There But For The Grace

The church from which I retired last year and the pastor with whom I served there have made national news — again — this past week. You can read coverage by the New York Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Kenosha News (subscriptions required) or Chicago Sun-Times. Or continue below for my own two cents worth.

New York Times, page 19A, August 20, 2025

I had taken the job as Grace Lutheran Church's parish secretary in 2017 against the advice of a former employee, who warned me of a toxic environment there. Grace Lutheran was founded in 1901 when English-speaking Lutheran Churches were somewhat of a novelty, located in what was once the city's fashionable uptown, but now in what is euphemistically described as "a changing neighborhood."

Your humble scribe answering the door to reporters after a 5-year-old child had been fatally shot in the house next door to the church

In its heyday, as with most mainline Christian churches the post-World War II baby boom era, it had hundreds of members on the rolls, including several faculty and administrators of Lutheran-founded Carthage College. There is a tension between folks with advanced degrees and people whose forebears are memorialized in the stained glass windows.

The following anecdote has nothing to do with this window.

I once came across a decades-old, five-page, hand-written letter to Grace's then pastor by the daughter of a founding family arguing strongly against the church's decision back then to participate in the INNS program, opening its doors as a homeless shelter one night per week. Her parents, she wrote, would be horrified to see their church abused in such a manner; the role of her church was to praise God, not to feed and house the poor.

If I know anything about Lutheran pastors of the 1990's, her pastor could hardly wait to preach on Matthew 25:41-46. And the lady who wrote that letter had probably left to join a nearby Wisconsin Synod or Missouri Synod congregation more in line with her idea of Christianity.

By the 2010's, Grace was an aging congregation, but one that wanted to be socially relevant, both to live the Gospel and also to attract younger members (while still clinging to century-old hymns every Sunday — a new music team switched to contemporary music in 2023). So they issued a call to a young firebrand pastor out of California, passionate about environmental issues and social justice.

They got more than they bargained for.

Rev. Barker speaking at a WisPIRG rally in front of Grace Lutheran Church

When I came along, the congregation was getting along financially thanks to a dozen or so of its wealthier members and outside grants to benefit its free diaper programs and its housing of a free breakfast and food bank service (the homeless shelter having moved out to its own permanent location years earlier). Then came COVID-19; as with many other mainline congregations, when the doors re-opened for in-person worship months later, attendance was way down.

In the middle of all that came the police shooting of Jacob Blake during a domestic disturbance call. Grace Lutheran Church was caught between the centers of riots, looting, and fires that followed. (See my post here.) The building was undamaged, but the inside reeked of smoke when I came to work the following Tuesday.

Rev. Jonathan Barker was on vacation at the time, but returned home to help lead Black Lives Matter protests (and, behind the scenes, to house water and first aid materials for protesters while the National Guard enforced a curfew). When the Greater Milwaukee Synod and churchwide office wanted to rally in support of the community, the front lawn of Grace Lutheran Church was its choice of venue.

Unbeknownst to nearly everyone at the rally, Grace had been recommended to the staff of Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden as the location for a listening session between the candidate and select representatives of the community the very next day. (See my account here.) First United Methodist was even closer to the rioting, but for whatever reason, Biden's people opted for Grace, and Pastor Barker was happy to oblige.

It was never intended to be a campaign event, but Pastor Barker's role in bringing Biden to Grace and his vocal advocacy of Black Lives Matter protesters drove away some church members, including some vital congregational leaders. Most Kenoshans did not appreciate their town being trashed and burned so that protesters could make a point about police violence.

Pastor Barker nevertheless devoted a lot of time to being a protester. He held weekly protests at one of Kenosha's busy intersections calling on Wisconsin's Republican Senator Ron Johnson to vote for President Biden's Green New Deal bill — a lost cause, since Johnson has always been firmly committed to despoiling the environment, slashing social services, and excusing the rich and powerful from paying their fair share to keep government running.

When the Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee, Pastor Barker superglued his shoes (while wearing them) to the entrance of the convention's parking garage. He also tried disrupting a Trump campaign event, getting forcibly removed while Trump made fun of him.

I have to note that this was all on Pastor Barker's personal time, despite his choice of collar. Grace could not afford a full-time pastor, so he was only on the clock Saturdays through Tuesdays (plus Christmas Eve). Naturally, however, people expect their pastor to be available 24/7, regardless what they're paying him or her. Especially those members who spent a lifetime serving pot luck dinners and funeral luncheons, singing in the choir, volunteering at Vacation Bible School, or just putting $5.00 in the offering plate every week.

Grace is a congregation in crisis. Since my retirement, one member of the already short-handed church council quit after other members of the council had the leaders of the free breakfast and food pantry programs forcibly removed by police (the matter is the subject of continuing litigation; Grace tried and failed to keep the programs going on its own). Another council member quit the church over Pastor Barker's political activity. Yet another council member died suddenly.

With all this going on, Pastor Barker decided to respond to a new IRS ruling, allowing clergy to endorse political candidates from the pulpit without endangering their 401(c) charitable entity status, by announcing to the New York Times that he planned to endorse Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for President in his August 17 sermon.

