Anti-Gay Pastor Charles Stanley Backs Out of Jewish National Fund Honor
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A Baptist pastor who has said that homosexuality is “destructive” and that gays are “separate from God” declined an honor from the Jewish National Fund’s Atlanta chapter because of protests.
Charles Stanley will not attend Thursday’s awards breakfast “because of his deep love for Israel, and his reluctance to be a point of controversy and conflict within the Jewish community,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Tuesday quoted JNF as saying.
The Atlanta chapter was to have honored Stanley, 82, for his pro-Israel advocacy, but a number of local Jews protested the recognition and rabbis – including those affiliated with The Temple, where the event is to take place – said they would not attend.
Stanley, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta and the founder of In Touch Ministries, was to have received the Tree of Life award.
In a video reply to a query to his ministry about whether gays may gain entry to heaven, Stanley said it would only happen if they stopped being homosexual.
“There is no peace, no joy, no happiness no matter what they say,” he said. “And medical research has proven absolutely unquestionably that a person can be freed from homosexual activity if they want to.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
