MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

"Bring Your Gay Teen to Church Day" will Announce that "God Loves Gays"

After an exciting start in Houston in February 2011, MyOutSpirit.com is working with organizations in Austin, Texas, and around the country to launch "Bring Your Gay Teen to Church Day," June 25-26, 2011.

"We hope this interfaith event connecting LGBTQ teens with open-and-affirming faith communities will help prevent LGBTQ youth deaths by suicide," says MyOutSpirit.com founder, Clayton Gibson. "Thousands of churches, temples, synagogues and other spiritual communities are LGBTQ-affirming, and this event will help them get the word out. For once it's not about politics, not about equality. This time, it's about serving the spiritual needs of LGBTQ teens and their families."

 

As the crowd-funding campaign page for "Bring Your Gay Teen to Church Day" explains:

As LGBTQ-affirming clergy,

Spiritual teachers,

People of faith, and 

Parents, friends and family members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and questioning youth,

We were all alarmed by the spike in LGBTQ youth deaths by suicide last fall. An April 2011 study found that roughly 20% of gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had made a suicide attempt, versus 4% of straight kids. 

Young people who live in areas with a more negative cultural climate towards LGBTQ issues are at an increased risk. Some 70% of calls to The Trevor Project's suicide hotline come from the southern and central regions of the United States.

Two out of three Americans agree with us that gay people suffer discrimination and violence and die from suicide at least partly because of anti-gay messages coming out of churches and other places of worship. We wondered:

What can WE do to help prevent gay teen suicide? 

We believe that LGBTQ-affirming spiritual guidance and community can help lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and questioning youth who are in crisis. 

We know from personal experience that deep community and spiritual practices like prayer, meditation, mindfulness, forgiveness and yoga help human beings weather hard times. Bringing an LGBTQ teen to a certified welcoming church, synagogue, temple, sangha or other spiritual community can help empower them to "Make It Better" starting today.

That's why we invite your donation to support "Bring Your Gay Teen to Church Day."

We want to change the cultural mindset by making it common knowledge that many spiritual communities would love to welcome, support and inspire LGBTQ young people, without trying to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

 

We can replace the incorrect assumption that LGBTQ people are "an abomination"

with our message that "God Loves Gays." 

Most importantly, we want every LGBTQ youth to hear that they are sacred, whole, valuable and loved, just as they are. And we want their parents, families and classmates to hear it, too!

Is Gay Spirituality Better...?

“Gay spirituality is better than any other” - the reporter desperately wanted me to endorse his belief.  I wasn’t going there. Righteous spiritual segregation is antithetical to the idea of a spiritual journey. So where does spirituality for LGBTQ people connect with the human family and the Holy?

Our normative story usually includes experiencing bullying, fear of coming out, rejection by family when we do, the Holy used by religion to condemn.  We might even be the victims of violence or discrimination. Our journey also contains another story line. It is about courage and love birthed in us. 

A more spacious invitation than the reporter’s belief invites us in. Spirituality in not about a theory, it is discovered in the reality of who we are. I’ve discovered that in the spiritual journey of immigrants, women, people of color and other minorities my own journey is inspired. Many of us fall into several self identifying categories.  

The question is not whether your spirituality or mine is “belter.”  It’s how does your journey create empathy with others?  How does your spirituality get fed by the wisdom of those who are different from you? How does it connect you to oneness with others?

Unlike the belief of that reporter my spirituality is not celebrated as a “better” treasure. I discover a much richer inclusive path in three pathways to celebrate and share the gift that is my life. 

Whoever and whatever tries to define you wants to confine you. It creates an enclosure keeping you from the Holy discovered in your life. In accepting an enclosure you become cut-off from the unique gifts that only you have to offer.  You deprive yourself and the world of them. Allowing yourself to be enclosed can happen subtly over time. The good news is that we have a choice to break out of the enclosure.

When we discover our voice and claim it as an LGBTQ person we are on sacred ground. Instead of listening to the bad advice of those who do not want you to claim your voice, you discover that in the Holy is present in it. Not outside “there” somewhere, but in you.  You begin to be free of a narrow consciousness. Claiming your voice is a spiritual practice taking you to a field of feasting with others.

The Universe needs your story as much as that of anyone else. As you tell your story you discover self-compassion. In the telling you become awake to the sacred in you as an LGBTQ person. As you settle in and celebrate your voice you begin to listen to the stories and voices of others with new attentiveness. They become connecting stories. Through them your appreciation and love for yourself and others deepens. You discover a new way of being alive. 

