ABIDE IN LOVE:
An Open Letter to Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church, Fayetteville
May 6, 2012
The Rev. Julie Peeples
Congregational United Church of Christ
Greensboro, NC
1 John 4:7-19
[Note: What follows is an open letter to Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, NC.
The long campaign over Amendment One has resulted in many strong partnerships, new friendships, and
a greater sense of community among those who remain dedicated to working for equality and justice for
all. Sadly, it has also resulted in many negative and mean-spirited messages, including an hour-long
sermon by Pastor Harris in which he advocated violence against children, encouraging parents to hit and
punch their children for showing any tendencies toward being “effeminate” or “too butch,” in his words.
Though he later apologized for his word choice and said he was using hyperbole as Jesus did, his sermon,
like others of his, was filled with derogatory speech which amounts to emotional abuse and a misuse of
his authority. I felt compelled to respond. ]
Dear Pastor Harris,
I am addressing this to you not to convince you to change your mind on this amendment. I know
better than to try. And I will not get into an exchange of Biblical passages with you, those exercises
where two sides lob verses at each other as though they were arrows meant to sink deep into the
opponent’s skin and wound enough to cause retreat. I honor the Bible too much for that.
I address these words because to continue to hold them in my heart would be to deny the urging
of the Holy Spirit telling me to speak the truth in love.
Love — there is a word you and I seem to have a disagreement over. I will have more to say about
that word in a few minutes. By now you are getting some sense of the pain your words have caused.
Let me assure you that is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are so many stories, so many amazing people I wish you could meet. I have met so many
over the years, so many marvelous gay and lesbian people who are the finest Christian people on this
earth. In the past few months I have met some more wonderful people on this journey and heard such
amazing stories – stories that have broken open my heart all over again. Like the 87-yr-old man who as
a young child in Nazi Germany escaped with his family but never escaped the pain of hearing and seeing
the messages that he as a child was counted as less human than other children. Or the black man who
told me of growing up being treated as second class and who could not support something that would
do the same to others. Or the middle-aged woman in the wheelchair who voted the very first day she
could against this amendment because she’s known all her life what it’s like to be treated as less than
fully human. Or all the people who grew up in churches like yours where well-intentioned preachers like
yourself and God-fearing people in the pews gave them the message from childhood on that they were
unlovable by God, the church, and others, how they held that message close, how some tried to end
their lives because of the pain, how some were filled with self-hatred, how some slowly, slowly made
their way back to life, to love, to God, to church. Oh I wish you could meet them all. I wish you could
hear their stories.
And here you are, Mr. Harris, telling another generation of God’s children that if their orientation
is different than yours, they are less than equal, less than human . . . and they deserve to be hurt and
discriminated against. Here you are telling children who will grow up heterosexual that it is o.k. to treat
those who are different from them as something less than human, that it is o.k. to hurt them. There is
nothing in the Bible that justifies that. There is nothing in the Bible, sir, that justifies that — not even
remotely! In fact, one of the great overarching recurring themes of the Bible is how God sets people
free from all that holds them captive, frees them to fully experience their true identity as beloved
children of God, a part of God’s beloved community.
Every time we talk about love, you folks tend to scoff at us. You come back at us with the word,
“but.” As in, “yes, Jesus was about love, but . . .” As in “yes, the Bible speaks of love, but. . .” As in “yes,
we are to love our neighbor but. . .” You see, Jesus didn’t say love your neighbor but not the gay ones.
He didn’t say let the little children come to me but not the effeminate or the butch ones, that it’s o.k. to
abuse them and kick them out of your homes and your churches and take away their rights. The Bible
does not say whoever loves is a child of God, except for those who love someone you don’t approve of.
Perhaps we have different views of the world. We surely have different views of God and the
Bible. You, and many like you, seem to follow an angry and wrathful God always on the lookout for
opportunities to punish and separate and divide and control. Following such a god, naturally you seek
to do the same: to separate, divide, punish, control. Your god often sounds like a bully, and following
such a god seems to create, not loving followers, but people all too ready to bully others. Many of us
strive to follow a God who is love, who seeks always and everywhere to make whole, to heal, to restore,
to complete. To be sure, sometimes that involves tough love, loving in spite of hurt and disagreement
and injury, loving with all our human frailties and imperfections. Following that God, we strive, though
we often fail, to love, to restore, to seek out the lost, to welcome those who’ve been rejected. We
believe God abides in all of us, as we abide in God.
That word, abide — that is a powerful word. Combine it as the Bible does with the even more
powerful word, love, and you have a way of life, a calling. Abide in love: dwell in love, let love make its
home in you, let it be your starting point, the air you breathe, what you surround yourself with so there
is no room for fear, for indeed “complete love casts out fear.” “God is love, and those who abide in love
abide in God, and God abides in them.”
Those differences over which you tie yourself up in knots clearly do not matter to God; in fact God
designed all life with a preference for variety and diversity — another word you don’t seem to care
much for. I don’t think God sees us as cookie cutter beings who deserve punishment for veering out of
the accepted norm. I suspect God sees us as vessels — dwelling places, shelters, chalices — for God’s
self, God’s love.
So whatever happens this Tuesday, Mr. Harris, I will count as a victory. If the amendment fails, it
will be a victory in that the awful harms that could have come about will have been prevented, and a
positive message will be sent to many that we will not tolerate enshrining the fear of some into the
constitution. If the amendment passes, I will celebrate the victory that incredibly strong partnerships,
friendships, indeed new communities have been forged in the fire of shared determination to stand up
for the rights of all. It will be a victory of people who stepped up and sacrificed for the sake of love. I
and hundreds of thousands of others will celebrate the victory that we have a firm foundation on which
to continue the work we have started.
Either way, people of faith will continue that work — not in fear or anger — but abiding in love.
Because that’s the way of Jesus. Either way, we will continue to do justice, love kindness, and walk
humbly with God. That’s in the Bible, too.
In the meantime I will pray for you and your congregation. You are now on the receiving end of
much backlash; having received a bit of it myself over the years, I know a little about that. For most
people, this is a journey. I will pray that the Holy Spirit will work in your heart and mind and in the
hearts and minds of your congregation. I will pray for the children there, and for the youth — especially
the youth who may be struggling with their sexual orientation. I will pray that you will, by the grace of
God, come to know the joy my congregation has come to know. That love comes from God, that all
kinds of families can be strong and beautiful and loving and good. That we all have wounds and what
matters is that we add to God’s healing rather than adding to the pain. I invite you to join in dialogue:
an interfaith exchange with me, with others, to share stories, to share differing interpretations of
Scripture, to speak and to listen and to learn together. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the children.
In the meantime, you and those who believe and preach and act as you do will likely continue to
say hurtful things even if you believe they are well-intentioned and true. We will choose not to dwell in
the hurt and the anger. We will seek to abide in love, the unconditional love God has proclaimed for
each of us. Someday, perhaps by the grace of God, we will all celebrate and rejoice in that love
together. I leave with the well-worn words of poet Edwin Markham,
He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in.
In the Love of Christ,
Julie Peeples
Senior Minister
Congregational United Church of Christ
Greensboro, NC