Greater Milwaukee Synod Bishop Paul Erickson found out about Pastor Barker's plan when the Times contacted him for comment. The churchwide assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) had just ratified an official "social statement" opposing political endorsements from the pulpit, so Bishop Erickson warned Pastor Barker that his sermon was contrary to that social statement and would likely result in the ELCA revoking Grace Lutheran Church's coverage under the national church's group tax exempt status.

Rather than change his sermon, Barker posted a terse video message to the congregation, resigning as Grace's pastor and from the ELCA clergy roster. He delivered his sermon at some venue festooned with papel picado, and promises to continue preaching on his personal YouTube channel.

As for Grace Lutheran, Bishop Erickson was there this past Sunday, and issued a pastoral letter to the synod:

I also ask for your prayers for Grace Lutheran Church. I was present with them on Sunday, preaching and meeting with them as they consider whether they have a viable future. Many of you are aware of the recent challenges and controversies surrounding the congregation and their relationship with the former Grace Welcome Center. Please know that I have been and will continue to walk with the congregation and others in Kenosha and the surrounding communities as we work to discern God’s will for the future of ministry in that neighborhood.

What remains of the council has been disbanded, and my successor as office secretary has quit effective Monday. The synod office in Milwaukee will take over management of the church. Pastor Sheila Rawn, already planning to serve as interim pastor at Grace during what was to be Pastor Barker's upcoming family leave, has agreed to begin her service there right away. By ELCA practice, she would not be considered for a permanent position there, if in fact the congregation somehow becomes viable again.

I grieve with, and pray for, my sisters and brothers at Grace. I cannot offer much hope that all will turn out well in the end; but what hope there is will only come about after finding new paths through that old building. God's place is with the "changing neighborhoods" in which Grace stands, its people living up to the message of Matthew 25:35-40 as best they can.

After Prayerful Consultation with His Wife

The General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted last week to lift its bans on clergy performing weddings for same-sex couples or being openly gay or lesbian.

The policy change comes after some 7,600 U.S. congregations left the UMC because, while their church officially held that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching" and prohibited same-sex weddings and homosexual clergy, church leaders had indefinitely delayed implementing a 2019 vote to defrock an married lesbian bishop, Karen Oliveto. Their departure from the UMC was facilitated by an agreement allowing congregations to take their church properties with them. (In the UMC and many other denominations, it is the national church that owns a member church's real estate, not the individual congregation itself.)

UMC General Conferences convene every four years. The 2019 conference was extraordinary, called specifically to address the Mountain Sky Conference's election of Bishop Oliveto. The regularly scheduled 2020 conference was cancelled just as the whole world was shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UMC's new policy does not, of course, require member clergy to perform same-sex weddings; the 447 to 233 vote indicates that their will continue to be some dissenters. The change will be more forcibly protested by Methodist clergy in Africa, many of whom apparently failed to attend this year's General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. They could stay within the UMC, but most likely will be afraid that gay cooties will keep them out of heaven if they do.

Will the United Methodist Church end up becoming the Divided Methodist Church?

And whose side will get to run the DMC?

Q Toon: The Things That Guide My Life

I've finally gotten around to my Jimmy Carter tribute cartoon this week. It quotes extensively from an interview the former president gave to Huffington Post in 2012:

Q: A lot of people point to the Bible for reasons why gay people should not be in the church, or accepted in any way.

A: Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things -– he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.

As president, Carter didn't have a lot to say about homosexuality. Not because gay rights weren't an issue, mind you. Lesbian and gay activists were openly pushing for non-discrimination laws, and the other side had Anita Bryant crusading against us. Sgt. Leonard Matlovich was suing the Air Force to reinstate him after it had discharged him in 1975 for being gay (he won his suit in 1980, but accepted a monetary settlement instead). San Francisco's gays and lesbians rioted after the antigay assassin of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone was sentenced to only seven years in prison. The first homosexual rights march on Washington D.C. was in 1979.

On the other hand, the disease that would later be named HIV/AIDS was known only to a few and understood by even fewer. Even within the lesbian and gay community, there was little interest in marriage equality.

Carter's administration did, through Midge Costanza and her Office of Public Liaison, urge federal agencies to adopt and enforce antidiscrimination policies, however. And in 1978, when pressured at a pre-election rally by gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown to endorse a "no" vote on Proposition 6, the antigay Briggs Amendment, (and promised that Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan had already done the same), Carter returned to the mic and added his support for California's lesbians and gays as a postscript to his appearance there.

Well, I suppose the 1970's were a different time. I don't remember Senator Joe Biden speaking up for us, either; yet that doesn't negate his endorsement of marriage equality in 2012. 

So I return here to the Huffington Post interview. Toward the end of the interview, Carter explains his Christian life philosophy more fully. It wouldn't all fit into my cartoon, but his answer to a question about people who cite selected biblical passages to defend their homophobia deserves to be included here in full.

