TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS: Trash & Treasures Sale

Broadway Church has an annual Trash and Treasures sale to benefit us and to be a service/outreach to the Westport community.
What we are currently needing are items donated to the church for the sale. We take most things that are in good condition--clothes, housewares, small furniture, etc. A letter from the church giving you credit for a tax donation is available upon request.
Call the church office to schedule a time to drop off the items. 816-561-3274.

SPIRITUAL MUSINGS: Faces of Jesus Gallery

Bill Tammeus, the Kansas City Star "Faith Matters" blogger, toured the Faces of Jesus gallery located in Broadway Church in March.
His write-up regarding the gallery can be read on his blog: http://billtammeus.typepad.com Go to the March Archives, scroll to the bottom, click on "next" and scroll until you come to The Faces of Jesus 3-10-09.

Or to avoid all that scrolling click here.

SPIRITUAL MUSINGS: June Teaching Schedule

May 31  Surprised By Joy Part I David Hunker
June 7  Surprised By Joy Part II


Marcia Fleischman begins a new series:

Four Points on the Transformative Path  
June 14   Love
June 21    Compassion
June 28     Equanimity
July 5    Joy

Services begin at 10 a.m.

SPIRITUAL MUSICINGS: This makes you feel good!!

Spiritual MUSINGS: Christianity and Homosexuality-the major issue of our time

An e-mail from bgloverhic@hotmail.com

It is clear that all of the problems homosexual Americans have in gaining equal/civil rights come directly from religion-all religions.

So in most cases thinking homosexuals have left religion-since "religion" left/rejects them. But there are those who do not leave their religion. And so there is a 'conflict" in the community/movement in how to deal with the opposition coming from religious institutions and people.

It is time that homosexuals stop doing to each other what bigots in religions have done to us-refuse to listen to other views, possible methods/tactics.

A resource to start this dialogue is found in such a book as Christianity and Homosexuality-some Seventh Day Adventists perspectives, edited by David Ferguson, Fritz Guy and David Larson, published in 2008 by Adventist Forum, in Roseville, California.

The problem, as usual, is getting such an excellent tool to the very people who need it-not only members of the Seventh day Adventist Church, but all people dealing with religious issues. For while there are a few small sections that deal with specifically Seventh Day Adventist issues, over 90% of this book has material-facts and views- that are not only useful to everyone, but in a few cases have not seen print anywhere else.

Since religious problems are a personal issue, the first section is from personal experience as a glbt Adventist, and most of the writers came from a deep SDA background.

Then there is a remarkably good "history" of the biomedical professions in dealing with homosexuality. The major people are covered, such as Hooker, Kinsey, and Bergler and Bieber, etc. Then there is the behavioral aspect, sociology etc. Then a scriptural discussion, overwhelming in a sense, and as is later pointed out, irrelevant to most people since logic is not a good argument to people who have a fixed view, pro or con. Then there is the question of how the church should handle the issue, how it should act over making laws-a very special issue for SDA people since the church has suffered greatly as a church that worships on Saturday and thus its members have been punished for not being like "normal" Christians.

While some homosexuals will not understand the homosexuals who insist on staying in their church, there is a good thought presented, some of us are incurably homosexual and incurably religious.

The book is mainly a product of the lgbt group of SDA members, Seventh Day Adventist Kinship International. They have been active since the1970, incorporating as a group in 1981, and later had to fight a legal battle with the church over the use of the church name, which they won.

A type of thinking toward the Bible and history is called "present truth" which means having beliefs that are based on study and revelation as well as word for word use of the Bible.

There can be no doubt, as is covered in the book, that the behavior of the church has harmed young people. A good use for the book is to show to young people that there have been other SDA people who have overcome the terrible injustice of the church.

As an aside, I thought the issue of having a partner was handled well when it is said that if you can't find a good Adventist partner, it is better to have a good Methodist than settle for a bad Adventist.

One problem I have with the coverage, which is excellent on how the world has looked at homosexuality, is the complete failure, with only the usual exception, to acknowledge that the advance made in this area has been the result of the civil rights movement for homosexual citizens started mainly in Southern California in 1950 with early Mattachine, moving onward with ONE. Inc/Homosexual Information Center, later Mattachine, the Daughters of Bilits, SIR, etc. It is hard to understand why all of the writers seem to ignore or not know of this history and only think this movement started as virgin birth at Stonewall in 1969-it will not make those people happy to know that the one mention calls it a riot, since those there constantly point out that it was a revolution, a big difference.

This is relevant since there might not have been a Dr. (Evelyn) Hooker, or even a good Dr. (Alfred) Kinsey had there not been the help of Mattachine and ONE. Yet their work is presented in a good timeline of events and people in the long procession toward today.