These three pathways of moving beyond enclosures, discovering and trusting your voice and connecting stories are markers of your authentic experience of being gay.

Love is the only thing that matters on our spiritual quest. Everything else pales in comparison. I am loved by the Holy for all of who I am. It’s a struggle for many to know and believe it every day. When I love myself and know that I am loved life becomes more radiant. I become more fully human, more alive as I am.

It takes courage to journey through the three pathways. The root word for courage means love. To be grounded in love we cannot avoid being courageous about who we are. Not the lonely isolated warrior courage, but the courage discovered in trusted people to call on along the journey. It’s all part of our spiritual positioning system.

When I’m grounded in these three pathways my encounters with others become sacred ground. Like the Hindu greeting Namaste the light me honors the light in you.

The three pathways are not just for GLBTQ people. Love and courage are not confined to GLBTQ spirituality. They’re each part of our common journey to become fully human -  as we are. We bring to the journey the only gift we can – ourselves.

So what are the markers of your spirituality?

Robert V. Taylor is a speaker, blogger and author. He is Chair of the Desmond Tutu Peace Fonudation in New York.  Visit him at www.wakeupforlife.com or www.robertvtaylor.com

Watching Rob Bell Squirm

{by Darrell Grizzle, wildfaith.blogspot.com}

My Calvinist friend Brandon sent me a link to this interview with Rob Bell by MSNBC's Martin Bashir (below). Rob Bell has been in the news lately because his new book, Love Wins, is upsetting a lot of evangelical Christians who view it as heretical.

The YouTube video is titled "MSNBC Host Makes Rob Bell Squirm" - and indeed Rob Bell does squirm throughout the interview, which many evangelical bloggers are intepreting as meaning the interviewer "trapped" Bell or caught him in a contradiction. But the reason Rob Bell is squirming (other than the politely hostile tone of the questions Bashir is asking) is because he keeps being asked the same questions over and over again, even after he has given an answer. The problem is that that Martin Bashir doesn't understand the answers and thinks Rob Bell is being evasive or nonsensical. As one commenter on the YouTube site puts it, "Bashir was only trying to get the truth of what Bell believes, and Bell seems to side-step the question giving strange meaningless answers... this is after Bashir asks him the SAME question 3 different times!"

If it seems at times like Rob Bell and Martin Bashir are talking two completely different languages, that's because they are. Bell is a post-modernist, comfortable with ambiguity and paradox, willing to ask questions and admit he doesn't know the answers, celebrating the diversity of views found in the historical Christian "stream." Bashir is clearly a modernist, who believes faith is a matter of propositional truth. Bashir believes only one of the propositions he raises about God and the disaster in Japan can be true and one cannot. The answers Rob Bell gives ARE meaningless to Bashir, who is unable to rise above his modernist "either/or" worldview and see that Bell is giving perfectly acceptable "both/and" answers. I imagine if Bashir were to interview Brian McLaren or Peter Rollins (or any of my Emergent friends), it would go the same way. Bell is squirming because he realizes he is not being understood. To quote Cool Hand Luke, "what we've got here is a failure to communicate."

I haven't read Rob Bell's new book yet (I agree with the title: Love Wins), but from my deep-skimming of it on my Nook Color, it really doesn't look like he's saying anything new. He is raising the same questions Madeleine L'Engle, Marcus Borg, Dom Crossan, and others raised back in the 1980's and 1990's - and which Origen raised in the AD 200's. Raising these questions is what got Madeleine L'Engle branded a universalist and banned from most Christian bookstores in the 1980's. I'm sure there will be many Christian bookstores that will not carry Rob Bell's new book. (There are already many that no longer sell Brian McLaren's books.)

True communication between worldviews IS possible. I'm grateful for my conservative friends with whom I can respectfully disagree and have true dialogue. Such dialogue not likely to happen, though, in a 7-minute interview on a cable news network.

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Darrell Grizzle is an LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor), in private practice in Marietta, Georgia. He is an Emergent Episcopalian who has been ordained as a minister and spiritual caregiver by an interfaith healing ministry, the Sufi Healing Order. His writings on spirituality have been published in Whosoever and several other magazines. He lives in a house-in-the-woods (Bear's Hermitage) in Marietta with Leonidas (Lenny), the Mighty Warrior Cat, Lenny's brother-kitten Guy, and way too many books.

