Revenge of the Sixths

This week's Graphical History Tour ventures once again into the Bergetoon vaults to haul up the stuff I was drawing about forty, thirty, twenty, and ten Mays ago.

1986

in Ranger, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, May 1, 1986

Today, Donald Joffrey Trump complains that our NATO allies are not stepping up to help him in his unilateral war excursion in Iran. Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan was similarly disappointed that only Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain lent any support to "Operation Eldorado Canyon," air attacks on purported terrorist centers in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya.

The two military operations have some elements in common, Libyan involvement in significant terrorist attacks chief among them. Yet several distinctions must be made. Reagan consulted Congress before initiating this military action. The administration also kept our European allies up to date. Operation Eldorado Canyon was launched in express retaliation for a Libyan-sponsored bombing of a Berlin nightclub popular with U.S. servicemen (two were killed in the bombing and 79 injured).

And whatever other faults he had, at least Reagan didn't start bickering with the Pope.

1996 

The university newspapers for which I drew way back in the 20th Century always suspended publication in May for finals and graduation, so my cartoons in those months were mostly on local or special interest topics.

in Journal Times, Racine Wis., May 3, 1996

The NIMBYism at the heart of this one is probably fairly universal, however.

Lutheran Social Services (LSS) provides housing, counseling, and child care services to underserved and at-risk communities. Its bid purchase a house on a semi-rural road in Mount Pleasant as an eight-bed halfway house for male parolees raised instant objections from neighbors. 

One neighbor complained that the parolees would get to "live in a $170,000 home because they committed a crime." Another told the Journal Times, "If it's not safe for these men to go home, it's not safe for them to be in my neighborhood. ... Some little child is going to be molested. Some woman is going to get raped. Someone is going to get beat up. Someone's house is going to get broken into."

LSS countered, "We will know exactly where every resident is every moment of every day." Their residents were to be carefully screened, and offered alcohol and drug abuse treatment, occupational and educational opportunities, and counseling.

But at a packed community meeting, LSS yielded to pressure from residents and state legislators, and announced that it would look for another site elsewhere.

No, it didn't end up being at the local shopping mall.

But these days, our local mall would welcome just about any tenant at all.

2006

May, 2006

To get really, really parochial, this is a cartoon I was asked to draw for the 25-year reunion of my college graduating class. It must have gone astray when I sent it in (perhaps because recipients of my e-mails see my husband's name as the sender, and we've both kept our maiden names). In any event, it didn't make it into the evening program.

It was a challenge trying to winnow down the collective experience of our four years; I was not the sort of undergrad who participated in every major occasion, and lived off campus one year. The snippets that I focused on included:

•  the time ABC Sports decided to cover a football game at our college and asked the music department to come up with a halftime show
• the college's intention to tear down an old dormitory, Ytterboe, and the construction of a new one that got its name after we left
• the streaker at our graduation (didn't every graduation have at least one in those days?)
• the time Vice President Walter Mondale came to campus to swear college president Sidney Rand (New Dorm would be named after him) in as Ambassador to Norway
• our campus ID "caf" card
• the record album of of student performers at the Lion's Pause (an old theater in Ytterboe's basement)
• and of course, the hair and clothing styles of the time.

The hardest part of the drawing? Definitely the grooves of the record album.

2016

for Q Syndicate, May 2016

Here's a cartoon that brings together local, national, and special interest topics.

My hometown congressional district was represented by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) ten years ago. In May of 2016, he employed the power of his gavel to prevent passage of a component of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill proposed time and time again to afford workplace protections to LGBTQ+ employees.

In this case, it was an amendment by Rep. Sean Maloney (D-NY) to a Defense Department bill; his amendment would have mandated that defense contractors not discriminate against LGBTQ+ employees and applicants. With time expired for House members to cast their votes, Maloney's amendment appeared to have passed by a vote of 219 to 206.

But Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) held the vote open so that Republican party whips could pressure enough of their members to switch their votes to defeat the amendment. As soon as seven Republicans had changed their votes from Aye to Nay, the gavel finally came down.

Maloney's amendment was thus defeated by a single vote, and the defense contracts of antigay wedding cake bakers and florists were saved.

Sort of. An Obama administration executive order was already in place protecting LGBTQ+ defense contractor employees.

Until, of course, the Electoral College awarded the presidency to one Donald Bifftannen Trump four years later.

ENDA is likely to come up presently in another Graphical History Tour, so please keep it in mind.

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.

The Fours of July

We'll get back to 1924 soon; but first, I'm gonna rummage around in my dusty old cartoons bin to check what I drew in Julys (Julies?) of decades ago.

