ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

For the past many weeks, I have posted things "privately" to my Facebook account, so that only I can see them. On occasion, I have placed security settings on other posts so that only my wife,  Jennifer , can see what I'm thinking. This helped me feel like I was getting things off my chest, without stirring up unnecessary controversy among my friends. I have been conflicted because a number of people I love and respect feel I would do better to refrain from posting anythin g "political," given that I have returned to the position of pastor at a church that people of many different political persuasions call home. Other people I love and respect - including many from that same church - have thanked me for speaking out, and have encouraged me to continue.* As I browse my private posts of these last few weeks, I see a pattern: I have refrained from commenting about matters of policy and political opinion, and have instead commented on those occasions where I ...

"So Jesus called them together and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand." - Mark 3: 23 - 25 Since I was ordained as a United Methodist pastor twenty-five years ago, the culture here in Southern California has been fundamentally transformed. While it has not been eradicated, the ancient stigma attached to homosexuality has been dramatically eroded. Discrimination against people whose gender identity is not rigidly male or female is trailing behind, but is headed in the same direction. As a consequence, people who identify as LGBTQI have experienced a growing range of freedom to live openly and honestly in more and more dimensions of their lives. This growing sense of freedom is on display in almost every United Methodist congregation in Southern California. In the churches I know and love, gay and lesbian people have served op...

On January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President, I will march in the   Women's March   here in San Diego. I want to explain why.   Like many pastors,  I  feel conflicted because the people I serve are profoundly divided when it comes to politics.  At the (mostly white) congregation where I serve on staff, some people are pleased with the outcome of November's election, others are apprehensive, still others are genuinely upset.   Meanwhile, at   El Faro: the Border Church , the unique community I convene on the US-Mexico border, almost everyone finds Mr. Trump’s election deeply distressing, especially that he won while  vilifying Mexican immigrants  and threatening to implement policies that would  disrupt millions of families .  Finding myself pulled in many directions,  I am trying to respond with integrity to the division that characterizes both our public landscape and my own pastoral predic...

This week the United Methodist Church, in which I am an ordained pastor, gathers elected delegates from around the world for its quadrennial gathering called the “ GeneralConference .”   This year’s meeting is in Portland, Oregon, and the delegates may well define the denomination in a way that requires me some day, as a matter of principle, to separate from it.   In a  blogpost  last week Bishop Scott Jones made it clear that many General Conference delegates are prepared to throw down precisely this gauntlet in Portland. Of pastors  like me , who have presided at same-sex weddings, Bishop Jones wrote: "They are violating the rules of a church they have freely joined when other, similar churches offer acceptable ways of pursuing their calling. If I ever get to the point where I cannot in good conscience obey the key aspects of our discipline — and I pray such a day never happens — it will be time to surrender my credentials as a United Methodist bishop...