Accoring to this report in the New York Times, Rev. Dennis Mereith of Tabernacle Baptist Church began preaching about acceptance of gay men and lesbians and promptly lost 300 of the 1,100 members of his church. Rev. Oliver White, senior minister of Grace Community Church, lost nearly his entire 70 person membership after he supported same-sex marriage in their denomination, the United Church of Christ. Attendance at Victory Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia fell from 6,000 a week to 3,000 after Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel began preaching acceptance of GLBT people.
It is no coincidence that both of these churches have congregations primarily made up of African-Americans.
“The church has to come to a point when it has to embrace all the people Jesus embraced, and that means the people in the margins,” Dr. Samuel said. “It really bothered my congregation when I said that as people of color who have been ostracized, marginalized, how can we turn around now and oppress other people?”
Speaking for the other side:
“It is one of several factors that are taking away the interest in traditional marriage in the African-American community,” said Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., the president of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, a black conservative Christian group.
I recommend checking out the entire article to read about those black preachers who are courageous enough to stand up for equality inclusive of ALL people.
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The main thing that the bible speaks of is the promiscuous nature of the stories that they reference to, when they speak of homosexuality. Misinterpretations have spewed throughout the entire religious communities and have brainwashed people into thinking that same sex marriages are unnatural, when in fact, “love” is natural! Even in the heterosexual community, promiscuity runs wild. It’s sometimes discouraging on the gay and lesbian community to have these ‘religious leaders’ tell us we’re perverts.
ReplyDeleteThe ironic part about it is, the people who want the most acceptance can’t even fathom the thought of accepting others.
When I was a seminarian, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago partnered with the Univ of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) medical school and others to put on a marvelous conference joining religious and medical practitioners to talk about AIDS. (You can read about it on the seminary's site here and at my other blog here.
ReplyDeleteRev. Alberta Ware from Balm In Gilead said that the primary spread of HIV/AIDS in the black community is through black men who are "on the down-low," hiding their homosexuality unitl it kills their wives or family members. It is so hypocritical to believe that black men are "above" this crisis, or that they are impervious to it (by whatever excuse they use).
When is the black church going to realize that they are not country clubs for righteous black people, but MASH hospitals for sinners (of all genders, orientations, races, you name it)?
/deep sigh/