Santa Cruz Bible Church
I see that there was an interview in the Sentinel with Dan Kimball, a minister at the Church my wife’s ex-husband is taking the kids to. He talks a good talk about openness, but he doesn’t walk his talk, from what I’ve heard (nor does his church). The truth of the matter is that this church is not open and accepting of gay and lesbian people, and my children are being taught intolerance and given very negative and bigoted information about gays and lesbians, which is reflected in what they say, unknowingly.
There is a posting on the Internet about an appearance by Dan Kimball at UCSC, obviously edited from a fundamentalist Christian point of view:
University of California at Santa Cruz isn’t a typical college. Recently they made the national news when their students started protesting the administration’s decision to start giving letter grades. Their bathrooms are co-ed., and their politics are liberal.
A few weeks ago, a resident assistant at one of the dorms invited Dan Kimball, Pastor of Graceland Church, “a church within a church” of the Santa Cruz Bible Church, to be a part of an open forum on Christianity. Maybe it was because of the publicity generated by proposition 22, a ballot measure that defined marriage as “between a man and a woman” or the simple fact that the University has a large gay population, but homosexuality was the issue.
“But people have these feelings,” one participant said, “why would God give us these feelings, and not expect us to act on them?” Gently, Kimball commented, “Some people have violent tendencies too, but that doesn’t mean violence is OK.”
In response to the questions, Kimball read passages out of Leviticus and Romans that made it clear that homosexuality was a sin, not just an alternative lifestyle, but he didn’t bring his message with a condescending tone, “hitting them with Biblical facts.” Kimball didn’t just quote scripture, he talked about some homosexual friends he’s had a man he toured Israel with, one of his roommates when he was playing with a rock-a-billy punk band in England, a former employer.
In reflecting on the exchange, Kimball said, “I hope the participants will say, ‘you know, this guy absolutely said that homosexuality is a sin, but he had heart and he wasn’t yelling at us. He had some friends that were gay and maybe he understands us.’” Kimball is going back, and when he returns, he will be careful to demonstrate the love of Christ as he proclaims the message of Christianity.
Source: Fresh Start Devotionals
If I had any doubt about the attitudes of this church, they were erased when I saw Kimball quoted in this article: Fresh Start Devotionals …
“Homoerotic art and defiling Christian symbols should not be rejected because they violate “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public.'’ They should be rejected because they are WRONG!”
Exactly what is “wrong” with homoerotic art?
I understand the motivation behind utilitizing Christian symbols the way some radical artists have done, but having grown up as the son of a priest, and attended Church every Sunday for the first eighteen years of my life, understand why this offends people on a truly visceral level, evne those otherwise sympathetic, open and tolerant. Not that this guy qualifies as one of the latter.
He probably thinks that heteroerotic art is wrong too - but not to the same degree… later on, Dan Kimball is quoted:
We have a choice. We can either gripe and complain about the times we live in or we can seize the opportunity they represent. It is not enough for us to criticize postmodernism, we must proclaim the truth this culture needs to hear. Dan Kimball, the pastor of Graceland in Santa Cruz, CA recently told me, “The great thing about postmodernity is the vacuum that exists for truth, and we have the privilege and opportunity to fill it.” Are we willing to proclaim THE truth so others can know real freedom?
Further, his Church supports an “ex-gay” ministry, according to this article in the Santa Cruz Metro:
