The Problem with the Salvation Army

If you hang around the right corners of the internet, you've undoubtedly encountered at least an article or two on why participating in donation drives with the Salvation Army, either by ringing the bells for them or by donating to a bell ringer, can be deeply problematic, mostly driven by the simple fact of the disrespect of the Salvation Army towards the LGBTQIA+ community.

In reaction to this, the Salvation Army at the National level and numerous smaller regional levels have responded, not by recanting their theology condemning lifestyles outside of the monogamous, married, cishet norms, but by attempting to assure all that their theology ALSO respects the image of God and so they should welcome all to their shelters.

Defenders of the SA often point to those statements, shrug, and say; "Just because they disagree with a lifestyle doesn't mean they won't help." And for some members of the SA church, that might be true. But there is a problem... Churches are ultimately a collection of individuals, and in emergency situations, the flaws of an individual will often UNSTOPPABLY take precedence over any kind of national, umbrella policy.

If you have been badly wounded, and an EMT arrives to give aid, if they choose not to due to a "disagreement" with your lifestyle, there is no appeal. Sure, another source of help MIGHT arrive, but in an emergency, you are often completely at their mercy. That's why proposed laws in favor of the "religious rights" of emergency care providers are so deeply dangerous: in a critical moment, there is no time to argue about lifestyle or constitutional rights. You need help now, and if they refuse to provide it, you are out of luck.

For all of their National and or regional posturing on people from all walks of life being deserving of help, the fact of the matter is that the Salvation Army's theological stance towards the LGBTQIA+ community compromises their capacity to give Christ-like emergency aid on a FUNDAMENTAL level. For every caregiver who understands that their own, personal beliefs on appropriate relationships should not interfere with offering the love of God to another, as repeatedly commanded in the scriptures, those who do not understand that are still placed in a position where they will turn away someone in need, and in that moment, the money the organization has been given has been misused. These aren't isolated incidents, but instead inevitable consequences of the theology behind the Salvation Army.

Even with all of the good that they do (and they do a LOT of good for a lot of people) such a fundamental flaw should be a dealbreaker. Your money is better spent going elsewhere than their kennels, your time is better spent doing things other than ringing their bells, because despite their PROBABLY good intentions, the fact is that until they finally reevaluate who they are on a fundamental, theological level, their ability to provide aid to those in need will be tainted in a way that shouldn't be ignored in the name of the Christmas feel-goods.

When participating in any charity work, especially in areas concerning emergency care, it is vitally important to understand the underlying ideologies at work. With religious organizations, that means knowing their theology. And if their theology condemns the lifestyles of a group most likely to find themselves in need of emergency shelter, food, or other care, then they are a bad choice to provide said care.

You wouldn't put someone who vocally despises animals in charge of a pet shelter. How much more careful should we be when it comes to the care of those who bear the very image of God?

A Parent's Calling

"My daughter just came out of the closet to me as a Lesbian, and I don't know what to do."

I hadn't been PLANNING on doing Pastoral Care. I was just getting a haircut. But the Lord tends not to care much about days off or personal schedules, and this man, likely attending a church that wouldn't be particularly jazzed about this state of affairs, heard that I was also a Pastor and thought he'd try me out first.

His daughter, his little girl, his perfect princess... a lesbian. His stylist had just shook her head and said something to the tune of "Well, kids these days are different," and he looked at me, clearly expecting a sermon on the failings of a parent and a command to get his daughter back in line.

He certainly wasn't expecting the first thing I said: "First of all, Congratulations."

The room froze. I feel somewhat fortunate that I hadn't said it right as my stylist was making a clip or I might have lost some blood. He stared at me like I had just turned into a duck. "What?"

"Your daughter. She came out to you. That means that, somewhere along the line, you did something in your parenting to give her reason to believe, or at least hope, that her Dad would be loving and understanding with that information. Not everyone manages that. So Congratulations. Somewhere along the line, you did the right thing, fulfilling the baptism vows you made, and you can see that now. Well done."

