The Organ Forum

Here's another angle I'm curious about. 

I quit playing the organ for a large southern Baptist Church because I became really tired of listening to the ...."you're damned for hell" crap during sermons concerning certain sexual orientations.  I decided that my continuing to work there sent the wrong message.  Today, I know several organist who continue to work in churches that damn them to hell about once a month.  My question is this:  Can or could you work in a church that completely disapproves of how you live your life?  You know my answer.
 

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"The Organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring,
the most magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius."

Well, you won't find me in a Quaker church, if that's what you mean!

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First they came for the ABC consoles, then they came for the older consoles. When they finally got to the spinets, they were all gone.

Don Furr:

Today, I know several organists who continue to work in churches that damn them to hell about once a month.  My question is this:  Can or could you work in a church that completely disapproves of how you live your life? 

Oh dear.  I figured this was going to come up sooner or later.  At last it sees the light of day.  Very, very important as it comes down to honesty vs duty.  

YET: I will not play for any church that actively condemns my lifestyle.  Lucky me, I guess, but this just hasn't been the case here in the London area.  I've played for the Anglicans, Lutherans, Christian Scientists... surely they know a faggot when they see one, but no one seems to mind.  I play a damn good service -my sightreading is incredible (cf my posts on Pianoworld), my interaction with clergy superb, I have an attitude of "serving", and I insist on taking communion.   

Churches love this!  Basically they're looking for someone to support the service.  That is all.   It is utterly amazing what they will tolerate -or look the other way- when they have a class-act musician, or at least one that cares.   A church has to be uttlerly full of s*** not to take note of that.

Yeah, I thought it time to drag this subject out of the closet.  Someone had to.

It's really odd that some churches will tolerate the organist lifestyle as long as his/her talent serves their cause.  Can we say "two faced"?  As long as the music makes the church look good everyone seem to look the other way!!!  Life is too short. 

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"The Organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring,
the most magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius."

Churches specifically try to promote a specific way of life, because a church and it's congregation try to do what God asks of them. They try to follow the bible, they try to love people as God commanded them, and it has nothing to do with condemnation (well it's not supposed to, anyway!). I am certainly not one to talk, I have disagreements with the way things are run in the establishment! But what good Christians do and believe try to do it with the upmost love and understanding.

I mean this with the upmost respect and understanding. I do not wish to point fingers and make comments, that would just be hypocrisy.

"Judge not, lest ye also be judged."

 

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First they came for the ABC consoles, then they came for the older consoles. When they finally got to the spinets, they were all gone.

I left the Church of England, and religion in general because the attitudes of the hierachy concerning the issue of sexuality.  The problem does not seem to stem from the local grassroots, it is down to the incessant tub-thumping by religious leaders who are intent on wielding their so called 'power'.  It really should not matter what sexual orientation you are and the fact that Christian churches seem to constantly wish to drum people like me out of the faith really shows how sad, repressed and un-Christian many of them seem to be.  I am glad to be out of it.  I still play my organ at home but I will not step back into the Church of England until they sort the 'holier than thou' fundie evangelicals out who using the bible to bully minorities with their heartless and nasty attitudes.

Don,

That's a tough question you propose, and we all know of situations such as you describe. Like you, I detest the "damning to hell" kind of preaching that goes on in some Baptist churches sometimes. But, of course, what these preachers are saying is more of a reflection of the southern redneck mindset than any serious deeply held committment.

For examle, look at the case of Ted Haggard, until recently a bigshot Evangelical pastor who bragged that he talked to the White House once a week. If you watch the film "Jesus Camp" you get to hear him loudly condemning gays, but about the time the film hit the cinemas, he got outed by a male prostitute. LOL!!  He was doing all that blathering in the pulpit just because he thought he needed to say that stuff to stay in good with his evangelical buddies and look holy. But he knew in his heart that he was wrong to preach like that, must have known.

And I think most preachers who do that kind of pulpit posturing actually know better. They'd almost have to, since they deal with people on a personal basis all the time. I was a pastor in a former life, and I discovered in the first few months at my very first church that some very devout members were gay. And that was in a small church!  At least I had the sense to never preach that kind of crap. I actually refused to even read certain scripture texts from the pulpit because they could be taken by the right-wingers as anti-gay.

Thank God that the Baptist church I'm in today has a pastor who is also sensitive to such issues. I know for a fact that we have a number of gay members (though that is not widely known among the congregation in general). I had a heart to heart talk with my pastor before he even accepted our church's call (I was chairman of the pastor search committee) and would not have recommended him to the church if he hadn't assured me that he was on track with this issue.

Among Southern Baptists there is a big difference between those who fellowship with the CBF and those who walk in lockstep with the right wing power structure. CBF supporters like my pastor and myself are almost all open and liberal on gender issues as well as other issues that the right wing has declared case closed.

So, that's how I stand it, Don. As I've said in other postings, should my congregation begin to lean right and get nasty, I'd be out of there, off to the Episcopal Church -- at least that's where I'm going to try first. But I sure understand your frustration.

God bless.

John

 

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Rodgers 890 at church.
Baldwin D422 at home.
Scads of old organs in the shop! H E L P !!!

