P!nk Thanks Pastor for Calling Out Evangelical Silence After Colorado Shooting at Gay Club
P!nk is letting her opinions regarding Evangelical Christians’ response — or rather, the lack thereof — to the recent shooting at Colorado’s gay Club Q be known. On Sunday (Nov. 27), the “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” singer reshared a TikTok video that her pal Leslie Jones posted to Twitter. In the clip, Pastor Bob Lerien of the Redeemer Lutheran Church (in Lancaster, Penn.) condemned people of the cloth who have been silent on the tragedy.
“It’s time to be very clear about something. All of you Evangelical and fundamentalist clergy who claim to be pastors and shepherds of God’s flock who step into your pulpits and preach hate and bigotry and transphobia and homophobia, you are blasphemers and you are false prophets,” Lerien started. “If you are proclaiming anything but the acceptance and love of God’s beautiful and beloved LGBTQIA+ children, you are blaspheming against the image of God in which they were created, and you will be judged for the blood on your hands because you are enabling the hate that kills God’s beautiful children.”
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The pastor continued, “For all you Evangelical and fundamentalist lay people who fill the pews and offering plates in those churches, you have blood on your hands because your offerings are financing the hate. Your offerings are paying to stoke the fires that lead to people committing these despicable acts of violence against the innocent. And for all my fellow mainline protestant progressive Christian clergy and especially bishops and other judicatory executives who are not speaking out – how dare you. If you are not condemning homophobia and transphobia explicitly from your pulpit, then you are enabling it implicitly in the streets. If you are not condemning it, you are complicit in it. Your silence is violence and the time for neutrality is long over, so suit up and speak up or sit down and shut up.”
In response to the video, P!nk wrote a simple “Thank you” to the pastor for getting his point across. The singer’s tweet makes her one of many celebrities who have spoken up about the Colorado Springs gay club shooting in which five people were killed and at least 18 injured; musicians who have expressed their anger and condolences include Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, Hayley Kiyoko and more.
See P!nk’s tweet below.
Starr Bowenbank
Billboard