A: The example that I set in my private life is to emulate what Christ did as he faced people who were despised like the lepers or the Samaritans. He reached out to them, he reached out to poor people, he reached out to people that were not Jews and treated them equally. The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasized that we should go to and share with them our talent our ability, our wealth, our influence. Those are the things that guide my life and when I find a verse in the Bible that contradicts those things that I just described to you, I put into practice the things that I derive from my faith in Christ.

Amen, Mr. President. Amen.

Q Toon: The Untied Methodist Church

Leaders of what has up to now been the United Methodist Church reached their breaking point this month. Conservatives, largely from Africa, the Philippines, and the southern U.S., have been horrified by acceptance by their liberal peers — mainly from North America and the British Isles — of marriage equality and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.

A 16-member panel will now draw up a divorce settlement to present to Methodists' General Conference in Minneapolis this May. Conservatives are expected to break away to form their own denomination, taking a $25 million alimony payment on their way out. Everybody gets to keep their own churches, seminaries, ministries and property.

The devil, to coin a phrase, is in the details. Where congregations have a variety of viewpoints in the pews, there are bound to be some nasty fights, hurt feelings, and perhaps a few locks changed. Is Pastor Kim still covered under the old retirement plan? Who gets to keep the paten bought with Aunt Esther's memorial funds?

I'm being facetious when I suggest giving the judgmental, law-centric books of the Old Testament to one side and the Good News, salvation-laden books of the New Testament to the other.

You can think of the Old Testament as the part where God lays down the law and then gets pissed off by the children of Israel and sending plagues and serpents and Persians. Then Jesus shows up in the New Testament and hangs around with prostitutes, tax collectors, and fishermen, and sending them off to run errands on the Sabbath. His disciple Peter, the rock on whom Jesus's church would be built, dreams of eating bacon cheeseburgers and shrimp scampi.

But that's a simplistic summary of the Bible. The New Testament is also dominated by a convert from Judaism, Paul, who writes volumes to haul believers back to the Law of Deuteronomy. Pauline epistles to Timothy and the church in Rome preach against gay sex; Paul would rather that all believers abstain from sex, but he grudgingly cuts heterosexuals some slack.

Instead of divvying up the Bible by Testament, I should have granted the antigay conservatives custody of all the books of the Bible with an "O" in the title. That way, they get Deuteronomy and several of the Pauline epistles, as well as Exodus, Revelation and a smattering of doom-and-gloom prophets.

The liberals, sadly, would lose the Johannine gospel and epistles, but would keep the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Genesis, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, which are the only books of the Old Testament that get frequent usage in the Western Church anyway.

Perhaps the liberals and conservatives could agree on visitation rights on holidays.

EnviroStewardship: Caring for Creation

My dad writes an environmental commentary for his church's monthly newsletter. His column for October continues a discussion begun last month.

In last month’s Environmental Stewardship article, I quoted the ELCA’s Social Statement "Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice," and specifically mentioned the principles of Solidarity, Sufficiency and Sustainability. These may not be the terms you think of first when considering environmental stewardship or your position in the church, so I hope that it is worthwhile to quote that statement and discuss them further.

“The principle of solidarity means that we stand together as God’s creation.” 

We might think this refers to other churches and organizations, but the writers of the statement call for the acknowledgement of our interdependence with all creatures in all creation. We have allowed the land and its inhabitants, human and non-human, to be disenfranchised by the rich and powerful. We have allowed the environment to be degraded by greed and the desire for profits at all cost. Since we have voices that steer decisions, we must stand in solidarity with those without such voices, again both human and non-human.

“The principle of sufficiency means meeting the basic needs of all humanity and all creation.” 

Since the earth and its fullness belong to the Lord, who are we to take such a disproportionate share of what is really a huge but finite resource? Although the statement mentions all creation, we really are talking about the earth and its natural resources. We can look at it from the position of all humanity, the country or from the position of an individual, our own self.

When we clean out our closets to donate to the rummage sale, are we primarily concerned about those who have less to wear or are we making room to go out and buy more? Are the  huge and quickly filling landfills evidence of our inability to stop at sufficient? The pressures of a consumer economy are great, but should we be seeking personal fulfillment by acquisition?

“The principle of sustainability means providing an acceptable quality of life for present generations without compromising that of future generations.” 

Our heavy use of fossil fuels is not only a threat to our and future generations due to global warming, but is an example of a resource that took millions of years to make but a few generations to deplete. The rich soils of the midwest took centuries to build up but can be washed away in decades. Likewise, the great forests of this country.

The Amazon rainforest has been called the lungs of the earth and yet we see it burned for agricultural purposes … more beef for more hamburgers. This largest of all rainforests may be reaching a tipping point which will mean no recovery in our, or our grandchildren’s, lifetime or the foreseeable future.

Native Americans have used the possible effects upon the seventh generation as a guide to their individual and collective decisions. Maybe we should adopt such a policy.

These principles should be applied to us as individuals, to the businesses and organizations in which we have influence, and to the church as a community.

