Reconciling In Christ

Its official: My seminary is now a reconciling in Christ seminary!

I do endorse a theology that struggles with viewing erotic love of any kind as sinful. I am an advocate for making sure that people feel welcomed and respected within a context of a church community. I do not think that people should be judged by the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their gender their economic status, physical capabilities, age, etc. I also do not believe that people should be judged for their spiritual or religious beliefs either. I firmly believe in living out an ethic that Paul states in Galatians 3 that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free. Inclusion is a wonderful thing to practice and I think that I have been blessed to be a part of a very accepting community these past few years.

However, despite the fact that I am a huge advocate for what it means to be reconciling in christ, I do not feel like this title has any place at a seminary in the ELCA Lutheran church.

Currently, as a church whole, we are still living in a lot of division over the issue of homosexuality. Already, people who tend to have the same view point on homosexuality as I do tend to come to seminary in PLTS because it is a welcoming, accepting enviornment on this particular issue. However, within this, I have seen a large tendency to place people who do NOT hold this same opinion to be hateful and ignorant. In my time in really engaging people who disagree with me on this issue, however, I find the opposite to be true, as I have encountered a real sense of wanting to be loving and respectful of people who are homosexual, even if they find homosexuality itself to be wrong. Its almost as though the hatred that is perceived from people who have a more conservative stance on this issue is targeted towards any tendency toward conservatism in itself. In the end, if I had to choose I would much rather be an advocate for people who are gay and lesbian than for people who uphold a more conservative stance on homosexuality if it were that simple. But the truth is it is not that simple. And the other truth is that people from both extremes consists of where the church is currently at. To have a seminary that directly favors only one camp of thinking on this issue is only going to attract people who are more liberal on this issue, which is not going to adequately prepare people for the realities of the spectrum of attitudes that people truly do hold on hoomosexuality. Even though I have a liberal stance on homosexuality I am not in favor of a church split, and I fear that an RIC status may be the equivalent of seminex in my generation.

One of the other big reasons why I am opposed to PLTS being a Reconciling in Christ seminary is that I fear that it might automatically disqualify people who agree with this particular stance from serving in a more multicultural setting. We have been taught to be readers of our surrounding culture in addition to being a public voice in this context. In my time working at Resurrection Lutheran Church, I found that it was an amazing congregation in terms of dealing with the needs of this large African population that was there. It truly was concerned about addressing the real concerns about race and poverty in that particular neighborhood. However, as a large percentage of the congregation were immigrants from African countries, a more conservative stance on homosexuality was held. And to come out in strong favor of homosexuality right away would have been to alienate the people who this congregation was trying to serve. There was a similar sentiment at a church in LA that I visited that had a lot of immigrants from Mexico as well. Would we be taking away the possiblity of people serving in more multicultural settings BECAUSE we are a reconciling in christ seminary???

PLTS has been concerned with making sure that we are given a variety of ways to practice what it means to be readers of the culture that we are in. It has become very apparent to me that while the church could be more welcoming to homosexuals, I think that we have a longer way to go when it comes to things that are related to race and poverty. Perpetually, I find that it is well educated, white, middle class settings that are wanting to have statements about accepting homosexuality. And oddly enough it is the voices of people who are going hungry or are still oppressed by racism that are ignored if their rhetoric on homosexuality is one that the church does not want to embrace.

I am an advocate for congregations becoming reconciling in christ. This is because they are usually having a consensus about being RIC before they make the decision and this generally has a community with more continuity. But I am not an advocate for a seminary being reconcling in christ because 50% of the student body changes every year. I am not an advocate for a seminary being reconciling in christ because it only embodies one way of thinking about homosexuality when there is a wide spectrum of beliefs about this in the church.

However, I have not felt like this is a perspective that I would have been able to endorse publically this semester. For starters I think I would have said more at the beginning of my career in seminary than at the end as I would have felt more invested in what my community would say. Also, there has been a general consensus of enthusiasm of the seminary being Reconciling in Christ and to speak up too much on the issue would have been social suicide in a year that I have felt a little more isolated than usual already. And my work load I have from school work and internship prep has been intense enough that haven't had a lot of emotional energy left. I have been a big believer in choosing my battles wisely. It would have taken too long to describe to a lot of people why I beleive in what RIC stands for but I do not think that it has a place in a seminary. Yet that sounds like somehing I would do, have an unconventional third option in a land of black and white...