Trinity Lutheran Church Hypocrisy

I was going to post something concerning our experience at church yesterday but Michelle beat me to the punch and had already written a letter to the pastor this morning. She's speaking from a position of faith, so it gives it an even more relevant perspective than I could provide. I've included the text of that letter here:

Pastor Bolte

Yesterday, on Sunday the 27th of Feb. my family came to your church for the first time. Our son goes to your preschool and was going to be singing during the church service. I have been raised a Roman Catholic and have always attended the Catholic church until recently, when I have started taking my son to Celebration Lutheran church. I wanted a more kid friendly church for my son. Celebration does a great job of keeping the children's interest during church and they also have a Bible study class that he can attend. It's very important to me that my son enjoys going to church. I firmly believe that if my son enjoys going to church when he's little, he will go as an adult. My son absolutely loves going to church. This is something I am very excited about because my husband is agnostic. My son already knows that my husband doesn't believe in God, but his "Mommy" does. When I ask my son, he fully believes in God.

My husband is ok with me taking our son to church as long as it's a healthy atmosphere. He agrees there is a lot of good things you can learn in church. In my son's Bible study they have learning about jealousy, forgiveness, anger, honesty, love, etc.

On Sunday, it was the first time my husband had gone to church in over 2 years. We also invited a couple of our friends to go with us so they could see our son perform. I have never been so appalled with a church service. Your sermon was full of hate and intolerance. I am still so much in shock that I can hardly believe it. A man of the cloth should know God a little bit better than that. Just as people don't chose to be left handed (in fact they were once considered to be products of the devil), people do not chose to be gay. In fact in both cases, they have found that it has to do with something in the brain. Therefore, that means they were born that way, and if they were born that way then God made them that way. Unless you are saying that God made a mistake. I don't think he did. I think gays/homosexuals are God's way of testing us on how well we can love our neighbor and live in peace. Who will your church call out next, Asian people? How a church can preach about intolerance and hatred is beyond me. I was so embarrassed I wanted to pull a blanket over my head. In one service you just mentioned almost everyone of the problems that my husband has with churches. The hypocrisy of your church was very apparent. The God that you believe in must be a very hateful and intolerant God and I feel sorry for you. The God I believe in is a forgiving and loving one, and if Jesus was here today he would be crying at how little progress people like you have made.

My friends were just as appalled as me. In fact, we talked about how we needed to go to church again to cleanse us from your service. I have never felt so dirty before.

Sincerely


Michelle Goehring