Rosalind Rinker died in Redmond, Washington on January 11 at age 95. She had been a missionary with the Oriental Missionary Society, a staff worker for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and was the author of many books on Christian life, including her bestseller, Prayer: Conversing with God.
She was a keynoter at the very first western (1980) and the second eastern (1981) connECtion conferences of Evangelicals Concerned. The next year, she sent Ralph Blair one of her new books — inscribed: “In memory of our weekend Connection … Jesus was there too! Love, Rosalind.”
In Rinker’s Christianity Today obituary (April 22), long-time InterVarsity associate Linda Doll, now with InterVarsity Press, is quoted on the phenomenal influence of Rinker’s bestseller: “That classic book taught people a whole new style of praying: CONVERSATIONAL PRAYER. It introduced a new style — more informal and more authentic — to church prayer meetings, campus prayer groups, and even small prayer partnerships.” CT notes that “Rinker conducted prayer workshops around the world.”
Guy Charles, the first “ex-gay,” has died after spending his latter years as a gay activist devoted to a 21-year relationship with gay partner, Mike Swislow. Charles was 78. A memorial service was held on June 1 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Chicago.
In the mid-1970s, Charles headed a pioneer “ex-gay” ministry called “Liberation in Jesus Christ,” sponsored by charismatic Truro Episcopal Church in Virginia. In a radio debate with Ralph Blair, he claimed to have been completely set free from all homosexuality. But after a number of what Charles rationalized as “David and Jonathan” sex affairs with young men who were coming to him for the “ex-gay” experience, Truro Church dismissed him.
“Temptation does not equal orientation.” This is the demand of the director of an “ex-gay” organization, in a letter to the editors of Christianity Today (April 22). John Freeman of Harvest USA is responding to CT’s March 11 article, “No Easy Victory” — an anonymous, heterosexually-married, and self-admitted homosexual’s testimony of his distress over his continuing desires for homosexual intimacy in spite of “counseling, therapy, prayer, healing — you name it.” [see REVIEW, Spring 2002]. The “ex-gay” leader complains that the author’s identifying himself as “homosexual, primarily because of feelings and pulls of the heart,” is “troubling.” In spite of the orientation of the man’s incessant homosexual temptations, Freeman insists that “there is danger [in calling these] besetting temptations, however deeply felt,” homosexual orientation.
In another letter to the editors, a self-identified gay Christian says he “prayed, pleaded, and begged God to change me.” He claims that after more than 20 years:”God in his grace brought me out.” He adds: “Am I still gay? Yes.” And, unlike the author of the original article, he is now divorced. He ends his letter: “To my brother I would like to say, Remain true … Ours is no easy victory, but there is victory.”
Alan Medinger, past president of Exodus, objects to the anonymous man’s saying “I am still homosexual.” According to Medinger: “He is allowing this condition [his homosexual desires] to be his identity.” Medinger asks: “How many of your heterosexual readers might not be able to write, `God has given me the power to live a life of fulfilling heterosexual fidelity, together with the fact that I am still sexually attracted to other women?” But here, Medinger calls males attracted to women “heterosexual” while objecting to calling males attracted to men “homosexual.”
Pentecostal dynamo Roberts Liardon preached at his church after three months of counseling following a gay sexual affair with the church’s youth pastor. The 36-year-old founder of the Embassy Christian Center in Irvine, California, told his congregation: “I am still working with my counseling.” Most letters on the matter, printed in Charisma magazine, are supportive of Liardon. For example, one reader writes: “Roberts has done a great work for the Lord. That is why the warfare against him is so fierce.” Another writes: “I have always loved and admired Roberts Liardon, and I still do. … I believe he is making things right with God.” Another writes: “We all have areas of the flesh to deal with. It strengthens me to see how Liardon is willing to deal with his problems.”
Former NOW / Los Angeles chapter president Tammy Bruce discusses her recent book, The New Thought Police, in a recent issue of The Advocate. “I thought I knew what it was like to be on the outside,” says the lesbian activist. “Boy, was I wrong! You see, it wasn’t until I came out as a dissenter against certain policies of the left-wing political establishment that I learned what it is like to be on the `wrong side’ of an issue. These days to be a dissenter from inside the Left means to be isolated, questioned, and distrusted by our own. … To label someone conservative in our community is meant to cross a line through that person’s name — to associate us with religious fanatics and fundamentalists.”
Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, has joined the Republican Unity Coalition, a gay-straight political alliance. She says that “working together … we can make sexual orientation a nonissue for the Republican Party, and we can help achieve equality for all gay and lesbian Americans.” Her fellow board members include former President Gerald R. Ford and openly-gay Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona.
“Christians `shrugging shoulders’ at homosexual characters on TV.” That’s a Baptist Press News (March 28) heads-up headline that cites Focus on the Family’s Mike Haley’s complaint of Christians’ indifference to the increasing presence of gay characters on television. He laments that the “outrage” against Ellen in 1997 “has dissipated — even though there are now more than 20 homosexual characters on television. … We’re shrugging our shoulders at the issue of homosexuality.”
Bill O’Reilly says he supports Rosie O’Donnell’s effort to have Florida “legalize adoption by responsible homosexuals.” The plain-speaking Fox News commentator writes in his syndicated column (March 26): “Logic is on her side, as is human kindness, and it is just a matter of time before the legislature in the Sunshine State puts the welfare of hard-to-adopt kids ahead of gay fear. Most clear-thinking Americans realize it is better for a child to live in a nurturing home run by gays than to be on the merry-go-round of foster care.”
In a recent Chuck Colson column in Christianity Today, a “Post-Truth Society” was attacked and writers such as Stephen Ambrose were inveighed against for “dealing in deceit” and plagiarism. Colson’s column said that “notwithstanding his public apology, [Ambrose] seemed hardly disturbed by the resulting controversy.” Now The Los Angeles Times reports that the Colson column was not written by Colson. Colson staff members have written his column (without credit) for years. Confronted with this revelation, the antigay Right-winger said his writing is a matter of teamwork and that he has not seen every film or read every book his columns discuss — thanks to his staff. The Times quoted CT editor David Neff as having been under the impression that Colson was writing his columns himself.
“In my opinion, gays and lesbians should be put in some type of mental institution.” So says Mississippi Justice Court Judge Connie Glenn Wilkerson. She adds: “I got sick on my stomach as I read the news story” about gay and lesbian survivors suing for the wrongful death of their partners. She claims the Bible says gay people “are worthy of death.” Wilkerson’s comments follow those made recently by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in which he called gay people “abhorrent,” “immoral,” “detestable,” “an inherent evil” and “inherently destructive to the natural order of society.” Such remarks from the benches of Mississippi and Alabama remind many of Southern “justice” in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.
A lesbian has been named co-pastor of a Baptist church in North Carolina. The 850-member Pullen Memorial Baptist Church appointed Nancy Petty to the position, a decade after the congregation was expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention for holding a same-sex union service. Mahon Siler, the church’s former pastor was a keynoter for a summer connECtion of Evangelicals Concerned.
The United Methodist Conference of Baltimore-Washington voted in June to accept a transsexual as a minister “in good standing.” Rev. Rebecca N. Steen, formerly Rev. Richard Zomastny, was received after a three-year leave of absence. Some ministers say they still have questions that will be taken up by Bishop Felton May.
Moby, the bisexual “king of pop electronica” says he knows his Christian faith, expressed in his CD liner notes, has “alienated people.” Asked by The Advocate, the nation’s leading lesbigayt periodical, how he feels “when `Christian values’ are used as reasons for homophobic actions,” Moby replied: To “see Christians behaving so antithetically toward the teachings of Christ, I’m really offended by it. More so than if I weren’t a Christian.”
St Michael’s College of Vermont took part in a “gay college fair” in Boston in the spring. The Boston Globe quotes the Edmundite Fathers-staffed school’s director of admissions as saying: “We’re a Catholic school, but we don’t even ask about applicants’ religion. You just shy away from doing anything discriminatory.” She told the Globe that her being at the fair was in an effort to attract new students.
A student at Pepperdine University will be barred from a summer mission to Japan because he acknowledges he’s both gay and Christian. Justin Emerick, 20, is an officer in this fundamentalist Churches of Christ-affiliated campus’ Gay Lesbian Straight Alliance. Among the students protesting the school’s action was one who said: “They picked the wrong person to persecute with Justin. He’s the sweetest kid. Nobody could think this situation was anything but blatant discrimination.”
Some colleges are setting up coeducational dorm rooms. With more and more students coming out as gay these days, male students of both orientations are finding some same-sex roommate assignments uncomfortable. Gay male students and their heterosexual female friends are finding a “safe space” solution in rooming together. Insensitive to these needs as expressed by both gay and straight students, the Religious Right is attacking the arrangements as “catering to the homosexual agenda.”