The room stayed quiet for a bit. Haircuts resumed. "But... what do I do?"

"What you've been trying to do for her whole life." I said with a smile. "Love her, support her, and show her that the trust she just put in you was well placed. There are folks who might bad mouth her, attack her, treat her as lesser for who she is. If anyone had done that to her up to now, what would her Daddy's response have been?"

"I'd have punched them in the teeth."

I laugh. "Or at least make sure they are VERY much aware that your daughter, a beloved child of God, deserves their respect, and that if they can't show that respect to her, they certainly shouldn't expect any from her family. You're proud of her, and if they can't handle that, that's on them, not on her."

He nodded a bit, had a bit of a smile on his face. "Always told her not to settle."

"Good job, Dad." I give him a little fist bump. "Make sure she hears that before she goes home. And if you said anything between when she told you and now that might make her think you love her less, apologize for it quick, and make it right. We all make mistakes."

He got up and paid, and my stylist went back to trying to tame the incredible puff of hair I'd allowed to accumulate on my own head. "My niece..." she said, hesitantly. "She's a Lesbian. But her Dad doesn't know."

I look up at her sadly. "That's her choice."

"But he could..."

"It's her choice. He must not have made her think he could handle it. But she did tell you?"

"Yeah, ages ago. Back when she was in college."

"Does she still talk to you?"

"All the time! What should I do?"

"Talk to her. And love her. If she needs more help, she'll let you know. Oh, and by the way..."

"Yeah?"

"Congratulations, Aunt. Good job."

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Sin and the Idolatry of the Pro-Life Movement

For some time now I have found myself frustrated by a repeated pattern in inter-church relationships. This is the repeated abdication of sin by progressives as a concept, wherein we defend those labeled as "sinners" by the conservatives, and refuse to call out conservatives on their own sinful behavior, usually in the name of unity.

Despite the frequency with which the conservative wings of the church throw around the term, Sin is a fairly complicated subject. The scriptures make clear that there isn't a list of actions which define the concept of sin in its entirety, certain activities that, if avoided, assures someone of a sin free life. Yes, there are actions that can be sinful, but context always matters. For instance, the Ten Commandments list murder among the Thou Shalt Nots, and yet the people of God in Scripture are, from time to time, called upon to kill.

It's also important to note that not every commandment of God is a Thou Shalt Not. There are also quite a few Thou Shalts, making it possible to sin by inaction as much as by inaction. And as always, context matters. We are repeatedly called upon to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for those in need, but giving to feed an addiction, or to empower an abuser, are not in following with the message of the Scriptures either.

All of this to say that in order to really talk about Sin, one must be willing to admit to its all encompassing nature and complexity. An act that seems sinful on the surface might be commanded by God, an act that seems righteous might be a heinous crime before the Lord.

This, of course, is often the problem with preaching about sin. A preacher faces their congregation, wanting to teach them the right way, and people in general want more of an answer than; "Well, it's complicated." To assure people that such a thing as righteousness and sin still exist, preachers often reach for examples that seem the most rock solid, a bedrock of morality upon which their congregation can build, (forgetting, of course, that such a bedrock has already been laid in Christ.)

And for the past century or so, the best sources of this bedrock sin has been the LGBTQIA+ community and... Abortion.

I mean, how much clearer could it be? We're talking about babies. Don't you love babies? Don't you want to protect them, especially from someone so horrible as being willing to kill them from within their own bodies? It's typically a pretty easy sell, and so we are provided with a rock-solid example, and even better, more than half of our population aren't even physically capable of committing it, so little worry of pointing an uncomfortable finger at someone you depend upon for money.

Now, that alone is bad enough... after all, Sin is something we all struggle with, and so building a theology of Sin around such a specialized action that has no direct bearing on the lives of a majority of your congregation is not just cowardly from the perspective of the preacher, its directly harmful to others, allowing us to separate the world into "Righteous" and "Sinners" instead of the Biblical view, where we are all Beloved Sinners.

