For Some Black Pastors, Accepting Gay Members Means Losing Others

For Some Black Pastors, Accepting Gay Members Means Losing Others


John Nowak for The New York Times
The Rev. Dennis Meredith, center, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta, began a change in his preachings against homosexuality five years ago when his son Micah told him he is gay.

By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: March 27, 2007
ATLANTA — When the Rev. Dennis Meredith of Tabernacle Baptist Church here began preaching acceptance of gay men and lesbians a few years ago, he attracted some gay people who were on the brink of suicide and some who had left the Baptist faith of their childhoods but wanted badly to return.


John Nowak for The New York Times
Rev. Dennis Meredith's son, Micah.
At the same time, Tabernacle Baptist, an African-American congregation, lost many of its most loyal, generous parishioners, who could not accept a message that contradicted what they saw as the Bible’s condemnation of same-sex relations. Over the last three years, Tabernacle’s Sunday attendance shrank to 800, from 1,100.

The debate about homosexuality that has roiled predominantly white mainline churches for years has gradually seeped into African-American congregations, threatening their unity, finances and, in some cases, their existence.

In St. Paul, the Rev. Oliver White, senior minister of Grace Community Church, lost nearly all his 70 congregants after he voted in 2005 to support the blessing of same-sex unions in his denomination, the United Church of Christ.

In the Atlanta area, a hub of African-American life, only a few black churches have preached acceptance of gay men and lesbians, Mr. Meredith said. At one of those congregations, Victory Church in Stone Mountain, attendance on Sundays has fallen to 3,000 people, from about 6,000 four or five years ago, said the Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, the senior pastor.

Some black ministers, like their white counterparts, said they had been moved to reconsider biblical passages about same-sex relations by personal events, like finding out that a friend or relative is gay. Some members of the clergy contend that because of the antipathy to gay men and lesbians, black churches have done little to address the high rate of H.I.V. infection among 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?”

It is hard to know how many ministers who lead the country’s tens of thousands of African-American congregations are preaching acceptance of gay men and lesbians. Some leading African-American religious thinkers and leaders — like Cornel West, the Rev. Peter J. Gomes and the Rev. Michael Eric Dyson — have called for inclusion of gay men and lesbians. But other leaders are convinced that the Bible condemns homosexuality and that tolerance of gay men and lesbians is a yet another dangerous force buffeting the already fragile black family.

“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 see the growing gay movement in the black community and our culture as almost evangelistic in nature, with what’s on television, with their legal agenda, all those things that have made homosexuality more acceptable.”

In the 13 years Mr. Meredith has led Tabernacle Baptist, he has presided over cycles of fraying and mending, this last time because of his preaching “love and acceptance,” he said. When he arrived in 1994, the congregation at Tabernacle had dwindled from several thousand members to about 110.

A compelling orator with the voice and showmanship of a stadium-rock star, Mr. Meredith quickly began to draw more new members. He preached against homosexuality. Then, five years ago, his middle son, Micah, told him that he is gay. Mr. Meredith and his wife began to read liberal theologians like Mr. Gomes and to look at Scripture again. What matters most in the Bible, Mr. Meredith said, was Jesus’ injunction to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, and that includes gay men and lesbians.

As he preached greater acceptance of gay people, Mr. Meredith saw the face of his congregation change.

About three years ago, many older members, those who had hung on through the church’s waning, and who drove in from the suburbs because they had attended Tabernacle as young people, gradually began to leave. They took with them their generous, loyal tithing. The 90-year-old church had money to cover salaries and utilities but had a hard time paying for properties it had bought nearby. In September, Mr. Meredith held a commitment ceremony in the church for two lesbian couples. More people left after that.

As attendance dropped, the church cut back to one service on Sunday, from two. On a recent Sunday, the pews were filled with some older people like the deacons and deaconesses, though the head deacon had left recently after telling Mr. Meredith that he had turned Tabernacle into “a sissy church.”

Under banners that read “Kindness,” “Peace” and “Love,” there were young families with babies. And there were transgender people like Stacy Jackson and Nikki Brown. There were also lesbian couples like Angela Hutchins and Stephanie Champion, sitting together in the front rows.

