Another Sunday sermon, another monumental issue. A week after pastors struggled to make sense of the Charleston church massacre, they were back in the pulpit offering spiritual guidance on the legalization of same-sex marriage.
The confluence of so many dramatic events in recent weeks — including the high court ruling on Obamacare and the Confederate flag fallout from Charleston — highlighted numerous sermons across metro Atlanta.
Some pastors took on the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling directly, offering a wide spectrum of opinions depending on the church. But others saw religious significance in what has been a cascade of national tragedy and watershed social events, prompting them to sound higher themes.
“This last week we’ve heard and we’ve seen strange things,” The Rev. Cameron Madison Alexander told the Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta. “Someone asked me where are we headed? I said we’re headed for judgment.”
At St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in downtown Atlanta, the Rev. Heather Chase said recent events led her to devote her sermon to a message of inclusion and acceptance.
“If nothing else, if you hear that you are loved and you are welcome, you have heard the message for today,” Chase said.
“I feel like Christians are under attack”
Friday’s high court ruling on gay marriage reverberated through many sermons, ranging from thunderous warnings on the country’s moral decline to joyful hymns of gratitude.
A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that gays and lesbians have a legal right to marry in all 50 states. Georgia had been among 13 states that banned same-sex unions.
The Rev. Bryant Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in East Cobb, struck hard at the court decision, saying it makes “what God says is evil” the law of the land.
He blasted the ruling as the latest sign of the country’s spiraling morals, a trend that he said began in the sixties with the sexual revolution.
“Sexual liberty and religious liberty are on a collision course,” he said.
In turn, he believes the court ruling opens the door to more grievous legal decisions, including the legalization of polygamy, bigamy and even incestuous unions.
Church members praised Wright for having the courage to speak his convictions, especially in light of the popular acceptance of gay marriage.
“It’s very sad what’s happening in America,” said Lisa Hudson, 52, of Marietta. “I feel like Christians are under attack.”
“Marriage equality has come to Georgia. Amen!”
Meanwhile, services at North Decatur Presbyterian Church were suffused with joy over the gay-marriage ruling.
Co-pastor David Lewicki began by asking in a tongue-in-cheek tone whether there happened to be any announcements. Three new same-sex marriages were announced to applause from the congregation at the church, which serves heterosexual and gay congregants.
Lewicki began his sermon by saying, “Marriage equality has come to Georgia. Amen!” drawing cheers and claps.
Children were called forward to read “Donovan’s Big Day,” a children’s book about a boy assisting in the wedding of his two mothers. That ended with the congregation saying with the reader, “We love because God first loved us.”
“Our teaching is not in vain”
At Victory for the World Church in Stone Mountain, prayers for ailing members included words of support for families of the victims killed in the Charleston church shooting, and thanks for President Barack Obama for providing health coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
Pastor Kenneth L. Samuel said recent events have been so overwhelming that people hardly had time to catch their breath. The South Carolina native praised the governor of that state for her call to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds. He spoke with pride of the forgiveness families of the Charleston victims showed confessed shooter Dylann Roof.
Samuel likened people today to King David in the Bible when he lost his way and asked God to restore his joy.
“I got my joy back because I know our teaching is not in vain,” he said. “This lets me know there is power in the gospel. Only the church could take violence and respond to it with love.”
Samuel has been steadfast in his support of gays — the church operates an outreach ministry to the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual community — and the pastor has invited same-sex couples to marry at the church.
The Supreme Court’s ruling will “force the church to deal with one of its demons,” he said.
‘God help us all’
At Trinity Chapel in West Cobb, church member Janet Savage affirmed her belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.
“Is (the court decision) truly about equality for the LGB community, or is it about forced acceptance and normalizing that which is not normal?” she said. “My heart grieves the passage of this law. God help us all.”
At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Pastor Raphael Warnock said, “I don’t believe that gay people’s marriages are a threat to other people’s marriages. And I don’t believe that what happened this week means that all of a sudden God is going to destroy America.”
Warnock told those in the church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached, “There will be a lot of debate about this in the coming days, but I feel that if there’s anything we don’t want the Supreme Court doing, we don’t want the Supreme Court to be interpreting scripture.”
Seeing what’s important
The Rev. Geoffrey Hoare told the people at All Saints Episcopal Church in Midtown that in the face of so many significant events, it’s hard for some to sort out what is most important. People on different sides of the issues have differing views of what’s important.
For those who support gay marriage, it’s a time to “celebrate with abandon … This is hope, this is joy,” but Hoare noted that not everyone feels a call to celebration.
He urged congregants to sort out what matters — what’s worth caring about.
“Caring comes at a price, but it is the way in which God calls every one of us to purpose, to meaning,” Hoare said. What’s most important should remain at the forefront, he said: All people are beloved by God.
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