Rob Bell Questions Hell, Christians' Heads Explode

Rob Bell, the straight Christian pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grandville, Michigan, bestselling author of Velvet Elvis, Sex God, and Drops Like Stars, and creator of the groundbreaking NOOMA film series, has a new book coming out this month that, despite its palatable title, Love Wins, has already ignited a firestorm of controversy in conservative Christian circles. Why?

Bell dares to question whether or not Hell is real.

Publisher HarperCollins explains: "In Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins."

How DARE he? bellowed Christian conservatives like Justin Taylor, John Piper, and others. They are blowing up the internet, condemning Rob Bell as a heretic and suggesting he be shunned. Without reading the book, mind you - just based on the publiser's description and a short video introducing the book (below). But they're likely to be even MORE inflamed once they actually read it, and thank god for that.

There are multiple developmental levels active in the Christian community (and, to be clear, there are wonderful people and good Christians at every level). In this case, the authoritarian, rules-are-rules, it-says-what-it-says, Jesus-spoke-English, because-that's-the-way-we've-always-done-it Crowd is not capable of going along with a postmodern Christian like Rob Bell. 

We talk a lot in this blog about the human predicament of being stuck in our stories (for example). These critics are happily encased in their little shell where they know all the answers; asking them to admit that they do NOT know - asking them to question their faith-based worldview - is a lot to ask.

You've heard me tell the story about my father, a lifelong Christian and deacon in his church, who was self-aware enough to beg me to stop sharing my questioning process with him. He said to me flat-out, "I need to believe what I believe." If he accepted he might be wrong about what the Bible says and means, that his faith might be misplaced, then his entire life would fall apart, and he couldn't handle that. 

So I don't expect conservative Christians to break out of their shells just because Rob Bell leads them in that direction. It's just too scary out there. It requires way too much courage. And frankly, I suppose it's great that they're giving him so much free publicity!

But it will be wonderful to see more Christians and their churches let go of Fear. Ironic that letting go of Fear is so damn scary, right?  

"If we can't threaten nonbelievers with eternal damnation, how will we get converts?" "If I don't have to be good so that God won't punish me, why shouldn't I sin?" "What really happens when I die?" "What does it mean to be saved if there's no pit of fire to be saved from?" 

Kudos to Rob Bell for daring to enter into the questions, for slipping into not-knowing, for standing up for love, and for encouraging millions of other Christians to go there with him.

Thank God for Heretics.

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Support Rob Bell, Pre-order Love Wins from Amazon.com

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P.S. Speaking of heretics, here's the ever-wise Bishop John Shelby Spong on Hell:

Believe Out Loud Maps Welcoming Churches

Click on the map below to find a welcoming church. 

Believe Out Loud (http://believeoutloud.com/) is making it easier than ever to find faith communities that welcome and affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning people.  Try it now!  I love this Century!

“You Are God’s Child and You Are Not A Mistake!”

{by Rev. Paul M. Turner, Gentle Spirit Christian Church of Atlanta}

When I was a 13, during the month of January 1968 I wrote a paper for my 8th grade English class on why Dr. Martin Luther King was my hero. No big deal one would think except I was a white kid in an all white school. As any one who reads my blog with any regularity will tell you my grammar is awful and so it was no surprise I got an A for content but a D for grammar. With that paper my life became complicated. I was now known as a n***** lover. There was no end to the jokes and nasty notes left at my locker or in my schoolbooks.

It should also be noted at about the same time I had gone through a sudden growth spurt. So by the time the school year had ended I was 5’9” and 120 pounds. I was kind of geeky looking to say the least.

At the same time I was apart of a family who included a father who had a very strict definition of what it was to be a “man” and a mother who insisted on me having “school clothes” and “play clothes”. The problem with this you might ask? Nothing except when I went to school I was dressed in a freshly ironed shirt, a pair of dress pants and polished shoes, and a Princeton haircut. Dressed this way amongst kids in blue jeans, tennis shoes and long hair I stood out as not being particularly “manly”.

For the record it should also noted at the age of 9 I had figured out that I was not same as everyone else when it came to issues of sexuality. I had more than a passing interest in men. I couldn't understand why I felt about men the same way other guys were feeling about girls.

My grandparents at this time had a foster child who was 14 and would later become their adopted son, my step uncle.

Starting at the age of 10 while visiting my grandparents I would sleep in my step uncles room. I woke up one night and caught him masturbating. Long story short I figured out in that time I was a homosexual. This probably would not have been a bad thing except for my step uncle taking advantage of my curiosity and literally raping me until I was 13 and he left for the army.

