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CHURCH LADIES GO TOPLESS IN PEWS - The Responses - 2
Please Read all of the Previous e-mails located at http://www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/104557.html and http://www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/104342.html (first) Regarding the letter from Judi Palmer on St. Thomas Calendar Judi, I would thank you for sending condolences regarding Samantha’s death if I thought you actually meant that. But since you only took out of my letter regarding that what you wanted to hear I find it difficult to feel the love you’re sending. Since you seemed to miss what I was saying regarding Samantha’s death, let me put it a bit more clear for you. I felt strongly that Sam’s death had led us to St. Thomas; the church gave me and my husband in particular, a strong solace when we needed that solace badly. Because of that the decision to leave St. Thomas was a very difficult one, and one that was filled with grief and anguish. It was not made simply in a snit. Nor was I demeaning Sam’s mother, I was noting how difficult it was to handle a child’s death; I stepped in, Judi, simply because Sam’s mother could not. I am sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the pain I felt when Sam died was felt a hundred fold by her natural mother. Knowing the pain of losing a child, why it is hard to understand the importance I attached to the church that I felt my family was led to and which was intimately tied in my mind with Samantha’s death? Blaming Sam for bringing my family to the Immoral Episcopal church? I am truly sorry that in your anger you would write such a thing. It is truly too bad that you were unable to understand the depth of feeling St. Thomas brought to us. I have been called narrow minded, been told I was simply polluting the church by my mere presence, been told that I would not be “saved”, called narcissistic, told I don’t understand the concept of honoring your parents, told I will burn in hell for holding my opinions, told that I again, am not a quite so bright bulb since I obviously don’t understand that there are pagan symbols within the Christmas tradition, that I need to get off my high horse, that I am campaigning for sainthood, and well whew! Really pissed you off didn’t I? Not to mention of course, Ms. Blum. Yes, Judi the bible is important to me. It is the basis of Christian faith, it is the basis on which the entire Christian concept is based on and no I don’t think I will simply pretend it does not exist. I picked out passages that I felt were relevant to the issues being discussed. I was not picking and choosing per se, simply noting what the bible does say. If you can find something in the bible that shows that it is ok to sit naked in the pews of church or one that will back up consecrating an actively practicing homosexual man as a church leader I would be happy to read it and then find it so I may put it into it’s appropriate context. I will also note that goddess worship is not simply one with naked women praying to a deity whether that is indoors or outdoors, but one in which women’s blood, water and yes, breasts are worshipped as divine. “"Thank you, Mother, for the abundance of life. Thank you for the rich, full, pleasing, and life giving milk of our bodies. Thank you for the children who drink from our breasts for they bring sweetness to our lives. We drink this cup as your daughters, fed from your own bosom. May we be proud of our nurturing and sustaining selves. May we honor our breasts as symbols of your abundance. Thank you for the milk and honey of your presence with us." The Rev. Glyn Lorraine Ruppe Melnyk St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church 689 Sugartown Road Malvern, PA 19355 This is only a small part that was posted on the Episcopal women’s website that was abruptly yanked off of it when more conservative elements in the church were most displeased by that. Does that type of symbolism really belong in the church? By the way this quote is from the same Episcopal woman priest that I alluded to in my earlier letter, who was also a priest of a Druidic cult. The small piece I quoted above is almost word for word what she used to celebrate the goddess in her Druidic worship. I find that kind of thing disturbing since I do take that Commandment to have no other God’s before me quite seriously, otherwise what in the world am I doing in a Christian church? And when I feel that symbols of the goddess has crept into the church I attended I am going to say something. Your right Judi, it is to God that judgment belongs. That does not mean however, that my right to disagree and to do so publicly and to write the specific reasoning I have for disagreeing is compromised. I don’t like the way the church is headed, I don’t like the way much of secular life is headed and yes, I do have a right as an American to say so. No matter how much I have angered you or others in St. Thomas or how much my viewpoints anger those outside the church I will not be silenced by someone telling me I am not saved, or someone telling me they believe I will burn in hell. Maybe I will, but it won’t be because I disagreed with you. Did you or anyone in the church not expect some controversy over the calendar? Was there an expectation that everyone would embrace the idea, particularly when it came from a church? If so, it was a misguided expectation. What makes you madder, that I disagreed or that I opted to do so publicly? How dare I open my mouth and say very clearly and publicly that this was wrong. Did not the church itself seek to publicly advertise how they felt about it when they had brochures made up and distributed all over town? After all it was a friend of my dad’s who picked up the brochure in a restaurant and was so shocked by it that he brought it to my dad to find out if this was really the church I was attending. The church opted to go public with it all and then so did I. As I noted in my previous letter I knew that when I took this into the public arena I was opening myself up for criticism, I also noted that I didn’t feel it was too much to expect those who disagreed with me to do so with reasoned thought and argument however it is evident by your letter