can make a very big difference. Let me just use one phrase as an example, but I think that there are many, many others. How often we say something like this: "In spite of who we are, God loves us and offers us the gift of baptism". Agreed? Now that might mean, in spite of my failures, in spite of my broken- ness, in spite of all the things I don't do that I know I really am called to do, in spite of all that, God loves me. But be careful. When every sentence begins with "in spite of who we are", many of us never hear the end of the sentence. Right? What happened with the Lutheran Church of America statement on Sex, Marriage and the Family? "Homosexuals are sinners only inasmuch as all people are sinners". Who ever heard anything after the first three words?? Right? "In spite of", that's what that sentence is like. "Homosexuals are sinners" -- close the book! The rest of the sentence was never heard by people, or at least never believed. What if that sentence had started differently? I'm not saying that the church would be different, but that's what we need to do sometimes; some things which is simply re-working how we speak. Especially how we as Lutherans speak of what is so at our centre, I mean grace. We speak of grace spending most of our time convincing ourselves and others of our need for grace. Which means we have to talk about all of the "in spite of"s in our lives. Study after study has been done of Lutheran people. What do they hear? They hear the things that make them guilty, not the things which set them free! In spite of, in spite of, in spite of. What if we could re-formulate this? I know that I may be on shaky ground here, verging on heresy, but so are we all in here, so that will not be a worry. First of all, I think that we would all agree here that we are not baptised *because* of who we are. We have always known that, right? We are not baptised because we have done certain things. We are not baptised because we are homosexual, or because we are heterosexual. But when I say we are not baptised in spite of who we are, that is really what we have been taught. There are certain ways that I would affirm that to the end. But I wish we could say more than that. I wish we could say "We are baptised AS we are". That is a rather important shift, you see? Like the song that we sing, we are baptised as we are, not only fallen, but part of the wonder of creation. We have so split the Trinity, for all our pride in trinitarian formula, the creative and redemptive have simply been cut apart. We only speak of grace as redemptive, we don't speak of grace as part of God's very creation. Who we are in this room is an act of grace. It seems to me fundamentally different to say we are baptised AS we are. I am not denying that I am a sinful person. But I am not going to deny that I am also a delightful person. I hope that we all know the bottom line here; that is we are not to deny that we are BODY persons. We are baptised as we are, not standing in the shower having dissolved into pure spirit! Baptism does not wash away sexuality. Baptism does not wash away homosexuality. We are baptised as we are. So if we push, and I know people will argue with this, because baptism doesn't lead directly to ordination, but do we at least need to ask this question, "Why should ordination cleanse a person of his/her sexuality? Why?" Why must ordination, certification, or full participation in the Lutheran church demand denial of life in the flesh? We are either baptised as we are, or the waters have dried up, the waters have dried up. ======== [91-2-2] ST HENRY'S (HOGTOWN) AND EVANGELISING LESGAYS THIS DECADE by Chris Ambidge A friend of mine, who goes to a parish I will call St Henry's (Hogtown) was recently having a discussion with his rector. Roger is gay, and while he knows that there are others in the congregation who are also gay, there is no sense of community for them there. Roger feels that St Henry's is positively un-welcoming to gays, and he wants to change that. The discussion with the rector focused on ways to do so. The rector thought that enough was being done. Roger disagreed. The sign outside might say "everyone welcome", and ads appear from time to time in the Toronto dailies, but those aren't specifically aimed to gay/lesbian people. Roger wanted to advertise St Henry's services, and a welcome to lesgay people, in *Xtra!*, the Toronto bi-weekly paper for the lesgay community. Metropolitan Community Church, whose particular (though not exclusive) ministry is to homosexual people, advertises there in every issue -- so there is an established classification for religious groups. The rector looked at a recent copy of *Xtra!* and blanched, because on the facing page to the classified ads for religious services are ads for "masseurs" and "escorts" -- thinly disguised (and sometimes undisguised) ads for male prostitutes. Some people in the parish would be quite distressed by an ad for St Henry's appearing here, he said. (Ads for things less-than-moral appear in the Toronto dailies, too, though not often in the religion pages). The subject wasn't pursued, but I think it should have been. The people who read that section of *Xtra!