At one point he took me to a place no young person should ever have to go physically. The whole time he did this to me, he told me I was nothing but a fagot and if I ever told anyone I would be thrown out of the family for being a queer. I threw out bloody underwear that summer out fear of being found out.

There was no one to tell and no place to go for support or to get help.

The only positive thing to come out of this experience was that I learned I would never make a person do something sexual for which they did not want to do.

So fast forward back to the end of 8th grade school year. A friend of mine showed up to my house one day with some of his father’s naked girl magazines and a jar of Vaseline. We experimented that day. Compared to what I had already been through this was great and I had my first official crush. That is until he told his friends. The bullies came out in mass numbers. Much like vultures circling that prey which is about to die.

Now, I was a marked kid…called a homo, fagot, pushed into lockers and cornered in the locker room. I was followed home with kids calling me names. Eggs were thrown at our house.

We would get phone calls at our house asking for me because they wanted a blowjob. This went on the entire 4 years of high school almost daily.

So my days in high school were spent in complete torment and fear that in the end no matter what I wanted to do or did I was a loser. I was a n***** lover and a fag.

Those days of high school were hard for me. There was no place to go for support or understanding of what I was feeling, who I was or any kind of acceptance. To many I was just at minimum weird and at worst a pervert. I later found out that my struggles and experiences caused untold grief for my family and especially my sister.

Ironic isn’t it, my sister was bullied because of her brother. While most sisters get to look up to their older brothers, mine probably spent most of her high school days wishing I never existed.

Those times made it difficult for my friends too. For the mention of my name brought laughter and jokes. I have often wished there could have been a different way, a better way.

So why am I sharing this tonight? Because tonight when I signed into facebook I saw yet another story of a young man whom saw no other way and has taken his life out of this world.

“Terrel Williams, a 17-year-old native of Beverly Hills, CA, took his life on October 13, just hours after being attacked by five other high school students, and pushed and thrown into a brick wall at Clover Park High School in Lakewood, WA.

Terrel’s mother, Cheryl Williams, found her son in their Lakewood home — he had hanged himself in his bedroom closet. Terrel left a suicide note:

“I’m sorry to my immediate loved ones, but I feel suicide is the only way out. I felt coming out, and being happy with Daric, was the best thing I could’ve ever done. But I didn’t think it would lead to my death at an early age.

“Today, was the record worst day of my life, some kids at school stole some of my stuff that I got from people I really cared about, and that really pushed me over the top, next to being shoved into a wall, and my ribs being broken.”



Tonight, my heart is yet again broken by society’s inability to support the diversity of creation, to see the beauty of that diversity and to understand our real strength comes in that diversity.

How did I get through it? I really don’t know. I do not see myself as particularly strong or smart.

I do know what it is to feel totally alone, unsupported and mocked. Funny even today I can still feel that way.

Maybe I got through this and lived to tell about because when I was at my lowest there was a United Methodist Pastor by the name of Rev. George Groh, who when he heard I was in trouble and seriously in the process of putting a bullet into my head dropped what he was doing and came to me. 20 miles he drove at 7 in the morning.

He came to me and in the midst of my hurt, anger and isolation held me in his arms and cried with me and in the end assured me I was God’s child and I was no mistake. As he held me, he listens to all my shortcomings and confessions. He cried as he listens to my entire story of the rape. He is angry with me as I tell him of the days of high school. He holds me tighter as I cried about being a failure to God and my family and again through his tears assured me I was God’s child and I was no mistake.

Then he pulls out his little pocket bible and reads to me the 22nd Psalm, the whole Psalm not just the part we hear read on Good Friday in church:

“1-2 God, God...my God! Why did you dump me
miles from nowhere?
Doubled up with pain, I call to God
all the day long. No answer. Nothing.
I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.

3-5 And you! Are you indifferent, above it all,
leaning back on the cushions of Israel's praise?
We know you were there for our parents:
they cried for your help and you gave it;
they trusted and lived a good life.

6-8 And here I am, a nothing—an earthworm,
something to step on, to squash.
Everyone pokes fun at me;
they make faces at me, they shake their heads:
"Let's see how God handles this one;
since God likes him so much, let him help him!"

9-11 And to think you were midwife at my birth,
setting me at my mother's breasts!
When I left the womb you cradled me;
since the moment of birth you've been my God.
Then you moved far away
and trouble moved in next door.
I need a neighbor.

12-13 Herds of bulls come at me,
the raging bulls stampede,
Horns lowered, nostrils flaring,
like a herd of buffalo on the move.