At one point in the social statement, it is written, “Neither economic growth that ignores environmental cost nor conservation of nature that ignores human cost is sustainable. Both will result in injustice and, eventually, environmental degradation.”

I believe the former is the greater concern, but I am neither poor, voiceless, powerless or discriminated against.

—John Berge

Q Toon: Whoops for Wholeness

The Conversion Therapy scam lost another one of its founding fathers this summer. Hope for Wholeness founder McKrae Game publicly apologized on Facebook and in an interview with the (Charleston, South Carolina) Post and Courier this month for the damage the quack ministry had caused countless already conflicted and vulnerable gays and lesbians.

“Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful, because it’s false advertising. ... I was a religious zealot that hurt people,” Game said in an interview. “People said they attempted suicide over me and the things I said to them. People, I know, are in therapy because of me. Why would I want that to continue?”

While condemning Wellness for Hope's practices, McKrae nevertheless believes that its Baptist construct could somehow serve as a community for people who believe “homosexuality is incongruent with their faith.” The Post and Courier article includes this response from a dissatisfied Hope for Wholeness client:

Josh Crocker, 32, a Greenville man who is gay and sought counsel from Hope for Wholeness as a college student in 2006 (known then as Truth Ministry), said that particular sentiment was troubling. There is no part of Hope for Wholeness, he added, that could be of benefit to anybody.
“For me, I just think that’s inadequate. ... I think he should be afforded the time and space to process all the things he needs to process and become who he is,” Crocker said in an interview, “but I’d love for him to apply that same passion he had for Hope for Wholeness ... to advocacy for the LGBTQ community ... and to dismantle conversion therapy and ex-gay ministries.”

Game founded Truth Ministry in 1999, after having "lived as a gay man for three years," according to the Hope for Wellness website. Now 51, he was fired from the program in 2017 and publicly declared himself gay this past June.

Game is hardly the only LGBTQ conversion therapist to discover that self-loathing is no way to live one's life. Sadly, the determination to force themselves to live heterosexual lives has left scores of ruined marriages in its wake.

[Mormon and conversion therapy advocate David] Matheson then confirmed [conversion therapy advocate Rich] Wyler’s assertions on Tuesday with a Facebook post of his own. “A year ago I realized I had to make substantial changes in my life. I realized I couldn’t stay in my marriage any longer. And I realized that it was time for me to affirm myself as gay,” he wrote.
Matheson, who was married to a woman for 34 years and is now divorced, also confirmed in an interview with NBC News that he is now dating men.

There was also ex-gay poster boy John Paulk, who appeared on the cover of Newsweek with his wife Anne back in August of 1998, only to transfer the prefix "ex-" from his gayness to his wife. Love in Action leader John Smid (the basis for the character of conversion therapist Victor Sykes in "Boy Erased") tried for 24 years to make a go of his mixed-sex marriage before admitting that he was not heterosexual and had "never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual." Exodus International former President Alan Manning Chambers is apparently still married to his wife Marilyn, but now identifies as gay and, like the others, has publicly apologized to the LGBTQ community.

In spite of all this, and several states and cities officially banning conversion therapy, the ex-gay Christianist movement is reportedly making a comeback, according to the Washington Post. Jonathan Merritt interviewed for his report one new-wave ex-gay leader after another — Rosaria Champaigne Butterfield, Jackie Hill Perry, Matt Moore — who has married or become engaged to an opposite sex partner.

No doubt those couples will be very happy together.

✍

I've arranged the four panels of this week's cartoon in one column as an experiment in making multi-panel cartoons legible on teeny tiny phone screens. It wasn't drawn to accommodate the format, and I'm not particularly pleased with the result.

And that's as far as I'm willing to go. You want to read cartoons on your smart watch? Sorry, Dick Tracy.

Verse of the Day

For followers of the Common Lectionary...

Q Toon: Putting On The Fritts

On Sunday June 2, Grayson Fritts, founding pastor of All Scripture Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, celebrated LGBTQ Pride Month with a sermon calling upon police to enforce biblical law that "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13, KJV).

Fritts made several violent statements in his sermon, calling non-straight people "freaks, animals" and other names. He expressed the belief that it is the duty of police and the government to enforce anti-LGBTQ+ laws that are outlined in the Bible.
"Here's how it should work, it shouldn't work when we go out and we enforce the laws, because the Bible says the powers that be are ordained of God and God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to these LGBT FREAKS and arrest them," he ranted. "Have a trial for them, and if they are convicted then they are to be put to death...do you understand that? it's a capital crime to be carried out by our government."
Fritts went on to say, "All the pride parades, man, hey call the riot teams, we got a bunch of 'em, get the paddy wagon out here, we got a bunch of 'em going to jail, we got a bunch of them we're gonna get convicted because they've got their pride junk on and they're professing what they are, they're a filthy animal."

One might dismiss this as the fulminations of one more Fred Phelps wannabe, but as it happens, Revrunt Fritts is also Deputy Fritts of the Knox County Sheriffs Department. Or, well, he was until video of his sermon got out.

