Indiana United Methodist minister Craig Duke donned a big pink wig, lots of purple eye shadow, bright red lipstick, and high heels while appearing on a recent HBO episode of “We’re Here.” The series features HBO drag queen hosts visiting small towns to recruit local drag queens to perform.
Pastor Duke called his HBO experience in drag not only “worshipful” but an “incredibly wonderful, refreshing, deepening, powerful spiritual experience.” He explained his drag performance as solidarity with his “pansexual” daughter. Duke is now to be reassigned to a new church, but he is not the only Methodist doing drag.
(Read article here.)
Comment by Dan W on December 9, 2021 at 7:44 pm
Pastors in drag get the headlines, the clicks and the comments on the internet. The real harm is done by pastors who disappear when the sick, the elderly, the lonely are isolated from friends, family and corporate worship during a global pandemic. I’m not pointing fingers at anyone. If you’re leaving the UMC, I hope it’s not because a silly pastor wore drag on a silly TV show.
Comment by Pastor Mike on December 9, 2021 at 8:57 pm
Dan W. As an orthodox and conservative pastor, the UMC left me several years ago. I pray that the Protocol passes in 2022.
Comment by Star Tripper on December 9, 2021 at 11:28 pm
Dan W, I left the UMC when after a year of Zoom worship only my so-called pastor opened Sunday worship by accusing the congregation of white supremacy. Yeah, not waiting around for the Great Surrender Protocol.
Comment by Jeff on December 10, 2021 at 2:43 am
>> The real harm is done by pastors who disappear when the sick, the elderly, the lonely are isolated from friends, family and corporate worship during a global pandemic.
Dan W, you are right on. The current crop of itinerant UMC pastors are not the circuit riders of old, and not what Wesley envisioned.
… and that is primarily a MANAGEMENT fault. UMC episcopacy is a failed institution.
Comment by Jeff on December 10, 2021 at 2:45 am
>> not waiting around for the Great Surrender Protocol.
LOL through my tears, Star Tripper!
Comment by Dan W on December 10, 2021 at 7:06 am
Our very diverse congregation was lectured on white privilege and homophobia repeatedly. And told the U.S. flag and State flag were not to be flown in the sanctuary (flags are nationalist!) Apparently the rainbow flag is the only flag that doesn’t offend God.
This queer theology is something to be concerned about. My point was, the drag queen articles are becoming repetitive.
Comment by Pastor Mike on December 10, 2021 at 7:33 am
@ Jeff and @ Star Tripper,
As a UMC pastor, I’ve had to lead a portion of God’s flock through a year and a half of the COVID pandemic. Our congregation suffered terribly. There was the isolation. There was the fear. There were loved ones who contracted COVID and passed. I had to preside over too many funerals. We had to meet virtually and online for a time. But I was there then and still am here for my beloved congregation. I also go into hospitals and nursing homes for visitations. I witness first-hand the bravery and unselfish sacrifices of medical professionals caring for dying COVID patients. And many of us fellow pastors banded together to support each other. These men and women are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
It’s easy with a keyboard on blogs to make broad-stroked pronouncements and declarations about UMC pastors. It’s easy to make up cute and clever phrases.
It’s another thing to live into your calling and exclaim, “Yes Lord, send me.”
Comment by Dan W on December 10, 2021 at 7:39 am
Pastor Mike, thanks. I know there are faithful Methodist pastors out there!
Comment by Jeff on December 10, 2021 at 8:46 am
Pastor Mike,
>> It’s easy with a keyboard on blogs to make broad-stroked pronouncements and declarations about UMC pastors.
Yes, and please forgive me for painting with such a broad brush. There are some excellent UMC pastors out there, laboring selflessly and diligently to the Glory of CHRIST. I know a couple. I am confident that you are one of these.
I also know quite a few — and you do too — that are *exactly* as Star Tripper and Dan W described. I suffered one recently, and it’s the primary reason I can no longer worship and serve with the tribe.
I stand behind what else I said: it’s a management problem. The UMC episcopacy is corrupt and rotten to the core. Ditto the seminaries, and THEIR management. And the boards of ordained ministry contribute to the problem. Those statements, too, are broad brushstrokes, but overwhelmingly the truth — the evidence abounds!
Blessings.
Comment by David S. on December 10, 2021 at 11:08 am
Pastor Mike,
You are to be thanked for your faithful service. As I shared with a UMC pastor one time over the summer (after the whole Mount Bethel mess blew up), given much of the convulsions that our society is going through and how the leadership of the institutional church, i.e. the official denominational entities and to a certain extent mid-level officials, have isolated themselves into bubbles away from the broader church, it is pastors at your average church, who are going to suffer the most. I genuinely feel for pastors of average mainline congregations, which are not generally represented by Glide Methodist, Riverside Baptist, Grace Cathedral, or Fifth Avenue Presbyterian and such, where activist pastors (and congregations) typically hail from. My sentiments extend to the pastors of the mid-to-large-sized congregation where I continue to attend for family reasons, even as I had to out of conscience, disaffiliate due to the false teachers, false preachers, and political activists, all masquerading as clergy, leading that particular denomination. The average pastors are the ones who get caught in the cross-fire of it all, because their parishioners have much more simpler day-to-day concerns. And, generally, most of these pastors, depending upon the denomination and local congregation served, may not necessarily have a “cushy” salary and housing per diem (or parsonage), and sometimes both they and their spouse must work to make ends meet, while serving the body. Furthermore, it doesn’t help when you have all these overly restrictive protocols because of covid that sometimes defy reason, AND medical science as what we know about the virus and its mutations have developed.
I pray that regardless of which side of post-protocol UMC you land on that you will continue to get the support you deserve from those closest to you without the divisiveness that divorces can cause.
Comment by Jon W on December 11, 2021 at 9:41 am
As always, it is the local pastors who will hold whatever church to come together, and it is them who have almost no say. The DS’s, bishops, and officials will ride in comfort in the chaos to follow. (former elder BTW).
Comment by Dr. Lee D. Cary on December 19, 2021 at 10:43 am
It’s silly to take this clown seriously.