The appeal is obvious, of course. Not only do you get to assert your authority by being "tough on sin," you can rally your congregation into xenophobia, giving them an other to target their aggression at, never mind the fact that the repeated Scriptural Command towards the "other" is to care for them and protect them.

But it hasn't even stopped there. Actions taken on behalf of the pro-life movement have repeatedly abandoned the commands of the Scripture in the name of the end justifying the means, to the point where, in the faith life of many so-called Christians, opposition to Abortion has supplanted worship of Christ as the single most important aspect of their faith. (Thou Shalt Have no Other Gods Before Me.)

We've all seen it. Undercover videos falsely doctored to portray workers at Abortion Clinics or Planned Parenthood as trafficking in the bodies of slaughtered fetuses. (Thou Shalt not bear false witness.) Snipers killing Abortion providers, clinics shot up. (Thou shalt not Kill.) Women simply seeking affordable healthcare being called whores, screamed at, profiled and attacked. (What you do to the least of these, you do to me.)

But it goes deeper. Repeated debates over the start of life skip over the fact that the individual who is pregnant, has undoubtedly started life, and who also undoubtedly bears the image of God, is treated as nothing more than an incubator for the fetus, their own humanity and rights almost utterly ignored at the very heart of the debate, transformed into bystanders in their own bodies.

Can one build a scriptural argument against abortion? Certainly. But sacrificing every other Christian ideal in pursuit of that single, highly debateable, point of theology is the very definition of idolatry. And I'm not talking about the cutesy "is it idolatry for our kids to spend so much time on social media" crap that circles these days. It is literally replacing your God with a single concept, a concept that so supercedes your faith that any other command is trumped in the life of faith.

We've been bad at naming such behavior as sin. And that needs to change.

A Biblical Speculation on Gender

So what DOES the Bible have to say about Gender?
-Alex

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Ahhh, the first question of the new regime! Thanks for writing in, Alex.

My answer is (say it along with me, those of you playing at home) complicated, but before I begin, there is something I should make clear. The Bible has very little to say about the concept of gender at all. It acknowledges that genders exist, uses the concept of gender to differentiate people from each other, and uses words like man, woman, boy and girl, but never shows a great deal of interest in defining those states.

Now normally, in such a situation, I would simply tell someone to stop looking at the Bible for answers to the question. However, there are people bound and determined to either name the Bible as the reason to target people on the basis of gender (never mind those outside of the cisgender paradigm) or to use it for wild speculation on the subject, and frankly, it's far past time progressive Christians stopped abdicating our Holy Book to the opposition, so by golly, I'm gonna speculate as well.

The Bible is a supremely odd document, made all the more so by the nature of its creation, even if you hold it is as holy: It is a Divine Work produced through Sinful Instruments. Discernment of God's will through the use of the scriptures requires just that: discernment. It takes work, and it is something you can get wrong. You have to learn to differentiate between an Act of God and the opinion on that act given by a flawed person.

For instance, while it is possible to find passages that insinuate that women should not be in positions of leadership, the mere fact that women repeatedly are shown to be placed in positions of leadership by ordination of the Holy Spirit, we can conclude that those saying such a thing is impossible were in the wrong: If the Almighty chooses a Woman to lead all of Israel, the opinion of the Author of Timothy will have to take a back seat.

So lets see what clues we can put together.

The oft quoted "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" refers to the creation story in Genesis 2, and tries to depict that dichotomy shown as a prescriptive model for human relationships. That's flawed in several respects. First, the catastrophic end result of the Adam and Eve story hardly serves as an endorsement of the cis-het relationship, secondly, the existence of two distinct genders does not rule out the possibility of others, but maybe most important is the simple fact that Genesis 1 exists, as well.