Even as Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and Sheriff Tom Spangler denounced Fritts's sermon and the District Attorney began a review of every investigation in which the former Deputy of the Month had been involved, Fritts doubled down in a follow-up sermon, telling his flock, "Just as God loves, God hates. ... Put homos to death!"

Shortly before that follow-up sermon, someone left an rainbow flag attached to a note outside the storefront church. The message read, "Dear Pastor Fritts, I don't know what happened to you, but I am so sorry. Love, Thy Neighbor."

Environmental Stewardship: One More Time

Last month, I explained that the new pastor at my father's church decided to change the title of Dad's column in their newsletter from "Environmental Stewardship" to "Care of God's Creation." As this month's column shows, Dad is getting a bit frustrated.

I was hesitant to post this column, expecting his pastor to suggest he rethink it. But he forwarded to me an email from her that indicates that she is letting him go ahead with this, and let the chips fall, or not, where they may.

For ten years these columns or essays (I’m never sure which they are) appeared under the heading Environmental Stewardship. For the last six months they have been titled Care of God’s Creation. I haven’t heard a single comment about this change from any member of the congregation other than staff. Does this mean that nobody noticed or that the two phrases have no different connotation?

I can’t remember from whom I may have borrowed the phrase Environmental Stewardship, but for me the Stewardship part was from a paraphrase of the first creation story in Genesis 1:26 in which “dominion” was interpreted as “stewardship.”

The notes in the NRSV, the Lutheran Study Bible, state, “Having dominion is understood as care-giving, not exploitation.” In many other parts of the Bible, stewards are persons who act for the landowners and rulers, often in their absence, and are responsible for keeping things running right. Lutherans are very knowledgeable about stewardship of our money, our time and our talents. Here, I use it to mean stewardship of the air, water, soil, flora and fauna, habitat and everything that is connoted by the environment. It certainly was meant to include Care of all this.

On the other hand, and it may seem petty or limiting, I raise the question whether God’s Creation includes all the ways we have messed up the environment. I accept that God somehow created the entire universe, surely not quite in the ways described in Genesis and probably not by pushing the button for the Big Bang. I also accept the Genesis evaluation that “God saw that it was good.”

What I find very hard to accept is that God created the pollution and mess that we see around us and has been so vividly portrayed in the recent UN report, the sixth Global Environment Outlook. I believe that Environmental Stewards should take Care of God’s Creation and the mess that industrial homo sapiens have made of that creation.

Apparently nobody else worries or cares about the title; the important thing is whether anybody has adopted any of the changes in their lives suggested over the past ten plus years in these essays. If not, then there is no point in taking up this space in the newsletter. The ideas and suggestions are seldom, if ever, mine, but I hope I have brought them to you in a different, interesting and compelling fashion and from a Christian layman’s perspective.

For months, I have had no feedback from any member of the congregation, so I have no way of knowing whether anyone has made changes in their environmental awareness and thoughts, their plans or actions stemming from these essays. You can generally find me standing around during the Sunday coffee fellowship and I would love to hear from you. Or you can email me here.

You've Been Chopped

Q Toon: #Metousiosis

Transsubstantiation: according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the change of substance or essence by which the bread and wine offered in the sacrifice of the sacrament of the Eucharist during the Mass, become, in reality, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. In Greek, metousiosis.

For centuries, theologians have debated Jesus Christ's sermon in John 6 and at the Last Supper that bread and wine somehow become his own body and blood. Is it another one of those metaphors you find all over the Bible, or are we supposed to take it literally? In Catholic dogma, the bread and wine are no longer bread or wine; Lutherans believe that the bread and wine are simultaneously bread and body, and wine and blood. Baptists believe that grape juice miraculously becomes what Jesus meant to say.

Some people believe we're supposed to take every word of the Bible literally.

The New Testament calls Christ the “bridegroom” and the church his “bride.” Catholic priests are supposed to consider themselves "married" to the church, forswearing all others. That's not in the Bible, really; it's one of those reforms brought in because priests were making the church a family business handed down from Father to son.

The Catholic Church solved that problem, but was left with a dogma that seems to have attracted more than a few men with unsavory ideas about how to consummate their marriage to the church.

Literally.

Enviro-Stewardship: And Behold, It Was Tov Me’od

Since October, I've been posting Dad's monthly "Environmental Stewardship" column, which he writes for local church newsletters. Here's John Berge's column for May: 

I recently read that “The Hebrew vocabulary includes no word equivalent to our term ‘Nature,’" by which we include all the plants, animals and microscopic creatures, usually excluding human beings.

I presume this lack of of a Hebrew word is also true of the term ‘Environment,’ which includes the physical elements that surround us – rocks, soil, air and water. ‘Ecology’ comes to us from the Greek, but even though the New Testament was written in Greek, I doubt its inclusion since the word was coined much later. This does does make it difficult at times to translate environmental and ecological messages from the Old Testament to the present. But the messages are there in abundance.