Mr. Meredith preached about Moses, about the vision God gave him to do the right thing. He told congregants about holding on to that vision, regardless of who they were.

“Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it because of your lifestyle, because of your sexuality, because you don’t have an education, because you’ve done time,” he said. “Because God knew you before you were born, when you were still in your mother’s womb. If God loves everybody, who am I not to love everybody?”

“Amen,” people called out. “Preach it; preach it.”

Afterward, when the sanctuary was mostly empty, Ruth Jinks, a deaconess who has been at Tabernacle since 1969, sat in a pew, cane by her side, waiting for the church van to take her home. Gay men and lesbians do not make her uncomfortable, Ms. Jinks said. They have always been in black churches, under something of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. But she seems to have tired of Mr. Meredith’s mention of them. She hears from acquaintances that she goes to the “gay church.”

“I don’t think you need to be speaking about it from the pulpit all the time,” said Ms. Jinks, who is in her early 80s. “I joined this church; I support this church. I didn’t join a minister. I’m planning on staying here and will not let people run me away.”

One of the junior pastors is the Rev. Chris Brown, who grew up in a black Pentecostal church in Montgomery, Ala.

“My pastor in Alabama said gays had three rights: to redeem themselves, to repent or to die of AIDS,” said Mr. Brown, 32.

He added, “The African-American church thinks AIDS is a gay disease, and that everyone who got it deserved to.”

DeMarcus Hill, 32, said he admired Mr. Meredith’s “ability to embrace those people who everyone had rejected.” Mr. Hill once attended and worked at Tabernacle Baptist, and he is still friends with the Meredith family. But after reading the Bible closely, Mr. Hill, who is studying to be ordained as a Baptist minister, said he could not stay at Tabernacle because sex outside heterosexual marriage was not countenanced.

Mr. Hill said he agreed with Mr. Meredith that God loves everyone, including gay men and lesbians. “But God corrects you because he loves you,” he said, explaining that for gay Christians, such a correction would probably mean lifelong celibacy or eventually being with someone of the opposite sex.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/us...pagewanted=all

I guess the next step is to excommunicate all those who break any other abomination right?... an abomination is an abomination. One cannot pick and choose and one is as bad as another.

Nowhere in any bible
(The NIV does not count, it is a political pamphlet not a bible)
is the word homosexuality stated. Sodomy is not the same. Oral sex with your wife is biblical sodomy, so is prostitution, so is adultery, so is the pulling-out method even between married couples, it is not just gay sex.
It is mainly alluded to as a sexual religious rite in relation to idolatry.
Most gay couples probably don’t have a golden calf in their bedroom.
Even then it is NEVER called a sin.
Eating shellfish or flounder and hangin' out with your spouse during her "time-of-the-month" is also an abomination.
There are a loooooonnnnng list of abominations and they are equal in the eyes of the lord.
Fear the Kotex! Stay wayyyyyy back from Ms. Thomson when she is on the rag... ABOMINATION, I think it is something like 60' Lev 15:19-24
Have you ever touched a pigskin football or gardening gloves? That is an equal abomination to having gay sex, that is right, the flesh of a pig Lev 11:6-8, or how about a shrimp cocktail mmmmmmm..... abomination too Lev 11:10, just like a blow-job with the school quarterback, there are no qualifications on which is a worse abomination.
That whole scene between Lot and the gang was about Levantine hospitality law, not a rape mob….
& the hits just keep on coming. Study with an open mind and spend time with a real bible scholar.
Worry about more important things, like how YOU are treating others on a daily basis.
That is something you can do something about. That will make the world a better place, not hate filled, ill informed, biblically incorrect bigotry.

