Very well written, steronz.
I’m not entirely sure that focusing on the Catholic Church’s declining membership is the way to go. The reason being that it is well known that liberal mainline churches (the ones most accepting of LGBTQ individuals) are seeing our memberships decline incredibly fast - the Episcopalian Church, for instance, is minuscule at this point (my own ELCA has had a more gradual decline, but decline nonetheless). The more conservative churches, mostly Evangelical, are the ones that have most retained membership.
The ‘adapting to the culture’ may have been a step too far as well, depending on the congregation and the pastor. To more conservative churches that makes those pastors and congregants very, very defensive (ie, God is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow so adapting to the culture is selling out God mentality).
Anyways, the personal touches in the email are very good. Hopefully a conversation develops.
Rats, I’d assumed it was the other way around but I didn’t do any research. Must be the liberal bubble I live in.
There’s certainly a lot more people who initially will leave the church if he comes out in favor of gays than against them, but I’m hoping he thinks about what’s best in the long run, even though I may end up being wrong.
Yeah, I took a gamble there. I honestly don’t know what his views are, I know there’s creationists in the church but I don’t think he is one. I wouldn’t know because he doesn’t make it a point to talk about things like that. The whole church is basically a weekly self-help seminar, how to be happy with Jesus and whatnot. It’s generic Christian, I’d call it evangelical but the only message seems to be Jesus and love, very light on details.
Thanks for the feedback.
I think you wrote a great letter.
Yeah, the most annoying thing is the conservative Christians who like to taunt liberal Christians with them - “see what selling out to the culture gets you”! Basically it allows them to feel secure that by denying rights that they are doing God’s work, while the liberal churches, by selling out are showcasing what a failed idea that is.
Honestly, it’d be a much easier argument if folks were leaving the conservative churches in droves over the issue.
Hmmm… I think the culture thing may not be a fatal mistake if he comes back at you and wants to discuss it (by saying God is the same, etc, etc). Evangelical churches are generally receptive to the idea that the Holy Spirit continues to work in the world - can make the argument not that the church should conform to the culture (after all the culture is ridiculously materialistic), but that it appears that the Holy Spirit is moving in these areas.
But I hope you touched a chord with the pastor and allowed the pastor to pursue a dialogue (that’s really how things change)!
Yeah, part of the problem is that it’s something of an empty threat on my part. The church is like your racist uncle. He says shit that you don’t agree with but you’re not going to raise a stink at Thanksgiving over it. Which is to say, it would make my wife absolutely livid if he came down against homosexuality in a sermon, but she doesn’t really expect anything different from a Christian church so should we just bottle up her anger and hope that they’d all change their minds later.
This is perfect, thank you. I’ll keep it in my back pocket.
Why do you give a shit?
You fail to understand that someone who has studied the Bible and preached from it for a number of years, will dismiss an Atheist (you), and your argument, as an agent of Satan. Such behavior is clearly predicted in the Bible and you’re playing right into it. Your reading of the mere verses and extrapolating pointless meanings from is a tool that they are not unaware of.
IE, you’re wasting your time and effort and you’ll end up being placed on his “get thee away from me Satan” list.
Eh… there may be an ELCA (or TEC or PCUSA) church in your neck of the woods that may indicate something different on the issue that may make your wife more comfortable ;).
Yeah, but that’s someone else’s uncle. 
Agreed. Very nicely done.
That’s not typically how Catholics operate.
Matthew 19:4-5.
It was in the context of talking about divorce, and Jesus goes on to say that not everyone can or should get married.
To be fair, Jesus then goes on to say that this teaching is not meant for everyone, which is why many churches accept divorce, albeit reluctantly as less than the ideal.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, some time has passed and there’s been some wishy-washy sermons but nothing concrete yet. We’ve finally made plans to sit down and talk over breakfast next week. I’ll update then. I don’t plan on talking much, I’d like to listen to his thoughts since I already wrote down mine, we’ll see how it goes.
Maybe wishy washy IS his strategy!
(warning: really long and mostly boring update, written in notepad and not proofread)
I’ll just go through this chronologically, because this has become a big mess. I sat down with the pastor for breakfast and I listened to him ramble through some seemingly disjointed thoughts. First, he talked about how he thinks the world is hyper-sexualized, and he told me some anecdotes that made me realize that he just lumps homosexuality in with pre/extra-marital sex, porn, and salacious advertising that he feels causes people strife. Like, he’s not some big gay hater but he clearly feels that gay people shouldn’t succumb to their gay temptations. He confided in me that he didn’t actually care about the legal issue of gay marriage, and has told that to a few people in the church who have directly asked him. He insisted that he wasn’t being pressured into giving a sermon on homosexuality like I was told. Lastly we rehashed my letter a bit, but the conversation was all over the place and I don’t really feel like I did any good. I left feeling disappointed in myself.
Fast forward a bit, I’m drilling over the weekend so I’m not at church but my wife calls me over lunch in tears. It seems that he went ahead and gave his sermon where, in her terms, he said that he was disgusted by a gay person and that he marriage was a sacrament between one man and one woman, at which point the congregation erupted into applause and she stormed out to cry in the lobby. She takes this issue very personally for some reason and is willing to die on this hill. She told me she was done with the church, that she was going to quit all of her positions and stop volunteering there. Being a good husband I consoled her and supported her decision, but being the cynical asshole that I am I encouraged her not to do anything until the recording was made public and we could listen through the whole thing again.
