As the LGBTQIA+ community was once again the target of a mass shooting, there was an outpouring of grief and mourning across the nation. Yet, from conservative pulpits around the country, there was something else…silence. From a quick glance of twitter feeds, these pastors who often rail against the “gay/trans agenda”, have been unable to muster even a hollow “thoughts & prayers” in the three days following this massacre:
Albert Mohler – President Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Tom Ascol – Pastor of Grace Baptist (FL) and president of Founders Ministries
Colin Smothers – Pastor of FBC Maize (KS)
JD Greear – Pastor of The Summit Church (NC) and former SBC President
Danny Akin – President Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Scott Aniol – VP of G3 Ministries and professor at Grace Bible Theological Seminary
Dale Partridge – Pastor of Reformation Fellowship (AZ)
Ed Litton – Pastor of Redemption Church and former SBC President
Josh Buice – President of G3 Minstries
Denny Burk – Associate Pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church
Nathaniel Jolly – Pastor of Homer Reformed Baptist Church
Preston Sprinkle – Author and President of The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender
Grant Castleberry – Pastor of Capital Community Church (NC)
John Piper – Pastor and Chancellor of Bethlehem College (MN)
Brett McCracken – Senior Editor of The Gospel Coalition and pastor of Southlands Brea (CA)
James White – Director of Apologia Church (AZ)
Dustin Benge – Professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Michael Foster – Pastor East River Church (OH)
Josh Daws – Host of The Great Awokening Podcast
Ted Wilson – Pastor of Adventist Church (MD)
Sam Neves – Director of Communication of Adventist Church (MD) Erik Reed - Pastor of The Journey Church (TN)
When each of these men were posed with the question “does this loss of life bother you?” on Twitter, only two answered. Erik Reed blocked me. Josh Buice’s response was “why do you care what I think?” When pressed, more deflections and then a denial of my faith were the result. But let’s focus on Josh’s first response. Why do I care what he, or any of these men, think?
I have been in the church my entire life. I grew up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult. Moved to a Southern Baptist church. Then Church of Christ. Now, as of this past Sunday, we are members of a Christian Reformed Church. But throughout all those denominations (sorry, CoC, you’re a denomination no matter how much you deny it), there’s been one consistent teaching. All Christians, but especially church leaders, should speak out against injustice. Now, they may disagree on what constitutes an “injustice”, but surely mass murder qualifies in any Christian denomination.
Speaking against mass murder is a no-brainer. Asking a pastor if they condemn the murder of those who bear God’s divine image is a softball question. But they refuse. Josh Buice went so far as to respond further so he could deny my faith in Christ. But church leaders should be at the forefront of standing against violence and oppression. Instead, silence. The queer community sees this too. Take Albert Mohler for example. The day of the shooting, Al had tweeted out an article in which he declared “this article is so important we released it on a Saturday”. What was this pressing matter that necessitated a special Saturday release? Voicing opposition to the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifed same-sex marriage rights at the federal level. Ignoring the fact that his feed was full of anti-trans and anti-gay messaging the entirety of Transgender Awareness Week, Al felt that this matter was of such great importance that his nearly 200,000 followers had to read about. That night, a man known for using homophobic slurs walked into Club Q in Colorado Springs and murdered five beautiful souls.
Did this massacre give Mohler pause? No. Did this massacre even warrant a hollow “thoughts and prayers”? No. In the days since this tragedy, Al has tweeted 13 times. Every tweet related to his opposition to my marriage. Not a single tweet about the senseless slaughter in Colorado. But this is not just an Albert Mohler problem. The list above is certainly not exhaustive. This does reveal a much greater issue. Pastors, even when asked, are staying silent for one reason. The victims are queer.
Not only are these Christian leaders failing to lead. Not only are they silent about the mass murder of LGBTQIA+ people. I would argue they are complicit in fomenting the very rage at the root of this attack. The church has a long history of oppression of LGBTQIA+ people. That’s no startling revelation. The rhetoric lately, however, has become violent. It has become vitriolic.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been called a “groomer” by men in these circles. One went as far as to accuse me of grooming my own children. His evidence? I exist in their presence. When, from pulpits and social media platforms, these men call us “groomers” simply for being LGBTQIA+, when they accuse of destroying society, call us pedophiles, or accuse us of trying to steal your children and “trans” them, then Club Q happens. Instead of inviting queer people into their spaces to listen, learn, and seek understanding, they deny our very humanity to their followers. We are no longer beautiful children of God who bear Their divine image. We are predators. We are animals. We are cockroaches, as Matt Walsh calls us (I’ll have more on him later). Any engagement with us is viewed as an opportunity to dehumanize, instead of love.
