Busybodies Strike Back At Lisa Larges

We are celebrating the vote in San Francisco presbytery. The presbytery approved the ordination of Lisa Larges. But she hasn't been ordained yet. Ever watchful for gay cooties, busybodies in San Francisco signed a "Stay of Enforcement." High priestess of the busybodies, Rev. Mary Holder Naegeli, sent a news release that was posted by town crier of the busybodies, Presbyweb:

Enough signatures were collected at the close of the meeting to secure a Stay of Enforcement while a remedial complaint is filed with the Synod of the Pacific Permanent Judicial Commission. Ms. Larges’ ordination cannot take place unless all legal hurdles are overcome, which could take another eighteen months.

Proving that making life difficult for others is what gives their lives meaning.

Lisa Larges Approved for Ordination!

San Francisco Presbytery was all a twitter last night as Lisa Larges was approved for ordination by a vote of 156 to 138. That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS) was also approved as a validated ministry of the presbytery. That vote was 157 to 147.



In a polarized presbytery in a polarized denomination, Lisa Larges completed another chapter in her 23 year quest to serve the church as an ordained minister of word and sacrament.

Her last statement before the vote on her ordination:


"My call is to follow Jesus Christ and live my life with integrity."




Indeed. Thank you, Lisa, for your witness.

I have posted on her journey previously. In reverse order (pretty much):

Larges and Capetz Ordinations to Go Forward
Doug Oldenburg on Amendment B
Lisa Larges in the Advocate
A Silver Lining for Lisa Larges?
Lisa Larges Responds
Lisa Larges Decision
Lisa Larges on Trial
Lisa Larges Approved!
Lisa Larges in LA Times
More Links Regarding Lisa Larges
Lisa Larges' Statement of Conscience
Church Has Opportunity to do the Right Thing

United Religions Initiative Gratitude Dinner

Here is something different for East Tennessee. You are all invited to a dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving with people from many different religions. No, not just Baptist and Church of Christ, but Buddhist and Wiccan, too!

Right here in the Bible belt.

We are more diverse than you might think. Here are the details:

Saturday November 21, 2009
6:00-8:30 p.m.
Johnson City Senior Center:
607 W. Myrtle Ave.



The Northeast Tennessee Co-operation Circle of United Religions Initiative is having their seventh annual interfaith potluck dinner of gratitude. A special effort is being made to attract people from diverse cultures and religions with the hope of creating a supportive and active interfaith community in the Tri-Cities area.

Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, Native American, Buddhist and Unitarian Universalist religious leaders and congregants will share blessings and prayers for peace. The evening will be closed by folk Dances of Universal Peace led by Rebecca Nunley.

The public is invited to bring a dish and share in this interfaith opportunity to get to know our neighbors. Turkey and beverages will be provided. (Bringing a dish of one’s culture or ethnicity is encouraged, but any dish is welcome.)

RSVP Contact: Rev. Jacqueline Luck, revluck [at] hvuuc [dot] org or leave a message: 423-477-7661

Hope to see you!

Start Spreading the News...

The action is in New York State today. According to the New York Observer, over 700 hundred clergy are going to melt away their little town blues and be a part of it:

ALBANY—With tomorrow's expected vote on same-sex marriage, advocates of the legislation say they're busing in 700 clergy members from around the state.

"This list represents a diverse group of faith traditions and congregations from all corners of our state. The leaders of these religious institutions understand the spiritual value of respecting all members of their community, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender," said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda.

Come on, come through...

New York!

Ten Thousand Villages Sale

One of the big events near our mountain is the Ten Thousand Villages Sale. Each year we raise around five to six thousand dollars.



Shoppers enjoy purchasing some high quality gifts! All the proceeds go to artisans in the two-thirds world. It is coming up this weekend. Here is the press release:

(Elizabethton, Tenn) – Since the early 1990’s, volunteers at First Presbyterian Church have been supporting fair trade by hosting a Ten Thousand Villages Sale. On November 14th and 15th you can make fast work of your holiday shopping and purchase unique and useful hand-crafted items from all over the world by making one quick trip to Elizabethton. Favorite items include carved wooden bowls, hand-woven baskets, gorgeous jewelry and children’s toys.

As always, 100% of what we sell goes back to the 10,000 Villages organization which “provides vital, fair income to artisans in Africa, Asia and Latin America who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed. This income helps pay for food, education, health care or housing. Ten Thousand Villages is a non-profit organization that has been working with people around the world since 1946.”

