Pray Without Ceasing - You're Doing It Anyway

People are often confounded by the notion of prayer but I think it's very natural and can be quite effortless. Have you ever held your breath waiting for news, hoping it was better than many feared? Wasn't that your body and subconscious saying together, though silently, "My heart is holding this situation in love and I am wishing for the best possible outcome"? And wasn't that a prayer?
Has your heart ever broke open, or even shattered (it seemed) as you considered the agony someone else was experiencing, and in response didn't your tears flow? Wasn't that your spirit touching theirs and offering the blessing of compassion, and wasn't that a prayer?
Have you ever said or even thought "good luck" while truly wishing someone a satisfying experience or a joyful outcome? Have you ever said, "be careful" to someone driving away or leaving for a trip, and was that expressed wish terribly different from asking saints or ancestors or angels to watch over your beloved traveler?
Prayer is part head and part heart,
part logic and part love,
part mechanics and part mystery,
part poetry and part principle,
part faith and part formula,
part humility and sometimes even part hubris,
part courage and part comfort offered by outrageous hope and a sense that life is meant to be good and a realization that we are all, somehow, connected to all that is and all that ever has been.
And in one way or another, don't we experience or engage in one or more of these "parts" almost every moment of our lives?
"Pray without ceasing" may not be so much an instruction as an observation that we are doing that anyway.
I bet you have prayed in the last hour or so. You may not have offered your prayer to a deity, you may not have ended the experience with an "amen," but you undoubtedly have felt hope or gratitude or love or compassion in the last hour, and I would call that prayer. See, it's not so difficult after all. 

--Bishop Durrell Watkins, D.Min.

Don't Dis the Myths

I'm a big fan of myths, but one should be honest when dealing in myth. Myths are beautiful, speak a poetic language, engage the imagination, & point toward realities mere facts hint at only clumsily...don't dis my myths. 

Remind me if you wish that stories of global floods, virgin conceptions, spending half a week in a fish, conversing with snakes & donkeys, giants being angel-human hybrids, & people living hundreds of years are myths, but then let's sort out what the myths can teach us about life. Of course they didn't happen, but how DO they happen in us & in our lives? (dw)

Christmas Can be an Affirmation of LGBTQ People

 Christmas should, or at least can be, a special time for LGBTQ+ people. Consider this…think about the story itself…

In Luke’s Gospel, Mary becomes pregnant but not by the man to whom she is betrothed. The heroine of our story is the subject of scandal. Her promised husband has not fathered her child and he can leave her for this and if he does, she will be ruined. Condemned. Treated as an outcast. Destined to a life of poverty and scorn.

Now, we don’t know who the father is, but the writer of the tale would have us imagine that mary has been impregnated by the Breath of God (as a Greek philosopher had been in another myth). So, Mary hasn’t copulated with a man, but with a gender neutral spirit (or, if we take the Hebrew word for spirit, she has copulated with a feminine spirit). That means Jesus would not have a Y chromosome. Male in appearance, but not male by chromosomes. The Jesus of Christmas is intersex and conceived in what can be called a queer way.

And when this intersex child of a scandal ridden teen mom is born, angels sing about it. God loves the outcast, the marginalized, the queer. God sends choirs to serenade their birth.

We don’t have to take the story literally; it would be remarkable if we did, but we can take it seriously and see that in our sacred literature people who today would be part of our LGBTQ+ community are affirmed and celebrated, even considered to be chosen by God, even called child of God. That makes the Xmas Story our story, and we can celebrate that no matter who does or doesn’t want to celebrate with us. 

The Bible isn't what most people assume it is.

 The Bible isn't what most people assume it is.

The [Christian] Bible is the Hebrew bible plus a 4th century anthology of mid-1st to early 2nd century literature (New Testament). The Bible is written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and most of the Greek texts were written by Aramaic speakers. It is unlikely that anyone in the NT ever met Jesus (as every NT text is written 20-100 years after Jesus' execution and the earliest writer definitely never met him). The texts are oft' copied and edited and translated, and no original documents have survived. We have translated copies of edited hand copied copies of documents that no longer exist. I love the Bible but for the human product that it is. I do not consider it divine, inerrant, magical, or beyond question or critique. The Bible we have is the result of 4th century church leaders addressing 4th century questions and needs with tales and traditions that are 200-700 years old at that time. The literature was written by Jewish people to Jewish people and was canonized by people who hadn't been connected to Judaism for 4-5 generations at least. These are important things to remember when tempted to say "the Bible says" or the "the Bible clearly teaches"...the Bible isn't univocal, isn't super clear on much, and is the result of a long process involving many voices, agendas, experiences, needs, desires and even multiple time periods, locations, and languages; and, we can't cross reference a single biblical sentence to an original document. Love the Bible, but don't use it as a weapon and don't let it be weaponized against you. It's just not built for that. (dw)

Who Taught You the Bible?

