Man 'Disrupts,' Condemns Massachusetts United Church of Christ's 'Drag Gospel Fest'
The lead pastor of a United Church of Christ in Massachusetts describes what happened when a Christian man disrupted its annual "Drag Gospel Festival" event held to raise money for assisting LGBT asylum seekers in the U.S. and whose promotional poster carried a 12th century icon of Jesus Christ "digitally enhanced" with makeup and earrings.
The festival, as this church describes, is "a Mardi Gras atmosphere, a chance to bend gender, which society is beginning to understand is so far beyond binary, and a chance for children and adults to be who they really are from the inside out." The church's website says: "God is GOOD all the time! That means God is a DIVA… and girl… Jesus is FIERCE!"
"This year's poster for the Festival ruffled some feathers," writes lead pastor Molly Baskette on the church's blog.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Narrating the incident, she writes that a young man came to the church during the festival last month, and "in the middle of the scripture reading, he stood up, turned to the congregation, and began to condemn us with ancient words from the Hebrew scriptures."
But then seven men surrounded the man to "gently" search for weapons and the associate pastor came down to speak to him face to face, according to Baskette's account.
Associate Pastor Jeff "called him by name, for the man was wearing a name tag—some part of him wanting to be known—and together, they talked loudly but calmly about holiness, about deeply held religious convictions, about their mutual love of Jesus and desire for fullness of life for every child of God. I moved closer, to support Jeff."
Baskette says she saw "hundreds of hands" raised, "not in fear, not in surrender, but in blessing."
"And finally Jeff said, 'You've said what you came to say, you've been heard, and it's time for you to go. But one more thing: I want you to know that I love you.' … And the man turned to all of us and said, 'I love you all too.'"
In the "Who We are" section page on its website, the church asks, "Are these church people weirdos, nerds, hypocrites and heretics?" And answers, "yup," saying its congregation is about 40 percent LGBTQ. "We tend to be theologically ultra-progressive but we love the healthy tension that comes from stimulating dialogue and difference," it adds.
