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Pastor responds to homosexuality hypocrisy in a sermon video that’s gone viral.
A video was posted to YouTube without the knowledge of E. Dewey Smith or his church. The Georgian pastor spoke to his congregation and the video depicts him speaking extensively on those in his church and out of it that are against LGBT and the same-sex court decision, referring them as hypocrites. The pastor is part of the House of Hope Atlanta and the House of Hope Macon. During his sermon, he briefly compared the treatment of the LGBT community to slavery, saying “we have done what the slave master did to us. Dehumanize us, degrade us, demonize us, but then use [us] to [their] advantage.”
The Sermon As It Appeared
Pastor Smith spoke to his congregation on homosexuality, discussing the problems in those who are against LGBTQ. He said that though many bring up Leviticus, Leviticus also tells us that we can’t share our bed with a woman during that time of the month, wear mixed fabrics or eat shellfish. His point is that “we pick and choose the scriptures that we want to use to beat folk up with, rather than look at our own lives.” He encouraged his viewers to look to their neighbor and say “I don’t condemn you. I don’t judge you. I will preach Christ to you”. He added that “You can’t evangelize and antagonize at the same time.”
The Statement
A blog post was made at Joy105 that had a lot to say on the video. The post was made by Smith’s executive assistant, Tigia Finn, on July 27, after the video went viral. The blog said that the message wasn’t to “affirm the rights” of those in the LGBT community, rather to highlight the hypocrisy and encourage tolerance. According to the post, “the message was taken from Acts 8:1-8” and “spoke of the hindrances and hypocrisy associated with ministering to people considered as ‘outcasts.’”
Is This True?
The bible that Finn said the message was related to doesn’t speak at all about hypocrisy and homosexuality. Instead, it says that Saul was persecuting Christians and Philip went to Samaria and preached Christianity. In addition, Smith had been sharing tweets from Yvette Flunder, a lesbian Bishop, which said “just about every good gospel song has been written by or performed by a same gender-loving person” and “there’s a disproportionate number of same gender-loving people who are heads of music in conservative churches.” However, we may never truly know without speaking directly to Pastor Smith himself.