Anti-gay pastor in Michigan resigns after–well, you can probably guess
Here's a nice little story about the hypocrites in the US anti-gay religious movement. A prominent anti-gay pastor outs himself unwittingly. We've had the same phenomenon in the higher echelons of the Church of England here but in the US, the anti-gay religious movement is louder and more overt, which makes them more susceptible when they are found out.
Tony Greenstein
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attribution: screenshot from St. John's and Grindr.com
Secret hypocritical double life? There's an app for that.
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Reverend Matthew Makela was recently listed on the St.
John's Lutheran Church website as a devoted husband and father of five
children. But, he was forced to resign this week after Queerty.com published pics of his Grinder
profile:
EXCLUSIVE: Grindr Screenshots Reveal Anti-gay Pastor Is A Top Who Likes To Cuddle
Until 2 p.m. on Monday, the ‘Our Church Staff’ section
of St. John’s Lutheran Church and School’s website described Reverend Matthew
Makela as an associate pastor who enjoys, “family, music, home improvement,
gardening and landscaping, and sports.”
Screenshots obtained by Queerty from a source who asked
that his name be withheld shed light on some of the Reverend’s other favorite
past times — namely nude make out sessions and sex with other men.
And the folks at Queerty.com note, the good pastor has
publicly backed an anti-gay agenda on many occasions:
It is unrighteous to give into sinful temptations. We
are all tempted and it is not a sin to be tempted, but it is a sin to give into
to temptation. A sexual attraction to the same sex is a sinful temptation to be
resisted and overcome by God’s grace and power, just as a temptation to steal
or lie or overeat must be resisted and overcome by replacement with working hard,
telling the truth and moderation in appetite. We all face varying degrees of
temptation in sometimes varying areas of life and we all are tempted to sin
according to 1 Corinthians 10:13.
Jesus reaffirmed one man one woman marriage in Matthew
19:4-6 where he quotes from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24. In Old and New Testaments
homosexual practice is clearly condemned (Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:21-32; 1
Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:9-10). There is no sinful practice God cannot
forgive and overcome by his grace through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians
5:17).
Guess the temptation was just too much for Pastor
Makela. Thanks to Queerty's exposure, the church has taken down their Facebook page
to avoid comments from sinners.
Read more about the good Reverend's activities at Queerty.com.
Until 2 p.m. on Monday, the ‘Our Church Staff’ section
of St. John’s Lutheran Church and School’s
website described Reverend Matthew Makela as an associate pastor who
enjoys, “family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and
sports.”
 |
| Screenshots obtained by Queerty from a source who asked that his name be withheld shed light on some of the Reverend’s other favorite past times — namely nude make out sessions and sex with other men. |
Of course, how someone behaves between the sheets
is really nobody’s business but his own, except when he’s actively
doing damage to others. We’ve seen it time and time again. The lawmaker who
spends his days fighting against gay rights and his nights cruising for bottoms,
or the ex-gay activist who isn’t quite as ex-gay
as he’d like everyone to believe.
Which brings us back to Makela. The married father of
five from Midland, Michigan doesn’t just preach Jesus’ love and help with bake
sales. He also uses his position of authority and respect in his community to
broadcast his self-loathing view on same-sex attraction.
A simple Google search reveals his sentiment.
In November 2014, a fellow Midland man of God, Pastor
Dan Dickerson, wrote an op-ed titled A Stand For The Truth which
reads in part:
“A sexual attraction to the same sex is a sinful
temptation to be resisted and overcome by God’s grace and power, just as a
temptation to steal or lie or overeat must be resisted and overcome by
replacement with working hard, telling the truth and moderation in appetite.”
Makala can be found in the comments section (UPDATE: his
comments were deleted after this story was published) thanking Dickerson and
echoing his view:
“Thank you, Pastor Dickerson, for believing the Word of
God and loving people enough to reveal God’s will for their lives and also His
plan of salvation for all believe in Jesus…I love people who have same sex
attraction, and so does God. The proof is in the sacrifice He made for all of
us who sin…We don’t tell a person born with tendencies to abuse alcohol to keep
on giving in to his innate desires because he can’t help it. We try to help him
in his struggle.”
Two months before promulgating the ridiculous (not to
mention dangerous) notion that homosexuality is akin to alcoholism, Makela
offered this cultural prescription via Facebook:
In an email exchange with Queerty, Makela
confirmed the authenticity of the screen captures but declined to comment.
He also told Queerty that he had
“resigned” from his position at the church after the story surfaced,
and that his wife and senior pastor had been made aware of
his extracurricular activities.
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| Yet while Makela urged his community to seek deeper meaning in their marriage commitments, here’s a taste of what was going on behind the locked screen of his smart phone: |
But his community also deserves to know. If Makela made
even one LGBT kid at St. John’s “Christ-based” elementary school, their
parents, friends, family or anyone who ever stepped foot in the church feel
like being true to yourself is shameful (and it seems all too likely that he
did), then we’re glad to share his hypocrisy with the world.
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| Makela on Transgender |
Midland, Michigan made headlines in March when a local
Planet Fitness came to the defense of
a transgender woman utilizing the gym’s female facilities. Here’s
how Makela framed the conversation to his followers:
How’s that for Christlike?
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