There’s long been a negative and tense history between the black church and the LGBT communities in America. And even though the LGBT rights movement has grown tremendously over the past few years and same-sex marriage has been legalized nationwide, there’s still a common thought that Black Christians are hostile and homophobic towards the LGBT community. However, Bishop T.D. Jakes recently sat down for an interview with “HuffPost Live,” and argued that the Black church is slowly progressing on the idea of sexuality.
While chatting with host Marc Lamont-Hill, Jakes explained that he thinks the relationship between the Black church and the LGBT community is improving.
“I think that it’s going to be diverse from church to church, every church has a different opinion on the issue and every gay person is different. And I think that to speak that the church, the Black church, the White church — or any kind of church you wanna call it — are all the same, is totally not true, ” Jakes said.
Jakes then explained that he believes that churches, although they shouldn’t be turning away people, have the right to worship as they see fit. And on the other hand, LGBT people have the right to find churches that embrace them and fit their beliefs.
“LGBTs of different types and sorts have to find a place of worship that reflects what your views are and what you believe like anyone else,” he said. “And the church should have its own convictions and values.”
Jakes then shared his own thinking on the matter and shared that it’s “evolved and evolving.”
“I think that where I am is to better understand we, the church, bought into the myth that this is a Christian nation,” Jakes said. And once you get past that …once you begin to understand that democracy, that a republic actually, is designed to be an overarching system to protect our unique nuances, then we no longer look to public policy to reflect biblical ethics.
“If we can divide, or what you would call separation of church and state, then we can dwell together more effectively because atheists, agnostics, Jews, all types of people, Muslims, pay into the government, the government then cannot reflect one particular view over another just because we’re the dominant group of religious people in [this] country because those numbers are changing every day. We need a neutralized government that protects our right to disagree with one another and agree with one another.”