The public is invited to attend this unique and enjoyable sale Saturday November 14th, 8 am – 3 pm, and Sunday the 15th from 1–3 pm at the First Presbyterian Church on “F” Street in Elizabethton. Cash and checks are accepted.

Check the photo gallery on our web page for pictures from last year's sale. Check out other events of note at east Tennessee's progressive hideout, fpcelizabethton! Hope to see you!

Turning the Tables on the Bigots

Here is an interesting approach. Ronald Goetz, a "Proud PFLAG Dad" is proposing a lawsuit on behalf of clergy and churches whose rights are being violated because they cannot perform marriages for same-gender couples. This is a turn the tables approach on those Christians who argue that marriage equality somehow violates their freedom of religion. What do you think? Mr. Goetz is looking for advice and input.

"Proposed Class-Action Lawsuit on Behalf of Churches and Ordained Clergy Because of the Violation of their First Amendment Right to Free Exercise of Religion"

There are many denominations that are on record as supporting Marriage Equality and want to marry same-sex couples as a matter of religious faith.

There are thousands of Open and Affirming congregations nationwide that support Marriage Equality and want to marry same-sex couples as a matter of religious faith.

There are additional thousands of ordained clergy who want to marry same-sex couples because of their religious faith.

The first amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Congress includes state and local jurisdictions, which cannot violate your civil rights either.

Thousands of churches and ordained clergy are being denied the free exercise of their religion in violation of their first amendment right.

I urge that this violation of the constitution be resisted through a class-action lawsuit, or some other appropriate vehicle. We are also guaranteed the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

I would like responsible parties (clergy, denominational officials, attorneys) and enthusiastic supporters to contact me. I need input, encouragement, and pro bono advice.

Please contact me at kings.lgbt [at] hotmail [dot] com and let me know what you think. Thanks!

And please forward this to anyone you think might be interested.

Ronald Goetz
Proud PFLAG Dad

Renaissance or the Road to Hell?

The East Tennessean (ETSU's student paper) reported on a student demonstration for a carbon neutral campus, Students Rally for Renewable Energy:

At 11:35 a.m. Thursday, students across campus participated in a "walkout," leaving class early to attend a rally for renewable energy.

"As an institution of higher learning, we feel that we should be spearheading the sustainability movement," said Initiative for Clean Energy president Lance Lewis as students, faculty and staff were assembling in Borchuck Plaza for the rally. "We should be leading the way, but instead we're still burning coal and natural gas, polluting our air and wrecking our vital ecosystems in the Appalachian mountains, and that's got to end."

The students want university president Paul Stanton to sign on to the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). According to the website, signatories "are pledging to eliminate their campuses’ greenhouse gas emissions over time." This includes:

• Completing an emissions inventory
• Within two years, setting a target date and interim milestones for becoming climate neutral.
• Taking immediate steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by choosing from a list of short-term actions.
• Integrating sustainability into the curriculum and making it part of the educational experience.
• Making the action plan, inventory and progress reports publicly available.
  

My friend, activist Ash-Lee Henderson (who hangs out with us Presbys on occasion) had this to say:

"This basically means that we would be consuming enough sustainable energy that it would balance the amount of pollution that we're putting out," said Ash-Lee Henderson. "The rally was inspiring and it moved people to get active in the movement to stop our direct purchasing of coal."

Good work Lance, Ash-Lee and the students of ETSU! If you would like to contact President Paul Stanton and encourage him to get green, here is his contact information:

Office of the President
East Tennessee State University
PO Box 70734
206 Dossett Hall Lake Street
423-439-4211
e-mail

Meanwhile, The Oil Drum reported that 2/3 of the geologists at the Petroleum Geologists Conference in London voted following a debate on peak oil, that, yes, peak oil is a concern.



Jeremy Leggett, geologist and author of Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis, arguing that peak oil is a concern responded to this question regarding the debate:

Q: What do you think the result means?

The result seems to suggest that the rank-and-file practitioners hold a very different view of peak oil from the BP/Shell/Exxon etc. top tables.

He also said:

Q: How do you think the peak oil drama is going to play out?

We will find out who is right about peak oil before the decade is out – earlier, rather than later. The discontinuities will be seismic. My preferred scenario is this one. Within just a couple of decades, the world will be floating on a sea of cleantech energy technologies, and enjoying a renaissance built around the many social value-adders inherent in those technologies. Oil shocks, oil wars, and all the other dismal paraphernalia of the hydrocarbon age will seem so very ….twentieth century. I elaborate in my books “Half Gone”, and “The Solar Century.” Of course, there are other scenarios.