From whom did you learn the Bible? I don't mean a couple dozen stories and 40 bible verses you committed to memory in Sunday School. I don't even mean frequent bible reading that has left you familiar with a great deal of bible content. When I say "learn the Bible" I mean on-going, deep dive, critical study of texts, cultures, idioms, traditions, textual inconsistencies, inaccurate cosmoloties, historical fallacies, pondering the almost unlimited lessons that may be learned and applied from myths and parables...I mean wrestling and with playing with and threatening to abandon and then reconciling with the ancient texts (as best we can knowing most of us are reading edited translations of hand copies of no longer existent documents that were compiled and canonized centuries after Jesus' life). From whom did you learn the Bible "that way"?

My teachers by book and/or lectern were: Alan Cooper, Angela Bauer-Levesque, Bart Ehrman, Bernard Anderson, Burton Mack, Elaine Pagels, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Gale Yee, Hal Taussig, Joanna Dewey, John Dominic Crossan,
John S. Spong (though bible scholars often bristled to have him included among them insisting that he was a good teacher of their scholarship rather than a contributor to the scholarship), Lawrence Boadt, Lawrence Wills,
Mona West (Take Back the Work; Queer Bible Commentary eds.1 & 2; Queering Christianity: Finding a Place at the Table for LGBTQI Christians),
Phyllis Trible, Toni Craven, Vincent Wimbush, Wil Gafney...
as well as M. Borg & Wm. Countryman, John A. T. Robinson & Karen King, A.J. Levine & Lloyd Geering.

What I love about critical study is that it's never done. I thought I had learned from the best and I'd spend the rest of my career (possibly my life) trying to refresh my memory on things I had forgotten or that had become hazy from all the knowledge that had been deposited into my brain by the great scholars of our time. But scholarship never gets to retire and there are always new perspectives and discoveries.

And so, in recent years, my list of teachers has grown (but unlike the older list above, these people don't they've influence me or that there is a me to influence, but their recorded lectures, discussions, classes, and their books are nevertheless mind-expanding and I am grateful to and for them).

New bible teachers in my life include: Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Jennifer Grace Bird, Joshua Bowen, Paula Fredriksen (Paula has been at it for decades but is new to me somehow...I seem to remember her from Living the Questions but only now am I enjoying her work), & Robyn Faith Walsh.

Do you know these people? Do you love them? Who have I not listed that I simply must add to my list (I already know Randall Bailey is a must). From whom did you learn the Bible and who would you recommend to me? And if you don't know any name listed here, please look them up, find their papers and books and YouTube discussions and talks...you'll be glad you did.

A Reflection/Prayer Treatment for the Miracle We Are

A Reflection/Prayer Treatment for the Miracle We Are

~ Bishop Durrell

It has taken billions of years for the unique expression of Life that I am to be made manifest. 

Light and energy, sound and star dust, minerals and atoms have all cooperated and conspired to show up as me. The same is true for us all. 

The universe is vast, and compared to it, I am nothing. 

And yet, the universe is vast, and I am an integral part of it, and as part of the vast universe, I am amazing. And so is every person I bring to mind today. 

Someone met someone, somehow, and they had a child who grew up to meet someone, somehow, and they had a child who grew up to meet someone, somehow, and they had a child…until I showed up. How many random, chance encounters took place to make me possible? How many sperm tried to reach how many eggs before one reached one and fertilization occurred and somehow that fertilized egg evolved into the thing that would become me? Randomness after chance encounter after lucky break after disappointment after biological process after ideal circumstance after human effort all merged and combusted into powerful creativity and from the flames of happenstance this phoenix arose!

How many ideas shared over millennia are now part of my consciousness? How many bodies have returned to the earth which provides nurture and sustenance to support more bodies that return to the earth which provides nurture and sustenance to support more bodies…?

How many artists, musicians, architects, farmers, philosophers, inventors, medical researchers, film makers, explorers, loving aunts and adopted children and good neighbors and geniuses and storytellers and peacemakers have contributed to the world that I have inherited? And how lucky am I that I get to contribute to and benefit from this world?

Do I call any of that God? I have done, but I don’t always. However, the marvel of it all is amazing and, in my estimation, sacred, divine even. I bow before the mystery. I am humbled by and grateful to the larger life that gives expression to my life.

Of all the planets and all the stars and all the solar systems and all the galaxies in the ever-expanding universe (which is almost 14 billion years old, at least, and may actually be eternal, without beginning or end, without cause or creator) …You and I are here on this rock, and we know we are. We are aware. We are conscious. Surely conscious life is rare in the universe. Even if 100 planets have it (and we don’t yet have evidence that they do), in the grand scheme, 100 isn’t very many. But we’re here, on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy, and we know that we are. With or without myth, with or without poetry, with or without religious vocabulary, that is awesome.

And so, my fellow miracles, my fellow unlikely events, my fellow self-aware life-forms (rare as we are), I remind you that you are part of grand and glorious realities. In the language I embrace, you have sacred value. I hope that brings you hope today, or peace, or joy, or comfort, or strength, or courage, or relief. Whatever blessing you need, you deserve it and I hope it comes to you in the best way possible; afterall, in a universe where you and I show up, almost anything is possible. And so it is. (dw)

Global Justice Institute TDOR Public Statement

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

November 20, 2024 

TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE 

 

Every year, the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is observed on November 20. The week leading to TDOR is Transgender Awareness Week.  