The writers do accept the relationship among the various civil rights movements-black, women, etc. So it is clear that the people, who then and now rejected homosexuals, also rejected blacks, poor, etc. (Which again makes it hard to understand why so many blacks stayed in the church that supported slavery, or women stayed as major supporters in a church that kept them as second-class members, and also why homosexuals stay.

The book discusses the ex-gay movement, especially how the church accepted a fraud, Colin Cook, and it also points out the fact that, as some relatives kept saying to those who came out as gay, that-you know what the Bible says, and you know the devil knows how to use it, and that applies to our movement, which seems to worry about letting our work be known-in both cases the fact is that "Satan knows the Bible better than we do" and our enemies know what is going on in our movement faster than we do.

The ideas come forth that having companionship is important, both as a support group and as a partner, and thus comes up the issue faced in the very first public discussion of gay marriage, in ONE Magazine in 1953- it may lead to an idea that there are good/moral homosexuals, who are monogamous, and the rest who are bad and NOT monogamous.

The point is made that giving long factual arguments does not always work-and I want to say people should have read this issue a long time ago, in such books as In Defense of Homosexuality, by R.O.D.Benson. Logic doesn't work with bigots or fanatics. And the more "religious" someone is, the more judgmental-an example being that relatives often constantly harassed a person who said he or she was homosexual.

Another aside, some of the people writing in this book should be the type of guests Oprah has, and not all the suddenly outed celebrities, who have never suffered the loss not only of a job, but of a family, church, etc.

One of the better chapters is by the mother of a gay son. She covers all the usual stereotypes and dismisses them, and gives a list of resources.

I also found it interesting to know that the daughter of H.M.S.Richards, a radio preacher, has two gay children. So, being a leader of a church does not mean your children will not be homosexual. (I had listened to him, but don't recall him discussing this issue.)

In a list after each chapter there are resources and references, discussion suggestions, and I see some, such as Wayne Bensen, and wonder if he and others have seen this book.

An issue is raised by one writer about wondering if the church should be encouraged to start discussing homosexuality. At first thought the answer today would be no since it would be a negative one. That is like what Don Slater and ONE said about having sex courses in school-don't, as none of them would allow the homosexual viewpoint, so it would be more harmful, and of course we see- think of the daughter of the governor of Alaska- that abstinence only classes have proved worthless.

I don't recall hearing before a term used, but it is used wisely. It seems in years past many people were classed as social degenerates-meaning those who were not white men mostly-and that was racism. Slavery, anti-Semitism, anti-homosexual, anti-poor, etc. Medicine often did not correct this anti-human view, and the writing makes it clear that while Freud did not consider homosexuality a problem, later Jewish physicians did and often caused harm, and the problem was that their views were not based on medicine, or research, but on their religion, and they often tried to prove that Jewish doctors were just as good as none-Jewish. Only later did sociologists, etc understand that it is not homosexuals who are ill, but society. And it is to the shame of what should be a great medical school- Loma Linda- that works to make people healthy, that it would use medicine to harm homosexuals. And like too many medical schools, a person could graduate without ever having talked about homosexuality.

In this regard, the change in the view of the psychiatrists and psychologists is discussed, and it is pointed out that it was NOT politics that made them change their views, and in fact it was politics that had made homosexuality an illness in the first place.

The point is made that in medicine the issue of homosexuality should not be a theological or moral issue. It is past time to allow prejudice to become "evidence." And no matter what the view a school cannot allow bullies to harm a child, and the schools must be attacked legally if they do.

In the discussion of "change" it is pointed out that if someone claims no longer is homosexual, the claim is disproved when it is admitted that when they have sex in a dream, it is still homosexual.

The church claims to be a caring church, but it turns out on this subject to be like President Bush's compassionate conservatism-nonexistent.

A question being asked today is where in a church's priorities is the issue of homosexuality. This church has spent much money on Colin Cook and his Homosexuals Anonymous and Quest, and lately against gay marriage. This is in direct violation of the history of the church, which suffered greatly from laws against it. It promoted separation of church and state, as of course did early Baptists.

This church often talked about freedom. Yet has fought gay marriage. And much of the religious discussion seems to deal with Paul-strange that Christians ignore Jesus and push Paul. If the church is not ready for gay marriage, the church may not be ready for Jesus. Certainly the early religious practiced incest and polygamy, and no one talks about David and Jonathan.

But the worst sin of this church is that it is not using these wonderful resources, these fine men and women who seek to join and serve.

Certain phrases stand out-the gospel is first, the law is second. We can be "correct" and be wrong. And the closing pages go directly to what seems irrelevant, but is pure Jesus. Rethink what is said in the story of the Good Samaritan-lawyers and preachers passed the hurt man by, the outsider did the right thing. Others would seek to call a conference to deal with the generic issue of criminals, set up a committee, find any excuse, but talk rather than act and take responsibility.