Q: You're known as a climate-change campaigner as much as a peak-oil whistleblower. How do you think these two issues are related?

Peak panic will prompt a race to mobilise oil-replacement technologies. If cleantech wins out, we win, and renaissance beckons. If coal-to-liquids and tar sands win out, we lose, and we are on a road to hell. We start destroying wealth faster than we create it well before the mid point of the century. Again, I elaborate in my books, and keep the drama updated on my Triple Crunch Log website, www.jeremyleggett.net.

Here is a quick clip regarding "the solar century."

I finished a critically important book by Richard Heinberg, Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis. This book provides an analysis of the available coal around the world (not nearly as much as we think). His final chapter provides scenarios of what we can do. In this final chapter he responds to why he subtitled his book, "last energy crisis."

If, as our scenario exercise suggests, there are really only two basic paths ahead--on one hand, the attempt to maintain maximum economic growth using fossil fuels of declining quality (with or without carbon capture or storage); or on the other, a scaling back of consumption, population, and economic growth so that all needs can be provided from renewable energy sources--then the end of coal means the last energy crisis in either a positive or negative sense.

In the negative sense: Once world coal production peaks, unless nations are already well on the way toward a renewable energy economy, they won't have a high net energy source available to keep the lights on and fund a further transition that only begins at that time. The peak of world oil production in 2010 will impact the world economy profoundly. Without a coherent effort to proactively reduce energy consumption further while developing renewable sources, the decline of energy from coal toward the middle of the century will deliver a coup de grace to industrial civilization, making the maintenance of electrical grids problematic to impossible. We will then have come to the end of the road, having used nature's endowment of cheap, energy-dense fuels without having built a bridge to the future. What follows is the final Blackout.

If we do develop a renewable energy infrastructure and a steady-state economy based on a recognition of ecological limits, the period of coal's decline will constitute the last energy crisis in a positive sense: once we have adopted a no-growth economic paradigm and are relying on resources that are continually replenished, we may never again have to worry about energy supplies.

The choice before us could hardly be starker. Pp. 166-7

Here is an article that later became a chapter in his book, Coal in the United States.

The US currently produces over a billion tons of coal per year, with quantities increasing annually. This is well over double the amount produced in 1960. However, due to a decline in the average amount of energy contained in each ton of coal produced (i.e., declining resource quality), the total amount of energy flowing into the US economy from coal is now falling, having peaked in 1998. This decline in energy content per unit of weight (also known as "heating value") amounts to more than 30 percent since 1955. It can partly be explained by the depletion of anthracite reserves and the nation’s increasing reliance on sub-bituminous coal and even lignite, a trend that began in the 1970s. But resource quality is declining even within each coal class.

Finally, you need to watch Home. A few of us watched it at the church last night. A powerful, sobering film with astounding photography and accurate information about our global condition regarding energy, our demands upon it, and the human impact on the environment. It also includes a fantastic natural history of Earth.

You can watch it on your computer on Youtube.

According to the film, we have about ten years to radically change the way we live or we are in the words of Jeremy Leggett, "on a road to hell."

Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don't need reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too
I'm on the highway to hell
No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me round
Hey Satan, payed my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey Momma, look at me
I'm on my way to the promised land
I'm on the highway to hell
(Don't stop me)
And I'm going down, all the way down
I'm on the highway to hell

Desperation and Hope: A Sermon

Desperation and Hope
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

November 8th, 2009
Stewardship Sunday

1 Kings 17-8-16
Mark 12:38-44

As he taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, 39and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! 40They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

Today is Stewardship Commitment Sunday. This Sunday finishes our pledge drive. Later in the service we will have the opportunity to engage in a ritual of stewardship. I want to say as clearly as possible that this community is a great place in which to give. I think we do important work here. Participating in a community like this helps us raise our consciousness, connects us with others, inspires us develop a sense of meaning and well-being, and challenges us to live more authentically and more sustainably. It is good to participate in something larger than ourselves that brings us and the world joy. This congregation does that. It is a blessing. As we are a voluntary organization we operate based on gifts from our members, thank you for being part of it and for supporting it with your time, talent, and treasure.

Now I am in a bit of a pickle.

I have decided to follow the lectionary readings for the Fall. The text for today is about the widow and her mite. One would think that text would be a natural for stewardship Sunday. She is the inspiration for giving, right? Be like the widow. Give it all! Here is a poem I found on the internet:

She came for Temple worship
And from her penury
Cast her gift, the widow's mite,
Into the treasury.

Another came that Sabbath day,
Rich and finely dressed,
And from abundance gave his gift
Much greater than the rest.

