Pastor credits the ‘unashamed’ LGBT community for ‘provoking’ his anti-gay views

An anti-gay Southern Baptist minister wrote an open letter to the LGBT community, thanking them for reminding Christians why they should continue opposing same-sex marriage.

As a response to the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, Tennessee pastor Kevin Shrum posted his piece, “An Open Letter to my LGBT Friends and Neighbors,” on Christian Post, saying: “The Court’s ruling, I believe, I hope, has awakened a ‘sleeping giant’ called the Church.

“Thank you LBGT community for provoking an otherwise slumbering, complacent church.

“We have much to answer for — hypocritical, theologically lazy, truthless and loveless Christianity.

“Thank you for being a part of God’s plan to awaken the Church to rise up and embrace the truth of God’s Word and the life-altering Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

He credits the LGBT community’s fight for progress as necessary motivation for “the Church” to fight back.

Dr. Shrum – who earned a doctorate from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary – says most Christians do not emulate Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, but are “disappointed” in the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

He then calls for “an army of loving, truth-telling believers will rise with Gospel in one hand and mercy in the other” to address the situation, but reassures his “LGBT friends” that even he is a sinner, just like them.

Dr. Shrum then addresses coming out of the closet, saying: “I have felt a degree of liberty to freely and lovingly speak my mind to people of all walks of life.

“In fact, I have learned this from you, the LGBT community. You have been unafraid to ‘come out.’

“So, this ruling has given me a renewed freedom to ‘come out’ as a Christian who believes God’s Word, affirms marriage as between a man and a woman, and who offers the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ to all sinners, especially me.

“Thank you for this reminder in being unashamed.”

While his claim that the LGBT community being “unafraid” and “unashamed” to come out is vastly ignorant at best, he concludes by saying he will “make every effort” to see that sinners repent.

Jean Anne Esselink from The New Civil Rights Movement hails Kevin Shrum’s letter as “the world’s most passive aggressive open letter” and a “declaration of war.”

Even users on the website seem to be conflicted in responding to the piece.

Many replies throughout the religious article’s comment section were reported for abuse after expressing hateful sentiments.

Luckily, the most aggressive posters will be able to throw their support in the upcoming US presidential election behind Mike Huckabee, who believes stopping Christians from being homophobic should be a “hate crime.”

Although Kevin Shrum and his followers are likely to face even more “disappointment”  – according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 62 percent of “white mainline Protestants” and 57 percent of Catholics are in favour of same-sex marriage.

However, they may find support over in Australia, where an archbishop has declared that Christians are being intimidated to support same-sex marriage.

As Kevin Shrum says, the fight for LGBT equality has “only just begun.”

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