Choirmaster:

'holier than thou' fundie evangelicals out who using the bible to bully minorities with their heartless and nasty attitudes.

Evangelicals are not like that over here.

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First they came for the ABC consoles, then they came for the older consoles. When they finally got to the spinets, they were all gone.

I know that just a couple of years ago, when Gene Robinson was made Bishop, there was a huge stink about it because he was gay, to me, the fact that he is openly gay is just fine, and to me that makes him less a threat to the youth of the church than some of the heterosexual clergy members. Besides which, a person's sexuality is none of my business, if they tell me fine, but I'm not going to ask, not to mention that whatever lifestyle they choose, lesbian, gay, straight, bi-sexual, trans-gendered has no bearing (or at least should have no bearing) on their standing before whatever god they choose to believe in. So, John just be aware, that while the Episcopal Church is not a particularly right-wing establishment, there were/may still be members in the Episcopal church who really have a problem with matters of sexuality/alternative lifestyles. My Mother's church, Good Shepherd lost many, many people over the Gene Robinson issue, which, IMHO opinion was blown waaaay out of proportion. One of the members who left, tried to take a lot of the members of the church with her when she left, and succeeded in taking many of the families with children my age, so now the church is mostly empty nesters, or those with young children.

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Once you can tie your arms into a pretzel and your legs into a knot, you've got it under control

Here in the UK, we have the present Dean of St.Alban's Cathedral, who was offered the post as Bishop of Reading 4 or 5 years ago.  The nasty fundamental evangelicals kicked so much of a fuss that he was prevented from taking up his post. Unfortunately the actions of these evangelicals went beyond respectable protest, it became very ugly indeed, with rather nasty personal attacks via e-mail and post and death threats.  This was supposed to be the loving church in action.

 Unfortunately, the furuore pushed me over edge as far as Christianity was concerned.  I stopped taking communion and eventually left the faith last year.

There are so many other more important priorities the church should be focusing on, such as poverty and famine.  What homosexual people do in their beds really should be of no concern to the church.  They should keep their fundamentalist noses out of people's lives and look at their own faults and failings first.

I was baptized by the Methodists, but then spent my childhood in the Christian Science church and Church of Religious Science.  I played for these as well as the Unity Church when I was a teenager.

When I lived in New York I found the Quaker church to be a good fit; however the music (not!) left me wanting, so I was a frequent visitor to St. Thomas church and St. Mary the Virgin.  From a music perspective, I am entirely at home with "high church".  I have an appreciation for the liturgy, although I may not personally follow the beliefs.

My current spiritual philosophy (which doesn't fit any organized religion per se) is quite at odds with my conservative church job (decline to state).  I have to mentally reconcile that as best I can.

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Soubasse32

For you guys who play the organ as a means of "a living" I can understand what spot this subject could put you in.  It's real easy for me to sit over here in Atlanta RETIRED, not having to work and not playing for a church.  I can come and go from a church and not affect the "bottom line" where with some of you that's not the case.  Really soubasse I understand you having to mentally reconcile.  Times are changing......s l o w l y   but nevertheless changing.

In these days of 650 million dollars settlements from the LA RC's,  the "chruch" doesn't have much room to judge.

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"The Organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring,
the most magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius."

Choirmaster:

This was supposed to be the loving church in action.

Hah.  If you have the stomach for it, try Stephen Bates' book "A Church at War. Anglicans and Homosexuality".   It almost caused me to stop taking communion, but I wasn't going to give the Church that pleasure.  You are obviously just plain tired of it all, and I understand.  But a female priest (I think she was "family") dried my tears and told me to never give up. 

Jason, I have moved on now.  I don't feel that I need religion in my life anymore. 

I have found myself in situations where my values and/or beliefs are not the same as the congregation's. (Those churches will remain unnamed ).

What I will say is that in those situations I remind myself that Christ said that "where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them." So while my values and/or beliefs may differ, it still does not negate the fact that they are engaged in worship, engaged in prayer, that they are gathered together as a community in Christ, and that we are all God's children rgeardless of who they are and what they may be. So since therefore this is worship and all that goes with that, my job as the organist is to glorify God, to play and conduct the choir to the best of my ability, and to make worship as beautiful as I can in the hopes that it will draw people in a closer relationship with Jesus Christ.

Since I am doing this as part of my living, I keep things professional. It is not my job as their Music Director to tell or state my views or beliefs on anything. My job is strictly musical. I render to Caesar that which is Caesar's and that which is God's I render to God. If someone askes me my belief on something that could be construed as controversial, I give what I call the diplomatic neutral answer that politicans give to CNN when they don't want journalists to go run off with something that was said and blow it out of proportion.

Or in other words, when watching a show about Elvis Presley I like to do exactly what he did. What he did I could not agree more with. Several journalists asked him a controversial question in a media conference, and his answer was, "I am just an entertainer. I prefer to keep my opinions to myself." Then they asked, "do you feel that other entertainers should do the same," he answered, "I will not comment on that." Perfect answer. Way to go Elvis!

Besides, the music world is a small one. The organ world is even smaller. If one is not too careful, something may bite us back later on.

Cheers, ReedGuy