"Genesis 1" by Maximino Cerezo Barredo

For example, in the first creation story in Genesis, after each of the first stages (days) of the creation, God saw that it was “good.” After the creation of man and woman he saw that it was “very good” because now there were stewards to care for His creation, to have “dominion” over all. Dominion is best interpreted as not domination but stewardship.

In the New Testament, in an event which is not generally considered an ecological or environmental reference, Luke tells of the healing of ten lepers. (Luke 17:11-14) They were told to “go and show.” They were to walk in order to be cleansed. Likewise, to be good stewards of God’s creation, we must act, not just talk or muse about the problems that face us in protecting our environment for ourselves, our offspring and our God, but walk the talk.

The City of Racine is taking two such actions: There is a growing group, including the City Administrator, who are aiming Racine towards being a waste-free city, an excellent target to work toward – whether it can eventually be attained or not. Every department in the city is to search out goals and programs to reach this objective, not only within their department but within those portions of the city over which they have jurisdiction or influence.

The second action is to initiate a city commitment to the Paris Accord. This agreement aims to respond to the global climate change threat by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2º Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Several cities in Wisconsin, including Kenosha to our south and Milwaukee to our north, have committed to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025.

What specific goals, challenges and efforts the city will make has not been determined at this time, but it will take actions by all citizens as well as government to reach the goals of the Paris Accord, with or without leadership by the President and the Federal Government. As environmental stewards, appointed by God in Genesis, we all must act.

Note from Paul: Google Translate gives "טבע" (teva) as the Hebrew word for "nature." It may be a non-Talmudic word; if you want to delve into that further, there's a theological discussion here.

At Sunrise They Went to the Toon

The Christian season of Lent is scheduled peculiarly on Western Orthodox calendars this year. Ash Wednesday coincided with Valentine's Day, as you recall; and Easter falls on April Fools' Day.

So in the spirit of April 1, 2018, I give you The Greatest Prank Ever Pulled:

Incidentally, the next time this happens will be in 2029, then 2040.

These things cycle in patterns, by the way. Almost every time Easter falls on April 1, it falls on April 21 the following year (not the latest date on which it can fall, but close to it). There have been exceptions, as in 1804 and 1923, but you can count on this much of the pattern to continue faithfully for the next few centuries.

Toon: Will You Return to Be My Dust?

I'm a little early with this cartoon, so take it easy. You haven't missed mass, and there's still time to pick up that bouquet of roses.

As it happens, Ash Wednesday and Easter on the western Christian calendar coincide with Valentine's Day and April Fools' Day this year. This is an extremely rare occurrence, even more rare than having five weekends in July or whatever that money bags B.S. is that your gullible Facebook friends will share with you later this year.

The Easter-April Fools' Day convergence isn't likely to have much effect on society, but observant Christians are going to have to make some hard choices next Wednesday. Churches tend to schedule Ash Wednesday services early in the evening; so will it be a nice romantic dinner for two, or having ashes smeared on your forehead? Lobster thermidor, a box of chocolates, and a nice bottle of viognier, or a sermon about giving up gluttony and drunkenness?

There might be a noontime mass, for retirees and the one or two other members of the congregation who are willing to take a long lunch break from work yet not have lunch.

But if you're just waking up from Mardi Gras revelry about then, perhaps you'll be in the mood for a bit of repentance.

Environmental Stewardship: Romans 6:1

Here's Dad's Environmental Stewardship column for February:

Not too long ago, a member of my congregation complimented me on my Environmental Stewardship articles on climate change and global warming. (Like most males, I am a glutton for compliments.) But then this person essentially said that we need not change the way we live significantly; we should just trust in the Lord because God, after the flood, promised never again to destroy the world.

True, but He said nothing about what we might destroy.

Also, I should remind the reader that even with the worst case scenario, the earth will still be here and so will the cockroaches, carp and lots of other living creatures; we will just have made the earth close to unlivable for many or most human beings.

Joseph Sittler: Photo from josephsittler.org

That member’s statement sounded an awful lot like what my favorite theologian, Joseph Sittler, had written about years ago. What follows is a direct quote from his writing in the Center for the Study of Campus Ministry Yearbook, 1977-78 as reprinted in “Joseph A. Sittler: Grace Notes and Other Fragments.”

“I meet it [soggy piety], for example, in people who, following a talk about the Christian responsibility for the care of the earth, will remark, ‘I hear what you say, it is very serious and we must do something about it; but I really trust in  the Lord. The Lord will not permit us to do this to his world. This is our Father’s world and he will see to it that we do not destroy it.’ The first person who said this to me took me rather aback because I had not met that one before. But neither, of course, had I met before the kind of jovial God who lets you romp all over his garden and will clean up the garbage after you have messed it up. I was hard put for a moment – but by providential help, for only a moment.
“I remembered a wonderful passage in the prophets – you remember – where God is talking to a prophet who has worked very hard at a certain vocation and has become quite discouraged. The prophet is taking the matter up with God and says, ‘I seem to be working hard at it, but I’m not getting anywhere.’ And God says, ‘I will send my servant Nebuchadnezzar.’ And the prophet says, ‘How’s that again? That guy? You really mean you are going to let Nebuchadnezzar serve your purposes?’ God says, ‘You heard me! I will send my servant Nebuchadnezzar.’
“So not all the purposes of God are realized in the hands of the church, but God is a God of judgement as well as of grace; you cannot get away endlessly with rapacity toward his creation.”