Since we're waiting on tenterhooks to find out what lickspittle Donald Berzilius Trump will name to replace The Late Great Mike Pence as his Vice President next week, here's the challengers' ticket announced forty years ago.

Unpublished. July, 1984

Walter Mondale's choice of Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in 1984 was calculated to be a game-changing, historical gambit. No woman had ever been on a major party's top ticket before.

The move was somewhat blunted by the National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus — and House Speaker Tip O'Neil — having publicly pressured Mondale to name a woman to his ticket. When the announcement was made, the Mondale-Ferraro ticket couldn't escape muttered gripes that he was merely pandering to a Democratic interest group. The same thing, rightly or wrongly, nagged at Joe Biden's choice of Kamala Harris in 2020.

Contrast that to John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin in 2008. Governor Palin had her own minuses to be sure, and certainly there were more qualified Republican women for the vice presidency; but by not promising ahead of time to name a woman, McCain got credit for having made a bold move.

Of course, she turned out to be a goofball. Not that's in any way a detriment to a Republican Party career any more. But still.

At least Geraldine Ferraro wasn't the butt of jokes for the next three months as Brooklyn Barbie.

July, 1994? Sure.

The Post at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee didn't publish in July, 1994, and apparently I didn't draw anything for the Journal-Times, either. But this drawing sits in front of my August cartoons in the 1994 folder, so let's just say for the sake of having anything here that I drew it in July.

This was my one and only venture creating album art. (Is it album art if there isn't an LP?) Rev. Tim Hansen, a Lutheran pastor in Racine who had graduated a year behind me at St. Olaf College — we had an abundance in Racine pulpits that year of pastors who had been at Olaf during my four years there — asked me to create this drawing for the cover of his upcoming CD and cassette based on the title track, "Shoved by the Dove." 

That's a caricature of Pastor Tim, of course, and he had specifically asked that the dove be kicking him in the tuchus.

For those who are interested, "Shoved by the Dove" is available on Spotify.

for Q Syndicate, July, 2004

Hey, remember when Jeb Bush was the biggest threat to come out of Florida since Hurricane Andrew?

He's a kitten compared to the state's current crop of Republicans.

Anyway, this is one of several cartoons of mine poking holes in that "special rights for homosexuals" shibboleth.

The irony, jumping forward another ten years to discussion of the Employment Rights Protection Act, is that it's the bigots and 'phobes who keep insisting on having "special rights."

July 2014 for Q Syndicate

Come 2025, they might be the only ones with any rights in this country.

This Week's Sneak Peek

 
I answered a phone call from an irate elderly woman at the church where I work last week.

She was upset over having looked the church up in the Kenosha phone book, and instead of calling the church where she had attended however many years or decades ago, she got some child care institution somewhere. How was the church supposed to get new members if people couldn't find it in the phone book, she demanded to know.

I probably shouldn't have remarked that I hadn't seen a phone book in years.

The woman just got more upset on behalf of all the people everywhere who must rely on phone books because they don't have computers, and shouldn't I make sure that the information in the phone book is correct every year, and what kind of church did I come from, and so on and so forth, and maybe she should just call a Catholic church.

Which, after she finally got around to telling me why she wanted to call a church in the first place, she hung up and, presumably, did.

Backing up a little bit: I was on a council of representatives from the then sixteen ELCA Lutheran churches in town back in the early '90's, and we had tried to get those congregations to go in on a single Yellow Pages ad listing all of them. We had tried to convince the Yellow Pages not to have a separate listing of "Churches - Lutheran" apart from "Churches - Lutheran ELCA,"* "Churches - Lutheran Missouri Synod," and "Churches - Lutheran Wisconsin Synod." They also have just plain old "Churches." Our complaints fell on deaf ears; why would they want to sell one listing when they could sell two or three?

In those days, the Yellow Pages — and its rivals that came and went — were delivered free to every household, apartment, and office. If you had more than one phone on your land line, you'd get more than one phone book whether you wanted them or not. The Racine phone book, with both white page (alphabetical) and yellow page (by type of business) listings in it, was about an inch thick, 8.5"x11" newsprint paper, mostly tiny type.

Several years ago as residential land lines became more rare, the Yellow Pages went to publishing one book covering both Racine and Kenosha Counties, on smaller paper and fewer pages. If you want one, you have to order one; you don't get one just for having a phone. Many churches, with increasingly tight budgets, do not purchase ads in the Yellow Pages any more; why would they want to buy ads in a book that has been displaced by internet search engines on the phone in your pocket?

So yesterday, my better half and I were visiting my Dad, and I asked him if he had a phone book. He did, although it was four years old.

