The unknown destroyer destroyed a plexiglass sign outside Washington Plaza Baptist Church in Reston, Virginia.
Members of the congregation were first noted by the shattered songs and missing letters.
“Whatever was used to break the plexiglass on the sign was more correct than the word pride,” Michelle Nickens, pastor of Washington Plaza Baptist Church, told the Reston edition of the local news site. patch. “They actually damaged it, and the little track where the letters were slipped in was damaged. We couldn’t even revert the letters back.”
Because the damage was concentrated on pride messages, Nickens (a strange woman) believes the church is aiming to violate LGBTQ.
The Church is one of the founding faith communities behind Reston Pride, with Nickens serving as the liaison to the event’s clergy and organising blessings from local faith institutions.
Church members march in the capital’s Pride Parade, and Nickens is the only Baptist clergy who speaks every year on Transgender Memory, a vigil honoring the transgender individual who has died in violence.
Recently, representatives to the Southern Baptist Treaty have overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the overturned overthrow of the US Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage. The resolution also urged lawmakers to support heterosexual marriage and child-rearing, and encouraged followers to reject the validity of transgender identity.
However, Baptist churches are historically independent and do not answer central religious authority. As a result, they do not need to follow the directions of the Southern Baptist Treaty. Allow churches like Washington Plaza Baptist to accept their views on LGBTQ dignity and same-sex relationships.
“We welcome and affirm LGBTQ people. This means that not only are LGBTQ people welcomed, but they also get married,” Nickens said. patch. “I am a strange woman myself, so our church is fully inclusive of the LGBTQ community.
“I hope there are more people who know that there is a church like us. We are not typical of most Baptist organizational positions. We happen to be members of the associations that welcome and affirm the Baptist association and the Baptist alliance.”
Nickens boldly took vandalism and refused to change the church’s beliefs or silence its positive attitude towards the LGBTQ community.
“The biblical poem says, ‘What you meant for evil, God used it for good,'” she said. patch. “That’s how I interpret it. Whatever it is, if you used a hammer or a brick, or whatever you had in our sign, it only makes us stronger.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
