Radical Incivility
Monday, August 6, 2007
Opened my email this morning and found this:
I invite you to keep the First Baptist Church of Granville and their pastor,the Rev. Dr. Kathy Hurt, in your prayers. First Baptist is a welcoming and affirming congregation and is in partnership with the United Church of Christ as a member of the Alliance of Baptists. The church has been picketed because of an art exhibit and a week ago their worship service was disrupted. Kathy wrote last week to her church: “The protests by a group called Minutemen United, which began in conjunction with our hosting of the art exhibit “Love Makes a Family,” are continuing in an especially unsettling way: individuals from the group have been coming to our Sunday worship services. Their intent seems not to be to join us in worship, for they do not participate in any fashion (and in fact some make a point of avoiding interaction with us), but rather to discover ways to challenge, even intimidate us.
Two Sundays ago, two members of the Minutemen group attended worship and simply observed. Last Sunday, six members of the group came to the worship service. During our time of joys and concerns, one of the group members, who identified himself as their pastor, came to the microphone and shared not a personal joy or concern, but some of their judgmental message. When it seemed that he intended to “kidnap” the service and move into a criticism of our welcoming and affirming perspective, I took the microphone away from him, at which point the entire group of Minutemen stalked out of the service.”
Many of us have been subject of protests because of positions we or our churches have taken but seldom have our worship services been disrupted. We do want to welcome all people to worship, affirming that wherever you are on life’s journey you are welcome here, but we do not want and can not allow the sacred time of worship and praise to be disturbed by persons who disagree with our welcoming of all of God’s children. I understand this group has also recently targeted King Avenue United Methodist Church.
If this sounds like a case of persecution for righteousness’ sake, you must have it backward. Visit the Minutemen United web site, which is one long lament about how persecuted they are. For instance, this event took place in Coshocton County.