I looked up the church where I work, and the phone number was correct, in the white pages, and also in the yellow pages under both "Churches - Lutheran" and "Churches - Lutheran AELC." (A note to whomever is in charge at the Yellow Pages: the AELC joined with the ALC and LCA to form ELCA in 1987. It hasn't existed for over 35 years.)

The name of the church where I work is quite common among Protestant churches. That 2019 phone book listed like-named Lutheran churches in Kenosha, Racine, Twin Lakes, and Burlington, as well as some Baptist and non-denominational congregations. 

I noticed that the listing immediately above that of the church where I work was for a day care operated by one of those other churches. I figure that my elderly caller had dialed their number by mistake.

I hope she had better luck calling a random Catholic church. And that she didn't dial St. Mary's Catholic Benevolence Society Insurance of Waupun instead.

______________

* ELCA = Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

EnviroStewardship: Leaving the Leaves

Dad's Environmental Stewardship column for the month somehow went missing from my inbox, so I had to go pick up a hard copy yesterday. We've had a thaw since he wrote this last weekend, so I can just add that he has raked up the leaves that were plowed onto his front yard. But the grass in back is still covered up.

🍂

Back in November of last year, I suggested that procrastination in the clean-up of the yard and garden beds might be a very good thing for birds, bees, and beneficial insects. I have no way of knowing whether anybody chose to follow that suggestion, but this year, Mother Nature seems to have decided for us.

At the time I am writing this essay, it is well below freezing. The yard and garden beds are covered with several inches of snow and leaves with dead portions of plants still uncut still sticking up through the snow. Even those leaves raked into the gutter for city pick-up and composting have been plowed back onto the lawn in a couple of feet of ice and snow.

The sudden cold snap that started in October may have been hard on some birds and other creatures, but many already are benefiting from the mulch of leaves and snow. The bees and other beneficial insects have burrowed into the ground under it all and are set to hibernate. Birds are enjoying the seeds left on the dried up plants.

We might have a very late Indian Summer in which one can once again decide to rake the lawn, chop up the leaves into a better mulching, clean up the gardens... or not. Whatever one decides, one should take into consideration the other creatures with which we share this earth.

Man — and Woman — were given dominion or governance over this earth, so we should be sure that what we do for ourselves does not unnecessarily put too high a cost on the other creatures. I prefer to say we were given stewardship of the earth. All the earth is the Lord's, as the psalmist says, but He apparently needs or wants stewards to help Him run it.

To quote the ELCA Social Statement on Caring for Creation once again, "The principle of participation means they [all living things] are entitled to be heard and have their interests considered when decisions are made." Even small decisions about our yards and gardens.

—John Berge

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

We're So Glad We've Had This Time Together

Well, it's the first Saturday after Epiphany, and time to take down the Christmas lights, trees, wreaths, and stockings. At least at our house.

My Dad always made it a point to de-Christmasify the house on January 6, Epiphany. Back when we had live trees, they went out to the curb, until he started taking them back to the compost pile. Once we started using artificial trees, they went up to the attic.

My husband and I got the outside lights taken down today before the rain started and the bitter cold that is predicted to follow behind it. We were going to tackle the tree today, but only got as far as getting the empty boxes for the ornaments up from the basement.

This is not our tree, thank God.

One of the churches where I work is also "un-hanging the greens" today, but the other, with a largely Latino congregation, will leave Christmas up until February 2. The Anglo members were initially mystified by this practice, wondering if the Latinos were ever going to put their Christmas diorama away at all. The custom stems from a Mexican practice of leaving Christmas decorations up until Candelaria, Presentation of Our Lord, which is always on Ground Hog Day.

This custom obviously comes from people who don't try to keep a live tree in the house until eight days before Ash Wednesday.

Latinos are not the only ones who try to extend the Christmas season beyond the church-proscribed twelve days. The Scandinavian Lutheran Church tried to popularize having 20 days of Christmas in honor of the sainted Danish Prince Knut Lavard, Duke of Schleswig, who was martyred on January 7, 1169. Somewhere along the line, his Saint's Day got moved back a week from the seventh to the thirteenth.

Tjugondag Knut translates into “20th Day Knut,” which refers to the 20th day after Christmas Eve. This used to be the day when Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians would ransack the tree of the candy and cookies it had been adorned with before Christmas and then kick it to the curb, so to speak.

Happily, nobody has subjected the rest of us to songs of what their true love sent to them on twenty days of Christmas ... let alone the forty days from December 25 to February 2.

Q Toon: Tow Be Or Not Tow Be

A presidential election is not the only thing you can look forward to in 2016. ("Look forward"? It's been underway for over a year already. Perhaps "Look around." But I digress.)