For example, here are some names I have been called (not counting the daily “groomer”, “freak”, “pervert”):
“Winsome ambassador for an evil ideology”
“Destroyer of the human race”
“Diabolic cartoon villain”
“Gargantuan, banal, historical cliché of an asshole”
But this isn’t about me. There are others who get it exponentially worse, especially since most of my interactions are in supposedly Christian circles. That mutes it…somewhat. But when you use this type of language, when you dehumanize, when you degrade, you foment the fear and anger needed to trigger what we saw in Colorado. This is something I experienced firsthand in the Army. As an infantry soldier, it began in day 1 of Basic Training. Marching to chow to cadences that talked of shooting up schoolyards full of children and other grotesque acts of violence. Looking back, it all makes sense. They must chip away at our humanity first. Once that’s been done, then we start at chipping away the humanity of the “enemy”, so by the time we stepped foot in Iraq, who we saw weren’t human beings. They were animals. They were cockroaches (sound familiar, Matt?). They were not even human. This is what leads to genuinely good people laughing at the sight of a 15 year old Iraqi boy shot in the head.
We are seeing this in present day America. Worse, we’re seeing this play out in churches across the country. The LGBTQIA+ community has never been a community that the church, in general, has ever made much of an effort to reach out to. Sure, some churches have pushed torturous conversion therapy, but that’s not reaching out to love. That’s reaching out to harm. And it reveals that we are only “good” to them if we are the right kind of queer. The kind that will torture ourselves until we either take our lives or leave the church altogether. But I refuse! I refuse to accept their man-made terms, rooted in hatred, fear, and ignorance!
Sadly, though, their approach is working because fear is much easier to sell than radical love. Fear is much easier to embrace. When you dehumanize us, then paint us as though we are a threat to your children, then sprinkle in violent rhetoric, you end up with Colorado Springs. You end up with a UHaul full of Patriot Front members arrested as they were on their way to attack those celebrating at Coeur d’Alene Pride in Idaho. You end up with the dramatic increase in anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crimes that we’re currently seeing. You end up with, yet again, record numbers of transgender people murdered for nothing more than existing as trans people.
This is why I care about what men like Josh Buice thinks about the mass murder of queer people in Colorado. The refusal to answer only feeds into their rhetoric. When you spend every day dehumanizing and attacking LGBTQIA+ people, while remaining silent when we are murdered, then you send a message to your congregants and social media followers that our lives are not of any value. Our lives are not just “lesser”, they are altogether worthless. This is why I care what men, who already hate me and with whom I already disagree, have to say about the senseless murder of my queer siblings.
Mere hours after the shooting, Dale Partridge, the pastor of Reformation Fellowship in Prescott, AZ, tweeted out “There is no common ground between the follower of Christ and the promoter of transgender ideology. One serves God and the other serves self”. Bodies were likely still being identified at this point. News had spread, and I’m confident that Dale knew exactly what happened the night before. I also am confident he knew that November 20th was Transgender Day of Remembrance…a day to remember trans people who have been murdered in the year prior. At least two trans people were dead in Colorado Springs. The club was a crime scene. Yet Dale, again…a pastor, went on the attack against transgender people.
These men are taking their cues from men like Matt Walsh, not God. Not a God who, in 1 John 4:8, we are told is LOVE, and that those who do not love, do not know God. Instead, they listen to someone like Matt Walsh, who has argued for the supremacy of arranged marriage, and that “consent has become some complex calculus” as he used Harvey Weinstein and accused child rapist ex-Cardinal McCarrick as examples of how “we’ve turned consent into this super confusing calculus”. The same Matt Walsh who defended the Duggar family and their handling of their pedophile son, Josh, when he was a teenager, going so far as to even say that if his own son molested his daughter, he doesn’t know if he’d run to report it to the police because he doesn’t know if his 14 yr old son would deserve to have his life ruined “over his mistakes”. The same Matt Walsh who sees the problem with a 16 yr old girl becoming pregnant isn’t that she’s pregnant, but that she isn’t getting married too. The same Matt Walsh who talks about a teenage girl reaching “peak fertility” at 17 years old.
