{"id":7209,"date":"2019-10-15T12:40:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T18:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/?p=7209"},"modified":"2026-02-10T14:53:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T20:53:45","slug":"clergy-support-for-the-musical-pray-the-gay-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/clergy-support-for-the-musical-pray-the-gay-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Clergy support for the musical Pray Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The pastors of Burlington Lutheran Church (Burlington, WA) and St. Paul&#8217;s Episcopal and Resurrecci\u00f3n churches (Mount Vernon, WA) make a public statement on the Theater Arts Guild production of the musical &#8220;Pray Away&#8221;. PTGA will premiere live on stage November 8-24, 2019 at the Historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bS5UUUgTCWA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Text of Video<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>Grace and Peace. My name is Bethany Hull Somers and I am the pastor of Burlington Lutheran Church (Burlington, WA), and I am the reverend Paul Moore and I am the rector of St. Paul\u2019s (Episcopal Church) and Resurrecci\u00f3n churches that meet right here (Mount Vernon, WA).<\/p>\n<p>We are grateful to be here tonight to officially endorse \u201cPray Away &#8211; a serious musical comedy.\u201d We\u2019re so grateful to do that especially these last two days as, at our nation\u2019s highest court, the debate has been about people\u2019s ability to hold jobs, to be human and to be themselves. It\u2019s been terrible partly because, as a Christian minister, I know the reason this is even a debate is because of things that are taught in churches.<\/p>\n<p>This conversation about who is beloved of God, is extremely important and extremely timely. So we are grateful to be here tonight to support this musical (\u201cPray the Gay Away\u201d) that addresses these issues, starts a conversation and reminds us that we are all God\u2019s beloved children.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you. You really said it well. I don\u2019t know what I can add to that except to say that we too are deeply privileged to have this show preparing and rehearsing here on our place. We are a clearly and committed inclusive community. That\u2019s something that\u2019s very close to my heart. I was born and raised in a multi-cultural setting in which differences were all around me in many different aspects and \u00a0many different ways. And so as I grew as a believer and as I grew as a church leader, as a religious leader, my inclusion of everybody and all people as part of the body of Christ, and part of the beloved community, is something that is dear to my heart. And so I too am proud to support \u201cPray the Gay Away\u201d (the musical) and to engage bravely in the dialogues and conversations that this will invite.<\/p>\n<p>I know that in friendships of mine and relationships I\u2019ve had, both pastoral and outside of those contexts, this conversation, it really goes to the heart of really what it means to be human. And I think that\u2019s what being a person of faith is really all about. It\u2019s just my pleasure. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>So our churches are officially endorsing this (musical) and we came up with a message of support together from our churches, from Burlington Lutheran Church (Burlington, WA), St. Paul\u2019s Episcopal and Resurrecci\u00f3n (Mount Vernon, WA). So we\u2019re going to read it now, the statement of support that we\u2019ve come up with.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs leaders of faith in Skagit County (WA), we whole-heartedly support the Theater Arts Guild production of \u201cPray the Gay Away\u201d (the musical) and the conversations it seeks to encourage. The people of Burlington Lutheran Church, St. Paul\u2019s and Ressurrecion Episcopal churches, to paraphrase the show, \u2018Look to all of God\u2019s creation and recognize it as beautiful.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>We believe that we all bear the image of God deep within and that gender orientation and gender identity, in all its richness, is a part of that image.<\/p>\n<p>Aware of the intensity of the dialogue regarding the LGBTQ+ community in the life of the Christian faith, we celebrate the richness that our LGBTQ members, attendees and leadership bring to our congregations.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re grateful and invite all Christians to please come and see this show and then have conversations afterwards. And learn from one another.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The pastors of Burlington Lutheran Church (Burlington, WA) and St. Paul&#8217;s Episcopal and Resurrecci\u00f3n churches (Mount Vernon, WA) make a public statement on the Theater Arts Guild production of the musical &#8220;Pray Away&#8221;. PTGA will premiere live on stage November 8-24, 2019 at the Historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3C0LX-1Sh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7209"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18750,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions\/18750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}