Oregonians should applaud the decision by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to commute the sentences of those on Oregon’s death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As a minister in the United Church of Christ, a denomination long opposed to the death penalty as both immoral and ineffective as a deterrent to crime, I appreciate Gov. Brown’s moral leadership on a politically fraught issue. 

As both a citizen of the United States of America and an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, I strongly concur with Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states: ”...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Still, for many people of diverse religious traditions, faith informs our political beliefs. On the issue of climate change, a charged political topic which has lead Oregon Senate Republicans to twice flee the state to deny a quorum for voting on legislation addressing the climate crisis, religious bodies nearly uniformly support measures to protect God's Creation.

Specifically, Oregon Republicans oppose Senate Bill 1530, which ”would set a gradually more stringent cap on statewide carbon dioxide emissions and require polluters from the transportation fuels, utility and industrial sectors to acquire ’emissions allowances” to cover every metric ton of their emissions,” according to reporting by The Oregonian.

The Pew Research Center notes that Christian evangelicals make up a large percentage of Oregon GOP voters. The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is the umbrella group for these churches in the United States, and they have been clear about what they believe the Christian response to climate change should be: (We) ”...are commanded to care for the earth and all its creatures, because the earth belongs to God, not to us. We do this for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the creator, owner, sustainer, redeemer, and heir of all creation,” wrote the NAE in ”Caring For God’s Creation: A Call to Action.”

Sen. Herman Baertschiger, the GOP minority leader in the Oregon Senate, identifies as a Lutheran on his public Facebook page. “Creation groans under the weight of human action and inaction,” states the Lutheran World Federation.

GOP Rep. Cedric Hayden is a vocal opponent of action by the Oregon Legislature to confront climate change. He is also a former Seventh Day Adventist missionary, a church that says: ”The ecological crisis is rooted in humankind's greed and refusal to practice good and faithful stewardship.”

GOP Senator Bill Hansell, one of those who has left his post in Salem to oppose SB1530, is a Baptist Sunday School teacher. Human activity is ”sometimes productive and caring, but often reckless...sinful,” reads ”A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change.”

Democrat Betty Johnson is the lone member of her party in the Oregon Senate to support the walkout. Senator Betsy Johnson claims membership in the Episcopal Church, which supports a ”carbon tax and carbon offsets” as part of their Jesus Movement for Creation Care.

Republicans and Democrats both compete for religious voters. Pope Francis has said: "The protection of the home given to us by the Creator cannot be neglected.” The General Synod of the United Church of Christ adopted a resolution that declared that the ”vision and urgency of the Green New Deal are what is needed to preserve and restore God’s great gift of creation.”

Leading Jewish rabbis have issued ”Elijah’s Covenant Between the Generations to Heal Our Endangered Earth: A New Rabbinic Call to Action On the Climate Crisis,” which reads in part: ”Our children and grandchildren face deep misery and death unless we act. They have turned their hearts toward us. Our hearts, our minds, our arms and legs, are not yet fully turned toward them.”

The faith-based organization, Islamic Relief Worldwide, has declared: ”We have no right to abuse creation or impair it. Our faith commands us to treat all things with care, compassion (rahmah) and utmost good (ihsan).”

GOP leaders in Oregon will tell you they are not defying religious beliefs by refusing to take action to address the climate crisis. Instead, they will claim to be representing rural Oregon. Yet ”rural America has already experienced impacts of climate change related weather effects, including crop and livestock loss from severe drought and flooding, damage to levees and roads from extreme storms, shifts in planting and harvesting times, and large-scale losses from fires and other weather-related disasters, ” notes the most recent National Climate Assessment.

It will only get worse. Both religion and science offer wisdom for our elected leaders to consider when it comes to climate change, and politics could use an infusion of wisdom right now. 

In Oregon, GOP members of the Oregon Senate have once again walked off the job to deny a quorum. They intend to hold the Oregon Legislature hostage until a bill addressing climate change is killed. In undertaking this action, along with another walkout earlier in the session, the GOP thwarts the will of the voters. It’s a filibuster, of sorts.

In most respects, filibusters are anti-democratic. “In the 20th century, the filibuster enabled southern segregationists to block anti-lynching laws and delay civil-rights legislation. This millenium, it enabled to nativists to block a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers,” wrote Eric Levitz in a recent piece for New York Magazine.

Today in Oregon, GOP senators have twice this session used ability to deny the majority a quorum in an attempt to halt not just climate change legislation, but also a bill to increase school funding. In Oregon, voters in 2018 gave Democrats super-majorities in both the House and Senate, along with the governor’s office. The only way the GOP can influence legislation, besides coalition building and compromise, is to deny a quorum.

Democrats in Oregon have also staged walkouts when in the minority on rare occasions.  Unlike their GOP counterparts, however, they didn't leave the state to avoid the Oregon State Police.  The Oregon GOP Senators are said to be hiding in Idaho.  

There is also a clear moral difference between staging a protest to protect underrepresented communities vs. the coal industry or oil and gas.   

Addressing climate change is the most pressing moral issue of our time. As a minister in the United Church of Christ, I take Jesus’ admonition that we free people from oppression seriously. Slavery and Jim Crow are obvious examples of oppression. Climate change is as well. Without taking steps to address climate change, we sentence young people today to a painful and challenging existence.

The reality of climate change is a responsibility we must accept and address. David Wallace-Wells writes in his “The Uninhabitable Earth” that:

Global warming may seem like a distended morality tale playing out over several centuries and inflicting a kind of Old Testament retribution on the great-great-grandchildren of those responsible, since it was carbon burning in eighteenth-century England that lit the fuse of everything that has followed. But that is a fable about historical villainy that acquits those of us alive today—and unfairly. The majority of the burning has come since the premiere of Seinfeld. Since the end of World War II, the figure is about 85 percent. The story of the industrial world’s kamikaze mission is the story of a single lifetime—the planet brought from seeming stability to the brink of catastrophe in the years between a baptism or bar mitzvah and a funeral.

As the administration of Donald Trump works tirelessly to undermine efforts to address this global crisis, it becomes more and more critical for states to do whatever possible turn the tide. Instead, GOP lawmakers and activists deny the reality of climate change, work to undermine solutions, and take advantage of people, such as the #TimberUnity community in Oregon, by telling them that climate change solutions will impact their jobs (as if growing wildfire seasons won’t).

It gets worse, of course. Under Oregon law, the governor is empowered to compel members of the Legislature to return to work with the help of the Oregon State Police. This led Senator Brian Boquist, in his best segregationist imitation, to threaten the police with gun violence if they attempt to arrest him. Such comments demand his resignation or expulsion from the Senate.

Oregon Senate Republicans employee the tactics of segregationists, using the power of the minority to block efforts to address the common good. Unable to win elections, the party will do anything to stop efforts to address climate change, no matter the cost to future generations.

The so-called Oregon 11 should get back to work, return to Oregon, do their sworn duty, and faithfully execute their oath of office. Or they should resign.

Update:

Sadly, it appears this morning that the segregationalist tactics of the #Oregon11 have worked. The radical far-right minority looks to have won the day. #hb2020 #orpol #orleg https://t.co/QYNwv4iTSZ

— Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) June 25, 2019

Dear Members of the Oregon House and Senate,

 

I am pro-choice not in spite of my faith, but because of it.

My faith supports the moral capacity and the human right to make choices about whether and when to become a parent.

Abortion is a complex, deeply personal decision for a woman to consider if she needs it. Ultimately, this decision should be left to a woman, her family, her faith and her physician — not politics. No matter how you feel about abortion, no one should be denied health care because they can’t afford it.

One of my bottom line beliefs is that people of good faith can come to different conclusions on difficult issues.

Still, as an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, I personally believe the decision to oppose Ballot Measure 106 is an easy one. This dangerous constitutional amendment unfairly discriminates against Oregon families who are struggling with poverty and imposes even greater burdens on them by denying them essential reproductive health care. Measure 106 will reduce health coverage for more than 350,000 Oregonians.

People must not be forced to act contrary to their conscience, nor must they be prevented from acting in accordance to their conscience.  In Christian terms, we recognize that Jesus affirmed the moral agency of women. We should all follow that example.

As a faith leader, I want to help foster a world where all women are trusted to make moral decisions about their bodies and their lives. Where the decision to start a family is thoughtful and planned. Where policymakers and advocates are free to support policies that create a more just and compassionate society. Where lifesaving health care is not blocked by religious special interests.

It is also our responsibility to provide every support system possible to help women and families raise children in our society. No one should be forced into making the decision to have an abortion because of economic factors. We need to move past this political distraction and focus on the health and well-being of children and families.

Our state should reflect a culture of justice and equality where the dignity of all women is acknowledged through policies that support their moral choices. Ballot Measure 106 is a backdoor ban on abortion that takes away a woman’s choices, based on her income or healthcare coverage.

Faith and reproductive freedom are not enemies. According to 2017 research from Pew, nearly two-thirds of Protestants and nearly half of evangelicals say the U.S. Supreme Court should not overturn Roe v Wade. The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has called for reproductive choice since the 1960s.

Roe even sees strong support even from Catholic Americans. More than 60 percent of Catholics believe abortion should be legal; in addition, 6 in 10 voters say abortion can be a moral choice. According to Catholics for Choice, Catholic women access abortion at similar rates as women of other faiths or no faith.

We have a duty to protect the well-being of our families. Voting NO on Measure 106 upholds our shared moral responsibility to ensure that every Oregonian has the full range of reproductive care, by removing obstacles and by providing equitable access for all.

