Unfinished Lives

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Black LGBTQ Affirming Church in Dallas Acts to Counter Religious Homophobia

Apostle Alex Byrd, Senior Elder and Pastor, Living Faith Covenant Church

Dallas, TX – In response to a vitriolic anti-gay sermon preached at a major Black preaching conference at a Dallas Black mega-church, Apostle Alex Byrd’s flock boldly resolves not to back down. In a congregational meeting on April 18, Living Faith Covenant Church, a predominantly Black and LGBT church, voted officially to oppose religious homophobia and promote dialogue on behalf of LGBTQ and SGL (Same Gender Loving) people of color.  On Monday, April 12, 2010, Prophetess Janet Floyd, a featured preacher at the Urgent Utterances Conference, denounced gay and lesbian people, vigorously declaring that members of the sexual minority, regardless of their church affiliation, had “demons” that needed to be “cast out” of them by God.  The conference, jointly sponsored by a coalition of churches and Black Church scholarly groups, including Vanderbilt University Divinity School’s Black Church studies institute, was a three-day event hosted at the high-profile Friendship-West Baptist Church, pastored by one-time candidate for the presidency of the NAACP, Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III.  Black church leaders from around the nation attended the conference on Monday night, including students from Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN and Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX.  In the second sermon of the evening, the prophetess claimed that God sent a “storm” upon the nation, in the form of Hurricane Katrina and the Columbine High School shooting tragedy.  As Rev. Floyd launched into her indictment of “demon-possessed” LGBT people, some 20 attendees walked out of the service in silent protest against pulpit homophobia.  From eyewitness reports, the whole Brite Divinity School contingent and half of the Vanderbilt students walked out of the service.  News quickly spread throughout the Metroplex and around the internet.  A Rally for Love to pray for all parties affected by the sermon and to frame a response calling for dialogue and accountability gathered on Wednesday evening, April 14, jointly hosted by Living Faith Covenant Church and Promise Metropolitan Community Church.  A multi-racial gathering of forty LGBTQ people and their allies decided to form a coalition to call on Dr. Haynes, the conference, and Friendship-West Church to distance themselves from the homophobic content of the sermon.  Apostle Byrd issued a communication to Dr. Haynes, but at the time of this writing there has been no response to Byrd’s appeal.  Taking the next step, the Living Faith congregation officially issued their resolution, “Commitment to Non-Violent Resistance to Spiritual Abuse” (full text of the Resolution may be accessed here).  Briefly, the resolution calls on Black affirming Christians to “stand in solidarity with the more than 20 courageous individuals who stood up and left in peaceful protest during Reverend Janet Floyd’s sermon,” and to “acknowledge the spiritual, psychological, emotional, and social harm from ill-informed preaching, whether well-intended or malicious, inflicted upon many of our LGBTQ and SGL brothers and sisters.”  The SGL affirming congregation, affiliated and backed by The Fellowship, an international movement of radically inclusive Christians headed by San Francisco Bishop Yvette Flunder, both endorses the Black Church tradition of the freedom of the pulpit and at the same time criticizes any action or speech from the pulpit that demeans, demonizes or harms people because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, class or disability.  In the event that efforts at dialogue with other religious leaders fails to produce meaningful responses, the resolution concludes, “we will engage in peaceful and non-violent resistance for the dignity and value of all of God’s creation, including LGBTQ and SGL individuals within the Community of Faith.”  Significantly, a church and movement deeply and proudly rooted in the African American Church tradition and community now has joined the issue of active and passive homophobic speech in Black churches,helping to debunk the usual claim made by some Black Church leaders that LGBTQ rights is an expression of white racism and exclusively a “white man’s issue.”  Apostle Byrd’s congregation, The Fellowship, and supporters from last week’s Rally for Love have made it clear that “spiritual abuse” aimed at LGBTQ people from any source will

Prophetess Janet Floyd

be publicly, compassionately and firmly opposed.  Apostle Byrd understands the mindset of heterosexist/homophobic ministers.  In an interview with Operation Rebirth, he said, “For the majority of preachers who bash [gays], I’d say the root is sincere compassionate ignorance. They truly want to see people saved and in their understanding, they believe homosexuality is wrong. They have to send that message so people will ‘come out’ of it. It’s a hard task for them to do. The more resistance from the homosexual(s), the more they preach it. They are ignorant, but sincere. They are ignorant in understanding the homosexual as a person. They’re ignorant in their understanding of the general context, cultural climate, history, language and translation of scripture. They are ignorant in how to appropriately apply historical text to the current needs of our society, with its likenesses and differences. But ignorance isn’t a bad thing…it simply means, ‘I don’t know.’   But stupidity IS bad. It says ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care to find out.'” While some report encouraging pulpit statements made by Dr. Haynes at Friendship-West’s April 14 evening worship service opposing the demonization of LGBTQ people, as of this date nobody from Dr. Haynes’s office, from the leadership of Friendship-West Baptist Church, or from the Urgent Utterances Conference Leadership has officially distanced themselves or their organizations from the homophobic content of Prophetess Floyd’s sermon.

