A Press Conference was held at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Monday, May 21, 2018, before Franklin Graham’s rally at the Rose Bowl, and preceding an Interfaith Iftar where we gathered to break the day’s fast for Ramadan with our Muslim siblings at All Saints Church.

Speakers are:
The Rev. Mike Kinman, Rector of All Saints Church
Salam Al-Marayati, President, Muslim Public Affairs Council
Pastor Sandra Olewine, First United Methodist Church, Pasadena
Rabbi Joshua Levine-Grater, Friends in Deed
The Rev. Susan Russell, All Saints Church
Juliana Serrano, All Saints Church

You can also follow us on Twitter @ASCpas.

Donate to support the mission and ministries of All Saints at https://allsaints-pas.org/donate/donate-now/.

==========

Mike Kinman’s remarks at the press conference:

Good evening, my name is Mike Kinman. I am the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church here in Pasadena. But more than that, I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I try to follow Jesus faithfully, and I certainly follow Jesus imperfectly.

I follow Jesus in awe of the beauty and power and faithfulness of my siblings who have chosen other paths into the heart of the divine and for whom other paths have chosen them.

And I stand before you in solidarity with those siblings because that is where the Jesus I follow, the God I believe in calls me to be.

And I stand before you with my heart breaking.

My heart is breaking because throughout the history of our faith, human beings in our frailty and fallibility have taken the power of the name of Jesus Christ and used it to tragic, toxic and lethal ends.

Throughout history, we have taken the name of Jesus and used it to oppress and enslave and marginalize and condemn. We have taken the name of the one who said it’s really very simple – all you need to do is love God with all that is in you, love one another with all that is in you, and trust that you are loved and delighted beyond measure yourself – throughout history, we have taken that name of Jesus and used it to stoke fires of fear and division and hate and death. It is the deepest blasphemy of that name of love.

My heart is breaking because this night, just a few miles from this spot, Franklin Graham is taking the name of the one I have given my life to follow and using it to promote an agenda that not only brings me great pain, not only is an unrecognizable perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ but literally denies the humanity and puts the lives of precious images of God in danger.

My heart is breaking because Franklin Graham is trying to convince people that Jesus calls us to fear and to hate our Muslim siblings.

My heart is breaking because Franklin Graham is trying to convince people that Jesus calls us to see those among us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer as dangerous threats.

My heart is breaking because people will listen to Franklin Graham and believe that he speaks the truth about who Jesus is.

He does not.

And so I stand before you to tell you about the Jesus I know. And to trust that my voice and the other voices that you will hear this evening will carry louder and further than what is being preached at the Rose Bowl. Trusting that love is always more powerful than fear. That love is always more powerful than hate.

And so let me tell you about the Jesus I know, the Jesus I love.

Let me tell you about the Jesus I have met in my lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer siblings. Let me tell you about the Jesus I have met in my gender nonconforming siblings. The Jesus who bears in their lives the deeply beautiful and liberating queerness of a God in whom there are no binaries and who defies any categorization in which we try to trap the divine.

Let me tell you about the Jesus I have met on the streets of Ferguson and in our prayer liturgies in front of the Pasadena Police Department and the detention centers where ICE takes their victims. A Jesus who is a revolutionary for love. A Jesus who far from fearing those who are marginalized and oppressed, tells us that Jesus is continually being reborn on the streets in the courage of movements of revolutionary liberation and revolutionary love.

Let me tell you about how the deep, loving and nonviolent faith of my siblings of many other faiths has strengthened me in my faith. How even though they would not use this language, they have shown Jesus to me through their compassion, and self-offering, and joy. And that it is the joy of my life to call them holy companions and friends. IT is the joy of my life to be inspired by their witness of faith. It is the joy of life to aspire to be as faithful and as loving as they

I stand here this night to tell you about the Jesus I have met and to say that, with that Jesus, I stand here with my siblings that Franklin Graham would try to get you to hate and to fear. I stand here in deep abiding love not just for them but for those who preach this false Gospel of hate and fear, trusting that love has the power to convert their hearts as it is still converting mine. I stand here with my siblings of all genders and sexual orientations and faith and like Jesus, I stand with them until I die. And I bid you to stand with us too. For that is the way of love. That is the way of life. That is the way of joy.