Lift Every Voice Oregon held a rally at the State Capitol on Tuesday to call on the governor and Legislature to ban assault weapons.

It was my privilege to share a few words alongside clergy colleagues, victims of gun violence, students, and other advocates.

Please consider signing the petition created by Lift Every Voice Oregon calling on our political leaders to act.

No one should have to fear gun violence in worship, in a classroom, shopping at the mall, or watching a movie in a theatre.  We can do better. 

Couldn't make our rally? Sign our petition! Help #banassaultweapons in #Oregon: https://t.co/scPNp1P3ga #orleg #orpol #Enough #GunControlNow @shannonrwatts @MomsDemand @CeasefireOregon @RevChuckCurrie @TheCrossLobby @trinitycathpdx @march4portland @AMarch4OurLives pic.twitter.com/Aa3oq2Dylk

— Lift Every Voice Oregon (@LiftEveryVoice_) September 26, 2018

Militia members - white anti-government terrorists - have taken over a federal building in Burns, Oregon.

"Harney County Sheriff David Ward on Sunday afternoon said a group of militants that seized an eastern Oregon wildlife refuge is trying to overthrow the local and federal governments," reports The Oregonian.

This event should come as no surprise but it will for many. GOP presidential candidates, congressional leaders and right-wing activists have been trying to fan the flames of fear about Islamic terrorists - making all Muslims suspect - while ignoring the growing reality of domestic terrorist groups.

Terrorism experts noted last summer:

Despite public anxiety about extremists inspired by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, the number of violent plots by such individuals has remained very low. Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years.

In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Arie Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012.

Ammon Bundy, the out-of-state militia leader who came to Oregon to begin this siege, did so because the "Lord was not pleased" with an on-going criminal case involving ranchers convicted of arson on federal lands. The national media would be calling this a case of radical Islamic terrorism if just one Muslim were involved in this crisis. There would be calls for drone strikes to end the siege, internment camps and the closure of Mosques (the last two ideas have actually been advanced by leading GOP presidential candidates this election cycle). Few are saying the obvious: these militia groups are Christian fundamentalists with strong ties to the GOP. Cliven Bundy, the father of Ammon Bundy, has himself been involved with an armed standoff with federal law enforcement.

Cliven Bundy, the father of Ammon Bundy, has himself been involved with an armed standoff with federal law enforcement. Ted Cruz came to Cliven Bundy's defense in that episode, saying, "we have seen our liberty under assault" since President Obama came to office and that Bundy's armed standoff with the federal government was simply "the unfortunate and tragic culmination of the path that President Obama has set the federal government on." The Bundy's have cited their

The Bundy's have cited their Mormon beliefs as justification for their actions.

On Monday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued this statement:

While the disagreement occurring in Oregon about the use of federal lands is not a Church matter, Church leaders strongly condemn the armed seizure of the facility and are deeply troubled by the reports that those who have seized the facility suggest that they are doing so based on scriptural principles. This armed occupation can in no way be justified on a scriptural basis. We are privileged to live in a nation where conflicts with government or private groups can - and should - be settled using peaceful means, according to the laws of the land.

There is nothing Christian about any attempt to overthrow the American government with violent means. Christians have and should seek justice by the use of non-violent social change.

As a United Church of Christ minister in Oregon, I applaud the leadership of federal, state and local officials who are offering a restrained response to the siege in Burns. Too often non-violent protests, fighting for changes in our economic system that allow for growing inequity or those calling for racial justice, have not been shown the same restraint - even as these other protests have been largely, and appropriately, non-violent.

What is happening now is, in reality, a culmination of the support too many in the GOP - as it moves further and further into the fringes of right-wing ideology - and from some Christian fundamentalists, have given to anti-government groups. All political leaders and Christians should condemn what is happening in Burns.

At some point, the siege in Burns will end. If it ends with dead law enforcement officers or militia members, the blood will be on the hands not of the government but of those that give legitimacy to these anti-government groups that seek to undermine American principles of pluralism and justice for all.

#UCCShooting

Joint Statement on Umpqua Tragedy from Oregon Faith Leaders Jan Elfers (Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon) and Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie (Pacific University Center for Peace & Spirituality)

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and the Pacific University Center for Peace and Spirituality join Oregonians and Americans in grief and shock over the mass shooting today at Umqua Community College (UCC). We are in contact with colleagues in ministry in the Roseburg area to see what assistance is needed.

“All of our faith traditions abhor violence, and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon has joined the National Council of Churches in calling for action to prevent gun violence,” said Jan Elfers, interim executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.“Our prayers go out to all those who lives have been impacted by this terrible tragedy; to the victim’s families and friends, and to the entire Roseburg community. We are grateful to those who responded to the emergency and undoubtedly prevented the loss of even more lives.”

A Resolution and Call to Action by the National Council of Churches of Christ, U.S.A.
http://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/comm…/…/gun-violence.php

“Mass shootings like this happen too often and Oregon has not been immune,” said Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie, director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain at Pacific University. “Today we offer our prayers for those killed and injured. We also lift up the families of those impacted. Still, we must also work to take steps that reduce gun violence this day so that there are no more days like this.”

Dr. Currie is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon is a statewide association of Christian denominations, congregations, ecumenical organizations and interfaith partners working together to improve the lives of Oregonians through community ministry programs, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, environmental ministry and public policy advocacy.

Pacific University’s Center for Peace and Spirituality provides students with the opportunity to engage in meaningful study, reflection and action based on the recognition that inter- and intra-personal peace are inherently connected and that concerns for personal spirituality are intimately related to concerns for one's social, historical, cultural and natural environment.

Founded in 1849, Pacific University offers more than 84 areas of study within its colleges of Arts & Sciences, Optometry, Education, Health Professions and Business.

Views and opinions expressed by Ms. Elfers and Rev. Dr. Currie do not necessarily reflect the position of Pacific University.


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My oped in The @PortlandMercury: How All Christians Can Be More Christ-like About #MarriageEquality http://t.co/1W7OvpubDp #PrideMonth

— Rev.Dr. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) June 10, 2015

April 9, 2015

The Honorable Senator Ron Wyden
Sent via email

.@GovKitz has made good decision to resign. New Gov. Kate Brown will serve #Oregon well. She has moral authority to govern. #orpol #orleg

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) February 13, 2015

This week a state representative sent me a couple of Tweets regarding the controversy surrounding Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber that seemed disingenuous.  These tweets echoed my own calls for prayers (though the representative felt the need to call on the governor to accept Jesus as his personal savior...I know nothing about the governor's faith nor is it my business...nor is it the business of one public official to tell another how to worship).  

I finally responded to these tweets by telling the representative that he was a bigot and a bigger embarrassment to Oregon than the governor.  Why?  There is a long record of this representative, a Tea Party leader and radio talk show host, of making bigoted statements against African-Americans, gays and lesbians, people of faith who disagree with his own very conservative evangelical faith, and even all Portlanders (as if all people in Portland live and believe the same).

Still, it was wrong of me to respond in the way I did and I apologized this morning.  My apology wasn't based on the feedback from this representative's fan base - which came quickly on Twitter:

I heard that @RevChuckCurrie is douchebag. Anyone know the clown?

— Josh Shoob (@ShoobJosh) February 13, 2015

and on Facebook where the representative sought to stoke the fire:

Mike Broberg Well he is from the same church as "the reverend" Jeremiah Wright so it's not all that surprising that he feels that way...a little surprised he was dumb enough to put it on twitter. Btw who are you a big got for wanting governor Coruptionhaber to get right with Jesus

Like · Reply · 3 · 14 hrs · Edited

 

Karen Darnell United Church of Christ. The man is a communist to the core. 

I agree based on the news that @GovKitz attempted to destroy emails that he must resign from office at this time. #orpol

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) February 13, 2015

I've also been encouraging the people of Oregon this week to pray for the bi-partisan leadership of this state.  Whatever happens in the next hours or days the state’s bi-partisan political leadership could best serve the public by working in a spirit of cooperation with an eye to reconciliation and reform of any broken institutions. These are difficult days for Oregon. We can lessen the hurt by offering compassion as Oregon moves forward.

Regardless of whether or not this elected official is a bigot it was wrong in the context of this moment to make the claim.  I inflamed tensions instead of lowering them. That was a failure on my part.  We need to be careful with our words so that Oregon can find healing after too long a winter.

What Oregonians need now is to look to the future:

Oregon can be thankful @OregonSoS Kate Brown is ready to take over governor's office. Let's hold her in prayer. #orpol #KitzControversy

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) February 13, 2015

My latest op-ed in The Huffington Post:

Brittany Maynard made a moral choice http://t.co/A9jphW3YdE

— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) November 3, 2014

Remarks delivered by Rev. Chuck Currie at the Oregon League of Minority Voters dinner on October 30, 2014.

It is with great appreciation that I join with you all this evening.

We are, as you all know, near to an election. There is always cause to celebrate the democratic process. We live in a nation where the people decide on those who will occupy elective office.

For all the gifts of our democracy, however, we are a nation not fully free. A broken system allowed the loser of the popular vote to take the presidency in 2001. Our political system has never fully recovered.

Since then we have given corporations the rights of people and taken away from certain people the right to freely vote. We are not fully free.

The United States keeps company with nations like Russia in incarcerating large numbers of our fellow citizens, and in America those jailings are disproportionally based on skin color and not on crime.

We are not fully free in Missouri or New York or California or Oregon when unarmed African-Americans are killed by uniformed police officers and we know the process of investigation will be neither fair nor balanced.