“Homosexual activists have hijacked our schools,” screams Right-wing activist Karen Holgate. CWA’s Robert H. Knight chimes in at a rally in the Rayburn House Office Building: “Homosexual activists are using the idea of `safe schools’ and `anti-bullying’ campaigns to bring their pro-homosexual message into the schools.”
Andree Seu, a columnist for the Right-wing World magazine, demonstrates the need for the gay support groups she disdains. In the May issue she smirks: “Last month approximately 1,900 high schools from sea to shining sea joined in support of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students, something that never entered our minds at St. Clare High, class of ’69. It is possible that many of us were gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender back then too, but because we didn’t pay the proper attention to it, we grew up mainly under the delusion that we were heterosexual. Or if some of us were occasionally (and privately) aware of libidinous stirrings in that direction, that gnosis was soon enough snuffed out in the seven-times heated ovens of Calculus, Latin, and English Grammar. Now we learn that snuffing out impulses is not a good thing.” She ends her column of judgments by referencing the Final Judgment — “the only hopeful note in her rant,” says Ralph Blair.
Jerusalem holds its first Gay Pride Parade. On June 7, nearly 4,000 gay-lesbian-bisexual-and-transgendered Israelis marched through Ben-Yehuda mall to Zion Square under rainbow-colored banners and balloons. Performers in drag carried signs saying “Love Without Borders.” Though Gay Pride parades have been held for years in secular Tel Aviv, this was a first for Jerusalem. The Orthodox Shas Party called the event “a march of shame.” Said a Shas council member: “These are sick people.” Said former deputy mayor Nissim Ze’ev: This is “a pig in the Temple. We must uproot the filth in our midst.” A heckler shouted: “God is punishing the Jewish people for these people’s deeds.” But a gay student retorted: “This city has been choking us and today we’re saying that we are here and we don’t have to run and hide.”
Some seventy GLBTQ Muslims gathered in Washington, DC, for an international retreat at the end of May. It was the third such retreat held by Al-Fatiha, an international network of GLBTQ Muslims. The event included a Dupont Circle candle-light vigil for Muslims killed because of t
heir sexuality or gender. All Souls Unitarian Church was the venue for keynoters Surina Khan, Joo-Hyun Kang, and Leslie Feinberg. A panel of GLBTQ Jews and Muslims was held at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill. Other features of the conference included clips of the Hasidic film, “Trembling Before G-d,” as well as a work-in-progress film by Parvez Sharma titled “In the Name of Allah”
The sex scandal in the Roman Catholic Church continues to dominate the news.
“Homosexuality has nothing to do with it.” — Dignity, Roman Catholic GLBTQ group
“It’s not a gay problem; it’s a problem of irresponsible sexual behavior. So many of the priests are psychosexually immature, it makes them more vulnerable to taking advantage of, or falling in love with, if you will, age-inappropriate people.” — Psychiatrist A. W. Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk
“It would be profoundly misleading to tell [this story] without reference to the words `homosexual’ and `gay.'” — Mary Eberstadt, The Weekly Standard
“If the Catholic Church in America does not fit the definition of organized crime, then Americans seriously need to examine their concept of justice.” Arthur Austin, who is accusing Paul Shanley of sexual abuse in 1968, when Austin was 20 years old.
