… used to bear an iconic legend: “This machine kills fascists.” I’m reminded of that by a Lutheran church’s leader’s response to the news that — What do you know? — one of his most vociferous gay-bashing pastors has been soliciting liaisons with men using the Internet.
“Pastor has acknowledged that there was sin and repentance,” Kempin reassures his flock. Kempin concedes it’s the “end of our time together in ministry,” but that he encourages churchgoers to pray for Makela and his family.
Makela’s resignation is difficult enough, Kempin continues, but “to make matters worse, though, the details of sin that have been kept confidential are being posted online by those who seek to do harm to the Makela family and to St. John’s.”
“I write this to you to warn you that you may be confronted with the details of the sin,” Kempin cautions parishioners.
Makela and church leadership have taken down Facebook pages that the media might wish to rifle through in search of incriminating evidence. “But the internet and age of communication being what it is,” Kempin laments, “I have no way of guaranteeing that you will not come across this information in some way.”
Should a member of St. John’s church come across information on the Internet pertaining to Makela’s Grindr travails, Kempin urges them not to panic, not to respond to media wanting to “generate traffic to their website,” and to alert church leadership with “any information the members need to have.”
Twenty years ago, Pastor Makela would have abruptly disappeared, and the explanation would have been that he had an unexpected opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream of ministering to children north of the Arctic Circle, and nobody would have been the wiser.
No more. Now, there are no secrets. Official corruption and hypocrisy cannot easily be hidden; it’s the Internet that kills fascists. If I had Guthrie’s talent, I’d write a song.