We are a little less free in Portland, Oregon this month after the Portland City Council decided to fight a judge’s oversight of reforms of the Portland Police Bureau that have been mandated by the federal government which would make us a little more free.

Ours is a disconnected reality. We live in an age where an African-American can be elected president of the United States. We live in an age where a Latino can serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. We live in an age where a lesbian woman can serve as the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. All of these people serve based on the content of their character.

These victories are a reality because of the work undertaken by many of you in this room here today.

But we are less free when our people are hungry. We are less free when our children are homeless. How can we make the claim that we are the “greatest nation on Earth" when 20,000 or more students will experience homelessness just in Oregon this year? Neither political party pays enough attention to poverty and economic inequity but the harshest judgment must rest with those who have fought investments in jobs, expansion in health care…and with those who have simply turned a blind eye to the people Jesus called the least of these.

The crisis of Ferguson is not an isolated incident but indicative of larger social ills that infect the whole body of our nation.

Only when we recognize the common humanity that we all share will we all be free. We cannot treat one another as if we can do without the other. We are too interconnected.

In his letter 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote about the church being the body of Christ. These are the words his used, as translated by Eugene Peterson:

For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

This is a good message for us as the election nears. We are not fully free because we do not treat the “other” as necessary, as integral, when there is no one, not a soul, that can be left behind. If we do not love neighbor as ourselves, we have no hope.

So I leave you with this prayer, one based on a prayer organically penned by Phillips Brooks, that we often share in the United Church of Christ:

Jesus said, "You ought always to pray and not to faint." Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger women and men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but for power equal to your tasks. Then, the doing of your work will be no miracle - YOU will be the miracle, and every day you will wonder at yourself and the richness of life that has come to you by the grace of God. Amen.

Still deciding how to vote on Oregon ballot measures?  Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (EMO), the state-wide council of churches and faith-based organizations, has produced their annual Voter's Guide to Ballot Measures for the 2014 elections.  

What you'll read are the careful theological reflections of Christian leaders trying to discern how the different measures before Oregon voters will impact the common good.  Candidates are not ranked or endorsed.  

On some issues, EMO makes no recommendations either because the measures do not warrant input from the faith community or because the member bodies of EMO were not able to come to consensus.  

You won't be reading a partisan document - like the voter guides published by the Oregon Family Council, a purely political organization complete with a PAC that donates 100% of their funds to GOP candidates all while claiming to be a church council - or a document that insists you must vote with EMO's recommendations to be a good Christian.  

I generally agree with the recommendations made by EMO (though I have endorsed Measure 91) and commend these recommendations to you.  

Oregon has the highest rate of poverty on the West Coast.

But let’s talk about Cylvia Hayes’ past.

Journalists have the right (even a responsibility) to report on activities within government and so the role played by Hayes, Oregon’s first lady, is newsworthy.  This is particularly true if Hayes has used her influence in ways that might be unethical.  Such behavior has been alleged by Willamette Week but not proven.

What Willamette Week has uncovered, and what will define the last weeks of the election for governor, is that Hayes had a secret marriage late in her twenties.

Willamette Week has over the years done some reporting worthy of the awards they have received.  Uncovering that Oregon icon Neil Goldschmidt was in fact a child rapist rewrote state history and brought a small measure of justice to the babysitter he victimized.

More the norm, however, are stories like this one regarding Hayes.  Nothing regarding her past will impact John Kitzhaber’s term as governor or legacy in the state.  Telling this story now simply serves to embarrass Hayes.  Willamette Week has a long history of defining people by their worst moments.

As clergy, I long ago came to the conclusion that the human experience is messy.  All of us come to the table with a variety of faults (in theological terms we call these sins).  Sometimes these personal faults mean that people need to be excused from public life.  Other times, particularly when people gain fame from politics or the arts, the media seeks to exploit all too human failings for their own purposes.

The media will now pile on Hayes.  Real issues – like poverty, that weren’t being covered anyway – will be ignored even more as “reporters” follow Hayes and Kitzhaber around demanding to know about the state of their relationship. 

What will Hayes legacy be in Oregon?  That we don’t know.  But Willamette Week’s legacy will be part journalistic brilliance that shines way to infrequently and a long record of tearing good people down for the sport (or advertising dollars) of it.  On balance, WW has done more harm than good.

Still, no one will ask Kitzhaber or Dennis Richardson how they’ll address poverty if elected in November.  I’m certain neither one of them knows. 

The sin of poverty ought to be the real story.  Hayes' private sins ought to remain private.  But there are too few saints in journalism today willing to cover issues of substance over scandal.  In journalism, there are sinners too.   

Update: 10/14

Stories asking if a public official rewrote ethics rules to benefit their partner are 100% appropriate. #orpol http://t.co/8qKx6OQGQE

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) October 14, 2014

Oregon voters will consider a ballot measure legalizing the sale and regulation of marijuana. Taxes from the sale of marijuana would be directed to fund public education, mental health and addiction services, and public safety. The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has made no pronouncement on this emerging public policy issue and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon has yet to release their fall ballot measure guide. As a minister in the United Church of Christ in Oregon, however, I will vote yes on the November measure and encourage other people of faith to consider doing likewise. My vote is predicated on a theological principle that public policy should reflect the common good. The illegalization of marijuana, a drug that is in some ways medically considered to be less harmful then alcohol, has tragically forced many people needlessly into the criminal justice system. It is worth noting that those charged with drug offenses are disproportionally people of color. African-Americans are four times more likely as whites to be arrested for marijuana use even though usage is the same, according to federal data. This has further institutionalized the sin of racism in our society. Like many young people, I smoked marijuana, but unlike youth of color there was little chance that I would have ever faced legal consequences for my actions. My “yes” vote is not without reservations. There is growing medical evidence that smoke from marijuana is dangerous. I am concerned that marijuana use is often idolized in public culture – the same is true for alcohol, however – and thus some seem to promote use among young people under 21. My hope is that with further public education and drug treatment funds that Oregon can do more to reduce unhealthy drug use among young people. Regardless of my concerns, this issue should be treated as a treatment issue and not a law enforcement issue. Obviously, people of good faith will come to different conclusions on this issue. I’ll vote Yes on 91 with the hope that the legalization and regulation of marijuana will reduce crime and violence now associated with the black market linked with the drug, will provide new funding for treatment, and will undermine the systemic racism that fuels our dysfunctional criminal justice system. All of this would benefit the common good of Oregon.

Disclaimer: Views expressed here represent the perspectives of Rev. Currie, as well as reader participants, and may not represent the official views of Pacific University, the United Church of Christ, or any local congregation.

My latest: Marriage Equality Comes To Oregon; Be Joyful via @HuffPostRelig #GayMarriageOR #marriageequality #orpol http://t.co/dIHSWXrgec

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) May 19, 2014

My latest op-ed in The Forest Grove Leader / The Oregonian:

Good people of faith can have differences of opinion on marriage equality – and the proposed measure making marriage equality legal in Oregon also writes into law that no clergy or religious institution can ever be forced into performing a same sex marriage – but anyone who uses religion as a shield for arguing that gays and lesbians should be subject to discrimination in the marketplace is committing theological malpractice.

Is gay marriage coming to Oregon?

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber held a summit meeting today to discuss poverty with special guest Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of NETWORK. The fact that Kitzhaber was discussing poverty at all half-way into a third term is noteworthy. This is the same governor, after all, who proposed lifetime TANF limits on Oregonians more stringent than anything Newt Gingrich pushed as he tried to dismantle America's safety net as U.S. House Speaker. At the same time, in an effort to balance Oregon's budget, Kitzhaber proposed tax breaks for corporations. In other words, he was willing to balance Oregon's budget on the backs of our state's must vulnerable. It is sometimes hard to imagine this is the same man who fought so hard to expand health care in the 1980s. I hope Governor Kitzhaber learned something today from Sister Simone, one of our nation's great moral leaders. The governor talked movingly in his last State of the State Address about the need to confront growing economic inequality in Oregon but those words have not been matched with bold new policies. Will our governor end another four years in office with no concrete efforts to reduce poverty or will he answer the challenge raised by faith leaders and others to make a real difference in the lives of Oregonians who have suffered because of bad economic polices nationally and indifference locally?


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The Rev. Chuck Currie will join Pacific University in Fall 2014 as director of the Center for Peace & Spirituality and university chaplain.

Full story.

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My latest today on The Huffington Post:

"Most Christians once opposed the fight for equality for gays and lesbians. Today many Christians and other people of faith are at the forefront of the fight to end discrimination against the gay and lesbian community -- even working to support marriage equality."

Time to Come Out as People of Faith for Marriage Equality

Today volunteers across Oregon fanned out to begin talking to neighbors about marriage equality – one of the great civil rights issues of our time.  In Portland, supporters of marriage equality gathered at Sunnyside Church to hear U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley and Air Force Lt. Col. Linda Campbell tell the tragic – but ultimately victorious story – of how Campbell’s partner died of cancer, but because they were not married the couple was at first denied the right to be buried together until Senator Merkley won a battle, but not a precedent, to let them rest together for eternity when the time comes in a national cemetery.

Homosexuality is not a sin but bigotry and discrimination are.  Holy Scripture is used to deny gays and lesbians the most basic of civil rights protection in many communities, including employment protections, but such use of Scripture is theological malpractice.  I was honored to host today’s Portland group at Sunnyside Church and to offer a welcome.  Just a generation ago people used the Bible to oppose inter-racial marriages in the United States.  Today the same theological arguments are employed to oppose marriage equality for gays and lesbians.  But Jesus never spoke of this issue.  What he did command was that we love our neighbor as we love God.  Legal discrimination against gays and lesbians is not consistent with the teachings of Jesus.   