But God who weighs the human heart
And gifts both great and small,
Chose to praise the widow's mite...
"This woman hath given all!
-Linda Wright

As the faithful and pious widow gave her all to the temple, so ought we be humbled and inspired by her commitment. We should not therefore complain when the stewardship committee comes calling.

John Calvin, the 16th century Protestant Reformer had this to say about this passage:

This reply of Christ contains a highly useful doctrine that whatever men offer to God ought to be estimated not by its apparent value, but only by the feeling of the heart, and that the holy affection of him who according to his small means, offers to God the little that he has, is more worthy of esteem than that of him who offers a hundred times more out of his abundance. In two ways this doctrine is useful, for the poor who appear not to have the power of doing good, are encouraged by our Lord not to hesitate to express their affection cheerfully out of their slender means; for if they consecrate themselves, their offering, which appears to be mean and worthless, will not be less valuable than if they had presented all the treasures of Crœsus.

On the other hand, those who possess greater abundance, and who have received from God larger communications, are reminded that it is not enough if in the amount of their beneficence they greatly surpass the poor and common people; because it is of less value in the sight of God that a rich man, out of a vast heap, should bestow a moderate sum, than that a poor man, by giving very little, should exhaust his store. This widow must have been a person of no ordinary piety, who, rather than come empty into the presence of God, chose to part with her own living. And our Lord applauds this sincerity, because, forgetting herself, she wished to testify that she and all that she possessed belonged to God. In like manner, the chief sacrifice which God requires from us is self-denial.

A great deal of interpretive weight has celebrated this passage and this figure, the impoverished widow who gives her all, as a model for giving to the institutional church. This common reading has equated the Temple with the church.

That is our first mistake.

It could be that the institutional church is similar in some ways to Herod’s Temple. But if so, that is no compliment. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has nothing but contempt for the Temple.

His first act with the temple is an act of spectacle in order to raise consciousness. In a demonstration he turns over the tables in the temple. This is not because he objects to the selling of pastries in the foyer. He turns the tables then explains what he is doing by quoting the prophet Jeremiah, “You have made the house of prayer a den of robbers.”

A robbers’ den is where robbers hide out after they do their robbing. The temple has become cover—a hiding place—for those who have exploited the people. The temple is religious legitimation for exploitation. That is the first encounter Jesus has with the Temple in Mark’s gospel. That should be a clue that the mission of the temple and the mission of Jesus are not the same.

Later, the disciples are marveling at the temple. They are Galilean peasants on a field trip to the big city. One of them says to Jesus: “Look, teacher at what large stones and what large buildings.” Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

Later, Jesus' accusers say that Jesus declared that he will destroy the temple made with hands and build another not made with hands. Whether or not Jesus said that, we can't know but neither the Temple nor its keepers receive good marks from Mark who interprets Jesus' ministry and mission as anti-temple.

Why? What is the problem with the Temple? For starters, Herod built it. That isn’t of itself so bad. But it should give us pause. The temple was one of several ambitious building projects by Herod.

These included military fortresses at Masada, Antonia, and Herodium and the port city of Caesarea which included a hippodrome for chariot races, an amphitheater, an artificial port, a huge temple dedicated to the emperor, and numerous bath houses.

The Temple that Herod built for the Jewish people was massive and gaudy. First century historian, Josephus, writes:

Viewed from without, the Sanctuary had everything that could amaze either mind or eyes. Overlaid all round with stout plates of gold, the first rays of the sun it reflected so fierce a blaze of fire that those who endeavored to look at it were forced to turn away as if they had looked straight at the sun. To strangers as they approached it seemed in the distance like a mountain covered with snow; for any part not covered with gold was dazzling white...

Herod then appointed his own high priest to run the thing.

Herod built and built. How did he afford all of this? Olive oil was one way. Rather than have subsistence farmers living off their own little plot of land, he turned Judea into Herod-Mart. Now you had landless people working as day laborers for absentee landlords to produce cash crops. He taxed the people heavily, crushingly.

In the passage before the one in which our pious widow gives her last mite to the Lord, we find:

38 As he taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, 39and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! 40They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

In Michael Moore’s new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore shows a clip of George W. Bush at a town hall meeting of some sort. In the clip a woman says that she is working three jobs. The president grins and says:

“That’s great!”

The president praises her for her piety and hard work. What a good American to work three jobs. It doesn’t dawn on the president that having a woman work three jobs in order to barely get by is not a sign of prosperity. What kind of economic system do we have that requires this?

