On July 17, the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah was brought to the steps of the Cass County Courthouse as 30 men and women calling themselves “pastors” of the United Methodist Church shook their fists at God and said “we will no longer be ruled by your law,” as Ben Hutchison, the defrocked pastor of the Cassopolis United Methodist Church, “married” his boyfriend.

What was most disturbing about this desecration of my hometown was that the two participants and the 30 pastors that showed up to support them, all of them claiming to represent God, but not one of them was apologetic or repentant for their sin. There was no concern for changing their lifestyle to conform to the word of God, but they spoke defiantly about changing the laws of the church to conform to their lifestyle. The first chapter of Romans calls it changing the truth of God into a lie.

Secondly, the reaction of the congregation that applauded and supported Hutchison as he flaunted his sin publicly in downtown Cassopolis is incomprehensible. Jeremiah 23.22 defines the primary responsibility of a God-called pastor, “if they had stood in my counsel and caused my people to hear my words, then they would turn my people away from their sins.”

How can Hutchison turn his congregation away from their sins when he hasn’t turned himself away from his own? But his congregation applauded him for this. In Sodom and Gomorrah, the actual ground cried out to God because of the homosexuality that was going on there. If the ground was crying out then, it’s screaming now.

 

Roger Wilson

Cassopolis