Remaining in church: Thoughts from a gay Catholic

I find the rhetoric of Christians around sexuality to be problematic. This is not because I disagree with the positions of my church (although I would like to re-word the statement related to homosexuality), but because I think many have been hurt, both within the church and outside of it,  by how many Christians talk about homosexuality and treat those with same-sex attractions. I think it's hard for those who face same-sex attraction to remain within the church, and I am thankful for voices that address this.

I have appreciated the voices of Wesley Hill and Eve Tushnet. I expect that some find Hill's call to celibacy to be too much of a sacrifice but Hill also provides a very strong voice for the necessity of good friendships to help those who have been pushed into celibacy.

Eve Tushnet is a slightly different voice, and perhaps a slightly more controversial one (at least from what I have read of her blog). Nonetheless, I want to share her words from a recent blog post, as I think her words recognize the church as the body of Christ and the way that we are formed to be more like Christ. One ought not to dismiss her easily. At the same time, the Church is made up of broken, sinful people, and it is not always certain, even with God's protection and care of the church, whether everything taught and practiced within the church is good. 

The following are Tushnet's words:

We need to revive the role of the “Bad Catholic.” Being a bad Catholic can be very, very good for you; it’s a sign that you accept the Church as something (someone, our Mother) outside you and bigger than you, who gives your life its structure even when you can’t/won’t live entirely within that structure. (How many tears are shed because it’s so hard to tell can’t from won’t….) Being a bad Catholic means being assessed by the Church–accepting Her view of you, even if you accept it wincingly or ironically or in confused exhaustion, “Master, to whom shall we go?“–instead of judging Her. Her judgments of you will be more merciful than yours of Her, anyway.

You only get the spiritual benefits of being a bad Catholic if you take the “bad” part seriously. If you minimize the gravity of sin you lose the reminder it brings of our dependence on God; the more trivial the sin the less humility is provoked.

There’s obviously a danger of provoking self-hatred instead of humility by talking this way, but the literary figure of the “bad Catholic” calls up compassion and identification rather than judgment in readers. Maybe you should show the same compassion to him when he’s you.

 To read more of her writing, visit her blog: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/evetushnet

Thank you, Lord, September is over.

I think that has been my prayer this past week: "Thank-you, Lord, that September is over." I suspect that is the prayer of all campus ministers everywhere. We are busy with starting up the season, meeting new people, hoping and praying that new people will join, following up after them, alongside of following up with folks who've participated longer in the ministry.

I am thankful that things in my life are starting slowly to return to normal, at least as normal as possible. We have mostly settled in our new house, and the season of campus ministry has developed more of a rhythm. New folk are becoming regulars, and I'm delighting in what they bring to the ministry. And I'm finding enough time and space again to remember how much I delight in getting to be a campus pastor.

Coming Home to Community

Community is like coming home: it's about having a space where all are welcomed and there is joy in being family together. As I think about this community adventure we're embarking on, I hope that we will be described as the sort of a place that feels like coming home.




Despite the fact that the living room is still somewhat in the chaos of moving (the picture was from a week ago, and things have improved), the firehouse community has already felt like coming home to us. After having lived in an intentional community in Amsterdam (Oudezijds 100) for a number of years, we have longed to find something similar here in Lansing. Even parking our car is like coming home:

The car was originally owned by a fire brigade and we park in front of pictures of saints - John Calvin, Jean Vanier, Harriet Tubman, Oscar Romero, St Patrick, Wendell Barry, and Flannery O'Connor. 

Lastly, the church that has become our new landlords cleaned up our house, scouring the oven, painting the walls, and weeding the flower beds. They even gave us leftovers for moving in and planted flowers in the window boxes!

Having been welcomed so well to this new home, it feels good and fitting that we welcome others and do all we can to make them feel at home. Starting next week we hope to have more people over and join us in embarking on the adventure of community, including having times of prayer and potlucks!

Matthijs, the cat rescuer

This morning while I was out working, Matthijs sent me the following picture from our new house:

Considering all of the boxes that Matthijs has unpacked in the last few days, it shouldn't have surprised me that he would have sent me a picture of boxes. However, I'd have expected him to take a picture of the zone of boxes that were in the corner for much of today and yesterday.

But this picture wasn't really about the boxes, so much as it was about how the boxes were piled - and where they reached. Because this was no ordinary stack of boxes: it was a Jerry rescue tower.

Somehow Jerry had managed to climb into the ceiling area (most likely via the stairway to the roof). Matthijs, being the gracious person that he is (and because he knows I love the pea-brained cat, and Jerry makes an impressive amount of noise when he's distressed), rescued him from his predicament.

When we moved into the house, we blessed the whole place, although we might have missed the ceiling. Matthijs did manage to bless the cat with holy water, so perhaps the ceiling is now indirectly blessed?

Relationships, power and abuse

I have been reading a delightful and insightful book by Margaret Kim Peterson and Dwight N. Peterson, entitled Are You Waiting for "The One"? (IVP, 2011). The book is born of their experience teaching a (senior) college level class on marriage and the sub-title of the book, "Cultivating Realistic, Positive Expectations for Christian Marriage," explains quite well the focus of the book. I have found it a helpful book: both in terms of pastoring people in their twenties and in receiving encouragement (and some challenges) for my own marriage.

I have appreciated how they cover such a wide variety of topics in a very sensible way. For example, they note how many people today do not know how to do have good, solid friendships, which is a detriment to marriages. Not only does this make it more difficult to have a good relationship with one's partner, it also means that the partner is seen as the only one able to meet one's need for any kind of healthy connection, which places an overwhelming burden on a marriage. Furthermore, it causes a lot of loneliness for those single (Wesley Hill's book, Spiritual Friendship (Brazos Press, 2015) is a wonderful book for those wanting to explore how Christians ought to invest more in friendships).

