School Days! School Days!
Good old ‘golden rule’ days.
Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic
Taught by the tune of a hickory stick!
It’s that time again! School is back but without the ‘hickory stick’. In fact here in Florida it began in late August, not September. But for me School and September were synonymous for at least 20 years. It should have been 19 but I was held back in the first grade. (Notice I didn’t say I ‘flunked’) It was interesting to learn recently that my oldest brother Frank, the first boy, moved forward from First Grade into Second soon after he entered school. It seems Mother, being a former teacher, decided to teach Frank her first child and son. It turns out she did such a good job that the teacher in First Grade suggested he be moved right up to the 2nd. My return to First grade had a reward. Because I met Gerry Connell and we have been friends ever since!
After all those 20 years of school I went off to the Marine Corps Schools to be commissioned. I had been drafted in 1947 under the Selective Service Act but got deferments right through College and Law School. Even after I was commissioned I had to go back to school! I was ordered to the naval base in Newport, R.I. to attend a school on the new Military Code. (Uniform Code of Military Justice) It had become law in 1947 and was working its way through the military. I had another surprise in attending that school. I met Jean Green another lawyer from Philadelphia. He had too just been commissioned at Quantico but in another platoon. We roomed together.
My meeting and knowing Jean Green enabled me to spend my last days in the service at the Philadelphia Naval Base. I was thus able to retake the Pennsylvania Bar exam, which I had failed in 1954. I had passed the DC bar exam so for the Marines I was a lawyer. What happened that brought Jean back into my life was this: I was serving as an aide-de-camp to General Earnshaw, then commander of the Lejeune Marine Base. I had been his aide since late 1955. As 1957 was coming to an end the general decided it was time for him to retire. He asked me where I would like to next serve. I told him I would let him know and called Philadelphia Naval Base to see if they might have an opening. Much to my surprise there was Jean Green the only Marine on the base in charge of the Brig and administration of discharges. He, Jean, also wanted to get out of the service early so he could take a tax course. So I helped him do so and after the General’s retirement transferred to Philadelphia Naval Base!
In the final two months of my last year of college I switched positions. I became a teacher. I had Education as a minor and knew the Education Department director as a friend of my family. He was the one who made the appointment possible. It also would satisfy the State requirement of practice teaching to have me certified in Pennsylvania as a teacher. I was to teach high school freshman, a class of about 40, in a parochial school. The school was located in a tough neighborhood. I taught everything except religion. One of my memories of it is that I found keeping the wise guys and big mouths quiet was a job. Fortunately having attended catholic schools all my life up until then I knew that disciplining a rowdy student was common and allowed. So I did so with a couple of such boys. I made them get out of the seat and kneel on the floor with arms outstretched until I said they could return to their seats. I had maybe two such boys I had to so discipline. By coincidence some two years later while attending Pennsylvania Law School, I earned a little additional cash by selling programs at football games. At one of the games I looked up with surprise to see some of my ex-students coming down the aisle. Two of them were those I had made kneel. I was just regretting such action when they all politely came up and stopped and said, “Hello Mr. McSorley” with not a bit of rancor or revenge.
Homosexuals and homosexuality have been subjects of much discussion these days. The ECLA had a convention in late August to consider allowing homosexuals to be ordained as ministers. It voted to do so but it was a split vote. Prior to the convention a good friend and former pastor, Lin Houck, sent me written opinions from both sides of the question. One was written by a former bishop another I believe was the author of theological books. Each of their documents were five to six typed pages.
A couple of years ago, in 2007, one of my favorite theologians, Luke Timothy Johnson, wrote about homosexuals. I loved the way he introduced the subject, he wrote: “…there is more than enough sexual disorder among heterosexuals to fuel moral outrage. The church could devote its energies to resisting the widespread commodification (creating articles for sale) of sex in our culture, the manipulation of sexual attraction in order to sell products. It could fight the exploitation of women and children caught in the vast web of international prostitution and pornography…It could name the many ways that straight males enable such distorted and diseased forms of sexuality”
The opinion of Herbert W. Chilstrom, one of those forwarded by Lin Houck, makes this rather salient point. He writes, “Like you, I knew our decision to ordain woman and retain divorced pastors on our rosters were not decided exclusively on the basis of a few biblical texts or our long standing tradition in either area…Furthermore, plain reason and our experience with the work of some women and some divorced pastors led us to include both on our rosters…when I saw the kind of ministry being done by gay and lesbian person…convinced me I must change my stance.”
The opposing theologian was Carl E. Braaten, and he wrote, “…you use in judging matters theological and ecclesial…‘reason and experience’. They trump Scripture and Tradition…Scripture and Tradition must pass the test of your reason and experience not the other way around” He goes on to lament what he sees a “liberal Protestantism” and that he considers as heresy! But Braaten never explains how the ELCA accepted women and divorced pastors based on his reasons, i.e., Scripture and Tradition. He spends more time lamenting the fall of ECLA into “Liberal Protestantism” than the question of ordaining gays and lesbians! He says, “When I approved the ordination of women, which I did early on, I did not do so on the basis of my “reason” and “experience”. There are better biblical and theological arguments.” But he doesn’t give any nor does he give any theological arguments against ordaining gays!
Another document I read was by Pastor Chuck Olmstead. He ignored all the theological, etc. reasons and simply says, ‘our focus is the mission Jesus Christ. We are congregation (church) reaching out beyond itself locally, regionally, and globally focused solely on its mission “to encourage all people to know and love Christ”
Theologian Luke T. Johnson points to things we no longer follow that are in scripture, like slaves, slavery and women being ordained. “I think it important that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of scripture and appeal to another authority when we declare that same sex unions can be holy and good…We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience of thousands others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God created us. By so doing we explicitly reject as well the premises of scriptural statements condemning homosexuality-namely that it is a vice freely chosen symptom of human corruption and a disobedience to God’s created order.”
I have often wondered where people got the idea that homosexuality was something people brought on themselves. Luke Johnson sees it as a reflection of the scriptural statements. I have often asked those who condemn homosexuals as to why and the clear implication or answer is that they brought it on themselves. That has never been to my knowledge proven as a fact and Johnson’s conclusion that they were created that way makes more sense. So as God created many with human conditions, like blindness, or brain disease, we should treat them as Jesus said, “Love one another”.
This subject and how we read the Bible, could take another ten pages and never be fully covered. I might add some of those thoughts in my October Jottings. Until then Pax Tecum!