When Jesus is watching people throw their money (notice the word is throw not give) into the temple treasury, he is not praising the widow. He isn’t saying to her,

“That’s great! Don’t worry about food for yourself or your family. Give your last penny to keep this gold plaited holy of holies in operation!”

Jesus is offering a scathing, damning critique of Herod’s economic system and the religious legitimation of it.

Jesus gathers his disciples to show them this. Here is a teaching moment. Look at these two people coming to the treasury. Giving a good chunk of change doesn’t hurt the rich. They can pay the temple tax and have money left over. The problem is that the temple is funded on the backs of widows who have lost everything. These building projects including this Temple which supposedly is the symbol of God’s presence, have devoured the poor, like this widow.

Yes, the widow is our teacher.

The popular reading regards the widow as a teacher because of her piety. The teaching is that we are to follow her example.

A more accurate reading regards the widow as teacher because of her condition. The teaching is a critique of our economics.

We don't know why the widow gave her last money to the temple treasury. Was she forced to do so like a tax? Was it a last act of desperation like buying a lottery ticket with her last dollar? Was she hoping for the miracle that oil would not run out as in the story of the widow and Elijah?

We don't know. We do know that Jesus did not approve. He did not approve of a temple that either by force or desperation devours widows' incomes after it devours their houses.

It would have been more just for the widow rather than give her last penny to the temple, to instead take some out.

It would have been more just if the rich man who gave a large amount to the temple to have given it to the widow, or perhaps given her her house back so she could make her own living.

It would have been more just for the temple to have been prophetic and spoken on behalf of the economics of God or the economics of the good rather than the economics of exploitation.

I think the Bible, the whole of it, and Jesus’ message in particular, is about how we live our lives in relation to one another and to Earth. It is about economics. The kingdom of God which Jesus talked about more than anything else, is both an economic and a political term. The kingdom of Herod or the kingdom of Caesar is in opposition to the economics of the good.

It is what is fair, just and sustainable versus what is unjust and exploitative.

So this widow’s story can be a story for stewardship. It is a tragic story to be sure. It is a story of desperation. It is a story of what goes wrong when we allow ambition and greed take over reason and compassion.

It is also a story of hope. The gospel story is a good news story. It is only good news when it speaks to reality such as the reality of widows whose houses are devoured. The temple with its religious legitimation of exploitation fell. As Jesus said, not one stone was left upon another. Out of its ruins something new emerged. That is our hope.

Stewardship means to care for life and all that life puts before us, especially those who are most vulnerable. Part of stewardship is to be a voice of conscience. We are given the opportunity to be that voice today. Perhaps more than anything the church is a voice.

We are to give voice to the widows.
We are to give voice to the exploited.
We are to give voice to Earth.
We are to give voice to the injustices so that we can also give voice to justice and to hope.

I am grateful to each of you and to this community as a whole for being that voice.

But we Love them...

Can anyone possibly believe that those who are against equality for gays and lesbians are not motivated by homophobia? I mean really. This is in Thursday's USA Today:

"Every time Americans vote on marriage, traditional marriage wins," said Wendy Wright, president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America. "As people become aware of the true homosexual agenda — that it is not about equality but indoctrinating children and discriminating against Christians — they shore up protections against it."

The homosexual agenda is about "indoctrinating children and discriminating against Christians."

Uh huh.

Homophobes, a bit of advice:

When you tell lies about people it is hard to believe it when you claim that you love them.

Meanwhile, some Presbyterians think we should remove the word homophobia from our vocabulary as it makes some who are against equal rights feel bad when they are called on it.

I think we'll keep this word for a while.

Larges and Capetz Ordinations to Go Forward

The General Assembly PJC (GAPJC) has ruled regarding Lisa Larges and Paul Capetz regarding their ordination status. These two saints have put in play ye olde scruple rule. Witherspoon has the story from the Presbyterian News Service.

The rulings effectively allow San Francisco Presbytery to proceed to examine Larges for possible ordination and the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area to restore Capetz to ordained ministry in the PC(USA).

So good news! Congrats Lisa and Paul! Lisa will be examined by San Francisco presbytery on Tuesday.

Crummy news from Maine.

Voters rejected a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed. The repeal comes just six months after the measure was passed by the Maine legislature and signed by the Democratic Gov. John Baldacci.

Maine would have been the sixth state in the country to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, but instead becomes the 31st state to oppose the unions in a popular vote.

Sunshine and rain.

Meanwhile, I am in Cleveland for the Covenant Network conference that starts tomorrow afternoon. I have to check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame first.

Cleveland rocks.