Big Trouble In Little Ferndale As Lutherans Clash Over Church Sign

IN picturesque Ferndale, California (population around 1,300) there are two Lutheran churches. Our Savior’s Lutheran Church is LGBT-friendly. St Mark’s anything but.

But it wasn’t until the latter, led by pastor Tyrel Bramwell, above, displayed a homophobic sign that major doctrinal differences surfaced – and led to the first Pride march ever staged in what is known as “the Cream City” at the weekend.

Lost Coast Outpost – don’t you just adore that name? – reported last Friday that, while both St Mark’s and Our Savior are Lutheran, they’re aligned with two distinctly different sub-denominations that have opposing views on same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ issues.

Our Savior belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a mainline Protestant denomination whose assembly, in 2009, voted to allow gays and lesbians who are in committed, monogamous relationships to be ordained as clergy. Since then, the ELCA has appointed a gay bishop and ordained a trans pastor, and its clergy are allowed to officiate same-sex marriages.

St. Mark’s, meanwhile, belongs to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), a “traditional” denomination that categorically condemns “homosexual lusts and acts” as profoundly “unnatural.” Members of the LCMS church believe they’re called upon to help such poor souls “to overcome the temptations which beset them.”

Bramwell’s sign immediately prompted Our Savior to retaliate with a one that read:

We welcome everyone! Jesus said all are precious in his sight. Love is always the answer.

This in turn led around 100 individuals taking part in an impromptu Pride parade, and Bramwell found himself besieged outside his church by people demanding what to know what was going through his tiny little mind when he created the sign in a haven also known as America’s “cutest” city.

One of his inquisitors was Chris Tanner, a gay artist from New York City who often visits his 95-year-old mum in Ferndale. Tanner – not Christian but a fella who accompanies his mother to Our Savior’s – told the Outpost that he was happy to take part in Saturday’s demonstration.

Tanner had questions for the pastor, and he pressed for some clarification on why people would need healing from “LGBTQ culture.”

Bramwell: “There’s a lot of stuff that goes on in the LGBTQ culture.”

“Like what?” Tanner wondered.

“There’s all the different letters, right?” Bramwell replied. “There’s lesbians. There’s gay. There’s bi. There’s trans. And then there’s the plus. The “IA.” All the stuff. And if any of that has hurt you in any way, if you’re hurt by it there’s a place to come and be healed.”

Tanner: “Why would anybody be hurt by that?”

Bramwell: “Well, it is sinful.”

Tanner: “It’s sinful?”

Bramwell: “Scripture does say that. And we stand on scripture.”

His silly explanation impressed no one. In fact several expressed that they’d been hurt in the past by religion.

Left wriggling on a hook, Bramwell was forced to reach for his Big Ol’ Book of Bullshit and launched into an impromptu sermon, adding long passages of scripture about humans’ sinful nature. As his voice got louder, the crowd responded with singing and chants of “Love is love!”

And in a sign that the good folk of Ferndale have little time for faith-based bigotry, passing motorists honked signs for approval for those who turned out to march for love and inclusiveness.

Hat tip: BarrieJohn