that obviously it was too much to expect. Show me Judi something that is biblically based that would make it ok to have nudity in the pews of the sanctuary. Point me to a bible verse that would make me go huummm and make me think some. Point me to a bible verse that shows it is entirely appropriate to have an active homosexual as a teacher in the church. How about this? Know who Dr. Louie Crew is Judi? A snippet if you will. The Diocese of Newark elected him on four occasions (1994, 1997, 2000 and 2003) as a deputy to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. The General Convention, in turn, elected Crew to serve on its 38-member Executive Council from 2000-2006. He was also secretary of the Committee on Social and Urban Affairs and an appointed member of the Standing Commission on Health and Human Affairs, a commission that deals with all the hot button issues from abortion to genetic engineering to all questions regarding human sexuality. Louie Crew was recognized nationally by having a scholarship bearing his name established at Episcopal Divinity School and that institution also conferred upon him an honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree in 1999. He was the recipient of the Bishops Cross from the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, Diocese of Newark, in 2000. Louie has lived with his partner, Ernest Clay, in a relationship of love, mutuality and life commitment for 28 years. (This biographical statement provided by Louie Crew.) Next a poem from his own website. A Shaking Spear "My lover's buns are nothing like a God's. Plate glass is far more rippled than his chest. His six-inch fuse becomes his only rod. With no cologne but rankest funk he's blessed." "I have seen glistening men, hirsute or smooth, but no alluring luster's in his face. And I've known even yokels less uncouth clutching their men in graceless long embrace." "I like to hear my lover's tuneful shower, but any glories there are merely myths, for though his songs indeed my spunk empower, the truth is that he all too often lithps." "And yet I swear my man's to me more real than hunky clones who, unrehearsed, can't feel." Or this. Closet Mantra "If I If I could just get just just get all all those balls balls and arms arms and legs legs and crotch perfumes right here here inside with me I might never I might never have to tell never tell anyone anyone at all I'm queer! queer! queer! queer!" Or this by Crew… View from One Porn Booth "I wonder whether God drew the blinds and turned off the lights when he made the penis." "Did he use blue light and pump quarters for more flesh? Or was he in a bright lab with beakers of sample juices?" "In what holes did he try it out for fit and feel?" "Was he excited, or just pleased to find one space for pee and sperm to share?" This is what you’re defending, and by doing so the divide between the morality I believe in and the one you believe in is much further apart then you can understand. You can go ahead and hurl nearly unsaid that I am part of that great unwashed, uneducated, no nuance part of gasp! Those damn fundamentalists! And I just simply do not care. There is a line between right and wrong, and if no other institution in the world is willing to draw it then it should at least come from the church. So if you don’t mind, if you choose to write back, could you please at least, find something that can back up your argument that it was perfectly fine to sit naked in the pews and have pictures done and to find something that points out that the above from Louie Crew ought to be something the church should be open to. Make a reasoned argument to me and others reading this that is based on any theology of Christianity previous to 30 years or so ago. If you are willing and able to do that then perhaps it is worth continuing a public conversation with you. If you are not willing, nor able to do so than it is not worth my time to continue any sort of dialogue with you or others who see morality your way. Screaming at me that I am going to burn in hell doesn’t do much for me. So much water running off the back. Helen Cook. 12-30-04 Message: I'm not sure if this is where I need to write about this but oh well...I just had to make a stand as well as the others on the website. I just got through reading the responses for the older woman sitting naked behind a pew...that's rediculous!! I do not go to church very regularly, I was raised in church, a non denominational church at that--very open minded!! I am only 22 years old and I am a very open minded young adult but this is crazy, just like allowing a homosexual to be in a leadership position..almost like a role model...I know I certainly do not want my young children going to a church anywhere where they have a gay man in leadership position. I feel that the Lord would have not befriended this man but certainly would not put him in a leadership position at all and I also do not think that the Lord would have approved of these women sitting in church naked. See my bestfriend is gay and I love him to death but he also feels the same as I do..it's not right, gay men are not role models-whatsoever and shouldn't be in leadership position of the church. The church is meant to be a place of worship, a place where other christians can meet and praise God together not a place where people raise money for anything--no matter what the cause. It would have been fine and dandy to allow the calendar to be published but instead take the picture somewhere else. It made me mad when I learned that the money wasn't going to breast cancer research, that it also was going to help to pay for the upkeep of the church. That's not very truthful--is it?? See at my old church we had fun raisers, like a bake sale, car wash, things like that...not a bunch of old women sitting in the church pews naked-regardless they had their breasts covered up...I just find this very immature and unappropriate...I will pray for Mrs. Cook--keep standing up for what you beleive in--I'll be honest, I would have already left that church...ya'll should read the bible a little bit more, even I know this is wrong...in the Lord's eyes anyway..which is the only eyes that matter..... Kylie S. 
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