"(This) to me is what Christianity is all about." This pastor is using his church's sign to take a stand against intolerance. ️
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00:00Part of the issue for me is that I'm a white, heterosexual, cisgender male, right?
00:17I've been told that I am loved my whole life.
00:20And once I reached about the age 30, I realized, wow, not everybody has had this experience,
00:25right?
00:26Our transgender siblings have not had that experience.
00:29I've received like 800 messages from people throughout the world, many of them from transgender
00:36folks who say, my family abandoned me.
00:40My church said that I'm no longer able to go there.
00:43So thank you for this message coming from a church that says that even I am loved and
00:49have a place here.
00:50So that to me is what Christianity is all about.
00:59We stand with our Muslim siblings and work to end Islamophobia.
01:13National emergency, 553,700 people are homeless.
01:18Jesus calls us to love all of our neighbors.
01:20He doesn't say, oh, except for these neighbors here.
01:23You know, Jesus doesn't say, love your neighbor, except for the ones who are undocumented immigrants.
01:28He doesn't draw those lines.
01:37When I was 10, my mom got cancer and she had it for 10 years.
01:45And about halfway through, I asked my mom if she was ever afraid of dying.
01:52And she said no, because she knew that her Jesus would save her.
01:58And it blew me away because my mom was not religious.
02:01She was not spiritual.
02:04She had the mouth of a sailor.
02:06She was not someone that I would think, oh yeah, Jesus would of course save this person.
02:12But it was just like a moment where I realized that God's love includes all people.
02:19And it doesn't matter whether we deserve this love.
02:21It doesn't matter whether we've earned this love.
02:24It's just who God is.
02:26My mom ended up dying five years later when I was 20.
02:31And I just saw Jesus walk with her the whole time.
02:36And I was able to walk with her too through that.
02:39And that's where I really learned about the inclusive love of God.
02:50I had no idea how much these messages would resonate with the online community and with
02:56people throughout the world.
02:58And that's been one of the most touching things for me, getting these messages from people
03:02who have been marginalized, unfortunately, by religion.
03:07And trying to be part of a bigger movement that is telling people, don't listen to religion
03:14when it tries to ostracize you or marginalize you, because that is not what God is doing
03:18in the world.
03:19We need to get away with these kinds of distinctions between us and them and get to the point where
03:24we are all on this journey together of trying to love one another and care for one another
03:29as best we can.