This is an issue being faced by people all across our nation.  In the past, opponents of equality for gays and lesbians could count on religious leaders as allies.  Not anymore.  The United Church of Christ, where I am an ordained minister, became the first mainline denomination to endorse marriage equality back in 2005.  Many Christian leaders have followed since.

Sunnyside Church and University Park Church, the two Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church that I serve in ecumenical partnership, will be holding a joint worship service on Sunday, June 16th at 9:30 am at University Park Church (4775 N. Lombard) before the Portland Pride Parade.  Our churches will then be marching with the Community of Welcoming Congregations in the parade.  We invite all in area to join us in worship and for the parade.     

To learn more about Oregon’s campaign for marriage equality visit: http://www.oregonunitedformarriage.org

Listen to the story about today's event from Oregon Public Broadcasting:

My oped this morning in The Salem Statesman Journal:

"There are at least 90 students experiencing homelessness at North Portland’s Roosevelt High School. That shouldn’t come as a surprise in a state where as many as 20,000 students were homeless at one point during the past school year."

Don't leave homeless children behind.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza argued this week that support for gay marriage is surging because more people know gay folks and because of the influence of television (and popular culture in general).  I think we should give credit to the Religious Right. 

In Oregon, we have been forced to debate a series of anti-gay ballot measures put forward by conservative Christian organizations since 1988. Those conversations – perhaps more than any other factor – have forced Oregonians to consider what it means to discriminate against those who are neighbors and family members. People “came out” to oppose these measures and that meant for the first time many of us met gay people (or realized we already knew them). It forced churches and other faith bodies to reconsider traditional teachings on marriage in the much the same way the Civil Rights Movement forced many churches to reevaluate Scripture – which had been used to justify slavery and Jim Crow, by some – and that process has lead many to conclude that God’s overarching call for love and compassion trumps ancient understandings of relationships (or even misinterpretations of Scripture). In a very real sense, part of the surge in support for marriage equality comes as direct – but obviously unintended result – of the anti-gay marriage movement (and anti-gay movement more generally).

Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberton and Albert Mohler may be America's greatest advocates for marriage equality - though I'm sure they didn't mean it to turn out this way.

P.S. Live in Oregon? Join the people of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church for Easter in Portland.  All are welcome.

The Oregon Family Council (OFC) called my office this morning to see if I’d be joining their "Pastors Day at the Capitol." This is where they bring “Tea Party Jesus” to the politicians.

On Facebook, the OFC has stated that the “Oregon Family Council serves over 2,000 Churches and over 40,000 families from across the state who come from a broad spectrum of denominational backgrounds within the Christian community” and that as a 501 ( c ) non profit they “are not affiliated with any political party. Party platforms or points of view play no role whatsoever in our evaluation and recommendations on ballot measures.”

What they fail to mention is they also operate a political action committee that gives 100% of their money to GOP candidates.

What ballot measures have they endorsed in the past? Those that benefit the wealthiest Oregonians at the expense of those Jesus would have called the “least of these.”

Their stances have been opposed by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, our state’s association of churches and other faith leaders who view public policy through Christian theology and not just a political agenda.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a Christian organization but rather a political machine to support GOP candidates and causes.

At their "Pastors Day at the Capitol," the OFC claims to be coming to protect religious freedoms under attack:

Our religious freedoms are under direct assault on many fronts today. This year’s event is a must for every pastor and church leader from around the state. Local and national experts on religious liberty will be in attendance to address where we stand in regards to our religious freedoms and how we can preserve these freedoms for future generations.

The most hotly debated issue concerning "religious freedom" has centered around President Obama's health care law - passed with the strong support of the National Council of Churches - and the argument that it infringes on religious liberty has been rejected by nearly all.

Sally Steenland, Director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress, notes this is part of a national movement that has nothing to do with religious freedom:

…conservatives are setting up religious-liberty caucuses in states across the country. One of the goals of this effort is to pass laws with broad exemptions allowing those who oppose reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, and other measures of gay and transgender equality the ability to opt out of antidiscrimination laws and policies without being sued. This is not a new political strategy. It turns out we’ve been down this road before. In fact it is a road that has deep and all-too-familiar ruts from similar fights decades ago.

During the civil rights battle in the 1960s, for example, segregationists used religious justifications to oppose interracial marriage and integration. God created the races to be separate, they argued, which was why he put them on separate continents. To support any kind of race mixing—whether in stores, restaurants, movie theaters, schools, churches, or businesses—was a sin. Civil rights opponents denied they were bigoted. On the contrary, they were simply following biblical teachings and obeying God’s will. Forcing them to abide by civil rights laws would be a grave violation of their conscience and an assault on their religious liberty.

Fortunately, segregationists did not get the religious exemptions they desired.

It is important that people of faith stand up to political groups like the Oregon Family Council and their agenda that in the name of Jesus seeks to shift ever further economic policies so that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, while at the same time they advance proposals to discriminate against people all in the name of religious freedom.

I told the caller I won’t be attending the Oregon Family Council’s "Pastors Day at the Capitol." Instead, I’ll be joining with people of faith to oppose their plans.

Yesterday supporters of President Obama's gun violence prevention measures - including people of faith - rallied across America to demand that Congress vote on the proposals.  I spoke at the Portland press event. Over 70% of NRA members support President Obama's call for universal background checks.  This isn't a fight between the White House and gun owners but a fight between Americans and a radicalized NRA leadership that has lost touch with their membership. A few of those out-of-the mainstream voices tried to shout down speakers yesterday - one of them yelling a racial slur - but the vast majority of Americans reject such views and believe that in a democracy it isn't the loudest voice but the strongest ideal that should win the day. 

Statment in Support Of Universial Background Checks Delivered

by Rev. Chuck Currie at Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Feb 22, 2013

Last month I joined President Obama and Vice-President Biden at the National Prayer Service in Washington, DC as part of the Inaugural celebration. There we prayed for an end to violence in America. Certain issues sometimes divide people of faith but there is strong agreement from the National Council of Churches, representing Protestant and Orthodox Christians, and the U.S. Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops - along with the larger interfaith community – that we must support common sense proposals to reduce gun violence in America. Our schools, houses of worship and movie theaters are places we should expect to be safe. In these places we worship, we learn and we are entertained. But in recent years all these places -- along with shopping malls and restaurants and public parks -- have in moments of terror become killing fields as people with often great mental instability who have access to weapons meant for battlefields open fire on innocent crowds causing mass deaths. President Obama has proposed several important measures, including universal background checks for those purchasing guns, which would make America safer. People of faith support efforts to reduce gun violence. NRA members, many of who are people of faith, support universal background checks. I call on all members of Oregon’s Congressional delegation – both Democrats and Republicans – to put the common good of our nation and the safety of our children before the out-of the-mainstream demands of a radicalized NRA leadership that is out-of-touch with their membership.

(Download PDF of statement)

Organizing For Action call on Congress to support plan to close background check loopholes. twitter.com/MikeTurnerKXL/…

— Mike Turner (@MikeTurnerKXL) February 22, 2013

Oregon voters will be asked to consider marriage equality in 2014 - and this time people of faith will be leading the charge.

This morning Oregon United for Marriage launched a campaign to qualify a measure to make marriage equality the law of the land.  A packed church hall was the site of a diverse faith leaders breakfast where clergy and others became some of the first to sign the petetion.

"As religious leaders, we stand in solidarity with Oregon United for Marriage," said the Rev. Tara Wilkins, pastor of Bridgeport United Church of Christ and executive director of the Community of Welcoming Congregations. "Many of our religious traditions support the freedom to marry, and we believe the time is now to make it legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry in Oregon." Rev. Wilkins notes that the proposed initiative protects religious freedom, and no religious community will be forced to marry same-sex couples. Over 250 clergy and faith leaders have already signed on in support of the Freedom to marry in Oregon. "Marriage is about families and the freedom to marry reflects our values of treating all of our congregants the same, said Rev. Wilkins".

When the General Synod of the United Church of Christ endorsed marriage equality in 2005, they noted:

Rev. Chuck Currie signs the petition for marriage equality.

The message of the Gospel is the lens through which the whole of scripture is to be interpreted. Love and compassion, justice and peace are at the very core of the life and ministry of Jesus. It is a message that always bends toward inclusion. The biblical story recounts the ways in which inclusion and welcome to God's community is ever expanding -- from the story of Abraham and Sarah, to the inclusive ministry of Jesus, to the baptism of Cornelius, to the missionary journeys of Paul throughout the Greco- Roman world. The liberating work of the Spirit as witnessed in the activities of Jesus' ministry has been to address the situations and structures of exclusion, injustice and oppression that diminish God's people and keep them from realizing the full gift of human personhood in the context of human communion.

In that spirit, I signed my name to the petition this morning as a United Church of Christ minister serving two Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church.

Some religious leaders in Oregon will obviously oppose marriage equality.  But they can no longer claim to speak for God or for the church universal.  A generation ago many churches used the Bible to oppose interacial marriage.  They were wrong then.  Many Christians today believe it is wrong to use to Bible and the teachings of Jesus, which call for inclusion and justice - to oppose marriage equality today.  

A Portland-area bakery recently refused to sell a wedding cake to a lesbian couple based on their religious objections to same-sex marriage. As I told KOIN-TV this weekend, the response wasn't Christian but discriminatory.  

Let's be clear: homosexuality is not a sin.  Bigotry is.  A generation ago - when Barack Obama's parents were married - interracial marriage was illegal in many states and businesses refused to accommodate interracial couples.  These private businesses often used the Bible to justify their discriminatory acts.

