1st Edition
Hate is the Sin Putting Faces on the Debate over Human Sexuality
Arguments based in doctrine and scripture over the inclusion of homosexual people within Christian congregations and sacraments have done little to persuade the faithful on either side of this debate. Hate is the Sin: Putting Faces on the Debate over Human Sexuality approaches this divisive subject through portraits of the faith of gay and lesbian persons, presents both sides of the controversy, revealing how preformed opinions shape widely divergent interpretations of biblical and theological issues.
Included are the true stories of Mary Albing, serving as a pastor while in a lesbian relationship; Jay Wiesner, whose congregation defied the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America by ordaining and installing him in an Extraordinary Candidacy Project ceremony; David Glesne, who sought to heal relationships with gays and lesbians and yet deny them ordination and cohabitation; and other accounts of the ways that many congregations have struggled to welcome homosexual people and to realize the Christian message within their own churches. Hate is the Sin: Putting Faces on the Debate over Human Sexuality is an insightful and detailed account of this contemporary debate and required reading for any person hoping to understand Christianity and the spiritual lives of contemporary Christian people.
- Prologue: A First Encounter with Hate
- Let’s Not Adjourn Until After August
- Why The Human Sexuality Debate for This Writer?
- Chapter 1. Where Does The Hate Come From?
- It is All About Sex
- It is All About Sin
- Is It Okay to be Different?
- Chapter 2. A Church Ahead of Its Time
- After Don, Then Who?
- What Will We Do With Mary?
- Chapter 3. We Are in the Eyes of God and Our Friends
- God Didn’t Straighten Out That World View
- I Think I Know this Man
- Chapter 4. Why Should Jay Wiesner Be a Pastor?
- An Extraordinary Ordination
- They Followed Their Conscience
- Chapter 5. When You Know Your Bishop Has Refused
- An Inwardly Directed Norwegian Club
- We Want To Be An Accepting Church
- Chapter 6. Journey Together Faithfully
- How I Read the Bible on This Journey
- The Task Force Issues a Report
- Chapter 7. There Are Some Who Are Not Satisfied
- Who Says It Is A Sin?
- Chapter 8. Getting Ready for Orlando
- What People Say At an Open Microphone
- Did the ELCA Church Council Change Things
- Chapter 9. A Meeting with a Solid Rock Lutheran
- My Own Pastor
- Pastor David Glesne and His Book
- Chapter 10. Welcome to Orlando
- Churchwide Assembly Debates human Sexuality
- Did You Reject Other Forms of Oppression?
- Chapter 11. When I Was in Vancouver
- Am I In The Wrong Room?
- Learning Hate from Each Other
- Chapter 12. Did Jesus Approve of Homoerotic Relationships
- 95 Theses in Silent Protest
- Chapter 13. I’m Asked to Speak on the Sexuality resolutions
- What Is a Fellowship of Churches?
- Spreading the Word As David Sees It
- Chapter 14. The Calm Before the Next Storm
- Will Remus
- A Pastoral Minister of Outreach
- The Candidates Are Extraordinary
- Chapter 15. A Synod Council without the Bishop
- Another Resolution in Minneapolis
- Able to Worship and Be Welcomed
- Friends on Both Sides of the debate
- Chapter 16. Evangelical or Not?
- What Do Other Evangelicals Say?
- Political Evangelicals
- A Definition of Fundamentalist
- Chapter 17. An Then There Are the Methodists
- Full Communion between the ELCA and UMC
- A Symbol for Some Other Fear
- Chapter 18. The Bishop Comes to Visit
- Is It Coming From the Churches?
- Who in the Church Should Speak?
- It Is Time to End the Hate
- Epilogue
- Index
Biography
John S. Munday has a Master of Theology Degree from Princeton Theological Seminary (1988). He is also a lawyer, having a Juris Doctor of Law Degree from DePaul University (1967). He has written Justice For Marlys: A Family’s Twenty-Year Search for a Killer, published by the University of Minnesota Press (2004, paper 2006) about an equally compelling subject—the murder of his stepdaughter Marlys by a serial killer. Westminster/John Knox Press published his first book, Surviving The Death of a Child, in 1995 and his last book, Overcoming Grief: Joining and Participating in Bereavement Support Groups was published in June 2005, by ACTA Publishing Co. of Chicago.