 

GLAAD states on their website that TDOR is the “annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of 

anti-transgender violence.” 

 

An HRC report states that of the 36 transgender persons murdered in the last year, 78% identified as women, 61% were women of color, half were Black women, over 54% were under the age of 35, 22% were killed by intimate partners, and 9% were killed by a friend or family member.  

 

It is clear that Anti-trans violence involves intersections of misogyny, racism, and domestic violence. 

 

When Transgender people are demoralized and targeted by preachers and politicians, it fuels the unreasonable hatred against them. 

 

During this year’s Transgender Awareness Week, according to LGBTQ Nation, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia reportedly threatened to assault Rep.-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware if Ms. McBride were to make use of the women’s facilities at the Capitol. 

When asked if she had indeed made such a threat, MTG, without denying the report, said simply, “I shouldn’t have to” fight someone for using, in her opinion, the “wrong” restroom. 

 

This sort of threatening language makes Transgender people less safe. Sarah McBride is a person, and someone elected by her district to represent them in Congress. She is also a history maker as the first transwoman elected to Congress. Ms. McBride shouldn’t have to worry for a second that she might be bullied by a fellow Congressperson.

 

Today, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced a ban on transwomen using the women’s restrooms at the Capitol. Despite his very recent claim that everyone is treated with dignity and respect on Capitol Hill, this anti-trans bathroom policy seems disrespectful to transgender people in general, and to Ms. McBride in particular.  

 

When questioned by reporters about McBride specifically, LGBTQ Nation reported that the Speaker said, “For anyone who doesn’t know my established record on this issue, let me be 

unequivocally clear: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman.” He wrongly claimed that his view is the teaching of scripture.

 

Mike Johnson is entitled to his prejudices and to his limited and outmoded understanding of gender, but he should not use his biases to discriminate against a duly elected member of the House of Representatives. And for this discrimination against and disrespect of Transgender persons to occur on TDOR is not only insulting, it also illustrates what fuels violence against Transgender people and why TDOR and Transgender Awareness Week are needed. 

 

The Bishops of the Global Justice Institute, under the leadership of Presiding Bishop Pat Bumgardner, call on all people of goodwill, and especially all people of faith to apply the Golden Rule toward our Transgender siblings.  

 

We ask that people who claim to embrace a religious tradition remember that love and kindness are the guiding themes of most religions, and to realize that Transgender persons are no less entitled to kindness than anyone else.  

 

And finally, we call on all supporters of the Global Justice Institute to continue your support during these uncertain and, for many, perilous times, and to join us in praying for the safety of Transgender people and all members of the LGBTQ community going forward.  

 

“…there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” St. Paul 

 

 

Wishing you blessings of hope and resilience, 

 

 

+Bishop Durrell Watkins  

on behalf of the Global Justice Institute’s Council of Bishops  

 

 

+Bishop Pat Bumgardner, Presiding Bishop & Executive Director 

+Jim Merritt, Auxiliary Bishop 

+Robert Griffin, Auxiliary Bishop 

+Durrell Watkins, Auxiliary Bishop

Theism Isn't the Only Way to Explore the Sacred

 The God of my understanding and experience is a presence and a power, not a person, not a potentate.  

Love at its most perfect; that’s God.

The field of unlimited possibilities; that’s God. 

What’s really real; that’s God.

 

Light and air, water and star dust, and echoes of the big bang all coming together as you and as me; that’s God.

 

The Substance and Fabric and Vitality of life; that’s God.

 

The indescribable More; that’s God.

All-in-all; that’s God.

 

Or rather, those are the ways that I experience, understand, and try to discuss the 

unnamable Something that must be pondered but can’t be dissected, 

 

That can be experienced intimately but never known completely, 

 

That requires awe but not submission, 

 

That inspires love and never cruelty, 

 

That is part of everything but cannot be limited by anything. 

 

And I call that, for lack of a better word, God...

 

We’ve been to the moon. The internet connects us instantly to people across geography and time zones. We transplant organs. We have nano robots that do medical procedures from inside bodies. We cloned a sheep. We fly in the air. Every day.

 

We can live underwater for big stretches of time. 

We synthesized insulin. We can help a lot of people live past 100.

 

There are over 700,000 humans alive right now who are more than 100 years old. There are more centenarians on the planet than there are people living in Denver.

 

We know that homo sapiens (that’s us) have been around for 200,000 years with hominin ancestors going back 5 million years or more (maybe 10).  

 

We live on a small planet in a modest solar system that is one of 400 billion solar systems in a galaxy that is one of 2 trillion galaxies in a vast and expanding universe that is at least 13.8 billion years old and might actually be eternal (always is but never began).

