The organization Church Clarity monitors the way that LGBTQ issues are taught in churches across the U.S. and an analysis of the 100 largest ones finds that 0% affirm LGBTQ policies.
Of those 100 churches, 35 have clear policies that reject LGBT people and 54 have unclear policies on LGBT issues. 11 omit all mention of the issue from publicly-accessible records.
Southern Baptist megachurches were the most likely to actively preach rejection of LGBT people, with 62% found to do so. 47% of Independent Christian Churches also rejected LGBT people.
Religion News Service columnist Jonathan Merritt said:
“While progressive Christians often claim that same-sex issues have largely been settled, America’s mega-churches have apparently not received the memo. None of them have policies affirming same-sex people and relationships.
This staggering statistic will doubtlessly provide firepower to conservative Christians who claim that LGBTQ+ affirmation is a slippery slope to liberalism and a congregation killer.”
And duh, the largest churches were guess what? – Overwhelmingly white and male. 93% of the megachurches were led by a white pastor and 99% are led by a man.
Church Clarity’s co-founder Tim Schraeder said:
“Part of the reason we chose to release this now is because the New Year is a time when people decide to reengage with religion by attending church. As people of faith commit to new resolutions, we wanted to set them up for success by helping them make the most informed decision.
We hope that increased clarity will inspire necessary questions and waves of change within the church.
As we close out 2017, we’ll continue to verify church submissions to our database and score churches’ actively enforced policies that impact LGBTQ individuals.”
Pastor John MacArthur of the 3500 seat Grace Community Church in L.A. recently claimed that there is no such thing as gay people. MacArthur insisted,
“No one is gay. If you mean by that, that that’s some hardwiring, no one is gay. People commit adultery, they commit sins of homosexuality, they lie, they steal, they cheat… They are not gay any more than an adulterer is hardwired to be forced by his own nature to commit adultery. Those are all behavioral sins that are condemned in scripture.
God didn’t hardwire anybody in such a way that they are not responsible for certain behaviors…. we do no service to people who are caught in the vicious sins of homosexuality by letting them define themselves by that sin.“
MacArthur responded to a letter from a parent whose son had just come out by saying,
“If they profess to be a Christian, you have to alienate them. You have to separate them. You can’t condone that. It’s inconsistent with Christ. So you isolate them, you don’t have a meal with them, you separate yourself from them. You turn them over to Satan as it were as scripture says.”
And Jesus barfed.
(Photo, Wikimedia Commons; via Pink News)
