"Bishop, don't tell me what the Bible says about homosexuals, and you change wives like we change underwear. Sit yourself, your hypocritical self down!"
High-profile homophobic Christians are easy to find, but it's also important to acknowledge Christians who speak out against homophobia. Pastor E. Dewey Smith of the House of Hope Atlanta in Decatur, Georgia has some strong words for homophobes in the Christian community. In a sermon posted on YouTube on July 23rd, Smith blasts homophobes for using Leviticus to condemn LGBTQ people while ignoring passages that are at odds with modern life.
"On one hand, you quote homosexuality is an abomination from Leviticus, but you say that right after you ate some shrimp, some catfish, and some lobster. You quote Leviticus while you're wearing a wool blend suit. It's also in Leviticus that you shouldn't wear mixed linens. It's in Leviticus that if your wife is on her cycle, that you shouldn't go in the same house with her or even sleep on the same bed with her. That's in Leviticus too. Here's my point: we pick and choose the scriptures that we want to use to beat folks up with, rather than look at our own lives!"Smith reminded his audience that LGBTQ Christians have made many contributions to the church. He likened the dehumanization of LGBTQ people to the dehumanization of blacks under slavery.
"God said to me, here's the problem. You guys in the church can be so hypocritical ... You are guilty of condemning the Supreme Court system and preaching against something, but if you look at half of our choirs and a great number of our artists that we call abominations, that we call demons, we demonize and dehumanize the same people that we use, and we don't say nothing about the gay choir director because he's good for business. 'As long as the choir sounds good, I ain't saying nothing about his sexuality.' We have done what the slave master did to us: dehumanize us, degrade us, demonize us, but then use them for our advantage."(Hat tip to the Advocate.)
He's got his work cut out for him. If I had to choose just one single word to characterize the fundamentalist movement, that word would surely have to be "hypocrisy".
ReplyDeleteInfidel -- Hypocrisy is rife in many fundamentalist circles. I'm glad he called them out on it.
DeleteKudos to Pastor Smith. It's nice to hear some good news for a change.
ReplyDeleteDonna -- I agree. It's refreshing.
DeleteThat kind of honesty and compassion would get him excommunicated from many a church.
ReplyDeleteAgi Tater -- Sadly, you're right. Plenty of churches value dogma over compassion and fairness.
DeleteWait what a pastor that actually knows the Bible. I think I need to sit down :p
ReplyDeleteGreat on him, now next step throw away the chains and become an atheist.
Christian -- Pretty remarkable that he pays attention to the silly parts of the Old Testament, huh? :)
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