In the first chapter of Genesis, the creation of humanity is shown to be wildly different from the presented dichotomy of chapter 2. Whereas in chapter 2, male is created, then followed by the distinct female, in chapter 1 creation is simultaneous. Individuals are not named and followed, but rather the entire species is formed, not male OR female, but Male AND Female, as part of the Imago Dei, or the image of God.

(For those who wonder, I quote latin only to attempt to appear intellectually impressive.)

So to be in the image of God is to be male AND female.

Now, that's quite a claim. Let's see if we can find more than one passage (translated from the notoriously grammatically wobbly Ancient Hebrew) to give us such an idea.

Well, if we're looking at the idea of Image of God as something to base our understanding of gender on, how is God described. Plenty of male and father language, to be sure, but also more than a little female language as well. For instance, take Sophia, or Mother Wisdom, who is often associated with the second person of the Trinity before the Incarnation of Jesus. Take references to God breast-feeding God's people, and even giving birth to them and having labor pains!

At the end of the day, it becomes fairly clear that if we are to base our assumptions on gender from the clues to be found in the text, one must conclude that to bear the Image of God is to be gender-fluid, at least for us as a species. Sure, instances of definite males and females exist, but you could raise a real rabbinical argument over whether such a person can bear the entirety of the image, or just their own, smaller part.

Beyond that, things get even weirder. Take Eunuchs. A lot of people like to use reproduction as the final indicator of gender and identity but the Bible firmly denies such a stance, with people who either castrated themselves or were castrated by others still being seen to fully bear the image of God. This is also the closest the scriptures come to commentary on the idea of transgender... alterations to ones physical gender identity are expressly NOT condemned.

So... all that said, what do we know about the Bible and Gender? As I said at the beginning, not much. None of this is actual commentary on the idea. At no point did a prophet sit up in bed and feel the spirit compelling her to define the nature and roles of gender in society, and so any attempt to USE the Bible to do as much is based, at best, on speculation, and honestly, you're better off using other sources (such as, say, Science, or the actual experience of people outside of the cis-het paradigm) to inform yourself on the subject.

But if you are going to use the Bible to speculate, one can only land at the conclusion that the Bible (and by extension, God's) concept of gender is far bigger and more complex than a species easily divided into man OR woman. And of course, we must never forget that whatever the Divine view of gender is, the Divine view of the oppressed, downtrodden, and outsider is clear... they are to be loved, welcomed, and treated as we would like to be treated.

So maybe DON'T throw them into the street for being who they are because of the Bible. Because I don't know who taught YOU Sunday School, but thats definitely NOT what the Bible says.

Sabbatical... what?

So, the Blog has been basically dead for more than a year. I've intended to kick it off again multiple times over that time but never really felt I had the motivation... a lot of my posting that normally would have gone here happened elsewhere, like on my Facebook page or elsewhere. But today I find myself in a situation I never really believed I'd get to...

I'm on Sabbatical. For the next three months, I won't be attending church meetings, planning services, or writing sermons.

This isn't a vacation, or at least, it isn't meant to be. While rest and recreation ARE on the menu, it is meant as a time of rejuvenation, of stirring up the old brain cells and seeing what I have to share, with the hopes that the reading and writing I do during that time will give me new inspiration for when I return to my more regular work in August.




Getting a Sabbatical is an incredible act of generosity from the Church. A lot of pastors don't get them, and the burnout rate shows the repercussions of that. Even so, this is the first time that my specific church has offered one, and I know that some people are uneasy about the practice.

So, this seemed an excellent time to return to blogging, partially as a way to show people what I am doing and what I am thinking about (as for the next three months I am literally being paid to think and accountability is always a good thing), but also to give myself an outlet for the kind of expression that I am used to having as a pastor.

All that to say, I'm looking to get Ask Pastor Dan up and running again! As always, if you have questions for me about faith, life, or the church, feel free to ask them, and watch this spot as I try to dust off the ol' wheels and get the blog going again.

God Bless... and here's to a good sabbatical!