April 20, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Bisexual persons, gay men, Lesbian women, Racism, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Vigils | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Multi-Racial Response to Religious Gay Bashing at “Rally for Love” in Dallas

Apostle Alex Byrd calls for dialogue and accountability for religious homophobia

Dallas, Texas – Forty women and men from multiple racial ethnic backgrounds and several churches and LGBT activist groups rallied for prayer and protest, declaring that “spiritual abuse of LGBT people must stop” in pulpits everywhere.  The Rally for Love, swiftly organized by a coalition of Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Whites, LGBT churches, activist groups, and Brite Divinity School students and faculty, protested the homophobic sermon of Dr. Janet Floyd of Monroe, Louisiana, featured speaker at the Urgent Utterances Conference on Monday, April 12.  The conference gathered Black Church scholars from around the nation to meet for three days at Friendship West Baptist Church, a predominantly Black mega-church in South Dallas pastored by Dr. Freddie Haynes.  Galled by the claim that gays and lesbians are demonic, and that lesbians in particular have a demon that must be driven out, 12 students from Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX and half the student contingent of Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, TN walked out of the Conference worship service in silent protest.  J.W. Richard, of the Examiner.com, reports that the participants heard accounts from three witnesses to the “disparaging comments” made by the speaker, sister of Urgent Utterances organizer, Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas of Vanderbilt Divinity School: “Speaking on the Dallas Voice’s Instant Tea weblog, Brite Divinity student, Sam Castleberry, wrote that among the comments made by Dr. Floyd was one that the ‘lesbian demon should be exorcised’. Two more witnesses spoke at tonight’s rally event, including Pastor Jon Haack of Promise MCC, concurred with that account and included that Dr. Floyd’s sermon mentioned that the storm of Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy at Columbine High School were also of divine appointment.”  Theologians and pastors at the Rally for Love condemned such a faulty theology of God.  Norma Gann, Cherokee student at Brite, called for prayer for Dr. Floyd as she denied that as a lesbian Christian she had any demon to be cast out.  She said that the pulpit in a church is a “sacred space,” and the sermon she heard aimed at LGBT people had violated that sacred space.  Katherine Heath said that the vigor and volume of Dr. Floyd’s sermon delivery concerned her as she condemned lesbians and gay people from the pulpit.  Transgender minister at Living Faith Covenant Church, Minister Carmarion D. Anderson, called for the Rally to remember that “transgender people and many outside the church” were harmed by such religion-based bigotry.  Rev. Deneen Robinson, representing the Human Rights Campaign, Michael Robinson, noted African American LGBT activist, Manda Adams of First Congregational Church (UCC) in Fort Worth, and Blake Wilkinson of Queer LiberAction, also spoke out.  Apostle Alex Byrd, spiritual leader of Living Faith Covenant Church of Dallas, claimed both his heritage as a black man and a gay man, and then called for understanding, dialogue and accountability for anyone demeaning any group of people.  He noted that the Tuesday sessions and workshops at the Urgent Utterances Conference were more inclusive, “something that would make us all proud,” the Apostle said to the crowd.  But while he decried religious homophobia in any church, Apostle Byrd made it clear that preachers in the Black Church tradition were also “accountable for the way their message affects those who hear it.”  He pledged to press the issue with the conference leadership because those who were directly hurt needed a response.  The Examiner reports that “Conversations at tonight’s rally included an email conversation from Apostle Alex Byrd …, working in tandem with Bishop Yvette Flunder, Senior Pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ [San Francisco], to gain an official response from Friendship-West pastoral leadership. In the meantime, as prayers for healing were offered for themselves, Dr. Floyd, Dr. Haynes, and conference attendees and speakers, it was also clear that attendees of tonight’s rally were no longer going to subject themselves to what Pastor Haack termed, “spiritual abuse”, from the pulpit.”  Dr. Leo Perdue, faculty member at Brite and a Vanderbilt Ph.D., said that he was deeply concerned that such a deplorable sermon could be delivered at an event sponsored by his alma mater, and organized by a faculty member there.  He hoped Vanderbilt would quickly distance itself from Dr. Floyd’s sermon.  “Wherever it is done and whoever sponsors it, homophobia is wrong and must be opposed,” he said.  Participants organized to endorse Apostle Byrd’s communiqué to Friendship-West Church, and to commit themselves to work for justice “for the long haul” as Dr. Stephen Sprinkle of Brite and Michael Robinson said at the conclusion of the Rally.  An album of pictures taken at the Rally for Love by Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle and Sam Green may be found on Facebook

UPDATE: Excellent article on the Event by the Examiner

April 16, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Bisexual persons, gay men, harassment, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Louisiana, Protests and Demonstrations, Racism, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Vigils | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

   

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