This incident is no different.  Oregon law protects gays and lesbians from discrimination.  A private business has no right to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.  The Oregon Department of Justice is now investigating.  They will determine whether or not a crime has been committed.

But certainly a sin has been committed by the owners of Sweet Cakes Bakery.  Their website says they make cakes for "any occasion."  Unless you are gay, apparently.  What they have done is no different from those who a generation ago turned away interracial couples.  As a minister ordained to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I find no place in Holy Scripture that justifies such discrimination.  My hope is that the owners of the bakery have an opportunity to prayerfully reflect on this issue and repent. 

For The Love Of All Creation: A Sermon On Genesis 1:1-2:4a for Pride Month 2011 from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.

This sermon was deleived by The Rev. Chuck Currie at a special joint service of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church in Portland, Ore. on Sunday, January 20, 2013.  Our Scripture readings were Amos 5:21-24 and Isaiah 11: 1-9. 

You can download the audio of the sermon here:

Download MLKRevChuckCurrie

(some browsers - like Firefox or Google Chrome - will allow you to simply click on the link and listen...otherwise click with the RIGHT mouse button on the hyperlink and choose “Save Target As” and save to your desktop or other folder – once downloaded click on the file to listen).

The text is below:

This Sunday – this special day when we celebrate the life and ministry of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – we have cause to celebrate.

Tomorrow our nation will witness the inauguration of Barack Obama to a second term as President of the United States of America, the first African-American to hold that position.  He lives in the White House, a grand symbol of freedom, but a building created with slave labor.  How far we have come.

This morning Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek joins us in worship.  We are proud she is from North Portland.  But it cannot go unrecognized that in a state that has been Ground Zero in the debate over gay rights for the last 25 years that Speaker Kotek is the first lesbian to lead a legislative body in our nation.  How far we have come.

What political party Barack Obama and Tina Kotek represent is unimportant to us this morning. 

It is unimportant what political party Tim Scott of South Carolina belongs to. What is important is that this month he becomes the first African-American to represent a Southern state since Reconstruction in the United States Senate. 

The walls of injustice are tumbling down.  Frances and Katherine, my daughters, can dream any dream thanks to Harriett Tubman, Susan B. Antony, Hilary Clinton and Tina Kotek.  Our children have opportunities that once seemed impossible because of discrimination of all kinds.  Change has come. 

We read in Scripture today that what impresses God is not the grandness of our buildings or the pomp and circumstance of worship but the boldness of our vision, and the focus of our actions in building up the Kingdom of God, which Dr. King called the Beloved Community.

Whatever progress we have made has been hard won and while we have every reason to celebrate we also have every responsibility as the church to bring light to dark places and there is still too much darkness in this world.

Dr. King was more than just a civil rights leader. That would by itself be an honorable legacy. But he was a Christian minister, a prophet even, who challenged the church to build up the Kingdom of God. That's radical. That's transformational. And for those of power and privilege it was terrifying because in the Kingdom the last come first. The Holy Spirit worked through King to break-up the evil of white supremacy and to lift up the needs of those oppressed by economic systems that failed to address the condition of poverty. The task of the church, in this day, is to continue that ministry in new ways and to continue -- as Jesus did himself -- to confront oppression wherever we find it: to set the captives free.

The Civil Rights Movement was grounded in the teachings of the Hebrew Prophets who remembered when the people were slaves in Pharaoh’s land, and both their escape from captivity and deliverance to the Promised Land. 

When Africans were ripped from their homeland and brought into the colonies, and later the United States, their masters often forced them to convert to Christianity.  We have in our history books a copy of a baptismal rite used for slaves in South Carolina that shows slaves were forced to vow obedience to God but told not to take the stories of God’s liberation from captivity seriously.  But it is impossible not to hear the stories from the Hebrew Scriptures and the promises of Jesus and not be transformed.  The Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of slaves and within the Christian faith they found hope and promise – a hope that sustained and guided them through the Civil War - and their decedents into the great Civil Rights Movement.  This was not what the slave owners of South Carolina, my ancestors, assumed would happen but God is more powerful than any human system of oppression.

In what is commonly called Jesus’ inaugural sermon he quoted from the Prophet Isaiah:

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

   because he has anointed me

     to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

     to let the oppressed go free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (Luke 4 NRSV)

That is still the task of the church today. 

Too many people live in captivity:  caught up in on-going systems of racial oppression that still exist despite our progress, kept down by gender discrimination that allows us to place limits on what women earn or what jobs they might hold, trapped in broken immigration systems that don’t “welcome the stranger” but imprison and deport.

Children are captives of underfunded schools that ought to be cathedrals.  Sick people are captives of a system that puts profits before people.  All of us are captives of human caused climate change, gun violence and violence of every kind, along with oppressive poverty that stains our land.  And if we truly believe that war is contrary to the will of God we need to be peacemakers in our time.    

We are still not the Beloved Community that Dr. King dreamed of.

The church universal is not doing enough to build up the Kingdom.

This isn’t new. 

Dr. King preached just a year before he died that:

"... when the church is true to its guidelines, it sets out to preach deliverance to them that are captive. This is the role of the church: to free people. This merely means to free those who are slaves. Now if you notice some churches, they never read this part. Some churches aren't concerned about freeing anybody. Some white churches face the fact Sunday after Sunday that their members are slaves to prejudice, slaves to fear. You got a third of them, or a half of them or more, slaves to their prejudices. And the preacher does nothing to free them from their prejudice so often. Then you have another group sitting up there who would really like to do something about racial injustice, but they are afraid of social, political, and economic reprisals, so they end up silent. And the preacher never says anything to lift their souls and free them from that fear. And so they end up captive.”

He went on to preach:

You know this often happens in the Negro church. You know, there are some Negro preachers that have never opened their mouths about the freedom movement. And not only have they not opened their mouths, they haven’t done anything about it. And every now and then you get a few members: 'They talk too much about civil rights in that church.' I was talking with a preacher the other day and he said a few of his members were saying that. I said, 'Don't pay any attention to them. Because number one, the members didn't anoint you to preach. And any preacher who allows members to tell him what to preach isn't much of a preacher.'

If we want to be true to our calling as Christians we need to address the challenges of our time with courage and conviction, unafraid of whether or not we are winning any popularity contest.  

So we have to say to those in power that it is morally unacceptable that 20,000 children were homeless in our school system last year.  No one should live a third world life in a first world nation. 

We need to stand up to the NRA and rouge sheriffs doing their best Bull Connor imitations by saying that federal laws don’t apply to them when we need laws that protect us from gun violence. 

Our political leaders need to know that growth cannot come at the expense of our health – and so as people of faith we must challenge policies that will negatively impact our environment, including those that disproportionally impact communities of color.

And I want Sunnyside Church and University Park Church to be leaders in the fight for marriage equality in Oregon because until everyone has their civil rights protected none of us is truly free.  

Dr. King said:

"More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."

What was true then is true now.  We are the inheritors of the dream.  But the dream is not yet fulfilled.  So God calls us to action.  Dr. King died the year before I was born.  But his words are for every generation.  As we leave this place let it be in a spirit of social action that keeps the building of the Kingdom front and center in our lives.  Faith without action is empty.  Faith combined with action can transform the world.

Amen.      

Invocation as prepared for delivery by The Rev. Chuck Currie for the January 14, 2013 opening session of the Oregon House of Representatives and swearing-in of new Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek.

Let us pray.

Gracious God,
we come to you this day as Oregonians of different faiths, traditions, and political beliefs.
Our communities are both large and small
but our love for this place is great.

In a house divided we know failure is possible
but we ask for wisdom this day and for unity in the midst of division.
We ask for help in letting our love for Oregon overcome our differences
and for guidance in forging a future that lifts up the common good.

On this day we lift up to you all those who will take oaths to serve Oregon
in the midst of difficult times, both Republicans and Democrats.
We especially lift up new Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek, and her wife Aimee Wilson.
Give Speaker Kotek, her family, and the families of all those elected to serve the strength to endure the challenges of public life.

In deliberations both big and small, we ask, O God, that the Oregon House and Speaker Kotek place the needs of the “least of these” first.
Let us lift up those who are homeless, particularly our children, families and veterans.
Let us protect our environment, the creation we are stewards over, and make our communities safe from violence of all kinds.
And let this work be undertaken in the spirit of compromise and reconciliation.

In this House Chamber are women and men of great diversity who will serve with honor.
Give them the patience to hear the people’s voices.
Let them envision a future for our Oregon that includes everyone, not just the powerful.
Help all Oregonians to appreciate their service and sacrifice as they make common cause to build a future that benefits all our people.

Lord, hear our prayer.

Amen.

- The Rev. Chuck Currie is the minister of University Park Church and Sunnyside Church in Portland.

(c) The Rev. Charles S. Currie, Jr., M.Div.

No one should be surprised but Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader is backing the NRA and saying there is no need for additional laws to reduce gun violence. The congressman needs to hear from people of faith (and all Oregonians) who believe otherwise. You can call Rep. Schrader at (202) 225-5711 or visit http://schraderforms.house.gov/contact/ to send a polite e-mail.

Rep. Schrader is an NRA-backed Democrat. Blinded by their support and influence he fails to see the crisis we face in America today – a crisis where over 100,000 are injured by gun violence each year and over 30,000 die.

People of faith are calling on the president and Congress to act. Rep. Schrader needs to put the people of Oregon and the United States before the special interests of the NRA.