Q Toon: Heaven and Michele

(click here to view)

Paul Berge Q Syndicate👼Jan 11, 2018 EditorialCartoonists.com

Former Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann announced on the Christian Broadcasting Network that she might consider running for the Senate seat vacated by Democrat Al Franken, but she hadn't heard from God on the matter quite yet. Editorial cartoonists are now waiting with bated breath in hopes that God gives the go-ahead to the woman who believes that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation, that Iraq and Libya should have reimbursed the U.S. for overthrowing their leaders, that Barack Obama was allowing Islamic extremists to impose Sharia law in the U.S. by 2015, and that

"Because our K-12 public school system, of which ninety per cent of all youth are in the public school system, they will be required to learn that homosexuality is normal, equal and perhaps you should try it. And that will occur immediately, that all schools will begin teaching homosexuality."

But wait, there's more.

"What a bizarre time we’re in, Jan, when a judge will say to little children that you can’t say the pledge of allegiance, but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and you should try it.”

“You have a teacher talking about his gayness. [The elementary school student] goes home then and says 'Mom! What’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.' The mother says 'Well, that’s when a man likes other men, and they don’t like girls.' The boy’s eight. He’s thinking, 'Hmm. I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.' And you think, 'Oh, that’s, that’s way out there. The kid isn’t gonna think that.' Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that this is intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse.”

"I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgender. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders."

"So now we find out these people are making decisions based on our politics and beliefs, and they're going to be in charge of our health care. There's a huge national database that's being created right now. Your health care, my health care, all the Fox viewers' health care, their personal, intimate, most close to the vest secrets will be in that database, and the IRS is in charge of that database? So the IRS will have the ability potentially — will they? — to deny health care, to deny access, to delay health care? This is serious! Based upon our political beliefs? That's why we have to repeal Obamacare."

Of course, the last time political wags thought the very idea of a dimwitted, factually-challenged narcissist running for political office ought to be good for a laugh, we ended up with President Trump.

Conventional wisdom, which tends to emanate from NYC, DC and LA, not Lake Wobegon, is that Minnesota is a Blue State; but it's worth remembering that Al Franken was only elected Senator in 2008 by the slimmest of margins. Republicans can and do win statewide races there; Minnesota Democrats have won only five senatorial elections and two gubernatorial races over the last 20 years.

Both of Minnesota's Senate seats will be up for grabs this year. The last time that happened, in 1978, Republicans won both races.

If that should happen again, heaven help us.

Q Toon: Second Best Wishes

I have to confess that I'm conflicted about the Supreme Court's current case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. As a legally married gay man, I'm perturbed by the claim that I might be denied service by any given business establishment on the basis of the proprietor's religious-based prejudice against me.

On the other hand, as someone who draws freelance cartoons for publication, I think I ought to be able to refuse, were someone to offer to hire me to draw a cartoon I vehemently disagree with. I also play music for weddings and funerals, although I've never had the dilemma of being  presented with musical requests that I would have refused to play.

Still, refusing to stick two plastic grooms on the top of a wedding cake seems almost dickish to me. I've been around to see all manner of wedding cakes for different-sex couples, frosted to match the color of the bridesmaids' dresses or the groom's army camouflage, festooned with homages to Star Trek, country music or Harley Davidson.

Mr. Phillips may very well be the artiste that he portrays himself to be, but if he should win the right to discriminate against same-sex couples, how far does that right extend? The so-called religious right has been agitating for decades now for their right not to participate in society's progress; it is no stretch of the imagination to suppose that they would press further for the right of plumbers or auto mechanics or firefighters or emergency medical technicians or (now that corporations are people) insurance companies to refuse service to LGBTQ persons.

Given that the same religious right feels persecuted by commercial transactions during which the employees of the business sell them whatever goods and services they want, but wish them anything other than a Merry Christmas, it's hard to be completely sympathetic with their plight.

Q Toon: Moore-ality Play

Cartoonist and content provider Daryl Cagle coined the term "Yahtzee" for when two or more editorial cartoonists draw the same idea on the same topic. That's what happened with the cartoon I drew on Sunday night, because I've seen the same basic idea, more or less, in the meantime drawn by Steve Sack and Phil Hinds. (Sack, as ever, did the concept up best, if I do say so myself, since he's not the sort to say it himself.)

Anyway, it's too late to change my cartoon now, and besides, all the other great ideas about Alabama's Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate have already been taken.

When I was at the drawing board, my chief worry was that Judge Moore would drop out or be forced out of the race between then and now.