14-15 I'm a bucket kicked over and spilled,
every joint in my body has been pulled apart.
My heart is a blob
of melted wax in my gut.
I'm dry as a bone,
my tongue black and swollen.
They have laid me out for burial
in the dirt.

16-18 Now packs of wild dogs come at me;
thugs gang up on me.
They pin me down hand and foot,
and lock me in a cage—a bag
Of bones in a cage, stared at
by every passerby.
They take my wallet and the shirt off my back,
and then throw dice for my clothes.

19-21 You, God—don't put off my rescue!
Hurry and help me!
Don't let them cut my throat;
don't let those mongrels devour me.
If you don't show up soon,
I'm done for—gored by the bulls,
meat for the lions.

22-24 Here's the story I'll tell my friends when they come to worship,
and punctuate it with Hallelujahs:
Shout Hallelujah, you God-worshipers;
give glory, you sons of Jacob;
adore him, you daughters of Israel.
He has never let you down,
never looked the other way
when you were being kicked around.
He has never wandered off to do his own thing;
he has been right there, listening.

25-26 Here in this great gathering for worship
I have discovered this praise-life.
And I'll do what I promised right here
in front of the God-worshipers.
Down-and-outers sit at God's table
and eat their fill.
Everyone on the hunt for God
is here, praising him.
"Live it up, from head to toe.
Don't ever quit!"

27-28 From the four corners of the earth
people are coming to their senses,
are running back to God.
Long-lost families
are falling on their faces before him.
God has taken charge;
from now on he has the last word.

29 All the power-mongers are before him
—worshiping!
All the poor and powerless, too
—worshiping!
Along with those who never got it together
—worshiping!

30-31 Our children and their children
will get in on this
As the word is passed along
from parent to child.
Babies not yet conceived
will hear the good news—
that God does what he says.


So, this is why I write tonight. To stand witness for our young people and say to them you can get through this. To say to them you are not alone and the bullies are just that bullies, they pick on you because they can’t be honest and content with themselves.

I write this in the hope a message will go out loudly and clearly from other pastors and spiritual leaders who will walk the path of the Reverend George Groh, and hold these kids and look them in the eye and say to them; “You are God’s child and you are not a mistake!”

I write this because despite how it might feel right now, “tomorrow will be better”, I know because I have been there.

Gay Pride Important This Year

{by Rev. Paul M. Turner, Gentle Spirit Christian Church of Atlanta}

"We're here!"

For those who have watched the “Godfather” trilogy starring Al Pacino among many stars as Michael Corleone as the head of a powerful crime family will recognize the intensity of my quote to start this blog. Michael throughout the movies is portrayed as the good son, who is attempting to take the family business and turn it from a dynasty of crime to one of legitimacy. Almost at every turn there is some action by other crime families, which keep him from reaching his goal. This idea carries all the way to the third movie where we find Michael in a fit of frustration say: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

For the last several years I have said and thought “Gay Pride” had really lost it’s punch. It was no longer a large political, social and spiritual gathering bringing together hundred’s of thousands of queer folk to stand in solidarity for a common cause. In fact over the last several years it seemed to me “Pride” had become simply a major street party and a vendor’s dream come true. When the decision was made in Atlanta to move “Pride” from June to October, I thought, well, if it is going to be a party at least the weather is better!

Then much like in the “Godfather” movies, in step the religious and political right. Just when the community seems to making incredible progress on the road to equality the heat from the right gets turned way up. We begin to see headlines and tragedy from several parts of the country:

Giving Emerging Ethical Leaders a Voice

{Chris Stedman, NonProphet Status}

This post originally appeared on Tikkun Daily. 

“What qualifies you to do this?” I asked myself as I rode the train home one day to write my first contribution to the Washington Post’s On Faith last year. I listened to the wheels rumble beneath me, looked at those sitting around me, and knew I was headed in a new direction.

I was 22-years-old, an atheist, and a seminary student. Though I don’t believe in God, I decided to go to seminary because I wanted to find a way to bridge the divide between religious and secular communities. The summer after my first year at seminary I began interning at the Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that aims to mobilize a movement of young people positively engaging religious pluralism. The organization’s founder, Eboo Patel, maintained a blog for On Faith and invited me to submit a guest post for it.

At the time, I was beginning to recognize that the organized atheist movement often talked about religion in ways that created more division instead of less. As an atheist, I was frustrated by what I saw as a total lack of interest from my fellow atheists in respectfully engaging religious identities. So I sat down and wrote about it.