Rep. Schrader's bio lists him as an Episcopalian.  It is worth noting that the Episcopal Church USA is asking members to take a "Pledge to Break the Cycle of Violence" which reads:

As an Episcopalian committed in baptism to seeking justice and peace and promoting the dignity of every human being, I commit to being part of the solution to the violence in our culture that claimed the lives of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School and that claims the lives of 2000 innocent children through gun crimes each year. I commit to the pursuit of laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals, prioritize the needs of at-risk children, provide care for mental illness, and address the many ways in which our culture both celebrates and trivializes violence. I commit to holding my lawmakers, my community, and my own household accountable. I commit to accomplishing these things in 2013. I commit to being the change we need.

Right now Rep. Schrader's views fall far short of this pledge. Let's encourage him to take the pledge and to support meaningful action to prevent gun violence in our nation.

Photo credit: House.gov

The people of University Park Church and Sunnyside Church invite you to celebrate The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday on January 20th at University Park United Methodist Church (worship begins at 9:30 am). Our special guest that morning will be new Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek. A reception in Speaker Kotek’s honor will be held following the service where she will make brief remarks about her agenda in the Legislature and will answer questions.

View this event on Facebook.

Sunnyside Church and University Park Church are progressive and Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church. Preaching that morning will be The Rev. Chuck Currie, a minister in the United Church of Christ, who serves as the minister of both congregations in an ecumenical partnership. Rev. Currie is a contributor to The Huffington Post whose ministry has focused on opportunity and hope for those living in poverty, and for the civil rights of all. 

University Park Church, located at 4775 N. Lombard, worships Sunday morning at 9:30 am. The congregation is known as a place of radical hospitality and has been a beacon of justice for the LGBTQ community.

Sunnyside Church, where worship is held each Sunday at 11 am (3520 SE Yamhill Street), is the home of the Common Cup Family Shelter, and has long been involved in the fight to end homelessness. The congregation also hosts a community meal program, a neighborhood “swap shop,” and Camp Fire programs.

The regular worship service at Sunnyside Church will not be held on January 20th so that members can worship at University Park Church. 

Speaker Kotek “will be the first openly lesbian lawmaker to lead a state legislative chamber in the U.S.,” notes The Huffington Post. “We consider this a great victory for the civil rights of all Oregonians,” says Rev. Currie. “As we celebrate the work of Dr. King and reflect on his unfinished agenda for equality of all, regardless of race or creed, along with his work to fight poverty and end war, it is right and proper to honor Speaker Kotek’s accomplishment.”

Rev. Currie is scheduled to deliver the invocation at Speaker Kotek’s swearing-in ceremony at the Oregon State Capitol on Monday, January 14th. University Park Church is located is Speaker Kotek’s N. Portland district. “All of us, regardless of party or politics, can join in giving thanks that the walls of discrimination continue to tumble down even as we recognize work remains before us,” Rev. Currie said. “In a sign of the times, our members are most proud that the Speaker comes from N. Portland before anything else. That is the way it should be. Speaker Kotek is being judged by the content of her character.”

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Vote No on Measure 84 and Yes on Measure 85.

That’s the message from Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, our state-wide association of churches, and a coalition of those who care about the common good of Oregon.

Measure 84 ends Oregon’s Estate tax.  Defend Oregon notes: “This is a massive tax break that only benefits the heirs of millionaires. Oregon’s Estate Tax only applies to estates worth more than $1 million. This tax break would only apply to less than 750 of the richest estates each year, while forcing cuts to schools and services that middle-class families depend on.”

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon recommends a “NO” Vote on Measure 84: — “Vote “NO” on Measure 84 based on social principles regarding human rights, economic justice and support for adequate government revenue. At a time of growing economic inequality, and underfunding of public education and other critical state programs, it makes no sense to eliminate estate taxes that affect only a small percentage of wealthy Oregonians and that impose a modest and reasonable rate of taxation on the transfer of estates only after exempting the first one million dollars of value from taxation.”

Measure 85 reforms Oregon’s corporate kicker.  Again, Defend Oregon explains: “Measure 85 will reform the corporate kicker by putting money into Oregon K‐12 classrooms, rather than back into the pockets of large, out‐of-state corporations. That would mean lowering class sizes and restoring important school programs.

These funds would also help get Oregon schools off of the financial roller coaster and provide more stability, even in economically tough years.”

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon urges a “YES” vote on Measure 85 — “Vote “YES” on Measure 85, based on human right to public education and need for adequate levels of government revenue. Due primarily to state budget cuts, Oregon schools have been forced to lay off nearly 16 percent of teachers (plus thousands of support and administrative staff ), while average class sizes have climbed by nearly 20 percent over the last three years, according to data collected by the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators.

Other critical state programs have also suffered dramatic cuts. Eliminating the corporate kicker, which EMO opposed when it was first proposed, is a small but important step toward restoring adequate levels of school funding.”

My hope had been to schedule a meeting with faith leaders to discuss these two important issues but busy schedules have made that impossible.  I invite you to contact Naivasha Dean with Defend Oregon at 503-239-8029 with questions about these measures and for information on how your faith community might become involved in the campaign.

Best wishes,

 

 

 

Rev. Chuck Currie

Todd Akin's recent comments about rape were reprehensible - and so is the GOP platform, modeled after legislation put forth by Akin and Paul Ryan that would ban all abortions...even in the case of rape - but it is clear that Akin isn't alone.

Oregon GOP convention delegate Emily Jarms told a reporter this week that she agreed with Akin and that: 

I'm not a doctor. But I do know that it can be difficult for a woman to conceive in a stressful situation. And so I actually think that a woman conceiving during rape is so completely rare that, I mean, it almost doesn't happen. 

Yep, she's not a doctor.  That much is clear.

Dr. Dean G. Kilpatrick is.  He's a professor and doctor at the Medical University of South Carolina (where my mother attended) and author of a "a 1996 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which estimated that more than 32,000 women experience a rape-related pregnancy each year."

And that figure might be low, notes the The Salt Lake Tribune:

Figures provided by the FBI only count rapes that were reported to police - Kilpatrick says his research shows that at least 80 percent of all rapes go unreported - and they don’t take into account rapes in which the victim was intoxicated or otherwise unable to give consent. Until earlier this year, the FBI defined forcible rape as "the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will."

The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has long maintained that:

Whereas, women and men must make decisions about unplanned or unwanted pregnancies that involve their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being; and …Whereas, abortion is a social justice issue, both for parents dealing with pregnancy and parenting under highly stressed circumstances, as well as for our society as a whole; …

Therefore, be it resolved, that the Sixteenth General Synod:

• affirms the sacredness of all life, and the need to protect and defend human life in particular;
• encourages persons facing unplanned pregnancies to consider giving birth and parenting the child, or releasing the child for adoption, before abortion;
• upholds the right of men and women to have access to adequately funded family planning services, and to safe, legal abortions as one option among others;
• urges the United Church of Christ, at all levels, to provide educational resources and programs to persons, especially young persons, to help reduce the incidence of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, and to encourage responsible approaches to sexual behavior.

People of faith must stand up and defend a woman's right to make her own health care decisions.  It shouldn't be left up to Todd Akin, Paul Ryan or other politicans.

Read Will You Marry Me? Marriage Equality and the Bible on The Huffington Post

Summer is wedding season and while I'm not overwhelmed with wedding requests I've had a few and there is one that I'm really looking forward to in September. Weddings are, of course, special events. At their best, weddings bring not just two people together but families and even communities in a union bonded together in love. There is a simple joy in all that - even if the reality is that marriage itself is complex and sometimes difficult, just ask anyone who has been married longer than an hour. As we reflect on our reading from Scripture this morning, I want to discuss marriage a bit with you as we understand it in Christian terms, what marriage means as a legal institution, and to share with you some decisions that I have made about my role as a minister as it relates to marriage that have been helped along by my doctoral studies on this issue.

Let me begin by noting the reality that within the United States it is illegal for a minister or any other officiant to marry a gay or lesbian couple, much as it was illegal a generation ago to marry interracial couples. Oregonians voted to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman in 2004 - it is part of our state Constitution - thus banning marriage equality. This state Constitutional amendment plus the federal Defense of Marriage Act will both have to be overturned for gays and lesbians to receive true marriage equality. Federal law does not recognize gay marriages that are legal in states such as New York.

As a minister, I am asked to be an agent of the state when it comes to marriage. One way for a marriage to become legal is for an ordained minister to sign a marriage certificate. The United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church USA are the only two mainline Christian denominations to support marriage equality, and that allow their clergy to perform such ceremonies. However, my religious freedom to provide pastoral care to gay and lesbian couples is curtailed by the government which says that I cannot legally marry same-gender couples - thus denying these parishioners the same care I can provide to straight couples. It does not seem the proper function of the government to tell me as a minister whom I can and cannot provide pastoral care to. That should be a decision of the church. The United Methodist Church, of course, forbids not just gay marriages but commitment ceremonies that the General Assembly of the church has deemed incompatible with Christianity. I look forward with great anticipation to the day this deeply flawed policy of this faithful denomination is overturned.

The United Church of Christ has developed an inclusive wedding liturgy, in which we pray for couples being married that:

...we come together in the presence of God to witness the marriage of the couple, to surround them with our prayers, and to share in their joy. The scriptures teach us that the bond and covenant of marriage is a gift of God, a holy mystery in which two become one flesh, an image of the union of Christ and the church. As the couple give themselves to each other, we remember that at Cana in Galilee our Savior Jesus Christ made the wedding feast a sign of God's reign of love. (So we pray that we) enter into (the wedding) celebration confident that through the Holy Spirit, Christ is present with us... We pray that (the) couple may fulfill God's purpose for the whole of their lives.