You can't pick and choose, either you live by Levantine law or you do not, period.
Levantine law is not sacrosanct any longer, it does not work that way, Christ came to complete the law, remember?
Eat meat on Friday, you goin' to Hell sport, Levantine law... there are many.
Oh, and on the other hand there are fun things we can do, we can sell our daughters into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7, what would be a fair price is God's eyes do you think, hmmmm? As for the slaves I get to have, Lev. 25:44, I wonder if I have to let them sleep in the house?
Seen a neighbor working on Saturday (the real Sabbath) Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death and it is your job to do it, better get to work sport.
Oh if you wear glasses you can't take communion because you can't approach the alter of god sinner, Lev 21:20.
If your neighbor wears a cotton polyester thread blend shirt, you know what you have to do? Stone them to death Lev 24:10-16, yup kill em’ for wearing a blended shirt or even trimming the hair over their temples, I hope you have not done this or I may have to find you Lev 19:27.
So if you have done any of these things or are against any of them, shut up.
Oh... and most of those fundie idiots don't know their Bible well enough to live it, how many have been divorced and remarried?
How about most?
Well this is in the New Testament, in fact Jesus said it...
"Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery."
Luke 16:18

[BigV]

rk, you tilt at windmills when you attempt the apply logic, consistency, and rationality to situations such as this.

I *fully* support the position that God's will is that we love Him completely and we love each other as we love ourselves (I'm paraphrasing, so y'all can stop getting ready to whack me wit da scriptural refutations. save your breath).

Some people "get it" and some don't. Curiously, those that don't often say the very same thing. And both sides are speaking the truth when they say that. But I've never been comfortable with the legalist, literalist approach to Christianity, mostly because it was delivered in what always felt like a arbitrary fashion. "this" thing is true but "that" thing is not. Just exactly as you describe. I call BS.

That tactic just doesn't work in any other aspect of my life, and I don't think it works in any faith tradition, and certainly not for me. I mean, sheesh, what ever happened to forgiveness? We're imperfect from the gol-darn get-go, why compound it? That is not "the path", as best as I can tell from here. And I'm tryin.

The problem is, by their own rules there is nothing to forgive.
How do Christians get that homosexuality is a sin? There is nothing, Biblically, to support it, in ANY way.
Basically they want to be exclusive and narrow minded and are trying to use their religion to justify this, but it just does not work...
These people are not religious, it is a game to them, a social ladder to climb.
As far as forgiveness... again, nothing to forgive.
If homosexuality is so bad, why are they not boycotting and picketing Red Lobsters?
I think we are agreeing, but you don't like the way I say it.
Basically my message for them is:

[xoxoxoBruce]

You seem to have a compulsion to tell other people what they should do and feel and say and support and pay for and.....

If you don't believe in God and don't think religion is necessary organization, why don't you mind your own business and leave it to those who belong to run it the way they want.

Don't bother with the bullshit about them oppressing you. There's nothing in that article that affects you one whit.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Don't bother with the bullshit about them oppressing you. There's nothing in that article that affects you one whit.

I'm not sure I see the relevance of this. Is there some sort of "legal standing" requirement for message board discussions?

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You seem to have a compulsion to tell other people what they should do and feel and say and support and pay for and.....

If you don't believe in God and don't think religion is necessary organization, why don't you mind your own business and leave it to those who belong to run it the way they want.

Don't bother with the bullshit about them oppressing you. There's nothing in that article that affects you one whit.

As long as they are trying to affect government, schools and telling others that they are less, it is my business and will be.
The day people keep their religion to themselves is the day I keep my opinions on it to myself, happily.
I have gay family and close friends, what affects them affects me.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Usually his reason for posting this stuff is he's being oppressed, not so here.

Still workin' that crystal ball I see oh mighty Brucie, LOL.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Fuck you and your crystal ball. I don't need a crystal ball to read your constant whining. Poor you your so oppressed.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Usually his reason for posting this stuff is he's being oppressed, not so here.

He's not gay, AFAIK. Neither am I, and I'll wade into a debate on the topic. Likewise religion. Or a combination of the two.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Have at it, where you been?

[Bullitt]

[xoxoxoBruce]

That figures.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Fuck you and your crystal ball. I don't need a crystal ball to read your constant whining. Poor you your so oppressed.

Noooooo... the Christians are oppressed, just pick-up a paper, right?
Oppressed by all 10% of the non-xians in the US. Makes perfect sense.
And, no, you may not fuck me. Pathetic insult, BTW.