I needn't have worried. A poll found that 37% of Alabama Evangelicals, and 29% of the electorate in general, claimed they were "more likely" to vote for Moore after the allegations against him were made public. Dinesh D'Souza, or whomever he was plagiarizing, tweeted that he used to be lukewarm about Moore, but now "we must elect him." An Alabama politician compared Moore to St. Joseph, Step-Father of Our Lord, and an Alabama pastor slammed Washington Republicans as "sissies" for withdrawing their support of Moore.

On the other hand, current polls show that Moore's Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, has come from behind and may have as much as a 12-point lead. Jones, a former U.S. Attorney during the Clinton administration who prosecuted Klan members who bombed a black church in 1963, has been careful to distance himself from national Democrats. Republicans are desperately considering delaying next month's special election, or pushing a write-in campaign for incumbent Luther Strange, whom Moore beat in the September primary.

I don't know whether Alabama is one of those states that requires a run-off election if nobody gets over 50% of the vote, but it seems likely (that being one of the tactics southern states used to safeguard against Black candidates coming out ahead if the White vote were split); that would be a possibility if Republicans split between Moore and Strange. National Republicans would prefer a Strange-Jones runoff or maybe a Strange-Moore runoff, but could be stuck with a Moore-Jones runoff prolonging their present agony.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, an evil wizard at the byzantine rules of politics, has even floated the idea of having Strange resign from the Senate before the December election, in order to force a new election. If Moore should win next month's election outright, the Senate could vote to expel him, allowing Alabama's Republican Governor to appoint a replacement. That seems a long shot with little precedent, but so did refusing to consider President Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

These are interesting times. Strange days, indeed.

Q Toon: The Gnashville Sound

With most Americans' attention fixed on the devastation of Hurricane Harvey down in the Houston area, a meeting of conservative evangelicals (including many members of Donald Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board) met in Nashville, Tennessee and published a statement condemning LGBTQs.

Article 10 of the "Nashville Statement" tells LGBTQ persons that they are not Christian, and neither is anyone who supports them:

WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.
WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), which produced the statement, was founded in 1987 to protect the "It's A Man's World, And By That We Mean A Straight Man" view of conservative Christianity. For them, a woman's place is in the home, standing by her man, because Father Knows Best. It's a doctrine called "complementarianism," as opposed to egalitarianism, in which men and women are viewed as equals.

Complementarians are Biblical literalists, and according to their interpretation of the Scriptures, women and men are to have distinct roles at home and in church. In essence and in practice, women are to submit to men, who are to be spiritual leaders.
Women cannot preach or hold any kind of spiritual authority over men. Men exercise “headship” over their wives, establishing a hierarchy whose basic mechanics differ from denomination to denomination.

As far as these people are concerned, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and especially transgender people present a direct threat to their patriarchal worldview. One cannot reconcile complementarianism with any relationship that does not involve someone with a vagina submitting herself to someone with a penis; and the doctrine certainly cannot account for the possibility of someone born with one but feeling compelled to live as someone born with the other.

If this were strictly a matter of who is welcome in a CBMW church on Sunday morning and who isn't, this would be a tempest in an easily avoided teapot. But because these people have worked long and hard to establish a right-wing Christian Theocracy in this country, even to the point of banding together to give slavish support to a materialistic, hedonistic, unrepentant, biblical illiterate as President of the United States (but hey, at least he's got the male dominance thing down pat), their anti-LGBTQ dogma has consequences far outside their church doors.

[T]he type of theology underlying the Nashville Statement is used to defend the denial of goods and services to same-sex couples. The political power evangelicals hold in the United States allows them to codify their beliefs in law. Dozens of “religious freedom restoration acts,” primarily in the form of so-called bathroom bills, have focused on policing the lives of L.G.B.T. people. Since the 2014 decision by the Department of Education to include gender identity under Title IX protections, more than 60 Christian colleges have requested — and many have received — waivers to discriminate against L.G.B.T. students.

Even worse is their promotion of quack "reparative therapy" in which psychological torture is used to "cure" same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. So too their active promotion of a culture in which LGBTQ lives are devalued to the point where some people still believe they have moral justification to murder us on sight.

So enjoy this week's cartoon. It's more light-hearted than I truly feel about this topic, but in parody, you have to go where the song takes you.

And in case there's some reader out there who has never been exposed to country 'n' western music, the song is "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys" by Ed and Patsy Bruce (although if it's giving you an earworm for the rest of the day, you're probably hearing Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson's cover of the tune).

Q Toon: The Trumperor's New Clothes

Memesters have been having fun with the photo, apparently taken by one of the participants, of a clutch of evangelical leaders "laying hands" on mercurial American President Donald J. Trump.

The picture has been photoshopped to show him being pushed into a prison cell, over a cliff, toward the Jaws shark, onto a Star Trek transporter, and all manner of  punishments cleverer than Ms. Griffin's foray into political commentary.

The evangelicals' fawning over the boorish, self-absorbed, ill-tempered, insulting, rude, lying, envious, boastful, proud, man-child who is the complete anathema to 1 Corinthians 13 struck me just a little bit differently.