“The great majority of cases now before the church involve not pedophilia but `ephebophilia,’ an attraction to post-pubescent youth.” — Newsweek
“Those attracted to teenagers are sometimes said to suffer `ephebophilia,’ but perhaps because so many youth-obsessed Americans would qualify, psychiatrists don’t classify ephebophilia as an illness. … What constitutes a victim of child sexual abuse? … The states define the age of consent for sex differently. Most say it is 16, but some say 18. In Hawaii it’s 14. … In the Netherlands, the law allows children ages 12 to 16 to make their own decisions about sex. … Most Americans would find such a law abhorrent.” — Time
“Children are being sexualized everywhere you look. Television sitcoms feature come-on lines by under-12 actors. Clothing stores for girls stock shorts that resemble the skin-tight hooker pants worn by Julia Roberts in `Pretty Woman.'” — Robert H. Knight, Culture and Family Institute of Concerned Women for America
“Kids …are having sex at younger and younger ages — nearly 1 in 10 reports losing his or her virginity before the age of 13, a 15 percent increase since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some 16 percent of high school sophomores have had four or more sexual partners.” — U.S.News & World Report
“Back in 1981, an astute writer at Time magazine (that would be me) noticed that pro-pedophilia arguments were catching on among some sex researchers and counselors. Larry Constantine, a Massachusetts family therapist and sex-book writer, said children `have the right to express themselves sexually, which means that they may or may not have contact with people older than themselves.’ Wardell Pomeroy, coauthor of the original Kinsey reports, said incest `can sometimes be beneficial.’ A Minnesota sociologist included pedophile sex among “intimate human relations [that] are important and precious.” There were more.” — John Leo, U.S.News & World Report
“It is no secret that there has been a certain moral laxity and that a significant number of active homosexuals entered the priesthood in the last 20 or 30 years. … The overwhelming majority of the sexual abuse cases involve adult men having sex with teenage boys and young men, and by ordinary English usage we call that a homosexual relationship.”— Richard John Neuhaus, First Things [“Father Neuhaus said he was not in favor of banning gay men from the priesthood. `I think we would probably discover we would be retroactively excluding a good many canonized saints over 2,000 years,’ he said.” — The New York Times]
“I’d banish celibacy. Celibacy is a sick rule.” — Frank McCourt
“If celibacy were optional, would there be fewer scandals of this nature in the priesthood? My answer would be … Yes.” — Lance Morrow, Time
“My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination — or indeed, than nonclergy. However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported.” — Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History, Penn State
“Not having sex doesn’t turn someone into a pedophile. The best data we have suggest that about 5% of the Catholic clergy have had involvement with minors, mostly adolescent boys. That figure is consistent with other male clergy and the general population. In fact, the rate is probably higher in the general population.” — Clinical psychologist Thomas Plante
“The need gay priests have for friendship with other gay men, and their shaping of a social life largely comprised of other homosexually oriented men, has created a gay subculture in most of the larger U.S. dioceses.” — Roman Catholic theologian Donald B. Cozzens
“Surely much of the difficulty derives from an institutional setting in which large numbers of gay men, whatever their internal psychological state, room and travel together, and are given intimate access to young men.” — Stanley Kurtz, National Review
“Societies other than the U.S., while not exactly laughing off the sexual abuse of children, manage to acknowledge this reality without the same episodic hysteria. In England, for example, the `randy vicar’ is a stock comic character. [But] what were Boston’s Bernard Cardinal Law and other church officials thinking when they covered up sexual abuse? …There is no question that Law and his colleagues got the balance badly wrong. But at least we should try to understand, …and maybe even sympathize a bit.” — Michael Kinsley, Time
“Vatican officials I have spoken to see a scandal partly driven by an anti-Catholic press and liberal dissenters, as well as a legal profession eager to tap the deep pockets of the Catholic Church.” — John L. Allen, Jr., The National Catholic Reporter
“Non-Catholic churches have for the most part slipped under the national media radar …according to James F. Cobble Jr., executive director of Christian Ministry Resources, [because] Catholic dioceses usually have large insurance coverage for their parishes. That increases the likelihood of litigation.” — The Christian Century
“Sex between priests and teens, as well as with other adults, is not always abusive either — something else that many liberal and openly gay pundits have not wanted to discuss. …When I was 17, I had sex with a Catholic clergyman. … There was nothing abusive or coercive about it. In fact, I saw the incident as something exciting, as part of my own sexual evolution and growth as a teenager.” — Michelangelo Signorile, New York Press
“These cases — where the `victim’ lies somewhere in between childhood and adulthood, and the `abuser’ may or may not also have a gay adult sexual life — prove far murkier than either the Catholic Church or many gay rights advocates seem willing to admit.” — The Washington Blade
“Put aside the easy cases. A minister who sexually molests a child unquestionably has one `strike’ and should be `out.’ The problem is that most cases are not easy … not as clear as they might seem.” — Patrick J. Schiltz, interim dean, St. Thomas School of Law
AND FINALLY:
Two deaf lesbians in Maryland say that deafness is an “identity” rather than a disability. So they have done whatever they could to conceive two deaf children by a deaf sperm donor. They have now produced two deaf children. They rationalize that “deaf children make a society more diverse, and diversity makes society more humane.” Clearer and compassionate thinking is voiced by Kenneth L. Connor of the Family Research Council: “Had [they] taken postbirth measures to guarantee their son’s and daughter’s deafness, they’d be charged with child abuse, and rightly so. … This is selfishness, plain and simple.” The Traditional Values Coalition erroneously and self-servingly labeled it “the homosexual agenda.”