Yesterday I listened to the sermon on the way into work and I found it to be unlike what was described. He started out with a story from 40 years ago that I’d heard over breakfast, about member of his church who confided in him that he was having affairs with both dudes and chicks. He said he was disgusted when he heard about the infidelity, and he said he was uncomfortable when the guy gave him a hug after his confession. I think he told this story simply as an example of someone who was very troubled by sexual temptation; when I heard it, I told him that I didn’t see what the sex had to do with it when the real problem was the infidelity, but I’m not sure that meant anything to him. In front of the church, though, it just wasn’t framed particularly well. He wanted to make the point that people struggle with temptation and try to fill their longing with sex instead of with God, but the problem (IMO) is that he didn’t tell the story from the perspective of his bisexual friend, he told it from his own perspective; how he was uncomfortable and awkward and didn’t know what to say to this guy.
Anyway, he then moved on to the gay marriage thing. He said that even though he didn’t agree with the SCOTUS decision about gay marriage, it didn’t matter what the government did because Christian marriage was different (one man, one woman, cue applause as described). And at this point, it’s actually a bit heartbreaking, because he pauses after the applause, lets out an exasperated sigh, and then continues to pause while (presumably) watching my wife storm out of the church. He makes a plea for people to hear him out before they get too excited, with a lot of emotion in his voice… is that a plea to my wife? I’m not sure. I think so. I genuinely think he felt bad at this point. He went on to say Christians true power is not political but is instead borne of their compassion.
Lastly he mentioned a book he’d read about a gay Christian guy who’d decided to remain celibate in order to comply with the bible. He mentioned the loneliness this man had felt, not being able to share his love with a partner, and then he did something interesting. He expanded this to all of the single people in the congregation, and I know exactly the people he was talking to. The overweight, unattractive, chronically and terminally single people who spend a lot of time volunteering at the church because they have a lot of free time. He apologized to them for not spending enough time talking about how they can share in God’s love, because they spend so much time listening to how marriage is a conduit for that.
A lot of his sermons make a lot more sense to me if I know the backstory, whereas when I don’t know what’s been on his mind lately they just sound like rambling messes. So I sat down with my wife last night and listened to this thing line by line to discuss it with her, and here’s what I heard. I heard a directive not to interfere with the legal battle over gay marriage (not that it matters at this point, but better late than never), and I heard a message of hope directed to all of the unmarriagables, which I think includes any gay people that might have been there, that some purpose or happiness can still be found in a life of celibacy.
This last point is especially interesting to me if I interpreted it correctly because one of the key points of my letter from a few weeks ago was that he needs to be mindful of the harm his messages can have on impressionable gay people who might be there. I’d like to think that I had some effect on him, and that maybe he reflected on that and tailored part of his sermon directly to those folks, which, yes, was reasonably expanded to all single people. I told my wife that there’s a distinct possibility that this was actually a fairly progressive sermon by conservative Christian standards.
Now, it’s still a shit message; “It’s ok to be gay as long as you don’t touch genitals” is one of the many BS interim solutions on the path to enlightenment, and it’s a form of the expected “hate the sin, love the sinner” garbage (which he thankfully didn’t come out and say). And saying that gay people should be allowed to get legally married as long as they don’t dare step foot in a Christian church is still the sort of divisive nonsense that needs to be stamped out. And, sure, I would be pretty happy if my wife left this place and never looked back.
But I feel like there’s something to work with here, at least. More to follow I’m sure, I’ve got another breakfast scheduled and I don’t know what my wife plans to do anymore.
Thanks for the update, I always appreciate that. Your wife sounds like a real nice lady.
Since your wife feels so strongly about this issue, it seems like the obvious solution would be to find a church that is more liberal on the gay issue.
Yeah, thank you for the update. It seems like this pastor is in the position of many before him, where he’s trying to do the right thing, but is struggling between what he’s been taught and where he feels God is leading him through the dictates of his conscience. Many pastors I know that have spoken in the way that this pastor is speaking come around to affirming that God is on the side of LGBTQ people, even in their sexual relations. He is just trying to work it out.
I think you helped, btw. So well done to you. My prayers are with you and your wife as you, hopefully, continue this journey. I don’t want to tell you what you should do, but I think your wife staying in the congregation and gently pushing for more acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality will do quite a bit of good. People will look at your wife and say how she is someone who is dedicated to her church and to God and she believes in equality so maybe there is something to it - it happens, I’ve seen it.
That’s still on the table, there are 3 in our area that are known to be gay friendly (one’s a Unitarian church) and she wants to try them all out in the next few weeks. However, she’s made a lot of friends over the last 6 years there that she won’t see as much, and a couple of them who are like-minded are encouraging her to stay so that she can enact change from within.
You can’t win. Pastors of most religions are people who may have the mental capacity to not be retarded, but they have willingly chosen to believe utter bullshit because the bullshit says if they believe it, good things will happen. Someone like this can’t be reached with logic, reason, or knowledge, if it disagrees with the bullshit malware loaded into their mind.
So, it’s a waste of time. Just tell him he’s a dumbass and to get a real job and stay home.