It’s Time to Fully Welcome LGBTQ Members Into the AME Church
December 17, 2019A hand grasped the supplicator’s shoulder and pulled him upright in the middle of his “Our Father.” Absalom Jones, a regular parishioner at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, along with Richard Allen, prayed at their usual space in the lower pews at St. George’s, but this particular Sunday was different. The leaders at St. George’s decided that on this Sunday, there were too many black parishioners and banished them to the gallery of the church; they interrupted their most intimate spiritual practice, prayer, to appease their skittishness of worshipping with someone of a different skin color.
Richard Allen and Absalom Jones decided their dignity to worship was too important. Jones said, “we will trouble you no more” and walked out that day, signaling an end to their relationship with religious leaders who preach a gospel of welcome and social service but deny fellow parishioners the dignity of praying as everyone else does.