As I was working on my essay, I began to browse the rest of the site. On Faith features a panel of contributors that are among the most respected and knowledgeable experts in the fields of religion and ethics. But I didn’t see many blogs on their site by people who weren’t already established as authorities. I wondered if I was actually qualified to write for the website.

After my submission was posted, I started getting some unexpected feedback. “This is exactly what I think, but I didn’t know anyone else agreed with me,” wrote one reader. “Thank you for saying something our community really needs to hear,” wrote another. These readers happened to be young people.

I hadn’t thought that there were others who felt the same way I did, let alone other young people. I talked to a friend who maintained a blog of his own, and he suggested I create a blog to continue sorting through this issue.

I started NonProphet Status, and suddenly became a part of a larger conversation on the issue of religion and atheism. The blog quickly began to get traction in interfaith and atheist circles, and soon I was being asked to speak at conferences, received invitations to write in other venues, and watched my blog views grow from week to week. I, a young seminary student with a small but growing vision for respectful engagement across lines of secular and religious identity, suddenly had a platform.

Emerging leaders in formation, especially young ones, deserve to have a voice. In a time defined by deep political and religious divisions, we need to hear from those who will shape our ethical future. The current American discourse on religion and ethics is primarily defined by established leaders – ministers, rabbis, academics and journalists. While their perspectives are invaluable, this leaves an entire population of important stakeholders without a platform: the up-and-comers.

To remedy this, the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue (JIRD) has engaged with the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions to establish State of Formation, a forum for up-and-coming religious and ethical thinkers to draw upon the learning that is occurring in their academic and community work, reflect on the pressing questions of a religiously pluralistic society, and challenge existing definitions and assumptions.

State of Formation will be a community conversation between emerging leaders in formation. Together, a cohort of seminarians, rabbinical students, graduate students, activists and the like – the future religious and moral leaders of tomorrow – will work to redefine the ethical discourse today.

In a recent Wired interview about his book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, author Kevin Kelly said that the best settings for creativity and innovation are diverse and collaborative. “Ideas aren’t self-contained things,”said Kelly.”They’re more like ecologies and networks.”

Let’s cluster our ideas and make an ecology for emerging leaders. The idea that got me writing – that the religious and secular can find common ground and work together – is just one of many out there that addresses the ethical dimensions of our pluralized society.

Chris Stedman is the Managing Director of State of Formation at the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™. Chris received an MA in Religion from Meadville Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago, for which he was awarded the Billings Prize for Most Outstanding Scholastic Achievement. If you would like to nominate an emerging ethical or religious leader to be a Contributing Scholar to State of Formation, the application form can be found here.

The Day Fear Paid A Visit and Stayed

On September 11, 2001 at 8:50am my phone rang and it was our church deacon asking if I had seen the news. My day was just starting and I had not got through my first cup of coffee, let alone turned on the TV. He went on to say a jet airliner had crashed into the World Trade Center. “Oh my God, did a pilot have a heart attack, did something go wrong with the plane?” I was shocked and told the deacon I would call him back.

I turned on the news to see a picture of the World Trade Center and thick black smoke coming out of the side of the building. I don’t really remember what the reporter was saying when suddenly a large jet crossed the screen and slammed in the 2nd tower. I was stunned, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen and in another 30 seconds or so my mind started asking questions…

Hysteria and Paranoia

By the time readers are done reading this particular blog I may lose a few friends, maybe a few church members and a few colleagues will finally have proof that “I have just finally gone over the cliff.”

Those who are promoting the hysteria and paranoia around the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City are in the truest sense of the word “idiots.” I am using this word in the modern sense of its understanding: “describing an extreme folly or stupidity, and its symptoms (foolish or stupid utterance or deed)."

Yes, for a pastor this is VERY strong language, however this controversy is an embarrassment to me as a follower of Christ, an embarrassment as a reasonable educated person and an embarrassment as an American.

First and foremost the term “the Ground Zero Mosque” is misleading and a lie. This proposed building is a full four city blocks from where the World Trade Center stood. In most cities such as Chicago and New York where the geography is grid like, there are about 8 blocks to a mile. 4 blocks would be almost a half a mile from where the World Trade Center stood. This is hardly “ground zero.”

According to Gary Leupp who is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion, at Tufts University this whole ridiculous controversy got its start from a person by the name of Pamela Geller. Pamela Geller maintains a blog called Atlas Shrugs. She has written a book about Barack Obama in which she alleges his real father was Malcolm X. She leads an apparently tiny wacko group called Stop the Islamization of America.