A crescendo of voices can be heard at the second floor of a shop lot singing Christian praise and worship songs such as “Lord, I Offer My Life” and “I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever”. Kenny the worship leader, is backed by Paul on keyboards leading a group of people during a worship service in the afternoon. Located near one of Kuala Lumpur’s busiest highways leading to the district of Cheras, the Good Samaritan Fellowship (GSF) have come a long way in Malaysia. The bilingual Chinese-English service is conducted much like any other church in Malaysia. The difference is, this is the first LGBT inclusive church in the country. And the first MCC branch in Asia.

It started back in August 2007 when openly gay Malaysian-born Reverend Ou Yang Wen Feng, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) based in New York, told the Malaysian media of his plans to set up a church “where everybody felt safe and welcomed”. It was met with protest and opposition from various parties like the Malaysian government and church authorities, and ignited a big debate on homosexuality. It also drew responses from the anti-gay Reverend Allen Tan, along with Pastor Edmund Smith from the ex-gay ministry, Real Love Ministry. Allen Tan attempted to gather protesters at a special MCC service that month, and Edmund Smith used this opportunity to parrot more pseudo-theories about homosexuality and his ministry.

Two months later a Malaysian youth pastor, Joe Pang shared his vision with MCC for starting a new gay-friendly church. That church, the Good Samaritan Fellowship (GSF), started with only 4 members on October 2007, under Pang’s leadership. He then went to MCC, New York (MCCNY) for training at the end of March 2008, and was officially instated as the senior pastor of MCC’s fledging church in Malaysia by Reverend Pat Bumgardner. Reverend Bumgardner also dedicated the GSF as a parish extension of the MCCNY, during the first GSF retreat at Cameron Highlands on the 23rd to the 25th of May, 2008.

Today their membership has grown to 20 regular attendees (including 10 committee members) ranging in age from their 20s to 50s. At times they are joined by some members of another LGBT but predominantly English speaking Christian Group “Credo”. Some members of GSF left, fearing the stigma imposed upon them by the largely Muslim, anti-gay country of Malaysia, but more members are coming in. “This is an all welcoming church. Anyone, regardless whether they are LGBT or straight can join us”, says Pastor Joe Pang, echoing Reverend Ou Yang’s vision of a safe and inclusive church. “But we do screen through new members to avoid complications.” The GSF also receive legal and promotional support from the PT Foundation of Malaysia.

After starting the worship services and care group from a house in June, they had recently leased a shop lot in Kuala Lumpur for two years, where they held the first full worship service on the Sunday 29th of June, 2008. They are currently surviving through donations and offerings. Better things are expected to come as the core church members mature in their walk with God and gain confidence from the affirmation and reconciliation of their identity and sexual orientation with their faith. Kenny, the worship leader shared, “I used to be the worship leader at Hope Church in Malaysia, but felt very uncomfortable. At times I feel if they knew my sexual orientation, they would not judge me with their mouths but will judge me with their hearts. At least here, I can lead the worship service in comfort, in spirit and in truth”.

GSF held their 1st Anniversary Fund Raising Dinner on Saturday, the 13th of September 2008 at Passion Road Restaurant within the heart of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was attended by almost a hundred guests. May they grow and come of age in peace and love.

A special thanks to Pastor Joe Pang and the GSF members for sharing their stories with us.

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Filed under: Education/Youth, Religion

-The Times of South Africa takes a look at the ex-gay movement.

-A former ex-gay leader who now helps GLBT individuals come to terms with their sexuality is named one of samesame.com.au’s 25 Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Australians for 2008.

-Join The Impact to host peaceful candlelight vigils in cities all over the country in memorial of the marriages that were dissolved due to Proposition 8.

-Randy Thomas praises Rick Warren’s appointment to give the U.S. inaugural invocation, despite the fact that some gay groups are upset and allegedly making it “all about them.” He says it shows Obama is interested in governing for “all” citizens and not just “special interest groups.”

-Meanwhile Rick Warren, not content with merely equating gay relationships to incest and pedophilia, describes all gays as promiscuous, immature and lacking in character.

-Unsurprisingly, Warren’s church also hosts an ex-gay ministry.

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Filed under: Uncategorized

“Me, homophobic? Ridiculous. I love my homosexual friends.”
-Pat Boone, following his recent editorial comparing gay demonstrators to the Mumbai terrorists.

“It isn’t just that we believe gay marriage is bad for Christians, the culture at large, etc. But it is ultimately bad for homosexuals if we really believe God has something different in mind for them. This is true for anyone who desires the fullness of joy and peace that God wants them to have.”
-Bob Stith, the SBC’s National Strategist for Gender Issues, following the passage of California Proposition 8.

Members of the religious right are well known for informing the rest of us about their love; they denounce because they care.  Laws must be passed to curtail certain “sinful” behaviors and relationships (the less popular ones, at least) for our own good, or so they claim.

But is an act of compassion truly compassionate if the people it’s aimed at must be repeatedly told that the pain being inflicted on them is “for their own good”?  Can one treat millions of intelligent, responsible adults like two-year-olds and expect to retain credibility?  Even some conservative evangelicals would answer that question with a resounding “No!”:

Our comical insistence that we are loving, despite our reputation, is a bit like a man insisting he’s a perfectly loving husband when his wife, kids, and all who know him insist he’s an unloving, self-righteous jerk. If he persists in his self-serving opinion of himself, insisting that his wife, kids and all who know him don’t understand what “true love” is, it simply confirms the perspective these others have of him. This, I submit, is precisely the position much of the evangelical church of America is in. Until the culture at large instinctively identifies us as loving, humble servants, and until the tax collectors and prostitutes of our day are beating down our doors to hang out with us as they did with Jesus, we have every reason to accept our culture’s judgment of us as correct. We are indeed more pharisaic than we are Christlike.

-Gregory Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation

Whose definition of compassion is more credible?  Is “love” an esoteric concept that a spiritual elite must continually explain to the rest of us (by whatever force necessary), or are they the ones who have missed the mark?

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Filed under: Religion

Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out is countering anti-gay prejudice by publishing a full-page advertisement in the Salt Lake Tribune today.

The ad is a response to last week’s New York Times ad sponsored by No Mob Veto, which used a handful of incidents to paint the entire backlash against Proposition 8 - California’s constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality for gays and lesbians - as a campaign of “violence and intimidation.”

TWO’s ad will take conservative Christian leaders to task for portraying the demonstration as mob rule, when in fact only a small number of violent incidents have marred an otherwise peaceful and lawful protest.

Besen also accuses leaders of hypocrisy for denouncing “anti-religious bigotry” and defending the Latter Day Saints, while their own rhetoric reveals a history of anti-Mormon sentiment.

Signatories of the NYT ad included Catholic Bill Donohue and evangelical Chuck Colson, who once claimed that Mormons “are not Christians.”

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Filed under: Media, Religion, Tolerance

-The Australian Senate votes to extend legal recognition to same-sex couples.

-Paul Varnell reminds us that we still have much to be thankful for.

-The African nation of Burundi outlaws homosexuality.

-Religious Right spokespersons explain how they oppose gay rights because they love us.  Interestingly, Margie Phelps recently explained that Westboro Church’s activism is also an act of love.

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Filed under: Uncategorized