This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith.

It’s been an interesting several days at my parish this week. At 1am early Saturday morning (or late Friday night, depending on how you think of these things) two young women stopped at the bottom of the stairs to the front door of our church. While one of them held up a phone to shoot a video, the other made her way up the stairs, unscrewed the wingnut holding the flagpole in place, and then removed the flagpole upon which hangs our parish pride flag. She carried it down the stairs and off the two women went.

As this is not the first time this has happened to us, we do have security cameras all around our church. So, we reached out to the police and also posted the security camera footage to social media. Then, some local news networks picked up the story and also ran it. The end result was that word got back to the young woman, who apparently lives somewhere on the east side of the state. Her father brought the flag back, along with a card from her that included an apology and a gift to the church. 

I don’t want to get more into the details of the flag theft itself or the experience trying to get it back, but there is one part of the experience that was almost more disheartening than someone stealing the pride flag from our church—and that is the response of some Christians on social media to the whole situation. So, today, I’d like to break the myth about how Christians can and should disagree with one another and try to articulate a better way.

While there were numerous Christians (and non-Christians) who reached out in support, and there were a small amount of more conservative Christians who acknowledged that they didn’t agree with our church’s theology but also said theft was not an appropriate answer, there was also a good chunk of Christians who cheered on the young women involved with the theft of our pride flag. They said things like:

Good for them, now I hope they burn it.

Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve!!

Beers on me. Doing the lords work

That's no church anyway, that's a sanctuary for the lost and confused

Always made me sick to see that flag.

And those are just the comments I’ll read on air. Another commentator responded to the whole social media uproar by writing, “The blatant hypocrisy from the self-proclaimed ‘Christians’ here is staggering. The loudest hate often comes from those who claim to follow Jesus.” 

As I read the comments, I kept thinking of a few different groups. I kept thinking of LGBTQIA+ people reading those comments, how the wounds they had already experienced from Christians were just being torn open again and again. I thought of those who have given up on the church reading those comments and feeling sure they had made the right decision. And I thought of non-Christians reading the comments and likely thinking that there was no good reason here to look into Christianity. 

I’m well aware that the stance my own church has taken with regard to our LGBTQIA+ siblings is not one the majority of Christians agree with… but I wish we could disagree differently. It certainly feels like many conservative Christians are hyper-fixated on their belief that homosexuality is a sin—so much so that apparently, they are comfortable with the sins of theft and destruction of property. 

I also want to be super clear about one part of our own response. Someone came against me for saying this young woman was hate-filled. That’s not something I ever said. What I said on WOOD TV8 for instance was, “even if this was a prank or joke, stuff like that contributes to a culture where LGBTQ people aren’t safe.”

I don’t think there was any intentional hate in the theft of our flag. It’s not even about hate. It’s about respect, including respect for those with whom you disagree. It’s about love, being able to see something differently but to express it in a way that still exhibits the love of Jesus for the other. And it’s about safety and, sadly enough, LGBTQIA+ people hear Christians talk about them and simply do not feel safe. And that’s not OK. Christians, we must do better.

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.