I especially learned from their thoughts on headship in marriage. I have grown up in fairly conservative circles and have been taught that the man was the head of the spiritual household (as per Ephesians 5). Although the idea of headship has been interpreted in many positive ways, where the sacrificial nature of Christ's love for the church is emphasized and it is clear that the man is listening well to the woman and making a decision that includes her wisdom, I still feel somewhat uncomfortable about the concept of headship. The two quotes below from the Petersons help me understand a bit better why Christian teaching about headship can be problematic:

Mutuality "takes a willingness to talk with one another and listen to one another, for long enough that it can become clear what the issues are, what the feelings and desire of both spouses are, and what some possible plans of action might be. Headship as decision making, by contrast, can seem quick and easy and far less personally demanding. Husband and wife don't really even have to work together: he just does his job and decides, she does her job and goes along, and they're done. And that is exactly the problem. They haven't actually dealt with their differences; they've just done an end run around them. They are no more united when they are done than they were when they began." pages 94-95. 

There is "one more unpleasant truth about the control-and-acquiescence mode of male-female relationships. Defining male headship as control and female submission as acquiescence is not just misguided; it is dangerous. By idealizing rigidly defined gender roles, assigning power in relationships disproportionately to me, and encouraging both men and women to see this as spiritually appropriate and desirable, a theological ideology for abuse in intimate relationships is set in place." page 95.

The Petersons have identified for me aspects of headship that make me realize why I ought to be uncomfortable with it. Headship gives an excuse to avoid actual communication and decision making together and thus avoid how working together can and should bring people closer together. Secondly, headship tends to move the focus to being about power, instead of on what marriage should be more focused on: mutual submission (Ephesians 5:21), respecting each other, loving each other, and nourishing and caring for the other.

In hopes of community

This past year, Matthijs and I came to the conclusion that we'd really like to live in some kind of intentional community again. Finding a way to do that has been a challenge, though: do we buy a house and then sublet a room or two? Buy a duplex or 4-plex and rent out part of it to people willing to join us in trying to do intentional community? Does it include becoming foster parents? Or do we hope for something more along the lines of new monasticism or the catholic worker, even though such communities seem to be few and far between?

Besides the question of how is the question of when. Our lease ends at the end of August, making that an obvious time to start on a new adventure of community.

Next week we move into "The Firehouse," with the hope and intention of participating in the re-invigoration of the intentional community that used to live in the building. There are two apartments upstairs, which can comfortably hold 5 people. There are 2 people already living there, and we are excited to work together with them in this crazy adventure of community. On top of that, there is already an established community, connected to a church plant that was held in the firehouse building, that cares about reaching out to the neighbourhood. There is also an established church, also connected to that church plant, that is taking over the building. This church is very open to seeing how their own hopes and visions related to an alternative worship group and their ministry to young adults might be able to work alongside with the intentional community that will be living upstairs.

We're excited about this new adventure we're embarking on - of having our living situation be more conducive to living out community. At the same time, in the last few weeks I've been reminded of how much we already are surrounded by a community of people who care about us. These are some of the ways in which I've experienced that care:
- being asked about how it is going (including asking specifically about the Firehouse and wanting to hear about how my family is doing with my dad having health difficulties this last month);
- having others inquiring about my dissertation (and recognize that's a complicated question), but also simply people willing to plan writing dates together;
- being encouraged and supported in challenging times;
- recognizing others desire that things go well both with me and with Matthijs and that we are both using our gifts here;
- experiencing the passion of others for the work of Campus Edge and who are more than willing to come alongside me (and both encourage and challenge me) in the hopes that by so doing the ministry  might be better.

My hope of having more community in my life has helped me become more thankful (and even more hopeful and expectant) as I recognize how God has already been answering that prayer.

Shepherding and sheep

The words "my sheep listen to my voice" (John 10:27) have been tossed around our house lately. The sheep, though, refers to Jerry, the cat. Matthijs has been finding it a challenge to find him and, if necessary, herd him inside the house when we leave. I, however, have managed to have the cat sitting on my lap 5 minutes after coming home, even though Matthijs had been searching for him for awhile as he was trying to leave the house.

It is not surprising that yesterday's Scriptures that focused on shepherding stood out to me:

Jeremiah 23:1-4: “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord."
Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd....  
Mark 6:34: ^"When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things."

We have been striving at Campus Edge to become clearer about our mission, including and especially who we are trying to reach. Who are our sheep? Who are the sheep without a shepherd? What are the lost sheep that we should leave the other 99 for? And am I, like the priest who gave the sermon, willing to look hard at how and where I have been failing in task of shepherding, in order to prevent the sheep from being scattered?

I do not know the immediate answers to those questions, as they are hard ones. I know that I am saddened by the degree in which I have reached out and ministered to faculty this past year, as well as those who are not Christians. I have found it hard even to find ways to reach out to those who do not seek us out. I do not know how to balance my desire to shepherd and love those who have been given to me - the ones who have sought out Campus Edge - with a growing conviction that the ministry of Campus Edge needs to focus at least as much on those struggling and getting lost, as there are so many ways to get lost, both as a Christian within the academy and as an academic within the church.

I am thankful to be reminded of the challenges of taking on the role of shepherding. It gives space for all of my feelings - frustrations, anger, sadness, joy, overwhelmedness, and more -  related to my role of shepherding and those being lost. And it makes it very obvious how desperately I need the help, prayers, and encouragement of those around me, as well as being challenged to be faithful to my task as shepherd and to completely rely on the Lord as my shepherd.