Who knows? The men in the picture above could be one of your choir directors, ministry administrator, nursery worker, usher, or even your pastor.
A reader recently sent me the following article and asked for my thoughts on the issue. If my memory serves me correctly, I have discussed this issue on this site a while ago, but not to the degree that I am about to do now. I’ll just give you a brief summary: A black pastor preaches a message that is, let’s say not gay friendly. Gay activists see this pastor as both homophobic and a bigot. As usual, I will just give you the pertinent excerpts for this discussion. If you want to read the entire article, click here.
An influential D.C. minister is under fire by local gay activists following an anti-gay sermon in which he claimed that, “lesbianism is about to take over our community.â€Â
Rev. Willie Wilson delivered the remarks at Union Temple Baptist Church in Southeast D.C., where he is pastor. Wilson is a former mayoral candidate and serves as executive director of the Millions More Movement march, an effort to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March.
Efforts by gay civil rights advocates to secure a visible role at the march stalled again this week when excerpts from Wilson’s anti-gay sermon came to light. One lesbian march organizer quickly resigned in protest.
“Sisters making more money than brothers and it’s creating problems in families … that’s one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians,†Wilson said.
Personally, I think that this particular comment is a gross generalization, but I will share my thoughts later in this piece.
At this point, I’ll just post the excerpt of the sermon that is provided by this article:
Except from Rev. Willie Wilson’s sermon on July 3:
“… We live in a time when our brothers have been so put down, can’t get a job, lot of the sisters making more money than brothers. And it’s creating problems in families. That’s one of the reasons our families’ breaking up. And that’s one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians. You got to be careful when you say you don’t need no man. I can make it by myself. Well, if you don’t need a man, what’s left? Lesbianism is about to take over our community. I’m talking about young girls. My son in high school last year, trying to go to the prom, he said, ‘Dad, I ain’t got nobody to take to the prom because all the girls in my class are gay. There ain’t but two of them straight and both of them are ugly. I ain’t got nobody to take to the prom.’ Now, can I talk here? I ain’t homophobic, because everybody in here got something wrong with him. Whoever you point at, you can point at your own self. You got something wrong with your life. But when you get down to this thing, women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain’t real. That thing ain’t got no feeling in it. It ain’t natural. Any time somebody got to slap some grease on your behind, and stick something in you, it’s something wrong with that. Your butt ain’t made for that. [Audience shouts and yells its approval in the background.] You got blood vessels and membranes in your behind. And if you put something unnatural in there, it breaks them all up. No wonder your behind is bleeding. It’s destroying us. Can’t make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female. The Hebrew word “neged,” which means complementary nature  there is something unique to man and unique to woman and it takes those two things to complement each other. You can’t make a connection with two screws. It takes a screw and a nut! (shouting).â€Â
As I eluded to earlier, there are things in this short excerpt that I both agree and disagree with. I am only using this as just a backdrop because I feel it provides us with a good example of one of the ways the black church deals with homosexuality.
The one thing about a black pastor is that for the most part, they are going to tell it to you like it is (in other words, they are going to give it to you straight). Just saying homosexuality is wrong is not enough in the black church–we got to have it spelled out (honestly, I think it just adds to the “theatrics” of delivery of the message) as in the excerpt below:
Any time somebody got to slap some grease on your behind, and stick something in you, it’s something wrong with that. Your butt ain’t made for that. You got blood vessels and membranes in your behind. And if you put something unnatural in there, it breaks them all up. No wonder your behind is bleeding.
Now granted this is a very blunt way of putting it, but the science is there to back up what he is saying.
Homosexuality is about one thing only–sexual preference. All of this stuff out there put out by gay activists suggesting that some people are just born that way, or the whole issue of gays having the right to marry is just extra drama that is used to politicize something that takes place in the bedroom (what is ironic is that gay activists (who do not speak for all gays) are quick to tell us that the government needs to stay out of the bedroom, but at the same time want to enjoy some of the same Federal financial benefits as Blacks, Hispanic, etc. ). Most blacks see right through this rhetoric. Many black preachers just give voice to that fact.
As I mentioned earlier, most black churches have a very strange way of addressing this issue. On one hand, the preacher will preach hard against homosexuality while we “Amen” him out of the building. One the other hand, in many cases the choir right behind him is full of the very people he is preaching against–we just dismiss them as just being a little effeminate (because the “effeminate” in the church are usually the ones that are the most creative and/or the most expressive, you will see them most of the time either involved in the music or children’s ministry). How can a person preach against homosexuality while at the same time benefit from their service to the ministry?
What many people do not realize is that Jesus was a lot harder on people who claimed to be devout than those who were considered to be the “outcasts” of society. This is what Jesus had to say to a group of Pharisees (teachers of the Law) who questioned His authority:
…Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing {this,} did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.
–Matthew 21:31-32
Without getting into too much of the scriptures (‘cuz I do not want to loose those who may not understand), it is important for me to explain the role of Jesus—He was the fulfillment of the Law, not the destroyer of it.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
–Matthew 5:17
In the Old Testament, the penalty for someone who was caught in a lie was death. Adultery was the same thing. For homosexuality, well let’s say He burned up a whole town because of it (Read Genesis 19)
Here is what the Apostle Paul had to say on the type of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
Notice I bolded all of the offenses I only italicized homosexuality because that is what we are talking about in this post) . To God, sin is sin PERIOD. The result is always the same–no access to the Kingdom of God. What many churches have done is to put too much emphasis on the few sins that seem despicable to us, but for the others there is a tendency not to preach too hard about it. As you can see in this passage, adultery is just as bad as homosexuality.
Verse 11 shows us how the grace that was provided to us via Jesus gives us a pardon from such sins as long as we turn away from these lifestyles:
And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
So does God still hate the sin of homosexuality? He sure does. What Jesus has done was to create a way for us to to receive pardon for sin. When God destroyed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, it wasn’t the people He hated, it was the sin–there was no buffer (Jesus) that could have pardoned them from God’s judgment.
There are a variety of situations and circumstances that makes a person choose homosexuality as a lifestyle. If the church is to address this issue from a biblical perspective, then the entire message of God’s word needs to be considered. The old testament showed us how God feels about sin. The new testament shows us through Christ we have pardon from sin just as long as we turn away from that lifestyle.
What many black churches have done (and churches in general) is to condemn homosexuals to hell (Old Testament), but have done very little to demonstrate God’s grace to them (New Testament). The first step in this process is to stop covering up the fact that homosexuals are in the church by dismissing them as just being a little effeminate.
Next, there needs to be a serious push within the black church to minister to the gay and lesbian community within their local area. Fortunately, there are numbers of Christian organizations that are doing just that:
International Healing Foundation
And finally, we need to just love them as Christ would have. Jesus did not need a panel to set up some initiative to help those considered to be the fringe of society. He became the initiative. Christian men who are heterosexual (preferably married men) should especially heed this call and put aside any fears that your masculinity will be lost if you are seen befriending someone who is a homosexual.
I felt like it was time for me to write this piece because I for one am tired of hearing about brothas in the church dying from “unknown” causes. Politics aside, people need help! It is time for the church to heed this call at a much deeper level.
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