And then finally there is the return of the prodigal Son. He is given equality, which doesn't make the son who stayed happy.

The church today, has to face reality-if Ellen White could allow members to accept racial segregation if they lived in the south, and not try to end prayer in school, then it is past time for the church to deal with the fact that a Bible that accepted slavery is not a Bible that should be used to make homosexuals outcasts, and the future of our nation will not have a place for a church that is less Christ-like than the government.

This book is almost a one-stop history of all issues of homosexuality. Every library should have it, and every young person should be able to read it. It gives no false hopes, but it gives an honest view of the past and present and perhaps the future, and considering the world of a President Obama, that is a good start.

SPIRITUAL MUSINGS - A New Version of Christianity

A New Version of Christianity.

Yesterday I read some of what Bruce Sterling writes about needing a new version of the Green movement. Some of his thoughts grabbed me as applying directly to the Christian movement also.

He says, concerning today’s environmental movement, “Civil society does not respond at all well to moralistic scolding.” I agree. The old moralistic variety of Christianity does not work, either. Reasonable people do not respond to the church’s moralisms of the past. Moralisms are those fussy, sex-focused, rulesy, pronouncements from church clerics who don’t seem to know the difference between the fresh wind of the Spirit and an institutional fart. Jesus’ ethical guidelines were quite clean, fresh, and simple – If it’s loving do it. If it’s not loving, don’t do it.

He continues with, “This can’t be one of these diffuse, anything-goes, eclectic, postmodern things. Forget about that, that’s over, that’s yesterday. It’s got to be a narrow, doctrinaire, high-velocity movement. Inventive, not eclectic. New, not cut-and-pasted from the debris of past trends.”

The postmodern version of Christianity has brought some good things, but it is not enough. It is diffuse, anything-goes, and eclectic, considering that the essence of being progressive. Postmodern Christianity drifts into New Age eclecticism. Let’s take a little bit of this religion, a little bit of that, a little bit of all religions, blend it together, and call it the new spirituality. After all, we want to be inclusive. It considers focusing on Jesus to be narrow and doctrinaire. But that is exactly what we need. Being all things to all people means that we are two miles wide and two inches deep. I find that Jesus gives me that “narrow, high velocity” path that this new age now needs. Give me those high velocity rapids that cram a lazy river into a rushing torrent of heady, white water rafting.

He writes, “About abundance of clean power and clean goods and clean products, not conservative of dirty power and dirty goods and dirty products. Explosive, not thrifty. Expansive, not niggling. Mainstream, not underground. Creative of a new order, not subversive of an old order. Making a new cultural narrative, not calling the old narrative into question.”

Traditional Christianity not only appears “dirty” to an increasing number of people today, it is dirty! We desperately need a “clean” version – one that smell clean, looks clean, and is clean. That’s what Jesus brought to the Jewish culture 2000 years ago and eventually the whole world. But his freshness has gotten dirty with the debris of religious institutionalism and bogged down in the past. I love the words “explosive, not thrifty, expansive, not niggling, mainstream, not underground. Those of us Christians yearning for more need to explode, expand and unniggle! We no longer need to hide underground. Not only are we mainstream, we are the future!

As we create a new order, we do not need to focus on how bad the old order is. We must save our energy for shouting the new, not blasting the old. (Although am occasional blast or two can be helpful.)

Finally, Sterling challenges us with, “The limits aren’t to be found in the technology anymore. The limits are behind your own eyes, people. They are limits of habit, things you’ve accepted, things you’ve been told, realities you’re ignoring. Stop being afraid. Wake up. It’s yours if you want it. It’s yours if you’re bold enough.”

Yes, the church needs to embrace every new technology at hand to spread its message. But the limits as behind our own eyes. Those of us at the edge cannot afford to be afraid. We can be as bold as Jesus was in his day. The Spirit of Jesus comes to us from the future, not the past. It lures us into the realm of God that is ahead of us, not behind us. It builds on the past but is in no way limited to the past. It dares to boldly go where no one has gone before.

This is what the Spirit is saying to the churches today!


©Paul R. Smith 2009

Quotes from Bruce Sterling, Enlightenment Next.
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j38/bright-green.asp

SPIRITUAL MUSINGS: "Angels Everywhere"

Marcia Fleischman, co-pastor, has recently published a book, "Angels Everywhere." Both the story and illustrations of this extremely creative and heart-warming affirmation were created by Marcia. Books are $12.00. Call the church office for details on how you can get a copy, 816-561-3274, or e-mail office@broadwaychurch-kc.org