 

The old guy on a cloud passing judgement, pulling puppet strings, deciding when people die, granting favors to the deserving few – 

 

is a mental image we inherited from a world that thought earth was flat and at the center of the universe. 

 

For God to be relevant and real to us, we MUST liberate Her from the middle ages and recognize the divine as part of the fabric of the universe that we actually inhabit. 

 

So, if God isn’t a superhero, but is the air we breathe and the light we see by and the electricity in the room and the love we feel more deeply than we can describe…

 

then we can pray to that God because that God is always with us, exactly where we are; 

we are part of its vastness; it individuates as us. The universe explores and knows itself as us.

 

So, yes we pray. We turn within, because God is there; or we turn outward, because God is there, or we turn to the Great Teachers (like Jesus), because God is there, or we turn to the traditions, because God is there, 

 

or we turn to one another, because God is there. That’s how and why we pray, because there’s not a spot where God is not. 

 

We aren’t calling out across a great canyon, we’re tapping Love itself on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, can I have a hug?” 

The answer is always yes.

(excerpts from Nov. 17, 2024 homily at Sunshine Cathedral)

 - dw

Hateful Administrations: We've seen them before, we'll survive them again

The text of my homily for the Nov. 6 Post-Election Prayer Service at Sunshine Cathedral:

Pastoral Response to the Election
Bishop Durrell Watkins, D.Min.
11-6-24

I am not a party loyalist, nor am I always enthusiastic about the leadership of my default party. But I am always troubled by people being demonized, whether they are immigrants or transgender persons or drag artists or women who want to own their own bodies.
And when vulnerable populations are targeted, I tend to speak up and stand up and sometimes even act out.

From pensioners to Queer families to transgender members of society to immigrants to climate scientists to civil rights activists – folk are afraid right now, for themselves and for their loved ones.
There is no reason to dismiss their fears. We can hope that the worst of what they fear will not happen, we can assure ourselves that we will stand together and support one another come what may, but anxiety today is to be expected.

But you know what? I’ve been afraid before. When our government wouldn’t say the word AIDS, and hesitated with funding research for it, and when I lived during a time of sodomy laws and my every act of intimacy was a crime…I was not infrequently scared. 

In high school, obviously gay but not out – not even really to myself, every day was miserable. The battle for marriage equality gave me plenty of agita. The last three elections weren’t good at all for my hypertension. 

But I was born in the era of civil rights struggle and I was a child during the sexual revolution and the peace movement and Stonewall and women’s liberation and I’ve been alive for the passing of and the dismantling of Roe v. Wade. 

This isn’t my first time to be faced with uncertain times and to hear almost hourly threatening rhetoric. But I’m still here, and so are you. I’m a product of Queer Nation and ACT UP. I’ve battled with family, church and state my whole life. I battled hatred and fear and discrimination in the midst of a viral holocaust.
So one thing I know about scary times is that we are equal to them. 

We feel fear, and we do what needs to be done anyway.
We feel fear, and help one another find a bit of bravery.
We feel fear and we let it fuel creativity and resilience and determination.
And we love one another through the scary times. 

No referendum, no court ruling, no abusive use of scripture, no family rejection, no negative ad campaign, no election of anyone to any office…nothing can diminish the power of our love and nothing can keep us from sharing it with one another. 

We have dealt with bullies our whole lives.
Sometimes we hid, sometimes we ran, sometimes we fought, sometimes we won, but we survived, and we will survive.
Greater is the love within us than the hatred that’s in the world. 

So, if you’re worried about your civil rights, your safety, the way other vulnerable populations might be treated, I can’t tell you that you don’t have good reason for that. But I can tell you that we’re in it together, and together, our voice is magnified, our courage is amplified, our resilience is fortifide, and our creativity is glorified. 

We’ll love each other through this and every challenge, as we always have. It’s one of many things we’re super good at. Today is sad, but the badassery of our love is intact. Amen.

We will get through a second dystopian Trump era - but we must stick together and love one another through it.

Nov. 5 - bundle of Nerves.
Nov. 6 - Shock. Depression. Anger. Incredulousness. Anxiety. Grief.
Nov. 7 - I was starting to regain perspective and letting myself feel determined again.


These were my thoughts on social media November 7:

Okay, I've had a couple of days to pray, marinate, ponder, wallow in denial, then in self-pity, then in fuming rage...you know, cope. Now I'm in a better place (but I reserve the right to come apart at the seems on any given day from now until Nov 2028).

So here's my sane moment: 45/47/34 aka Felonious McPredator von Perfidy will unleash unfettered Dickery & Fuckery & Shittery & Ass-Hattery & Buffoonery & Stankery (so many eries). We will be aghast. Then we will be furious that we were even the slightest surprised. Then we will be demoralized that we live in a country where he is both not incarcerated and is somehow, by anyone at all, admired. But, this is the reprise of this number. We know how it goes. We survived the original production of Orange Turd: the Musical. We'll somehow manage to get through the Revival. 

