I, unfortunately, have decided that I’m going to have to leave my church due to their unrelenting BLM support and (of course) racism towards anyone who isn’t openly supporting it. When I joined this church in 2012 it was great, it was extremely spiritual and wasn’t extremist in any sort of way. They were very open and accepting of all beliefs, and I never felt ashamed to be there.
Now the entire church is only discussing how white people need to pray on our inherent evil towards minorities. One of our ministers is a black woman who was very accepting until BLM first came into existence. After that she set up a church protest to go protest the execution of a black man who had raped and murdered a woman and her child. I was NOT down with participating with that, and really considered leaving after that incident but ultimately decided to stay. From there she and another minister made it known she was not a Trump fan and now all of the leaders there are calling all white people racist. They also just recently said even other races were racist if they didn’t support BLM.
It wasnt super obvious until these past few months, but from then on things kept becoming more extremist and unaccepting. This is not a place where people can celebrate differences in thought or beliefs.
Have any of you guys had to leave a church or a community due to the rising racism of BLM / all the other shit going on? I honestly never thought I’d be hard pressed into leaving, but I don’t feel peace or love there anymore. I don’t even know how to go about finding another place to worship because I’m sure my church isn’t the only place where this is happening.
I am a conservative Lutheran pastor.
Any time God’s people value the culture of the world more than the unique Christian culture that we are baptized into, there’s gonna be problems.
The problems start small. Let’s reword part of this prayer. Let’s tweak part of this language. Before you know it suddenly you get a watered down inoffensive Gospel.
It’s a shame. The truth is that the word of God kills. It kills sinners and raises saints through the death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.
That makes a believer different than they were before. Thus they start to live the faith they’ve been given.
For more reading on this check out the Indigenizing principle vs the Pilgrim principle.
The short version is that there’s always a tension because we are a part of our born-into culture (indigenizing) but called into a new one which makes us an outsider even in our former culture (pilgrim).
I’ll also answer questions if there are any.
Good to see another pastor on this board. LCMS?
Yes! Baptized as a teenager and then confirmed in a fantastic LCMS church. You?
LCMS - Do you know who Rev. Jeffrey Hemmer is? I've listened to some of his lectures and I like him a lot.
Yes actually! He spoke at a retreat that I volunteered at not too long ago. Great guy! Very serious about men leading their families in a godly way. Also your life sounds a lot like mine. It makes you really appreciate Jesus doesn't it?
Also listened to some of Jordan Cooper's stuff, he's solid it seems like
Baptized methodist as a child, grew up totally pagan, got arrested a whole bunch, got involved in the 12 steps and was converted in my early 30s. I'm in the pca but have lots of love for the LCMS.