It is this idea of covenant that is so central, so important to marriage and there is no Biblical reason the marriage covenant should not be available to gay or lesbian couples.

Last fall, as I was taking a course in Biblical theology at Chicago Theological Seminary for my doctoral degree program, I wrote a piece for The Huffington Post about Chick-fil-A and their opposition to marriage equality. I note this mostly to brag that I wrote about this issue nearly a year before most anyone else was talking about it. ☺

I said then and I'll say now that I love Chick-fil-A. Their plain old chicken sandwich and a sweet tea can send me to heaven. I've always known they were owned by a Christian family and, frankly, I like that they close on Sundays. I'm old enough to remember when more stores did (of course, that often was enforced by law) and I think a (voluntary) day off from shopping and commercialism isn't a bad thing. But I was sad to hear then that the company had donated food to an anti-gay marriage group. Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy said the contribution was made because the company believes in a "Biblical definition of marriage." Mr. Cathy has since become even more vocal in his opposition to marriage equality.

What I suggested in my piece in The Huffington Post was that Mr. Cathy ought to read Unprotected Texts: The Bible's Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire, a book from Boston University's Jennifer Wright Knust. This American Baptist pastor and scholar notes that: "When it comes to marriage, biblical laws are almost entirely contradictory." In short, the one "Biblical definition of marriage" that Chick-fil-A wants to promote doesn't exist.

I'm guessing Mr. Cathy never took my advice.

As I've preached, how we read the Bible matters. It is not to be taken literally. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, argued that Christian faith required one to bring Scripture, reason, experience and tradition to the table when trying to discern the will of God. Chick-fil-A is offering fast-food theology to a world that needs more than a bumper sticker understanding of the divine.

In a post for The Washington Post's "On Faith" blog, Knust wrote:

If we do take the time to read the Bible, we are likely to discover that the biblical writers do not agree with us, whatever version of sexual morality we are seeking to promote. Written more than 2,000 years ago at a significant historical and cultural distance, the Bible gathers together a diverse collection of ancient books, edited over time, not a coherent, divinely inspired set of instructions that can easily be applied. Tracing even a few, limited topics from one biblical book to another can make the point: If one book forbids marriage between foreigners and Israelites, the next depicts such marriages as a source of blessing, not only to Israel but to all of humankind. If one insists that women are saved by childbearing, the next recommends that women avoid childbearing altogether in order to devote themselves more fully to God. If one suggests that sex with a relative, the wife of another man, or with a male lover will certainly lead to the nation's downfall, the next depicts heroic kings engaging in precisely these forms of sex. And these are just a few examples.

Knust offers the same argument in her book. Knust writes: "The Bible is complicated enough, ancient enough, and flexible enough to support an almost endless set of interpretive agendas."

That may be true, in part. Taken as a whole, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament offer (for me) a vision of covenant. My sense is that covenant includes within our relationships between one another and with God that we should - in Paul's words - be subject to one another out of love. That doesn't mean we have an anything goes faith without rules or boundaries. In fact, the opposite is true. You cannot, for example, abandon your family and remain in covenant with God or your relatives. Justice and compassion are central to Christianity. Yet, not all teachings from scripture should be practiced today (if they were, we'd still own slaves, as sanctioned in some parts of the Bible).

We must use an interpretative process to discern God's will for us - and do not think for a moment this isn't just what the different authors of the Bible did during the many centuries it was transformed from oral tradition to the written word. Using Wesley's criteria for discernment, it is important that we open ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit - God's own breathe - to help guide us and for us to undertake this enterprise with humility.

A generation ago, as I have mentioned, interracial marriage was outlawed. This was justified by the use of Scripture. Genesis 28:1 reads: "Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, 'You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women." In the past, this piece of Scripture was interpreted by some Christians to mean that Hebrews and Canaanites were of different races and therefore no races should inter-marry.

We may think this silly today but when Barack Obama was born his father - a black man - and his mother - a white woman - were barred from being legally married in many states and the justification was often Biblical. We have discerned over time, led by the power of the Holy Spirit, to understand not only our own error in interpretation but also the reality that some of what is written in Scripture has no moral authority over us today. Or should I quote from 1 Tim 2:11-12? "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent."

You see, I'm willing to make the faith claim right here and now that God has no problems with interracial marriages, wants women to speak boldly with the voice of Sophia (the embodiment of God's wisdom), and that those who use Scripture to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians are making the same mistake in interpretation that we have made as a people over and over again.

So will I marry gay and lesbian couples?

Right now I'm a United Church of Christ minister serving two Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church. The United Church of Christ affirms marriage equality. The United Methodist Church says homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity. And both Sunnyside Church and University Park Church have pledged to welcome all, and are faithfully engaging the larger United Methodist Church to change the rules and truly become a church with open hearts and open doors and open minds.

So yes, I will marry any gay and lesbian couple that I believe is ready to make that commitment, using the same criteria to make that call that I would for any heterosexual couple. To respect the rules of the United Methodist Church, I will conduct those services at Ainsworth United Church of Christ, my home congregation.

Is there a risk is making this announcement?

I remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. who told his church:

No member of Ebenezer Baptist Church called me to the ministry. You called me to Ebenezer, and you may turn me out of here, but you can't turn me out of the ministry, because I got my guidelines and my anointment from God Almighty. And anything I want to say, I'm going to say it from this pulpit. It may hurt somebody, I don't know about that; somebody may not agree with it. But when God speaks, who can but prophesy? The word of God is upon me like fire shut up in my bones, and when God's word gets upon me, I've got to say it, I've got to tell it all over everywhere. And God has called me to deliver those that are in captivity.

So if you're gay or you're lesbian or bi-sexual or transgendered or questioning, I want to make it clear today: I am your pastor too. I am your pastor if you're straight, if you're a Democrat or a Republican, if you're black, white, Latino. And no rulebook or law will prevent me from providing you with the pastoral care I am called to provide.

What I will no longer do after September is sign wedding licenses. Until the day comes when marriage equality is the law of the land I will no longer act as an agent of the state in an institution that is discriminatory. In this, I join a small but growing number of clergy. I will offer you the religious rites of the church but will invite you to have your marriage license signed by a judge or other official of the state.

When the General Synod of the United Church of Christ endorsed marriage equality in 2005, they noted:

The message of the Gospel is the lens through which the whole of scripture is to be interpreted. Love and compassion, justice and peace are at the very core of the life and ministry of Jesus. It is a message that always bends toward inclusion. The biblical story recounts the ways in which inclusion and welcome to God's community is ever expanding - from the story of Abraham and Sarah, to the inclusive ministry of Jesus, to the baptism of Cornelius, to the missionary journeys of Paul throughout the Greco- Roman world. The liberating work of the Spirit as witnessed in the activities of Jesus' ministry has been to address the situations and structures of exclusion, injustice and oppression that diminish God's people and keep them from realizing the full gift of human personhood in the context of human communion.

I find truth in this statement and have love for the United Methodist Church, United Church of Christ and the church universal - not as institutions, but as part of the body of Christ. We are all one in Christ. It is in that spirit of love, that I come forth today to share with you God's call to us to love all people in ways that honor and continue the ministry of Jesus. It is a ministry, as we heard this morning in our text from John, that is joyful and where the Disciples - and by extension us - are commanded once again simply to love as Jesus has loved us - without condition or judgment, and centered on God's desire for us to be free from oppression or captivity, in covenant with one another and with God. Amen.

Will You Marry Me? A Sermon on John 2:1-11, 15:9-17 | Marriage Equality and the Bible from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.

Salem-area radio talk show host Bill Post (who not long ago said he wanted to urinate on the corpses of dead Taliban soldiers) says that he's a Evangelical Christian who shares the "world-view" of the Founding Fathers.  Thomas Jefferson might argue with that but those views lead Post to question President Obama's Christian faith and American values.  In fact, those views leave Post very afraid of the future if the president is re-elected. Post writes that electing Mitt Romney, a Mormon, might not be great for evangelical Christians, but consider the alternatives:

1 - Is Obama a Muslim?  I don't know for sure, but we all know he has made some pretty big concessions to Muslims as well as some pretty interesting statements concerning Muslims.  So, if he IS a Muslim or leans towards them, would you rather have a Muslim or a Mormon President? I haven't seen very many Mormons strap bombs to the jackets blowing up marketplaces, have you?

2 - Is Obama a Marxist/Socialist/Communist?  I don't know for sure, but again, his statement and policies sure make it look that way.  Have you seen any Mormon gulags, death camps or mass murders committed lately?

Evangelicals, Mainline Christians and Roman Catholics have repeatedly condemned those who question the president's Christian faith for partisan political reasons but that won't stop people like Post who are so far outside the mainstream that they actually believe the president of the United States is planning death camps if re-elected. 

We can expect opponents of the president this election - big and small - to attempt to exploit racial divisions and to paint President Obama as something "other" than fully as American. Consider the new racially charged film financed by right-wing billionaire Joe Ricketts that suggests that the president has a Kenyan, not American, world-view. 

These campaigns against President Obama are driven by fear, hatred and racism - let's be honest.  The good news is that the American people are better than Bill Post or Joe Ricketts.  We are an optimistic people at our core.  But whether or not we agree with the president's policies - whether we support his re-election or not - all good Americans must reject the division and hatred promoted on talk radio and the web and use the election to engage in a serious debate over the issues this nation faces.

