Leading the Black Church Forward: Black, gay and a Seminarian

Dustin Baker, the only openly gay seminarian at the Howard University School of Divinity, tells of his experience in the black church as a gay man and how hes risen above it to find his calling in ministry. This powerful and inspirational video can be screened and discussed in a small or large group.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• HRC
• Human Rights Campaign
• Lesbian
• Gay
• Bisexual
• Transgender
• LGBT
• GLBT
• HBCU
• Dustin Baker

[roxdoublevenus]

I love you! : )

[cymonebreathe]

my hero

[reenock]

please forgive my expletives, but shit is shit in my book, no matter how steeped in rhetoric and fervor it is. Flip it, turn it, fry it, bake it, bread it...at the core it's still shit. Jesus aint say nothing on being gay, but the way a put down people act as badly, IF NOT WORSE, than those that have put them down is just.....HORRIBLE. it's not just the black church, but i just have to be honest, i expected more. oh, but humanity did kill Jesus so i shouldn't be surprised. Even Peter had a knife

[reenock]

I'm sick of people equating homosexuality to child molestation, rape, murder and every degenerative behavior . I'm tired of black woman putting down gay brothers when Paul said YALL SHOULD SHUT UP IN CHURCH? Just like the human body, the body of Christ really got some sick shit goin on, and it's a shame. But wait till slavery comes on the table, errybody gonna wanna KUMBAYA and hold hands and be a big happy family again. ms celebrity, did Christ die so you could be a celebrity? really?

[reenock]

Brother, ino what you mean. i left the church when i heard the minister using the word FAGGOT. What? When did Jesus say that? People interjecting their cultural biases with pathetic cultural perspective just equals control and power schemes. The same thing that led to Jesus being strung up. When black folk do what a country and WORLD did to them is just shameful. Church culture is the same thing that demanded Pilot to kill Christ. aint that funny how black folk just do the same thing.

[godswordtv]

God has not, and will not change. Sex outside of marriage is falling short, is there grace? Yes, but God is just. And if you are married and having sex it's legal. And I don't by that argument, I was born that way... I was born screwed up too... but I got Born AGAIN!!! This young man may love God, Believe in God, serve God, Preach God... There will be may that say Lord, Lord... you know the rest of the story... If not read IT!!!

[firstjohn313]

PART FIVE: MY Bible even tells me that a man's foes shall be them of his own household (or his own community, as far as I'm concerned). Once I began to surround myself with a better class of people and get from around the Black ones, I began to really grow spiritually. Soon I will be doing even greater things with my special degree-program and wealth, and trust me, I won't look back. I commend you, Dustin Baker. You inspire me as well. Blessings to you.

[firstjohn313]

PART FOUR: As I as struggling through college, I once cried out to my "Black" church for a helping hand with food. I only asked for something small like a loaf of bread, some rice. They put me through the third degree... after all I'd given and provided for them all my life. It was the gay church called Metropolitan Church of the Rockies, that gave me food as well as gave food to all the homeless and needy. Black people are very ignorant and judgmental, hence their poverty.

[firstjohn313]

PART THREE: I've lost all respect for the "Black" community overall for this very reason. I love the Lord and He loves me too, obviously. It took me many, many years to cut away from ignorant, filthy Blacks, period. And as far as the commenter who said, "You cant minister to ppl leading a hypocritical life, living anti God," well, prime example of what I'm saying. Let him (or her) who is without sin cast the first stone, because none of us are truly righteous.

[firstjohn313]

PART TWO:

I'd spent all of my teenage years provided musical service for my "Black" church, and I've coordinated many, many fund-raising events for my "Black" church. But as I got older and wiser and more educated, I really I was only casting my pearls to dogs or swine.