We are again "the resistance." We will have to use every tool at our disposal: law, hope, collective compassion, righteous indignation, love of neighbor, love of self, love of liberty, forensic skill, creativity, resilience, imagination, snark, humor, camp, spirituality, music, film, theatre, comedy, history, pride, storytelling, self-care...to protect ourselves and one another. We'll grow stronger in the process. We'll love more fiercely. After every fall we will get back up, middle finger at the ready. We'll be okay because we have one another. 

Yes, there will be ugliness, but it will not diminish or demolish our beauty. Our Queer and Trans and Subversive and 2 Spirit and Nonbinary and Ally and Ase and Intersex and Questioning and Pan and Poly and Leather and Drag and Bisexual and Interfaith and Agnostic and Humanist and Pagan and Atheist and Progressive Christian and New Thought and Jewish and Muslim and Buddhist and Hindu and Sikh and Baha'i and Tattooed and Pierced and Camp and Body Positive and Sex Positive and Weed smoking and Feminist and Womanist and Democratic Socialist and Poetic and Artistic and Science Trusting and Peace-seeking Woke and Ever Woker selves will prove indomitable, invincible, and indefatigable. 

It won't be easy, but we will be mighty and we'll survive and ultimately prevail. Don't give up. We faced Sodomy Laws, we faced opposition to marriage equality, we faced AIDS, we faced religious bullying, we faced unenlightened families and cruel neighbors...if nothing else, we know how to survive. 

Rest when you need to. Fret when you must. But then, get back in the fight. We are going to prove to be absolutely legendary in the next few years. My favorite table grace is: "God bless the food and the revolution." I'll be praying that daily for quite a while. Alright girls (I say that in the most gender non-specific way): It's time to slay (in the gay way that isn't lethal, but still, you for real don't want to be the recipient of Queer slayage).
--dw
#slay #ResistFascism #resistproject2025 #wegotthis #StrongerTogether #resistance #keephopealive #lovewins #lgbtqiaplus #lgbtqpride #staywokefolks

Don't Blame LGBTQ - We Voted Against Cruelty & Injustice in Huge Numbers

 "LGBT voters, a larger share of the electorate than ever, shift away from Trump Vice President Kamala Harris led President-elect Donald Trump 86% to 12% among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, according to the NBC News Exit Poll Desk."

Bless my tribe.

"Harris’ performance among LGBT voters was stronger than that of any Democratic candidate in the last five presidential elections."

That for real makes me proud.

LGBTQ voters doubled since 2008.

America Lost and Right Wing Christianity was exposed as the Temple of Hypocrisy that it is

Re: Nov 5 election results:

I am proud to have been on the side of goodness. I always am displeased when my team doesn't win, but the Hillary and Harris DEFEATS (Hillary didn't really LOSE) are unique in that they left me bitter, broken, and depressed. If they had lost to a real person rather than to a cartoon villain, I would simply be "damn, we lost." But when Simon Bar Sinister was given the keys to 1600 P (grab) Avenue, it wasn't that my "side" lost, it was that America and in some ways the world lost. Decency lost. Truth lost. Kindness lost. Compassion lost. The quest for equity and fairness and justice was certainly set back. This isn't one democratic ideology being more popular than another, this is autocracy, oligarchy, and Neo-facsism being given a green light to ruin lives. and that is heartbreaking. We still have the tools of democracy to retard and sometimes prevent the march toward dystopia, and in two years we will have the chance of congressional victories that will offer more protection, and if we take our local and state elections seriously, that can provide another level of protection. But all the Bible and prayer and morals and decency talk that we were raised with meant nothing to those who taught it (or at least nothing to the ones they tried to teach) which is why the judgements and condemnations of evangelicals and fundamentalists should from this moment on mean not one damn thing to anyone ever again.

People are hurting and afraid after the 2024 election

 People are hurting, afraid, bereaved, bewildered, angry, sad...it is not helpful for someone who has the luxury of not having those same concerns tell them to relax, be calm, stay positive, have faith, in the end it'll be okay or "God's got this." There may be truth in those platitudes, and we will be more or less okay, but that does not preclude struggle, disappointment, & injustices along the way; and, it does not mean that we feel okay today. People worried about deportation, bans based on their faith, stripping away of their bodily autonomy, access to healthcare, or their marriage being invalidated don't need those not in similar peril to be dismissive of their experience. Yes we hope. Yes we work & believe in the work. And, we also can be overwhelmed by disturbing news, by cruelty, by attacks against our agency & right to live authentically. Some of us may need a minute, & it costs nothing to allow people time to process their feelings, start getting a plan together, connect with their tribe, & find their path back to hope.

45 (34) is Problematic

 Personal sharing (views not necessarily reflective of anyone else or any group or organization). 

An unpopular, intellectually stifled, morally bankrupt, one-term president who lost pop vote by almost 3 million votes & 4 years later lost by 7 million votes, refused to concede, incited a brutal insurrection in an attempt to overturn election results, twice impeached, boycotted the swearing-in of his successor, first former president to be indicted, 34 felony convictions, adjudicated rapist...

and that's beside "grab 'em by the pxxxy", shithole countries, Mexico will pay, his tragic mishandling of covid, birtherism, "lock her up", tax cuts for billionaires, the apology he owes the Exonerated 5, & packing scotus with antichoice liars who said under oath they considered Roe settled law...

