Posted on 07/05/2011 3:59:07 AM PDT by Cronos
As an out Presbyterian preacher, I'd experienced prejudice before. But nothing like what I faced in North Carolina
I was reading "Home in Henderson" -- the unofficial city website for a small town in North Carolina where I had recently moved to preach -- when I came across the blog entry. It was posted under the pseudonym "Church Reporter."
"A friend that attends the First Presbyterian Church told me to do a Google search on their new minister Brett Webb-Mitchell," the entry began. "Having done so, I have only three comments to make on the pastor selection: 1. Who is responsible for this mess? 2. The old biblical saying (the Lord works in mysterious ways) must be true in this case. 3. Someone needs to appoint a new membership search committee, because I hear the church membership numbers are dropping."
I sat at my computer, stunned.
As a gay minister, I'd heard nasty slights about me secondhand before, but I had never encountered it so directly. How could someone who didn't even know me criticize me? How could someone who called himself or herself a Christian spew such vile rhetoric? I was sad and angry and incredulous at once. This was a cheap, hateful shot.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
What did this fudge packer expect?
>>> As an out Presbyterian preacher, I’d experienced prejudice before. But nothing like what I faced in North Carolina
Not exactly the stuff of missionaries or martyrs is he. As long as nobody was firebombing his home, sticks and stones.
Had he toughed it out and treated people with kindness and respect regardless of what they said to him, he might have persuaded his congregation. Whining won’t get him far.
“Also, It ought to use the term ‘homosexual’ “
Sodomite.
yes, as I pointed out in post 1, the Presbyterian in the USA denomination has more than halved from it’s max 4.25 mil in the 60s. And it has lost 3% membership each year for the past 3-4 years and is now 2 million
I agree. Compared to the barbs one can experience on FR, those were mild “no-nos”
His whinging over slights is hilarious! What a coward. I’d like to see what would happen if we dropped a soapbox preacher into the Castro section of San Francisco. He’d probably be lynched.
What a great point! I’ve been called every name in the book on FR! All part of the conversation.
I have studied the Bible extensively, in English, Greek, and Hebrew/Aramaic, and I have yet to find a passage that upon reflection has nothing to do with modern life. Scripture on sexual immorality is not merely connected to modern life, but central, and anyone who can't accept that basic truth has no business in the pulpit.
Also from the article: "When the Session of First Presbyterian Church in Henderson, N.C., called me to be their interim pastor in August 2008, I didn't tell them I was gay . . . not feeling the need to confess to everyone in the world about my sexual orientation for a contract job, I never mentioned my partner and two children. (After all, I reasoned, straight members wouldn't feel the need to explain their family.)"
There is a difference between failing to mention aspects of your personal life that are consistent with the Bible's teaching and failing to mention that you are openly violating God's Word. Apparently, this self-centered activist chooses to ignore that inconvenient truth. A straight member who was openly living an adulterous life had better feel the need to explain, and it would take quite a justification to gloss over the Bible's injunctions against sexual immorality. It is disingenuous for this author to pretend otherwise.
1) You don't know the guy who criticized you, and yet you criticize him back? Hypocrite? 2) I did not see anything "vile" in the criticism. What was vile?
The minister is pretty thin-skinned. Didn’t see anything particularly “vile” those comments.
They WANT the membership to fall. They want to chase away Christians. Then a small band of homosexuals at the top will own all the church property and investments. They will pay themselves huge salaries and play dressup in all the robes.
Can’t people see this? It’s deliberate provocation -— causing the real Christians to leave and go hold services in some storefront in a strip mall when a judge decides that the property all belongs to the ‘leadership’ which will be liberal, leftist and homosexual, just as in the Episcopal church.
And the Presbyterian church has a great many truly beautiful churches. They’ll own it all.
So they send a homosexual priest and his partner and their unfortunate children to deliberately provoke and chase away a southern congregation.
It’s a two-fer. They get to portray themselves as victims of the evil redneck homophobes and eventually they will own all the property. They’ll make headlines, always a plus for narcissists.
I see this is starting to happen in the church I attend -— Methodist. I wish people would wake up.
Many things struck me. This guy may deliver a fabulous sermon, or maybe not, but he doesn't seem to take God seriously in his writing or in his life. It's sad that he missed out on God's message, and sadder still that he thinks it's okay to take a mercenary perspective on ministry work.
"In closing, I remember the Apostle Paul, who reminds me that nothing can separate me from the love of God. (Pairing Nietzsche and the Apostle Paul might seem an odd combination, but so be it.) I saw ugliness in Henderson, sure, but I also found love and support and new understanding. As one member of the church said: "He may be gay, but he knows how to preach the Gospel."
He openly practices what is forbidden in scripture.
Notice his pairing of Nietzsche and the Apostle Paul " might" seem an odd combo. Then he puts "so be it." Which you might glance over without thinking. But the word Amen = So Be It. Nietzsche was anti-God. What a combo. He is picking and choosing what fits for him not God. Who is always willing to forgive to a repentance of soul on earth. This is not true repentance.
Just wacky!
So why did you tag it 'Presbyterian' instead of PCUSA?
Because there are no perverts there ...
< / sarc off>
But then the money eventually runs out...
people can, but most of us just slink away and say 'ok, you can have it', instead of fighting for our churches.
I tagged it both presbyterian and pcusa — the pcusa, as 80% of presbyterians would unfortunately be classified as such.
Practically speaking, his sexual orientation aside, it sounds like this particular minister simply doesn’t like the horrors of small town life, where you can’t live anonymously and where there just isn’t that much excitement, and he wants to be transferred to a more urban or suburban assignment.
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