{"id":2049,"date":"2010-06-23T07:17:50","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T13:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/?p=2049"},"modified":"2015-03-13T17:01:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T22:01:43","slug":"the-ethics-of-outing-an-anti-gay-preacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2010\/06\/23\/the-ethics-of-outing-an-anti-gay-preacher\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ethics of Outing an Anti-Gay Preacher"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve followed Tom Brock for years.\u00a0 Brock is a Lutheran pastor at a non-descript church<\/a> in North Minneapolis.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a mega-church, and I\u2019ve never met anyone who goes there.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never read anything Brock has written, and I\u2019ve never heard him speak at a conference.<\/p>\n

But Brock has been a steady presence on the local cable access channel for years.\u00a0 In a churchy version of Wayne\u2019s World, Brock\u2019s cable show sometimes has him preaching from a pulpit in a small studio bedecked with ferns, and other times he is interviewed by a waif of an older woman who looks and sounds like she smokes three packs a day.\u00a0 It is, as I said, a bit like Wayne\u2019s World.\u00a0 Less famously than John Piper, Brock also blamed the tornado that hit the ELCA convention in Minneapolis last year on God\u2019s wrath against homosexuality<\/a>.\u00a0 More recently, he has parlayed that \u201cfame\u201d into a daily radio show on the local conservative Christian radio station.<\/p>\n

But my fascination with Brock has always been his mixture of Lutheranism and conservative theology.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard him rail against the ELCA \u2014 his former home denomination \u2014 numerous times.\u00a0 He\u2019s talked about crashing conferences at liberal churches in the Twin Cities in order to disrupt the proceedings with questions about the Bible.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve even heard him go after the emergent movement.<\/p>\n

Well, Lavender Magazine<\/a>, the GLBT magazine of the Twin Cities, snuck a reporter into a Catholic support group for men struggling with the \u201csin\u201d of homosexuality, and lo and behold, Brock was in attendance, talking openly about his struggles.\u00a0 The article, by John Townsend, is not well written or researched.\u00a0 He mistakenly refers to Brock as an \u201cassociate pastor,\u201d for instance, and he writes that Brock\u2019s church broke with the ELCA over the vote last summer to ordain openly practicing homosexual clergy, when in fact Hope Lutheran left the ELCA (over similar issues) in 2001.<\/p>\n

These are facts that could have easily been checked, but weren\u2019t.\u00a0 Instead, Townsend\u2019s rambling article that neck-snappingly switches from third-person journalism to first-person opinion is most interested in this \u201cget\u201d from one of the support group meetings:<\/p>\n

When it was Brock\u2019s turn to share, he related that he recently had been on \u201ca preaching mission to Slovakia,\u201d where he met with other clergy.<\/p>\n

Then, Brock admitted, \u201cI fell into temptation. I was weak. That place has this really, really weird, demonic energy. I just got weak, and I had been so good for a long time. Things had been going so well for a long time. There\u2019s a lot of gypsies there.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Brock, he confessed the foregoing to someone at Hope Lutheran Church.<\/p>\n

Brock clearly was put off by the gypsy presence in Slovakia, continuing with a sense of revulsion in his voice, \u201cThey\u2019re toothless, filthy; they smell, stink; and the gypsies are trained in how to pick your pocket.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

David Brauer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David Brauer, IMHO the top media critic in the Twin Cities, posted yesterday<\/a> and filled in some of the gaps in the story.\u00a0 He also spoke to someone from Brock\u2019s church, which Townsend didn\u2019t.\u00a0 That spokesperson said that Brock had been placed on a two-week leave, and that Brock\u2019s struggles had been previously known to some of his confidants at the church.<\/p>\n

More importantly, Brauer questions the ethics of a reporter lying his way into a confidential support group and then reporting on what he heard.\u00a0 Brauer interviews the publisher of Lavendar Magazine, who himself participates in a 12-step group:<\/p>\n

Ironically, Rocheford is a recovering alcoholic of 27 years who attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings weekly. I asked the Lavender publisher: would he have printed Brock\u2019s statements had the pastor confessed to sexuality struggles at Rocheford\u2019s A.A. meeting? Presumably, the publisher\u2019s fellow alcoholics would look dimly on anyone violating the sanctity of anonymity for any reason.<\/p>\n

After a long pause, Rocheford says, \u201cI\u2019d have to think about it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More significantly, Brauer gets this quote from the executive pastor who is now running the church during Brock\u2019s absence,<\/p>\n

Parrish says Brock is not a hypocrite for condemning homosexual behavior while loathing it in himself. \u201cHe always held out the hope of redemption and change, but our church teaches you to struggle with it and the lord still loves you. You have to keep from giving in to it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that\u2019s clear in the Lavender article.\u00a0 Regardless of Brock\u2019s own sexual proclivities, he hates homosexuality, and he says as much, repeatedly, during the support group.\u00a0 He finds homosexual sex, in which he presumably participates, disgusting and demonic.<\/p>\n

So Brock is a walking contradiction\u2026\u00a0 So another virulently anti-gay preacher turns out to be gay\u2026\u00a0 This is really not news.<\/p>\n

My advocacy of gays\u2019 full inclusion in the life of the church is established.\u00a0 And I\u2019m happy to see another bigot removed from the pulpit and the radio for a few days.\u00a0 But sneaking into a confidential support group is way over the line.<\/strong> I\u2019ve had people \u2014 people I used to consider friends \u2014 attempt to pry into my own personal life and \u201cget to the bottom\u201d of the reasons for my divorce.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had former friends write blog posts full of unsubstantiated insinuations about my divorce.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve even fielded a phone call from a Christianity Today<\/em> reporter who wanted to know why I got divorced, under the auspices that my personal life was affecting my theological positions and vice versa.\u00a0 So I know a bit about this kind of thing.<\/p>\n

IMO: Lavender Magazine owes Tom Brock an apology and a retraction.\u00a0 But, of course, the damage to his soul has been done.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve followed Tom Brock for years.\u00a0 Brock is a Lutheran pastor at a non-descript church in North Minneapolis.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a mega-church, and I\u2019ve never met anyone who goes there.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never read anything Brock has written, and I\u2019ve never heard him speak at a conference. But Brock has been a steady presence on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17,22],"tags":[1044,639],"class_list":["post-2049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-in-america","category-glbt","category-minnesota","tag-glbt","tag-tom-brock"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Ethics of Outing an Anti-Gay Preacher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've followed Tom Brock for years.\u00a0 Brock is a Lutheran pastor at a non-descript church in North Minneapolis.\u00a0 It's not a mega-church, and I've never met\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2010\/06\/23\/the-ethics-of-outing-an-anti-gay-preacher\/\" \/>\n<meta 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