& all that's beside collusion with Russia, tax evasion, draft dodging, less job growth than his  predecessor & his successor, gassing peaceful protestors, & saying he wants to be dictator for a day.

My God! Who, with any sort of conscience, or memory, would even consider voting for him? How much must one hate immigrants, refugees, LGBTQ, women, BIPOC, the Academy, the environment, civil rights, & general prosperity to vote for him over almost anyone with a brain & a soul?

I'm sad, scared, disgusted, & furious that he has any chance at all. He wasn't a good president & you'd have to look hard to find many people who are worse humans. 

Speaking only for myself, a voting citizen & no one else, I distrust anyone who finds him even remotely acceptable. I expect to have room for about 10 new friends after this, but seriously. WTAF? Darth Vader, Jabba, Hannibal Lector (his hero!), Dracula, Satan, & Mussolini can't be on the ballot so he is the sociopaths' booby prize? 

How is it even necessary or controversial to point out that he's a gadomn narcissistic criminal menace unfit for leadership? It makes no sense for any decent person to support him to any degree.

This isn't about party but about naming a racist felonious grifter & trying to protect my country from him. There are people from more than one party who share this sentiment (though I am not claiming to speak for them). This is from ME to whom it may concern.

That's all. Please register to vote. Please vote. Every time.

#deplorables

(dw)

Doesn't the Bible say that Men Shouldn't Sleep Together? (Spoiler alert: Not Really)

Someone asked me today: "the Bible in Leviticus forbids a man lying with another man as he would with a woman, and for most Christians, the Bible is the primary authority. You've said before that the verses used to condemn gay people are aways in the context of exploitation or violence and have nothing to do with loving relationships, but 'do not lie with man as with woman' doesn't seem to be about violence or exploitation, unless I'm missing something."

I took it to be an honest, snark-free question, so I did attempt to answer it (as follows):

Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) is a late concept. The earliest church (which had not yet codified a new testament) depended on a few doctrinal statements (such as found in the aposte's creed). Believiing in the bible or believing the bible was inerrant were not requirements in the early church (they would wait almost 400 years for the new testament and 1500 years or so for "sola scriptura").

Leviticus is telling men not to treat other men the way they treat women (as property to own and use - do not exploit other men).

Sodom & Gomorrah (Genesis 19) pictures an attempted gang rape of men (to prevent it, Lot offers his daughters to them...do not treat men the way you treat women is the patriarchal standard) - Lot, the ONE righteous man in the story (who offered his daughters to a rape gang), winds up having incest with his daughters in a cave (and not being chastised for it in the tale).

Romans 1 refers to pagan orgies that get so wild people get hurt ("due penalty in your bodies")...Paul blames it on idolatry.

1 Corinthians 6:9 condemns male prostitutes and their male customers (exploitation, objectifying men the way women are objectified, commodified like property)

1 Timothy 1:10 - (probably an early second century text, not authentically Pauline) scholars are universally stumped by what is meant, but the most common guess is that it is also about prostitution.

All the so-called prohibitions are in the context of violence (Romans 1, Genesis 19) or exploitation (Leviticus, Paul, Deutero-Paul). Meanwhile, Love is a fruit of the spirit, love is not conemned, Paul says there is no law against love, Jesus said love is the hallmark of discipleship, Jesus understood the commandments to be about simply love of God and neighbor (the Good Samaritan parable shows that anyone who chooses kindness is a good neighbor), and one New Testament writer defines God as Love. Love is not condemned, and the very few verses weaponized against LGBTQ people do not even mention consensual, joyful interactions, covenantal fidelity, or mutual affection or attraction.

Pro-Gay, Pro-Trans, & Pro-Choice, with Bible Verses

Pro-Gay, Pro-Trans, & Pro-Choice, with Bible Verses (by Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins)

On the sub/Reddit thread “Gay Christians” a straight identified poster asked, “Is being gay ever approved or said as okay by God or Jesus in the bible? Is transitioning to a different gender a sin? And do you (a gay Christian) believe in abortions (why or why not)? It would be nice for scripture to be included [in your response]. Asking because I’m curious.”

A day later, the OP (original poster) had received 25 responses, including this one from me:

The very few verses used to condemn LGBTQ people are all in the context of violence or exploitation. Love is never condemned.

We now know that gender isn't binary so "transitioning" is just a matter of coming to terms with one's gender experience & identity & then living in one's truth. Eunuchs in the Bible were considered a sort of third gender and Isaiah says they have a special place in God's all-inclusive house of prayer.

I am pro-choice. I believe everyone should have bodily autonomy. In the creation myth Adam is just a body until the breath of life enters him. His life begins with the ability to breathe on his own, not with simply being formed.

