Pastoral To Die In The Country Quotes

So let’s talk a little about April May’s theory of tiered fame. Tier 1: Popularity You are a big deal in your high school or neighborhood. You have a peculiar vehicle that people around town recognize, you are a pastor at a medium-to-large church, you were once the star of the high school football team. Tier 2: Notoriety You are recognized and/or well-known within certain circles. Maybe you’re a preeminent lepidopterist whom all the other lepidopterists idolize. Or you could be the mayor or meteorologist in a medium-sized city. You might be one of the 1.1 million living people who has a Wikipedia page. Tier 3: Working-Class Fame A lot of people know who you are and they are distributed around the world. There’s a good chance that a stranger will approach you to say hi at the grocery store. You are a professional sports player, musician, author, actor, television host, or internet personality. You might still have to hustle to make a living, but your fame is your job. You’ll probably trend on Twitter if you die. Tier 4: True Fame You get recognized by fans enough that it is a legitimate burden. People take pictures of you without your permission, and no one would scoff if you called yourself a celebrity. When you start dating someone, you wouldn’t be surprised to read about it in magazines. You are a performer, politician, host, or actor whom the majority of people in your country would recognize. Your humanity is so degraded that people are legitimately surprised when they find out that you’re “just like them” because, sometimes, you buy food. You never have to worry about money again, but you do need a gate with an intercom on your driveway. Tier 5: Divinity You are known by every person in your world, and you are such a big deal that they no longer consider you a person. Your story is much larger than can be contained within any human lifetime, and your memory will continue long after your earthly form wastes away. You are a founding father of a nation, a creator of a religion, an emperor, or an idea. You are not currently alive.

Jesus did not die on the cross to create a little country club where we could have weekly gatherings, pat ourselves on the back for our good behavior (while hiding our bad behavior), and meet in clusters during the week but do nothing to reach out to the community. That’s not the kind of church Jesus wants built here on earth.

Pastor Brunswick talked of the liberty and freedom that was found in the Lord. He talked of Jesus and of His words in John: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” “The liberty we’ve enjoyed,” the pastor continued, “has not come without a price. Freedom is never without a price. Good men died to liberate our country from a tyrant. Good men continue to die to see that we remain free. Free to worship as we choose—not because a government dictates it. Free to speak our minds. Free to live as we have deemed appropriate. But there are many responsibilities in such freedoms. We must each remember that we have our own duty to see that freedom’s light is never extinguished.” The

You can’t do this! This is a free country, we can worship as we please. What right do you have?” “I can do this, and no, you are no longer free to worship as you please. Men, escort these people to the busses and sweep the campus to look for others to pick up. Pastor, will you go or will you resist?” Fields looked at his congregation being forcibly led outside, prayed inwardly for the strength to do what he was about to do, and said, “I will not go. I resist your attempt at tyranny. If I die, I die free,” The man shrugged and said, “If you say so,” then he pulled out his handgun and shot Pastor Fields, who died before he hit the ground. Then he stepped off the platform and continued to direct the others.

1) “How did I end up down this rabbit hole of being obsessed with men on the DL (down-low)? Why did I prefer playing more in the straight arena with the closet cases (as they were called in my day) and the bisexual men over the gay ones?” 2) “We didn’t identify in my day; you were either gay, bisexual, or straight. People will always label others or pigeonhole them without even knowing for sure who they really are. They presumably stereotype and judge just by your outward appearance.” 3) “It wasn't until the seventh grade that Sister Gloria would be my social studies teacher, and I began leaning more towards being an extrovert than the anxious introvert that I was. All the accolades go to her. She lit the flame under my ass that would be the catalyst for my advocacy. Her podium, located front and center of the classroom, became ground zero for me and where I found my voice.” 4) “Their taunting was my kryptonite. My peers hated me for no other reason than the fact that they thought I was gay. I was only thirteen and often wondered how they knew who I was before I did.” 5) “Evangelical Christian Anita Bryant (First Lady of Religious Bigotry), along with her minions, led a crusade against the LGBTQ community back in 1977 and said we were trying to recruit children and that ‘Homosexuals are human garbage.’ My first thoughts were, how unchristian and deplorable of her to even say something like that, not to mention, to make it her life’s mission promoting hate.” 6) “Are there any more Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. kind of Christians in this country today? Dr. King knew about his friend’s homosexuality and arrest. Being a religious man and a pastor, Dr. King could have cast judgment and shunned Bayard Rustin like so many other religious leaders did at the time. But he didn’t. That, to me, is the true meaning of being a Christian. He loved Bayard unconditionally and was unbiased towards his sexual orientation. Dr. King was not a counterfeit Christian and practiced what he preached—and that, along with remembering what Jesus had said, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ is the bottom line to Christianity and all faiths.” 7) “We are all God’s children! That is what I was taught in Catholic school. God doesn’t make mistakes—it’s as simple as that. Love is love—period! I don’t need anyone’s validation or approval, I define myself.” 8) “You will bake our cakes, you will provide us our due healthcare, you will do our joint tax returns, and yes, you will bless our unions, too. Otherwise, you cannot call yourselves Christians or even Americans, for that matter.” 9) “The torch has been passed. But we must never forget the LGBT pioneers that have come before and how they fought in the streets for our lives. Never forget the Stonewall riots of 1969 nor the social stigma put upon us during the HIV/AIDS epidemic from its onset in the early 1980s. Remember how many died alone because nobody cared. Finally, keep in mind how we were all pathologized and labeled in the medical books until 1973.

I remember when we went into Kezar Stadium on the march (April 15, 1967, San Francisco) playing that song—I felt like I was part of some surrealistic dream. We were riding along in this truck. The band was playing. It was like a misty kind of rain. It was early in the morning. The streets were lined with people hanging out of windows and everything. And we were going up the street. I was just stoned out of my head on LSD, everything kind of like vibrating and I was looking around and you could see soldiers and people sneering and you see pictures of napalmed children and signs saying “End the War” and we were playing this joyous incredible music and people were dancing all around the truck just dancing and throwing flowers up in the air and everything and we were singing, “Whoopee, we’re all gonna die!” And it was like we were sort of heading off to these beautiful pastoral gas chambers, we were all going to parade ourselves into these gas chambers and then they were going to wipe us out… I mean, if you gotta go, you might as well go out dancing and singing.