On many Republican-ruled state agendas are "religious liberty" proposals to create gaping loopholes in civil rights laws. Loopholes you could drive a tow truck through.

The stated aim of "religious liberty" laws is to excuse anyone who cites religion from having to respect the civil rights of someone else — by which they mean LGBT folks. Religious institutions already have that exemption. Don't expect the pastor at a WELS church to marry Giuseppe and Miryam, or to rent them Luther Hall for the reception.

"Religious liberty" legislation opens up the loophole to everybody else. While a gay couple in Atlanta can probably find someone to bake them a wedding cake that is just as good or better than the baker whose religious sensibilities might be offended by the prospect, that might not be true for a gay couple in McCaysville.

"Religious liberty" can be cited as an excuse for damn near anything, not just wedding cakes and reception halls — see Pat Bagley's cartoon today. Republicans write these proposed laws so broadly that anyone could cite "religious liberty" as their grounds for discriminating in housing, employment, health care, education — things the religious libertine no doubt takes for granted for him or herself.

This Week's Sneak Peek

There will be no chickens on the other side of the road this week.

I'll take this opportunity, however, to update my entry the other day about Trinidad and Esperanza's wedding and the Telemundo-Milwaukee coverage thereof. I had said that there had not yet been any repercussions from the Anglo or Latino communities.

Since then, a pastoral candidate who works with the Emaús congregation has spent two Sundays leading worship at a Lutheran Latino congregation in Milwaukee, and he tells us that he did undergo some skeptical questioning there about the wedding. So it's safe to say that a same-sex wedding at that particular church would be a harder sell than at Emaús.

Egalidad de Matrimonio

The pastor of the Latino congregation at the church where I work weekdays presided over the marriage ceremony of two Latina members this past Saturday. On Monday, a reporter from the Milwaukee Telemundo station came to do a story about it.

Apparently, this wedding is a first in some way -- it's not the first same-sex wedding in Wisconsin, in my hometown, or in the Lutheran church, but it may well be the first church wedding of a Spanish-speaking couple in the Milwaukee Telemundo viewing area or something like that. (None of the other Latino congregations here in Racine belong to denominations which bless same-sex marriages, but there are Latino ELCA congregations in Milwaukee which theoretically could.)
Trinidad and Esperanza had a civil wedding in Illinois in 2014 when same-sex marriage became legal there and it was not yet legal here in Wisconsin. After a court decision brought marriage equality to Wisconsin last fall, they decided that they wanted a proper church wedding.

Pastor Jhon Freddy has been preparing his congregation for this moment for months. At the start of the wedding ceremony, he gave a good, long pause after asking whether anyone had objection to the wedding, adding that behind people's back the parking lot afterward was no time to voice those objections. The TV report aired on Milwaukee Telemundo Monday evening, and the church has linked to the report on its web site and Facebook pages; so far, there has yet to be any sign that people are upset about it.

Within the congregation, there is more friction over the crucifix and image of the BVM that were added to the chancel in wooden diptychs mounted on the wall after the Latino congregation was set up (some Anglos find them excessively Roman Catholic, and some Latinos are annoyed that the Anglos close the diptych doors during the English service). Most people who objected to marriage equality left the church when the ELCA national assembly voted in 2009 to leave the choice of whether to marry same-sex couples up to individual congregations and clergy.

Outside the church, there were already Catholics accusing Emaús of poaching their flocks, and of not being a Real Church. I don't imagine that the people raising those objections on line will take Trinidad and Esperanza's wedding as anything but further proof that they are right.

Judging from Facebook "likes" at least, there appears to be a healthy base of support for Trinidad and Esperanza within the Emaús congregation -- although I can't speak to the Facebook pages of everyone who has shared the link. Two days later, I'm not fielding angry phone calls or emails. Neither the English-language TV stations nor the local newspaper have picked up the story -- nor has the North American Lutheran Church, the break-away group that left the ELCA in 2010 over The Gay Thing.

But it's still early.

Speaking of Gay Bishops

If the election of The Rev. Dr. R. Guy Erwin as bishop of the Southern California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America hasn't made the front page of your RSS feed, perhaps it's because we've been there before.

Here's a cartoon about what it was like ten years ago when the Episcopalians crossed that threshold:

Conservative Episcopalians had conniption fits (they're called Episconniptions) over Robinson's election, and several U.S. churches went so far as to break away and join the Nigerian Anglican Church.

The bishop received death threats, and was pointedly not invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion. (This cartoon, however, was drawn three years earlier.)

