Two phrases
that I don’t want to hear anymore this year are, “That’s Impossible,” and “That
could never happen.” There are a few
reasons that I say this. The first two
are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Some of the others are friends in the United Methodist Church who are
either clergy or clergy candidates that have declared themselves to be
self-avowed practicing homosexuals. Note: For those who don’t speak Methodese, that’s how Methodists say they’re
gay or lesbian. These folks have
come out of the church’s supposedly iron-clad closet of silence, and, so far,
there has been no sweeping wave of retribution from the church. Other United Methodist clergy friends have
participated in same-sex wedding ceremonies or allowed them to take place
within the churches to which they’ve been appointed and, again, thus far, the
long arm of the church “courts” have not spun up into witch hunt mode.
I put “courts” in quotes for a
couple reasons. First, I find it ironic
that while the U.S. Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion,” ensuring that no religious practice
as long as it doesn’t cause harm to others, should be criminalized and, yet,
there’s the church looking to make criminals of each other right there within
their own boundaries. The other reason
that I find it ironic is that whole, “Do
not judge, so that you may not be judged” thing that Jesus guy was quoted as
talking about in Matthew 7:1. That’s
quoted from the NRSV. I realize that
some reading this will judge me based on that; so, I thought I’d make it easier
to determine which non-King James version of the Bible you needed to condemn me
for reading.
Let’s put the whole
Bible/Church/Self-Avowed Practicing thing aside for a moment and go back to
Donald and Bernie. If you had told me
18, 12, or even 6 months ago that this presidential race really would come down
to a moderate Hillary Clinton sandwiched between a reality TV personality and
an independent candidate from the radical left, I would have told you that
could never happen. In fact, multiple
people continue to tell me that it’s still impossible for either of them to
claim the White House, but folks, let me tell you. They have both already crossed too many lines
that very smart people told me that they shouldn’t have been able to cross, and
here we are.
I do, of course, have my opinions
with regards to the Presidential race.
For the record my money is still on and my support still goes to
Hillary, but let me say a few things briefly about the other candidates and, at
the same time, acknowledge something about myself. Donald Trump is terrifying. Giving a man who clear has a power fetish
access to nuclear launch codes would be an act of insanity in my mind. As for Bernie, I’m not backing him, but I
gotta say that I can’t watch him, read about him, or hear people talk about him
without smiling. If there is a statesman
in this race, it is Bernie Sanders, an independent who aligned himself as a
Democrat just so that the coach (the establishment) would let him have some
playing time on the field. There isn’t a
thing that he’s fighting for in his platform that I don’t think we could or
should do as a nation if we decided that it was our priority to do so. The problem is reality. I don’t think he has the negotiating skills
or the willingness to compromise with an opposition political party or with
foreign heads of state. Trump and
Sanders both terrify me in the foreign policy arena for different reasons. Now, for the “me” part. While my status as an openly gay man may have,
at one point, made me marginalized, as a gay white cis-gendered man, I have now
become part of the establishment in society, if not in my church. Maybe this is why I can’t see the
possibilities. Am I maybe, in fact, part
of the problem?
I do see the hope in all of
this. From Sanders to Trump, from clergy
and clergy candidates to their bishops and the larger world, people have
reached a point that they are done being silenced by the establishment. Sink or swim, win or lose, they are done
holding their tongues. So, with both
fear and excitement inside me, I say, “Bring on the rest of 2016.” Sadly, it may take something as brutal as a
Trump presidency to make us appreciate the voices of those outside the
establishment. I pray it doesn’t, but,
in both the history of our nation and our churches, we’ve proven over and over
that we insist on learning the lessons we need to learn the hard way.
~ Culbs
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