* are EXACTLY the people the church should be trying to get inside its doors. They are people looking for love, looking for acceptance. They are looking so hard that they are prepared to pay cash for someone to give them fleeting physical contact as a substitute for real, enduring love and acceptance. This is the Decade of Evangelism, and everyone, including St Henry's (Hogtown) should be taking it seriously. Evangelism means getting the message to other human beings that God loves them, and that a church is a reasonable place to find a human face on that acceptance. Evangelism is not wandering the streets buttonholing people and demanding to know if they are saved. Evangelism is not selling Jesus like patent medicine to cure all ones ills, in the way deodorant is supposed to solve social difficulties. As Bishop Finlay said to Synod in November, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. We all go to church because something happens there that we like, that we find is good for us. We go to church to find bread. We are all there because someone else shared that information with us -- another beggar showed us where to find bread. Roger has found a community of God's love at St Henry's, and wants others to know about it. One suspects, though, that other people at the Hogtown parish would rather Roger didn't bring any of THOSE people here to their nice clean parish. They'd rather not know Roger is gay, and they'd MUCH rather that people who consort with prostitutes, to say nothing of homosexuals, didn't come to THEIR church. That attitude doesn't jive with my reading of the gospel. Churches are not (or shouldn't be) private clubs. They are not only for "people like us", they are for all who are looking for the bread of life. Jesus spent a fair amount of time with prostitutes and other social outcasts when on earth, even in the face of a goodly amount of static for doing so. It would behove people who call themselves Christians to remember that. Lesgay people have been actively dis-evangelised by the church. They have been told that they are not welcome. The Decade of Evangelism is an appropriate time to reverse that un-welcome, by whatever means are appropriate and will reach those people. The rector of St Henry's, I know, wants people to come to know the love of Christ. He wants people to realise God's love and acceptance the way he has. He, like Roger and like me, is a beggar who has found bread and who wants to tell other beggars where to find it. I hope that he can guide the people of St Henry's to come to feel that God's acceptance and love is for all of the creation, and not just for "people like us". Does the *"Everyone Welcome" *sign outside St Henry's (Hogtown) really mean what it says? I've disguised the name of Roger's church because it is every parish, and every Christian community that needs to hang out that sign -- and to mean exactly what it says. ======== [91-2-3] LETTERS [Our Epiphany issue has elicited a number of responses. Several people expressed real appreciation for the article *In Search of Inclusive Images, for God and Humans*. The feeling is not unanimous, however. We received a letter from one of our founding members, who said, in part:] I still have a great deal of difficulty with your insistence on "inclusive language" in the liturgy and scriptures. Myself and some of the members think "inclusive language" is totally ridiculous. Everyone knows that Jesus Christ was a man so why cut out all references, removing King, etc. I can understand that some women get annoyed with so many references to "he and Him". Does this make the Virgin Mary into a neuter? I really felt that changing all the well-known carols was to suit a few persons of radical feminist views. You also offend "some of the community" by not allowing non inclusivity. PETER IVESON = = = = = = [In the same issue, we reported the National Executive Committee's decision not to approve a Human Rights document, largely because sexual orientation was listed as a prohibited ground for discrimination. Integrity/Toronto received a copy of a letter sent to the National Church in response to that decision.] Mesdames/Messieurs: It is with a sense of real discouragement that I write to you. For ten years now, on behalf of the whole church, you have been working toward a comprehensive document that will finally make clear the church's full stand on human rights within its own jurisdiction. Now I learn that the document has been shelved, apparently simply because a few uninformed people have rejected the provisions for lesbian and gay people. If Canadian provinces, municipalities, trade unions, political parties and ordinary human beings can set an agenda of respect for ALL persons, gay, straight, native, female and male -- why can't the Canadian church? Or are people -- like some of the Bishops quoted in the debate -- afraid to acknowledge the *imago Dei* in lesbian and gay people? I long for the time when the church will set the pace on human rights issues -- not drag its feet timidly along after the society it is meant to invigorate and redeem. Yours faithfully MAYNE ELLIS [Mayne Ellis is a former President of Integrity/Vancouver] ======== [91-2-4] OOPS!! In our last issue, John Gartshore reported on the Integrity/ Northeast regional conference, and gave the venue as Penn State University campus. It was in fact on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, as an alumnus pointed out to us. John is suitably penitent, and promises to pay closer attention in future (as does his editor, who also should have known better). ======== [91-2-5] ANNUAL MEETING UPDATE For those of you unable to be present at the Annual Meeting on January 23, here are a few highlights from the meeting: Our 1990 income was up substantially from 1989, attributable almost entirely to our gaining Charitable Organisation status and the ability to give Income tax receipts. Donations blossomed from a budgeted $200 to just over $1300. We are saving for General Synod 1992: $500 was put away last year and $1200 is budgeted for this year's reserve. After such a profitable year, we all thought that our treasurer, John Gartshore, should have a chance to repeat the performance. Don Uttley, our secretary, was also re-elected. Joining the continuing members of the executive were Sandy Tipper and Norm Rickaby as co-conveners. While Bonnie Bewley and Chris Ambidge have left the executive after three terms as co-conveners, they will be active in staff positions with Integrity/Toronto: Chris continues to edit *Integrator*, and Bonnie is now mailing list secretary (which is just as well, since she's the only one who can run the software) ======== End of volume 91-2 of Integrator, the newsletter of Integrity/Toronto copyright 1991 Integrity/Toronto comments please to Chris Ambidge, Editor chris.ambidge@utoronto.ca OR Integrity/Toronto Box 873 Stn F Toronto ON Canada M4Y 2N9