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A World Of Good With Desmond Tutu

There is something about Archbishop Desmond Tutu that you just have to like. With his disarming smile, diminutive stature and avuncular appearance, Tutu looks more like the grandfather at a family reunion than an international leader. But when he speaks, volumes of truth and knowledge flow from his mouth.

Over the weekend, the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke forcefully about American foreign policy and the sensitive issue of homophobia in the church. In a speech at Harvard University titled “Goodness Triumphs Ultimately,” Tutu offered hope to those who yearn for justice both here and abroad. And in an interview with BBC Radio, Tutu flatly denounced homophobia. "If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God."

Posted in spirituality on November 19 2007, 10:29AM | Read More | Comments (28)

Why We Separate Church and State

What you are about to read is heresy. Or treason, depending on your perspective. If I wrote this article in Tehran, I could be in jail by the end of the day, charged with "activities against national security" and "publicity in favor of the regime’s opponents." If the police found out I was gay, I could be sentenced to death and executed in a public hanging. Iranians and visitors to Iran can also be hanged for other crimes, including rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, drug trafficking, pederasty, adultery, prostitution, treason and espionage. In fact, just yesterday, the government of Iran hanged 9 people in what it called a crackdown on "thugs."

Every time I hear the Christian fundamentalists in America talk about putting (their) God back into public life, getting tough on crime, and executing criminals, I am reminded of the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran. The dangers of intermingling church and state are still vividly on display in that country, and I don't want it to happen here.

Posted in spirituality on August 2 2007, 10:57AM | Read More | Comments (33)

Where Faith Meets Reason

A few days ago I received a two-page handwritten letter from a woman in Washington, DC. She wrote to share her testimony of how God was able to deliver her from her "strong attraction to females." She wrote me because she wanted to let me know "that God is able to do all things. Jesus came to set us free. And in most cases he came to set us free from ourselves," she wrote in very pretty penciled cursive.

Attached to the letter was a page of biblical quotes, the first of which came from Proverbs 3:5-8, and she had taken the trouble to highlight this passage in pink. "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones." But as I put the letter down on my desk, I realized I did not share her vision of faith.

Posted in spirituality on May 3 2007, 10:56AM | Read More | Comments (57)

Losing My Religion

A front page news story in today's New York Times inspired me this morning. It was a story about Barack Obama and his relationship with his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama apparently learned his religion from Rev. Wright, whose church I visited once several years ago. But when the story jumped to page A18, there was a stunning photograph of Obama's step grandmother in Kenya. Dressed in traditional Kenyan garb sitting barefoot outdoors, she fed a group of roosters. The cutline below her photo said she describes herself as a "strong believer of the Islamic faith."

That's when I started to remember just how pointless it is for humans to divide themselves based on religion. But for Obama's meeting with Rev. Wright in Chicago, he might have spent his life as a skeptic, a Catholic or a Muslim. He had all those influences in his childhood. Eventually, like most Americans, he became a practicing Christian. And that's the point that stuck with me. Why is it that so many Americans identify as Christian but so few of the rest of the people in the world do the same? And what exactly do we mean when we call ourselves Christians?

Posted in spirituality on April 30 2007, 11:39AM | Read More | Comments (37)

There He Goes Again

What will Ken Hutcherson stoop to next? The former football player turned anti-gay evangelist last made headlines 2 years ago for threatening to lead a boycott against Microsoft for supporting a gay rights bill. Now he's moving past the world's richest man to an entirely different world. Hutcherson has announced that he has been appointed by the White House as a special envoy for the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. But the White House says it's not true. This might be one case where I actually believe the White House.

Hutcherson has been working with anti-gay groups in the former Soviet republic of Latvia. And he was recently in Latvia with Scott Lively, the author of the book "The Pink Swastika." The book allegedly argues that gays were responsible for Nazism and the Holocaust.

Posted in spirituality on March 20 2007, 1:47PM | Read More | Comments (18)

Black and Gay in the Church

I've often said that homophobia would end in the black church if every black LGBT person simply came out. The first thing we would realize is that many of the people running the churches are themselves gay. And I'm not just talking about the choir members, the organists and the music directors. I'm talking about the ushers, the deacons and the pastors themselves. Thus, it was noticeable last weekend when a prominent black pastor in Colorado came out of the closet.

The Rev. Benjamin Reynolds preached his last sermon at Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday. Reynolds, the senior pastor of the Colorado church, stepped down after telling the congregation that he is gay. Although his decision to come out may have caught some off guard, his support for the gay and lesbian community is not new. He has been a longtime advocate for gay and lesbian rights. But then he did the unthinkable. He revealed his sexual orientation.

Posted in spirituality on October 31 2006, 1:46PM | Read More | Comments (67)

When Tyra & Kevin Met Shirley

If you ever had any doubt that some of the Christian homophobes are crazy, you weren't watching the Tyra Banks Show yesterday. After a moving interview with gay bashing victim Kevin Aviance, Tyra interviewed outspoken homophobe Shirley Phelps and two of her 11 children. Phelps, a lawyer, is a leader of a group that believes that "God hates fags" and that God intended September 11, Hurricane Katrina, and the tsunami as punishment for the world's wicked ways. But Phelps claims she loves gays. She loves them enough to tell them they're going to hell, she said.

There's no doubt in my mind that the Phelps clan are crazy. These are the same people who picketed Coretta Scott King's funeral and regularly picket the funerals of American soldiers who died in Iraq. They picket because they claim that God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality. I'm not sure why these people are so hung up on homosexuality, but they clearly don't understand anything about the real world, about God, or about love. And as they sink into their obsession, they have isolated themselves into their own backward, homophobic, pseudo-theocratic cult of ignorance.

Posted in spirituality on October 13 2006, 12:22AM | Read More | Comments (40)

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