I’ve only been through Columbia, Mo., once and that was in 2013 — at night — and I remember it as being kind of hilly. It’s best known as the home of the University of Missouri, which has one of the best journalism schools in the country, many of whose graduates no doubt work at the Columbia Daily Tribune, one of two newspapers in town.
A few weeks ago, the Tribune made a foray into religion coverage with a piece about the city’s largest megachurch, The Crossing, and its pastor’s decision to preach on the transgender issue.
As you may imagine, that sermon did not go over well in a college town. And, as you would imagine, the newspaper’s coverage devoted zero effort to understanding what this church believes and why its leaders defend these doctrines. You were expecting basic journalism?
Many in the local LGBTQ+ community are outraged this week over what they say was a transphobic sermon delivered Sunday at a Columbia church, which has since apologized and stated the message was not intended to be discriminatory.
Pastor Keith Simon of The Crossing delivered a sermon on gender dysphoria where he referred to transgender people as “broken,” compared intersex individuals with eunuchs and in one instance displayed Nazi propaganda imagery, comparing the Third Reich to LGBTQ+ “culture.”
His oration has so far caused a local art gallery to cut ties with the church and spurred a petition calling on another nonprofit to do the same. Simon could not be reached at the church on Friday and a staff member suggested emailing him, to which he did not respond.
The art gallery has been receiving donations from the church for some time, by the way. In a statement, the gallery objected to the preacher’s backing of “heteronormative philosophy.”
In response to the sermon, The Crossing issued a statement on its website apologizing for any harm it may have caused the LGBTQ+ community.
“We reject all violence and bigotry against trans people,” the statement reads. “We are deeply saddened by the ways the Christian church has ignored, marginalized, othered, and hurt the trans community. We sincerely apologize for any and all the ways we’ve participated in this behavior. We are clearly not a perfect church and it’s likely we have our own blind spots regarding how we have contributed to this hurt.”
The bulk of the story that followed was critical of the church and quoted leaders of several organizations that planned to break ties with The Crossing over this one sermon.
There was no explanation of The Crossing’s beliefs on human sexuality and how they tied in with Christian doctrines extending back 2,000 years or more. The writer was clearly on a tear to build the case that these folks are Neanderthals. Actually, they belong to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a comparatively new denomination.
Stupidly, the pastor did not respond to a request for an interview, so I can’t totally blame the writer for loading the story with the church’s critics. But some background on this place would have helped.
For instance, why not add that the church is involved in helping people pay off their medical debts to the tune of more than $430,000 in cold cash? If you watch the offending sermon (posted above), the pastor describes the contributions. A mention of this factoid would have given the church a human face. (The Tribune did report on this Sept. 14 but a reminder would have been nice).
I am not sure why the paper put the criminal justice reporter on the story, but his ignorance of religion basics — like doctrine — came through. Not able to get a quote from the Crossing folks, he chose a group that is the theological opposite: Unitarians.
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia offered a response on social media calling Simon’s interpretation “backwards.” The Tribune reached out to Rev. Molly Housh Gordon but she did not immediately return a call to her office Friday.
“Hey The Crossing, we’re pretty sure you got your Genesis exegesis backwards,” the post reads. “If we’re made man and woman in God’s image, then it seems pretty clear that God is genderqueer, nonbinary, and/or intersex. At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, Missouri (UUCC), we believe that trans and nonbinary identities are divine!”
A sentence explaining the two churches have diametrically opposite views on almost everything would have added context here. If the reporter is going to comb Twitter for comments, at least try to get some theological variety.
The article did include a statement from The Crossing on its web site:
The Biblical definition of marriage, Simon implies in his sermon, is offensive to “the culture,” a reference he makes several times apparently pointing to those with differing views about sexuality. Simon, at the early service on Sunday, displayed an image of a Nazi rally and said Germans accepted the Third Reich dictatorship as part of their “culture.”
“You can’t call the culture lord and Jesus lord,” Simon said. “Be careful if you follow culture. In this culture, in Germany in the 1930s, the culture said something that was horrendously wrong. Be careful where following culture will lead you. Jesus is lord, not culture.”
The Crossing in its statement denied any comparison of LGBTQ+ culture to the Nazis, calling it a “ridiculous assertion.”
“During the first service on Sunday, Keith used a picture of a Nazi rally as evidence that it’s never smart to make culture your authority because majority opinion is often wrong,” the church wrote. “After the service, Keith decided the illustration, while true, could be misinterpreted and so he didn’t use it in the second or third service.”
The church also added that its leaders have preached on this topic only once in the past 19 years, so it’s not like they’re trashing gay or trans people every week. I listened to the entire sermon, by the way, and I didn’t pick up any transphobia. The newspaper only pulled out a few quotes, for space reasons to be sure, but all the same, it’s important to listen to the whole sermon.
Left unanswered is the question of why the reporter didn’t find members of the church to interview. He quoted plenty of other folks around town; why not try people who actually go to the place?
“Sex and the exclusivity of Jesus have always offended the culture,” the preacher said at the beginning of his sermon and that sure goes for the local newspaper, which could not get over its offense to do an objective retelling of the story.
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