Those biblical nods were because you asked for them. I actually do not limit my moral reasoning to ancient texts that have been interpreted in countless ways & used to justify such horrors as war & slavery. I study scripture but I don't use it in place of independent thinking.

That said, I will add a verse that I find to be true, not because it's in a sacred book but because it has proven to be healing in my own life: "God is Love & WHOEVER lives in love lives in God & God lives in them."

What Kind of Church is Sunshine Cathedral?

What Kind of Church is Sunshine Cathedral? (by Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins)

Sunshine Cathedral’s theology can be boiled down to “God is the power and presence of love, and that presence is omnipresent, everywhere, fully present.”

 

Every single message you hear at Sunshine Cathedral will feature that simple but powerful and life-changing idea: God is omnipresent Love.

 

Just as our worship is a blend of many ideas, experiences, and traditions, so also is our theology the product of blending. We are historically affiliated with Metropolitan Community Churches, a movement started by a gay, defrocked Pentecostal minister (Troy Perry) with a primary outreach to LGBTQ+ people and an enthusiastic affirmation of LGBTQ+ people as children of God designed to be exactly who they are.

 

We are also affiliated with the International Council of Community Churches, the Divine Science Federation, and the International New Thought Alliance. For decades, we have embraced the principles of Progressive Christianity, the principles of New Thought, and the openness of spiritual humanism. 

 

Progressive Christianity simply says questions are more important than the answers we come up with, that everyone is loved by God, that other religions also have wisdom and holiness, that science is important and not at odds with spirituality, and that scripture can be understood in a variety of ways and the best ways are those that promote justice, tolerance, goodwill, and peace.

 

New Thought began as an American healing movement in the 19th century. Their guiding

principles were the omnipresence and goodness of God, the power of thoughts, feelings, and

attitudes to help shape our experiences in life, and the use of affirmations and visualization to make prayer more effective.

 

Finally, spiritual humanism is also part of the air we breathe at Sunshine Cathedral. Spiritual humanism affirms the innate goodness and the potential of human-beings, allows for spiritual community, spiritual experiences, and a variety of opinions about the existence and nature of divinity.

 

Examples of spiritual humanists (who might have also been Christian or Jewish or Muslim, etc.) include Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius, or the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism Mordecai Kaplan. 

 

Spiritual humanists, while not being limited by dogma or creeds, value the individual spiritual experience and the insights that come from it and also value evidence-based science.

 

Sunshine Cathedral is a diverse, joyful, and non-dogmatic community of spiritual seekers where questions are sacred and absolutes are few. What we will declare without waiver or apology is: You are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake.

SunshineCathedral.org

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE

There are actually many ways to study scripture. The various methods of reading and making meaning of scriptural texts are collectively called Biblical Criticism.

The least helpful and least accurate way would be to read as a fundamentalist might. Fundamentalists are narrowly focused Christians who believe that non-Christians are rejected by God and that one must accept certain "fundamentals" in order to truly be Christian. Those fundamentals include:

The Bible is to be considered inerrant (basically dictated by God without any mistake or incorrect information), Jesus' literal virginal conception is not to be questioned, his execution is meant to be seen as our means of salvation, the resurrection must be seen as a literal, historical, physical event, and one must expect his literal, physical return one day.

I, personally, cannot affirm a single "fundamental" as being true for me. The Bible is for me a human project, the so-call Virgin Birth is mythological (comparable to many miracle birth stories in antiquity), Jesus' execution was a brutal act by an oppressive empire, resurrection is an experience we share but not a single, literal, historical event, and Jesus' return is allegorical and meant to help us be Christ in the world rather than have us wait for a hero to tidy up our messes.

But I can easily reject fundamentalist views because I have learned to think critically and because I have been exposed to various methods of biblical criticism.

If the fundamentalist approach isn't helpful, what are some ways of engaging scripture that might be more energizing?

Allegorical Interpretation: In addition to characters and stories say on the page, a second level of meaning is extracted from (or applied to) the text. Allegorical interpretation might suggest a story from one part of the Bible represents something from another part (like the Ark representing St. Mary sheltering God's people beneath her veil in stormy times) or it might apply biblical stories to larger, universal themes (rather than asking if the resurrection literally happened, an allegorical approach would be to ask how the resurrection story points to possibilities in our lives to rise above defeat, heartache, unfairness, loss, or disappointment). 

Allegorical approaches to bible reading were used by Origen of Alexandria, by the mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, and has traditionally been a preferred method of bible study in the New Thought Movement (Charles Fillmore, for example, used each apostle to represent mental states, e.g., John represented love, Thomas represented understanding, Peter represented faith and so on). 

Demythologizing Scripture: This approach looks at the fantastic claims of scripture (walking on water, Jonah in a fish, a donkey talking, people living hundreds of years, etc.) and tries to separate the claimed events from the moral lesson or theological point the stories may be trying to make. 

Historical-Critical Method (used to be called "Higher Criticism") - looks at the traditions, languages, oral transmission of stories, and politics that influenced the writers. Asks who is writing, to whom, and why? Has been used since the 19th century and has always been intended to read the texts free from dogmatic bias. Field of archeology is helpful to this method of study. 

