“Are Homosexuals Welcomed in the Church?”

by: Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds

(NNPA Columnist)

Are homosexuals welcomed in the Church?

by Rev. Barbara Reynolds

NNPA Columnist

A network television ad showed three muscular church deacons kicking a homosexual couple weeping and bleeding from the church steps. A choir provided background music singing, "There's power in the blood."

Things have not reached such an ugly level yet, but they are heading in that direction. If you think a network wouldn't accept such a bigoted ad or that no church would perform such a cold-blooded act, remember this is a new era. The Religious Right and the Bush administration are calling the shots of the networks in one repugnant unholy alliance, which is a dangerous threat to our First Amendment guarantee of Freedom of Speech.

CBS and NBC apparently have bowed to the climate established by the Religious Right by rejecting an advertisement for the United Church of Christ intended to show that all people - even gays - are welcome in their church. The ad showed two beefy bouncers behind velvet ropes turning away a man who appeared to be Hispanic, a young Black woman and two men holding hands as they attempted to enter a church.

"Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we," the ad reassured.

Officials of the Cleveland-based denomination with 6,000 congregations and 1.3 million members said the 30-second ad was intended to emphasize its inclusiveness.

NBC's rejection notice called the ad "too controversial." ABC has a blanket policy against religious advertisement. But it was CBS that let the cat out of the bag that its rejection was political. In a written explanation to the church's ad agency, CBS said, "the executive branch has recently endorsed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman."

Also R. Albert Mohler, Jr., one of the trumpeters of the Religious Right, fumed that the ad was "diabolical."

So is the press a lapdog of the Religious Right? And what an over-reaction. The ad said nothing about same-sex marriages, but even if it had, are Christians supposed to take a hard-hearted attitude against homosexuals as being unworthy to sit down in a church just because the Religious Right says so? Churches are full of adulterers, liars, back-biters and thieves. So why should homosexuals be excluded from church which is supposed to express the love of Christ for all people.

Rev. Ruth Harvey is the first African-American pastor of the previously all-White Trinity United Church of Christ in York, Pa.

She said, "The ad was just saying that God is still welcoming all into His home. I will not perform same-sex weddings. I do not preach a compromised Gospel. Yet, we should all be careful about creating categories of 'us' and 'them' because once we were all sinners. Church is the one place you can come in a sinner and leave a saint if you adhere to the Word."

The ad flap does, however, touch a sensitive nerve in church communities because many Christians treat homosexuals as lepers, forgetting that Jesus hung around the lepers and healed them. On the other hand, although Biblical texts, such as 1 Cor.6:9, list homosexuality as a transgression that will keep sinners out of heaven, many gay rights leaders deny that it is a sin.

"Just like in that ad, I have felt like I was not welcome in many churches," said Bishop Kwabena Rainey Cheeks, of Inner Light Ministries in Washington, D.C. "If you are gay or lesbian, Christians are too quick to tell us we are going to hell. They are building bridges instead of walls. Show me where Jesus discriminates. Jesus cared about the least of them and fought against the oppression of the religious oppressors and the government, instead of locking hands with them as the church is doing today."

Cheeks, who has AIDS, also said the oppressive, judgmental actions of Christians are forcing more Black men to hide their homosexuality by dating women, many of whom they find in the church. Unfortunately, this lifestyle called the "down low" is one reason for the feminization of HIV/AIDS. In 1998, African-American women constituted 64 percent of new female AIDS cases.

So where does this leave the church? Bouncing the homosexuals out of the churches as would please the Religious Right? Tolerating same-sex marriages?

There is a better way advocated by Pastor Keith Magee of the Berachah Church in Boston.

"Christians should be winning souls to Christ. How does one get to know Him in truth, if they are excluded from being where truth is being delivered? It is God's work to clean and to sanctify us; man does not have that ability. I do not believe that homosexuality is of God and I will not validate that lifestyle, but I will not close my church doors to anyone."

I would argue that only those who have not sinned or are Big Hypocrites are qualified to shut others out of church. Who then will be the first to block the door?

Rev. Barbara Reynolds is the religion columnist for NNPA is an author of four books, including Out Of Hell & Living Well: Healing from the Inside Out, and a graduate of the Howard University School of Divinity and the United Theological Seminary, where she earned a doctorate degree in ministry. She can be reached at www.reynoldsworldnews.com.