Lutheran Seminary Holds ‘Glitter Ash Wednesday’ Chapel to Honor ‘Queer and Trans Siblings’
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, is one of the main seminaries of the decrepit and apostate Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). In 2023, the school had a yearly endowment of $48. 5M and 121 students, nearly all of them goatlings headed to hell.
Yesterday, the seminary held a Glitter + Ash worship service, linking to a primer on Queer Virtue, which states:
Glitter is an inextricable element of queer history. It is how we have always displayed our gritty, scandalous hope. We make ourselves fabulously conspicuous, giving offense to the arbiters of respectability that allow coercive power to flourish.
Glitter+Ash is an inherently queer sign of Christian belief, blending symbols of mortality and hope, of penance and celebration.
Naturally, this event prompted both positive and negative feedback from current students and alumni.
The pushback also resulted in a statement from Chapel Director Dr. Christian Scharen, who explains:
“We are offering traditional ashes, the result of burning palms from a previous Palm Sunday, mixed with cosmetic-grade glitter, for the imposition of ashes. Our offering of this service is in deep alignment with our status as a Reconciling in Christ Seminary, and with the recent LSTC Board-approved faculty statement supporting our Queer and Trans siblings in the current culture of hostility in our nation. Please do reach out for further conversation as I am not on social media.”
During the service, the Dr. Karri Alldredge explains the purpose of the event:
It is an important act, especially on Ash Wednesday, that we take a moment to name that harm has been done to our community around this service. It’s an important practice that we begin engaging here to publicly name when harm is done against marginalized communities and especially our queer communities who just had to witness last night in very public, political, social ways the attempts to erase and demonize, especially our trans and non-binary siblings.And so, in the process of naming, also calling us to reaffirm our commitment to one another as the body of Christ, our commitment to queerness, to queer theology that says spaces like this are beautiful gatherings of community where we get to try new things, where we get to examine traditions, theologies that we have always held as fact and truth
often truth for those who are in power.
To ask, what does it mean to expand our theologies, to expand our understanding of God in this space that we will carry out into other spaces to ask, for whom Ash Wednesday? Well, a reminder of the cross is often sometimes doubly a reminder of shame and sin put upon queer communities.
What does it mean to hold stardust, to hold glitter, to hold resilience of queerness alongside the solemnness, the importance, the cherished space, the solemn space of Ash Wednesday within our community.
So I ask that we continue to recommit ourselves as we move into this Lenten season to publicly affirming our queer siblings, our other marginalized siblings, and that we work to stand with one another in our collective work towards justice, God’s love and that we do that today in wearing, in imposing our glitter and ash. Thank you.
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To summarize their crafty statements …
“The commandments of God are unjust, unloving, hostile, and grievous”
The grace of God is perverted into permission and license to sin, and sin is considered something to be celebrated. They are among those condemned from long ago (2 Pet. 2:3, Jude 4)
Important to note that in both of those passages, Peter and Jude stress the fact that they deny Jesus as “Master”. Such individuals claim to be standing against the coercive power and systems of mankind, but what they’re really doing is standing against the “coercive” power, authority, and sovereignty of Almighty God. As all power and authority is coercive to a certain degree, yet not always in the deceitful or unjust sense of the word. For example, the “coercive” nature of the secular law that imposes punishment for crime. I.e., if you commit the crime, then you will suffer the consequences. It is coercive, but not unjust. And not like crimes of “coercion”, such as apply to contract law, which are unjust.
Jesus speaks to this distinction in passages such as Matt. 20:25-28. And the difference is in the submission to Him first and foremost. Which speaks to the order of Jesus’ two commandments, as explained in 1 John 5:1-5, etc.
They deny Him as Master. They rebel against Him, even as they claim His name, while in the same breath they openly admit that their goal is to coerce others – to intentionally shove it in peoples faces. Plainly admitting they are “imposing” it. Themselves engaging in unjust form of coercion, because, boiling it down, they deem themselves to be Lord and Master. And they “Lord it over them” as gentiles do, because they are not first submitted to the Lord, living first and foremost in service to Him.
And so, they are not a part of the Body of Christ, as they claim. (1 John 3:4-10, Rom. 6:1-2, Matt. 7:21, etc.)
They also speak about tearing down traditions. But the problem with that is that they fail to distinguish between the commandments of God and the traditions of men. Jesus did condemn the traditions and commandments of men, when they conflicted with the commandments of God. (Matt. 15:1-9)
But note the question Jesus asks them: “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ” (the greek word means precept, instruction – not necessarily something old or long-standing)
These antinomian sorts try to flip that entirely on it’s head, essentially condemning the commandments of God as tradition, then replacing it with their own traditions (precepts, instruction, standards, etc.) and commandments. The foolish, weak, and those looking for excuses, will easily fall prey. Why? Well, since the commandments of God have always been, then they must be a matter of old and outdated “tradition”. No, “tradition” is a construct of mankind, not a commandment of God.
Rebellion is at the root of antinomianism. It’s not a mere theological difference. It is blatant full-on rebellion against the Lord. An excuse to pridefully set oneself as Lord and Master. An excuse to sin.