From Atlanta magazine
As the organ music swells, the Anointed Voices choir builds to a crescendo of hallelujahs with a backbeat of synchronized clapping and stomping.
 Photograph by Jason Maris |
Here and there, among the pews of Tabernacle Baptist Church, someone convulses into ecstatic “holy dancing” before swooning and falling to the floor. To an uninitiated newcomer, this exaltation, known as “getting slain in the Spirit,” can alarmingly resemble a seizure, heart attack, or fainting spell. No one raises an eyebrow, though, except the matriarch who dutifully waves her funeral-parlor fan over the faces of the fallen, and the male ushers, a small army wearing lavender vests, who carry them—horizontal and transfigured—out of the sanctuary.
If the Rapture comes, it well may resemble a bright Sunday morning at this African American church, established in 1917 in Atlanta’s historic Old Fourth Ward. Consecrated to Old Time Religion, with its jubilant, tambourine-rattling motions and emotions, it feels far away in tone, temperament, and demographic from the nearby Unitarian Universalist and existentialist congregations, where gay rights are a foregone conclusion and spectacular “crowns” do not bloom from matrons’ heads. Yet with around 85 percent of its 1,200 members professing to be gay, Tabernacle Baptist Church claims one of the largest LGBT congregations in the South, says its leader, the Reverend Dennis Meredith, an out-and-proud, fifty-seven-year-old minister. It is, in the coded language of church directories, an “affirming” faith community where “all are accepted,” and the flock finally is settling into a period of peace and cohesion after a tumultuous, soul-searching decade.
“I became a member specifically because Pastor Meredith reaches out to everybody with a simple but powerful message,” says Emmanuelle Thomas, a gay man in his twenties. He adds, with a knowing edge to his falsetto, “He’s, um, realistic in ways most preachers aren’t.”
Meredith, a Toledo native called to preach at age eighteen, studied theology at Samford University and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1994 he assumed the pulpit at TBC, which had dwindled to 120 congregants. A tall, virtuoso choir soloist who is charismatic in every sense of that word, Meredith shored up membership, finances, properties, and morale. His stance against homosexuality resonated with the elders, who traditionally perceive gay rights as a threat to the beleaguered black family.
In 2001 his then twenty-one-year-old son, Micah, came out. “My wife and I did some research, giving due diligence to the Scriptures, and concluded the condemnation of homosexuality is wrong,” Meredith says. “So I changed my tone and message to one of inclusion, which attracted a bigger LGBT presence.”
Drag kings in men’s suits and fine-boned young men still sporting body glitter from Saturday-night club-hopping began filtering into the pews, as well as middle-class gay couples with children. Many of the newcomers had grown up in charismatic churches where they no longer felt welcome, but they still knew the moves, still sought the “anointing.”
“Probably 90 percent of the congregation walked out just because they couldn’t accept my change in language,” the pastor says.
Like his church choir, though, Meredith was just ramping up to a barn burner finale. In 2007 he officiated at a lesbian wedding and then, after hearing testimony from some street-ravaged prostitutes, welcomed the transgendered. Another exodus ensued. Then the bombshell: Meredith himself came out to his church. “You can imagine how that went over,” he says, exchanging glances with his partner of six years, Lavar Burkett. (Meredith and his former wife, Lydia, divorced in 2007 but have remained close friends. “She knew,” he says.)
Some TBC members defected to the Lithonia megachurch of Bishop Eddie Long, who preaches against homosexuality, even criticizing TBC. Since then, four young men have sued Long over allegations of sexual misconduct. The cases were settled out of court. Meredith issued a formal response, and a clarion challenge, to the faithful. In a YouTube video, he urged his community to rally around the accusers. He exclaimed, with mounting frustration, “Something needs to be said to end this charade and the homophobia that comes from so many African American pulpits! . . . You homophobic, hate-preaching preachers, stop doing it! It’s time to speak truth to the lives of the entire community, not just those people who you think deserve it, but everybody deserves God’s love.”
Has Bishop Long responded to the video, which quickly went viral?
“No,” Meredith says flatly.
This summer Meredith tells his story in a memoir published by JL King, activist and author of the New York Times bestseller On the Down Low. Lacing his long fingers together contemplatively, Meredith says, “One of my friends told me, ‘You tore down this church, brick by brick.’ On the other side, I am building it back, brick by brick. Our numbers are up, but the economy is bad; we’re only a month behind in our mortgage compared to a while back when we were several months behind. Every week, though, people come to me and say they were suicidal, that this church saved their life. If the church has saved just one life, these struggles have been worth it.”
Candice Dyer's writing 