Not to mention go to different, segregated churches. When I was a kid in both Ohio and Alabama, Baptist ministers preached openly from the pulpit that God intended for the races to be separate, and that Black people should worship in their own churches.
Today, many Christians find that idea so unacceptable that they like to deny it was ever mainstream Christian teaching, but it was, until only a few decades ago.
It used to be so mainstream, in fact, that the judge in the Loving v Virginia case cited it when he ruled that Virginia was correct to criminalize "mixed" Black and White marriages. The Supreme Court overruled him, and that was a very important step in chipping away at official, legal U.S. racism and segregation.
It's also an important lesson in exclusionary Christian beliefs and practices. Did all the Christians who believed segregation was ordained by God get that belief from God or God's "prophets?"
Undoubtedly, they believed they did. They insisted on it strongly. They were dogmatic about it.
Today, we sort of gasp when we read the original Loving decision and the judge's insistence that God ordained segregation. We can't align it with our values about democracy and liberty, and we can't align it with Christianity really, either.
But you know what? At least in those not-so-long-ago days, White Christians believed that Black people could be Christians, even that they should be Christians, so long as they worshiped in segregated churches.
The "prophet" in your story goes much further. He is defining queer people out of Christianity itself — out of very possibility of being Christians. Is Christianity is exclusive and judgmental, rather hard to square with the teachings of Jesus, but there you go.
He's just one of many conservative Christians who has defined Christianity (for himself) to center on sexual morality. Brown is the same. He often appears to have very negative emotional reactions to the idea that other Christians might disagree with his notions of sexual morality. He's loud and insistent that Christianity should exclude people whose morality he believes is un-Christian.
And given his insistence on conversion therapy even in the face of overwhelming data that shows how ineffective and harmful it is, he doesn't care who gets hurt over his theology.
I believe Jesus had quite a lot to say about people like Brown — none of it good.