These men are taking their lead from people like Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok. Chaya loves to highlight children’s hospitals around the country who provide gender-affirming care to trans youth. The same care that is endorsed by EVERY major medical association in the United States. This has prompted multiple bomb threats at Boston Children’s Hospital. This has resulted in constant harassment and threats against doctors and hospitals across the country. These people know what they are doing. They know what their followers are going to do. Chaya, Matt, Christopher Rufo…all of these people simply point their followers in the direction they want them to go, then leave it to their followers to attack. All while these people sit back and feign innocence. “We can’t control what others do?!” they say. They are the people who scream fire in a crowded theater, then blame the people in the theater for trampling others to death.
There is blood on their hands. And pastors and people sitting in pews every Sunday morning willingly go along with these lies and the violent rhetoric. Then you have people like Tim Pool, with his 1.4 MILLION followers, tweets “the grooming of children is not stopping. People are calling for more violence. I do not think legislators will stop the grooming. People will not stop calling for violence. So you tell me what happens next.” He knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows that his is a call for violence. He is signaling to his followers that legislators will not stop LGBTQIA+ people, so violence is the option. Hate group founder, Jaimee Michell of Gays Against Groomers, appeared on Tucker Carlson and said that she doesn’t believe that these mass murders “will stop until we end this evil agenda that is attacking children”. Let’s call this what it is…it is a terroristic threat. “Killings will continue until we achieve our political ends” is literally what terrorism is.
Pastors, this is why I care what you think. Your congregants and followers are being discipled by hate and fear. It is your responsibility to speak against it. You cannot afford to remain silent. It is costing lives. It is now 4 days since the massacre. You claim to follow Jesus Christ, but it took Christ less time to raise from the dead and defeat death than it is for you to say “mass murder of queer people is evil and we will stand against it”.
***UPDATE*** Nathaniel Jolly of Homer (AK) Reformed Baptist Church did eventually respond. His response was to claim he was completely unaware of the shooting four days after it occurred and had dominated tv news and social media platforms, accuse me of slander and "recommend" I remove his name, and then he asked "what church do you attend?" Why would he want to know what church I attend? I've been through this before. where I've had people actually try to organize a coordinated effort to find my home church in Texas and harass them into initiating church discipline against me for being a professed Christian and trans woman. As I pointed out to Nathaniel, given the events of this past weekend, this question was inappropriate and unsettling. Best case, he wants to use that information to harass my church. Worst case, someone takes the information and plots far worse. Having interacted many times with his followers on social media, I honestly cannot say which case is the most likely case. Jolly's response reveals that either: 1) he is so unbelievably disconnected from reality to the point that he fails to comprehend why publicly asking a trans woman for information that could be used to track her exact location every Sunday morning, four days after a massacre specifically targeting LGBTQIA+ people, would be seen as a threat to her, her family's, and her church's safety, or 2) he knows exactly the anxiety and fear that his question would elicit, but either didn't care or that was his goal. When I pointed out my concerns, Jolly responded by misgendering me when calling me a "drama king". This is a "pastor", folks, addressing a person from a community that was just targeted in an act of mass murder.
But there was a pastor who actually did respond in a positive manner and display the humility that should be the norm for church leaders, and that's certainly worth mentioning. Unlike Jolly, there are pastors who can be decent human beings. These stories deserve mention as well. Sam Neves read this blog. Pastor Neves' response stated "Insightful & heartfelt. Thank you. Made me reflect on my voice as a leader". THIS IS WHAT I WANT!!! I don't demand affirmation. I do demand respect and humility. This is leadership. I don't know what changes he'll make at his church or within himself, but I will say that, at the very least, the next time he is drawn into a conversation re: LGBTIA+ issues, then I am hopeful that his response will look more like that of the Christ we both serve. So, thank you Pastor Neves. Of all the church leaders listed above, yours is the only response that was not silent, threatening, or insulting.