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Volume 10, Issue 6

Allowing Abundance: Asking and Receiving the Harvest

Cover Stories

Giving in Abundance
By Rev. Candace Chellew
There’s nothing like a collection plate, or an article on tithing, to make people think about all the other places they need to be — all the other articles they could be reading. Why? Because I think most people get uncomfortable when the subject turns to money, especially when the subject turns to their money — and the possibility of them parting with said money.

Are We Worth It?
By Lori Heine
Why don’t gay Christians give as generously as do straight ones? We are tempted to think it is because gay Christians simply care less — that relationship with God is less important to them than it is to straights. I, however, do not believe that for a minute.

My Cup Runneth Over
By John H. Campbell
If we have the incorrect perception that God is not blessing us or had not blessed us with abundance, and that the cup is half empty or not full enough, how can we view the cup God has given us as overflowing, and let those blessings flow over into the lives of those around us?

Abundant Bodies
By Nate Nelson
Pentecost is about remembering that everything about us is a gift, including and especially our bodies.

Abundant Giving
By Rev. Suzie Chamness
God loves us unconditionally. So giving and knowing Gods’ love is not connected. But true giving comes out a heart that overflows with joy and with all the possibilities that come from sharing the wonderful love of God with all people.

Sharing the Blessings
By Shawn Tiani
God doesn’t need our money. He doesn’t need our time. He doesn’t need our energy. Quite frankly, the God who created you, me, and everything around us is quite capable of getting things done whether we participate or not. However, how awesome is it that this very same God who created everything, is allowing us to partner with Him.

Homospirituality

Requisition Your Supplies
By Stacy Reynolds
The very critical lesson you must learn for your own survival is God Always Wins. Exclamation point. Exclamation point. Exclamation point.

Messy Marvins
By Lori Heine
These days, in the eyes of all too many Christians, no worse sin can be committed than that of making them uncomfortable. They now seem to count their comfort among the Cardinal Virtues. And along right behind that, trailing a close second, comes their convenience. The only thing that makes them as mad as being asked to think for themselves is being expected to pick up after themselves. Thus do their sanctuaries, following worship, resemble the house of Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout, who — according to Shel Silverstein’s poem — “would not take the garbage out.”

My Dirty Little Former Secret
By Marilyn Guthrie
Many Christians today have become a huge road block to gays and lesbians who search for Christ. Do you think that Christ would want even one of his children sacrificed for the pursuit of moral purity? If so, re-read Matthew 12.

Leaving Exodus
By Darlene Bogle
As children, we were told that sticks and stones will break our bones but names will never hurt us. That was one of the first lies we believed, and it is a broken truth. We have spent our lives being wounded by rejection and cutting names that separate “us” from the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Out of the Closet and Into a Box
By Katharine Royal
The straight and gay people who’ve expressed problems with my sexuality say that in order to be bisexual it’s quite clear that I must be with both a man and a woman, otherwise I’m not really bisexual, but rather straight.

Radical Minds and Critical Thinkers
By Herndon L. Davis
Radical minded people daily reject the status quo and express their lives accordingly. Even further, although they may respect authority, radical minded people still question its use and/or misuse. But most importantly, radical minded people are critical thinkers.

There Are No Coincidences
By Lori Heine
Miracles are real. Whether we recognize them as miraculous, or merely let them go by ignored and unappreciated, may depend on a consideration as simple as whether we believe that God is an active part of our lives, or that “He” merely sits outside of them as an impartial observer. It may even be that our definition of “miracles” is too narrow. Perhaps we’re expecting them to be more spectacular than they usually are.

Three Keys to God-Honoring Relationships
By Micah Royal
When it comes to the question for me of, “What are the basic building blocks of a healthy, Christ-based relationship?” — whether a marriage, a life partnership, a family relationship, a friendship, or the relationships we have with church family — St. Paul’s words seem to answer this question.

So Great a Crowd of Witnesses: A Poem
By Louie Crew
I have heard God distill His grandeur
through a Brother’s gay fingers

Features

A New Pentecost: An Interview with Matthew Fox
By Rev. Candace Chellew
By letting go of homophobia and other fundamentalism holding the church back, a new Pentecost, a rebirth of the church, will take place.

Disarming the Scriptures
By Rev. Candace Chellew
Why in the world do we need yet another book about what the Bible does and does not say about homosexuality? Haven’t we beat that dead horse enough? Why must we keep coming back to the Bible to finally make peace with our sexuality and our spirituality?