Literary Criticism - tries to establish the genre of the documents (poetry, biography, homily, hymn, parable, etc). Examines the structure, date, and authorship of documents based largely on the internal evidence in the documents, but external evidence is employed when helpful (as in dating texts). If one document quotes another, those quotations are noticed and explored. If the voice of the "writer" changes (suggesting, perhaps, multiple writers) if the writing style changes, those things are brought under examination. Literary criticism studies the Bible as literature using scientific techniques to do so. 

Philology - studies histories of languages and compares languages to one another. Comparing ancient documents (biblical and non-biblical documents from the same periods and regions) in the ancient languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Coptic, etc.) is a very academic but also very enlightening field of study. 

Rhetorical Criticism - comparing communication styles and philosophies of biblical discourse.

Social Scientific Criticism - Uses anthropology, sociology, and social psychological to analyze biblical texts. Studies the behavior of people in the Bible in a social or cultural context, noticing ritual, customs, and actions within the environments of the actors.

Now, don't be put off by the word "criticism" - that isn't an attack on scripture. Criticism in this context is the use of scientific criteria and reason to understand and explain the meaning intended by the writers, if possible, with a high degree of objectivity. 

Some hermeneutical methods are more artistic than scientific. Theopoetics, for example, might read scripture through a theological lens, seeking to apply it in personal spiritual seeking, describing the process in artistic or poetic ways. It would try to embrace and communicate the experience of scripture to an imaginative reader. 

Some might find the allegorical method to be more artistic, or at least, more creative, than scientific. So, in addition to the scientific ways of engaging the Bible, there are also artistic ways. 

How to read the Bible? I have found every method described here (apart from the fundamentalist approach) to be helpful and enlightening. And, guess what? There are even more methods! 

Regardless of the method(s) we choose, if we approach the texts with open minds and a joy in discovering new insights, we'll probably find that we haven't nearly exhausted what the Bible has to offer us. Keep reading, keep thinking, keep questioning, and keep imagination, and the Bible will continue to open worlds of discovery for you. It might not support your doctrinal training and dogmatic certainties, but that's actually a good thing. (dw)

Protect democracy

 When voter turnout is low, disproportionately organized & capitalized movements win even when their views are not in the majority or when their agenda is destructive. Democracy is fragile & must be protected, & that's done by every eligible voter casting a vote, for every office, in every election.

Vote.org

Litany of Pride and Healing

For Sunshine Cathedral and spiritual communities that refuse to put conditions and limits on divine love,

Welcoming Grace - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For an informed, compassionate, and responsible electorate,

Spirit of Cooperation - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those who have died from homophobic or transphobic violence, and those who mourn, and those who fear they could be next,

Spirit of Indomitable Hope - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those whose governments and religious traditions condemn them, sometimes to literal death, and who experience hell on earth as well as threats of perdition beyond,

Spirit of Compassion - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those who died from AIDS, and those who live with HIV but dare not take their health for granted,

Spirit of Life - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those who know the joy of LGBTQ+ pride, and for those whose hearts cry out, “maybe next year,”

God of the Eternal Now - HEAR OUR PRAYER.

 

Queer Saints in heaven and earth, pray for us, pray with us.

 

AMEN.

--Litany prayed at Sunshine Cathedral on June 30, 2024

The Strange Mixture of Anxiety and Hope

I’m worried. I’m worried about Christian Nationalism, which is really white nationalism, it has nothing to do with jesus.

 

I’m worried about rights being rolled back. The right to support gay and trans kids, the right to talk about LGBTQ families in public spaces, a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, the right to vote,

 

the right to learn history as it occurred even if some of it is ugly, the right to hold even the most powerful accountable for their abuse of power…

 

I’m worried for those who have known discrimination and who are being told they will know more of it if certain agendas are enforced.

 

I’m worried, but not hopeless. Because for now, we can vote. We still have a say in how our future will unfold.

 

Democracy is from the Greek, Demokratia meaning “power of the people.” If we don’t use our power, it will be taken from us, and then democracy gives way to something far removed from Jesus’ dream of a divine kin-dom.  

 

Instead of leaving our fears unchallenged, let’s take Jesus’ advice and seek God’s kin-dom, that realm of peace and justice-love where the last are first and the first are last, where even a widow’s mite is meaningful,

 

where hunger isn’t allowed, where the elderly are safe and children are encouraged and people are never demonized for their love and where the sacred value of all people is recognized.

 

The kin-dom of God is in our hands. We can reject Christian empire and embrace instead God’s kin-dom, the non-kingdom, the anti-empire.

 

I’m asking people of faith to dare to dream Jesus’ dream of God’s universal family making sure that no one is oppressed, forgotten, or left out, and then let that dream inform your participation in our democracy, which if we are as Christian as we claim to be, will look more like Jesus’ dream, and less like empire.

 

May the divine kin-dom come and the divine will be done. Amen.