I'm looking forward to particpating this year in the Portland CROP Hunger Walk benefiting the important programs of Church World Service and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon - and I hope you'll join me.

The 2012 Portland CROP Hunger Walk will start and finish on SW Park Ave. and SW Market St., in front of Portland State University. The course is 2.7 miles and will take walkers along the picturesque waterfront and park blocks. Please use public transportation or car pool to site as there is very limited parking. This is an interfaith event and all are welcome. 

Seventy-five percent of the funds raised will go to Church World Service's international relief and development programs. Fifteen percent will go to Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon's Northeast Emergency Food Program at Luther Memorial and ten percent to Oregon Food Bank-West.

Church World Service works with partners to eradicate hunger and poverty and to promote peace and justice around the world. For example, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Islamic Society of North America (social policy partner), and Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. Together we reach out to neighbors in need near and far--not with a hand out, but a hand up. So, if you’re looking to help build a better world—a world where there’s enough for all—you’ve come to the right place!

Around the world, Church World Service supports sustainable grassroots development, disaster relief, and refugee assistance, and we educate and advocate on hunger-related issues. In the U.S., we help communities respond to disasters, resettle refugees, promote fair national and international policies, and provide educational resources. 

Contact Ron MacKenzie, Coordinator, at [email protected] for more information. Please "like" the Portland CROP Hunger Walk Facebook Fan Page to keep posted regarding important dates leading up to the event and to network with participants.

For additional information visit the Portland CROP Hunger Walk homepage where you can sign-up to participate or donate directly.

Two homeless Portlanders were shot on Ash Wednesday.  What can we do? In case I get hit by a truck you can help me by asking Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Peter DeFazio, Greg Walden, and Kurt Schrader to co-sponsor H.R. 3528 - The Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act of 2011 - and to ask Jeff Merkley to once again introduce similar legislation in the Senate (Ron Wyden should join him). 

The legislation would direct the U.S. Department of Justice to track hate crimes against those who are homeless.  With such information we can better learn about why such crimes occur and how to prevent them.  This is a public safety matter that involves some of our most vulnerable members of society.

How could Oregon's Congressional delegation not act?

All members of the House and Senate can be contacted via their websites or at (202) 224-3121. 

APM's Marketplace interviewed me for a story aired this evening on the Occupy Wall Street Movement in which they broadcast brief portions of a sermon I delivered at Ainsworth United Church of Christ about the movement and Christanity.  For the "other side" of the story they quoted the director of the Institute on Religion on Democracy (IRD) who said: "It’s usually problematic to try to identify Jesus Christ with any particular political or economic agenda."  That's ironic since IRD is a conservative political organization and not a religious group that advocates for right-wing economic policies that hurt those Jesus would have called the "least of these." 

The rains have returned to the Pacific Northwest (and it is going to get worse).  This makes for awful hiking weather and you can't go have any fun on the mountains because all you'll find is slush BUT my drive along the Columbia River yesterday was spectacular - with fog, low clouds, rain, and wind.  This is ideal still in-doors and drink coffee weather for those of us so fortunate.

Press Release

The Rev. Kate Lore and The Rev. Chuck Currie will lead a delegation of clergy to monitor the planned eviction of Occupy Oregon from Portland area parks.

Lore is the social justice minister at Portland's First Unitarian Church and Currie is a minister in the United Church of Christ.

Basic Rights Oregon has been moving forward with a decision to place a ballot initiative before voters to legalize marriage equality but decided yeaterday to wait until after 2012 before doing so.  That was a hard but wise decision that I fully support.

Like many religious leaders, I support marriage equality because "our religious traditions and scriptures teach us that wherever love is present, God is also present. One of God’s greatest gifts to us is our human capacity to love one another. The ability of two people to enter into relationships and form families of love and care is one expression of this gift. It is holy and good."  As a minister in the United Church of Christ, I believe strongly that equality must being extended to all - just as God's love is for all.  

The campaign for marriage equality will come - sooner rather than later, I hope.  It is frustrating that justice is being delayed once again but have no doubt that justice will come.

Oregon is an interesting place to be a person of faith - no matter the faith.  Only around 25% of Oregonians identify with a religious tradition (more would self-identify as "spiritual").

I've never seen any polling on this but I'd venture to say that the vast majority of Oregonians are respectful of religious people and institutions even if they don't hold a faith of their own.  But a small minority of Oregonians (mostly centered in urban Portland) are openly hostile toward religion - sometimes with good reason, I'll concede.

Want proof? 

“To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin. For humans to cause species to become extinct and to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation . . . for humans to degrade the integrity of Earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the Earth of its natural forests, or destroying its wetlands . . . for humans to injure other humans with disease . . . for humans to contaminate the Earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life, with poisonous substances . . . these are sins.”

- Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, 2005

We spent the early part of the Labor Day weekend at Suttle Lake where we had spectacular views of the Shadow Lake fire raging in the Mt. Washington area.  500 people were evaucated from Big Lake last night as the fire grew.  It began over a week ago after a lightening strike.

We witnessed helicopters taking water from smaller water bodies in the area they then used to dump on the fire.  As of today, however, the fire is reported as 0% contained.  At Suttle Lake - besides the view - the only impact we felt was the occassion smell of smoke.  Suttle Lake Lodge, part of the complex we stayed at, has burned down three times in the past.  The most recent fire at Suttle Lake was six years ago.  

Fires are hiting Oregon very hard right now.  Part of this is the natural cycle of life in the Pacific Northwest, of course.  Yet the impact of fires have been made worse in recent years - and this point has to be stressed - because of on-going climate change. 

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell recently told Congress:

"Throughout the country, we're seeing longer fire seasons, and we're seeing snowpacks that, on average, are disappearing a little earlier every spring," he said, as well as devastating droughts. As a result, fire seasons have lengthened by more than 30 days, on average.

"Our scientists believe this is due to a change in climate," said Tidwell.

We can pretend this isn't true but we do so at our peril.  I cannot say that the Shadow Lake fire is a direct result of climate change or not but it is clear that climate change is increasing the severity of forest fires across the globe.  It is a sin to ignore our responsibility to act as stewards of creation.   

The Oregon Center for Public Policy sends along the following information:

This week Oregonians will be rallying in cities throughout the state, delivering a message to their congressional representatives: jobs, not cuts.

Below is the list of cities where rallies will take place. The accompanying links are to flyers (PDF) providing details regarding the times and locations:    

Hood River -- Tuesday, August 30

Eugene -- Tuesday, August 30

Medford -- Wednesday, August 31

Salem -- Wednesday, August 31

Bend --  Thursday, September 1

Portland -- Thursday, September 1st 

These events, in coordination with the Rebuild The Dream movement, are sponsored by: Oregon Action, Jobs With Justice, Alliance for Democracy, US Uncut, Rural Organizing Project, We Are Oregon, SEIU 503, SEIU 49, Moveon.org, AFSCME, PCUN, Economic Fairness Oregon, Unite-Here Local 9, Our Oregon, Pride At Work and Basic Rights Oregon.

How we address the unemployment crisis was the topic of a letter I sent President Obama today - asking him to support the Urban Jobs Act and to support recommendations made by the Center for American Progress regarding job growth.

As the Center for American Progress notes, the GOP's jobs plan is a "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" that would hurt families across our nation.

We can and we must do better.

My latest op-ed on The Huffington Post deals with the Christian faith of former U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield. . As you'll read, Senator Hatfield's tenure in the Senate was an example of how evangelicals and mainline Christians like myself could find common ground to promote to common good.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Former U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR), who died this evening, was a faithful Christian who stood up for the "least of these" and fought against war and for peace during his remarkable life.  Like many Oregonians, I proudly had the opportunity to work with Senator Hatfield on these issues during the later part of his time in office.  He joined me at Baloney Joe's, the old homeless shelter on Burnside, at Christmas time where he spoke out in favor of federal assistance for affordable housing  and mental health care in the late 1980s.  In the early 1990s he visited me and other advocates at Outside In for a forum on health care needs for those experiencing homelessness.  In Washington, D.C., he fought President Reagan in 1987 until the president yielded to enact the McKinney Act (now know as the McKinney-Vento Act), the nation's first major federal response to homelessness.  The McKinney-Vento Act remains today the linchpin in America's effort to address homelessness.  He stood with the National Council of Churches and other religious leaders to oppose the Gulf War in 1991, as he had opposed the Vietnam War and other misadventures in foreign policy.  Senator Hatfield's deep and abiding faith made him a champion for social justice and a remarkable, unusual, leader.  I give praise to God for his life and know that this servant of Christ is at peace.  My prayers are with his wife, Ms. Antoinette Hatfield, and children.      

 

This Saturday at 1 pm I'll be joining other Oregonians for a rally and march to celebrate Medicare's 30th birthday.  We'll gather at the North Park Blocks at 1 pm and march to Portland's Skidmore Foundtain.  I hope you'll join me.  

This critical health care program provides quality coverage to some of the most vulnerable Americans but is under attack in Congress today by members of the House and Senate who would rather continue tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans - including tax deductions for corporate jets - than help those who are fighting cancer and other diseases, many preventable with treatment.

Jobs with Justice is hosting Saturday's event and I'm honored to be among the speakers.  At the Skidmore Fountain there will be cake to celebrate the 30th years of Medicare's important work.

For those on Facebook there is a page where you can RSVP.  Otherwise, just show up!

Religious leaders across the country - myself included - have been telling Congress and the President that any deal on the deficit and debt ceiling most protect Medicare and other important programs that help people lift themselves out of poverty and care for those who are unable to care for themselves.