He was invited to deliver an invocation at President Obama's first inaugural. If you didn't notice, it may be because he was omitted from the live broadcast on HBO and NPR and from the Presidential Inauguration Committee's official live blog.

Bishop V. Gene Robinson retired in January.

As for the Lutheran Church, before Bishop Erwin's election, The Rev. Eva Brunne was elected as Bishop of the Diocese of Stockholm, Sweden, in 2009. And of course, the Catholic Church had gay bishops long before Protestants got all worked up about theirs -- but I wasn't cartooning way back then.

Q Toon: Lutheran Ladies and the Gay Bishop

As Mrs. Exposition explains in this week's cartoon, the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) last week elected as its Bishop The Rev. R. Guy Erwin, an openly gay man in a committed relationship. It was only two years ago that the ELCA gave its approval to ordaining openly gay or lesbian clergy without requiring celibacy of them.

For those of you unfamiliar with Lutheran polity, the ELCA was formed in 1988 through the merger of three more or less liberal Lutheran denominations. It is divided up into several geographically based "synods" (which leads to some confusion because the second and third largest Lutheran denominations in the country are called the Missouri Lutheran Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. They are completely separate from the ELCA, and have formally condemned the ELCA over the issue of ordaining LGBT clergy).

Each ELCA synod elects its bishop at an annual assembly for a six-year term. The presiding bishop of the ELCA is elected at a biennial national assembly, also for a six-year term. Synod assemblies are made up of all of its clergy, plus lay people elected from individual congregations. And by "elected," I mean whomever the pastor can persuade to volunteer. Nationally, you can probably count the candidates for assembly voting representative who have lost a congregational election on one hand.

For most of the '90's and '00's, ELCA Lutherans cared greatly about these annual assemblies because LGBTs and our allies kept proposing resolutions favoring marriage equality and ordaining LGBT clergy; such resolutions were firmly opposed by Lutherans from congregations in Red America. Year after year, assemblies would wrangle over these issues only to set up commissions to report back later. Over time, synods came down on one side or the other until 2009, when the national church could put off a decision no longer.

That decision? If you think it's wrong to marry or ordain gay people, you don't have to. If you have no problem with marrying or ordaining gay people, go ahead. There, can't we all get along? And if not, can you pay off the mortgage on your church building before you leave?

Assemblies have continued to address controversial issues since 2009, but nobody's leaving the ELCA over being on the losing side of resolutions about immigration, Mideast peace, or genetic engineering.

I'm still waiting to see a report of my own synod's assembly last week. So far, their web page only offers a rundown of nearly 100 assembly-hashtagged tweets, which reveal little other than that resolutions 3 through 6 passed with little discussion and that only a handful of voting representatives spent any significant amount of time contributing to the Twitter feed.

This Week's Q Syndicate Cartoon

My apologies if this is too much of an inside joke only Lutherans can understand...

...There is a Lutheran saying that wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus' name, coffee will be among them.

The 2009 Churchwide Assembly (CWA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) met in Minneapolis, Minnesota (MPLSMN) in August. Pursuant to a directive from previous CWAs, voters approved a social statement on human sexuality that expressly refuses to condemn monogamy for gays and lesbians. The 676 to 338 vote was exactly the two-thirds margin required for the adoption of the social statement. There is a great deal in the lengthy statement that deals with heterosexuals, but the portions on homosexuality got all the attention.

The CWA also approved, in a simple majority vote (by nevertheless a commanding majority) a change in church policy that would allow gay and lesbian pastors in committed same-sex relationships to remain in their jobs. The church cannot require a congregation either to call or to continue the call of a gay or lesbian pastor, but congregations are now free to issue a call to an openly gay or lesbian ordained pastor. (Infidelity and bigamy are still big no-nos.)

Some congregations have threatened to leave the ELCA over the adoption of these resolutions. The ELCA is the largest of the Lutheran denominations in the United States, the other major ones being the more conservative Missouri Synod and the ultra-conservative Wisconsin Synod. (It can be confusing to outsiders and insiders alike that the regional districts of the ELCA are also called Synods; the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods are national denominations named for the state where they are headquartered. The Missouri and Wisconsin Synods don't even allow women to be pastors, so don't expect them to have anything nice to say about gays any time before the rapture.)

We'll see how this shakes down among the rank and file. I work as a secretary at one ELCA church and as organist for another, and know people on both sides of the issue at both congregations. When the church where I grew up called its first female pastor in 1977, there was an awful lot of rancor; but of the 15 ELCA churches in town, only one has never issued a pastoral call to a woman.

On the other hand, most of the 15 ELCA congregations in town still use the version of the Lord's Prayer and 23rd Psalm with all the thees and thys and thous.

Sneak peek of the week