The Lost Gospels of Judas and Thomas: A Tale of Two Gnostics
By Darrell Grizzle
It’s easy to understand why, in our Da Vinci Code-obsessed culture, such a portrayal of Judas would be appealing. Portraying Judas Iscariot, the ultimate villain of history, as a heroic figure is a fantastic act of deconstruction — very appealing to postmodern readers more comfortable with anti-heroes than heroes.

The Amazing Journey: Notes From the Soulforce Equality Ride
By Kara Speltz
I’m glad I chose the Texas leg, because I doubt if I would have fully believed the reception we got at Abilene Christian University (ACU), if I had not physically been there to experience it. There’s definitely a bit of the “doubting Thomas,” in me.

Soulforce Welcomes New Executive Director
By Rev. Candace Chellew
When Jeff Lutes shared bottled water and conversation with members of Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church during Soulforce’s first action in 1999, he had no idea where it would lead him.

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Institute for Welcoming Resources Join Forces
Task Force Press Release
The move, an unprecedented joining of LGBT secular and faith-based organizing, is designed to provide new resources, training and strategies that will increase the number of people of faith supporting equality for LGBT people.

What Is Truth in Recent Claims About Christian Origins?
By Margaret M. Mitchell
The sensational emphasis on Judas shifting from “betrayer” to “friend” in the recent disclosures appears disproportionate, based as it is on one ambiguous line, the context of which cannot be fully reconstructed, because the papyrus is damaged.

If You Permit Big Enough Lies Long Enough…
By Dr. Robert N. Minor
The religious and political right-wing has learned that if you repeat lies over and over, eventually people will believe them and the mainstream media will repeat the lies as if they are just as respectable as the truth. Especially when the opposition is too afraid to call them lies.

Resisting “Theocracy”
By Martin E. Marty
Phillips quotes many leaders of far-right and near-far-right Christian groups who want Christianity to have privilege, status, and even a monopoly on the spiritual front of a lame pluralist society, and sees — yes — theocracy in their goals.

Letters to the Editor

A Decade of Whosoever

Gay Christians Have Online Magazine
By John Blake
As Whosoever celebrates its ten year anniversary, we’ll be presenting articles that have appeared over the years about Whosoever or by Whosoever founder and editor Candace Chellew. This article originally appeared in the January 24, 1998 edition of the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Transitioning With Whosoever
By Rev. Candace Chellew
Lincoln Rose began reading Whosoever nearly 10 years ago when he was a lesbian.

Same-Gender Marriage

It’s Time for This To Change
By Rev. Joe Hoffman
Things still need to change! It is not okay for our laws to discriminate against certain people. That is not what our country is about. And I do not want to participate in the injustice.

From the Pulpit

Becoming Hafta Farmers
By Rev. Candace Chellew
Dreaming of heaven leaves you little time to concern yourself with what’s going on here on earth. I was raised to believe that the earth is more of a necessary evil — a place you have to endure before you get your reward. I was never taught that it is a living, breathing, growing and dying organism that needs tending like any other living thing.

God, in Your Grace, Transform The World
By The Reverend Nancy L. Wilson
Who of us would be willing to stand outside, offering others our seat, perhaps lifting them through the roof? What would it mean to preach in a way that met the needs of our “regulars” but also spoke to those who were new or very different?

Bible Study and Inspiration

Jesus’ Prayer Book Part 2: Psalm 22
By Tom Yeshua
There are dark times in life, times that test our spiritual vision to the breaking point. During such times we may not be able to see the presence of God or hear his still, small voice calling to us above the din of our own wandering heart. It is during these Good Friday periods in our lives that we need to hold fast to all of Psalm 22.

Love and Be Loved!
By Colin Blanchard
Being gay is not about whom one has sex with; it’s about whom one loves. We should never lose sight of what is the most important aspect of our being.

Some Talking Points on Christianity and Homosexuality
By Rev. Dr. Jerry S. Maneker
About a year ago, after my giving a talk on how the Bible doesn’t condemn, but actually affirms, same-sex love, a woman with a gay brother, raised in a Christian family, asked me to write out “talking points” on the subject of the consistency between Christianity and homosexuality, so that she could share that information with her brother. This article is the result of my answering her request.

Confronting Bible Abuse, Part 2: Beginning Again with God
By Micah Royal
What the Scripture says is that each of us are counted worthy not because of being in a particular class, not because of our sexuality or race, not because of how well or poorly we have lived, but because God already views us as having infinite worth, regardless of these things.

Holy Humor

Baptist Dog

Encounters in a Dark Closet