{"id":1101,"date":"2015-05-20T07:53:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T11:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2015-05-20T07:53:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-20T11:53:00","slug":"woody-guthries-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=1101","title":{"rendered":"Woody Guthrie’s guitar …"},"content":{"rendered":"

… 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<\/a> using the Internet.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPastor has acknowledged that there was sin and repentance,\u201d Kempin reassures his flock. Kempin concedes it\u2019s the \u201cend of our time together in ministry,\u201d but that he encourages churchgoers to pray for Makela and his family.<\/p>\n

Makela\u2019s resignation is difficult enough, Kempin continues, but \u201cto make matters worse, though, the details of sin that have been kept confidential are being posted online<\/span> by those who seek to do harm to the Makela family and to St. John\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI write this to you to warn you that you may be confronted with the details of the sin<\/span>,\u201d Kempin cautions parishioners.<\/p>\n

Makela and church leadership have taken down Facebook pages that the media might wish to rifle through in search of incriminating evidence. \u201cBut the internet and age of communication being what it is,\u201d Kempin laments, \u201cI have no way of guaranteeing that you will not come across this information<\/span> in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should a member of St. John\u2019s church come across information on the Internet pertaining to Makela\u2019s Grindr travails, Kempin urges them not to panic, not to respond to media wanting to \u201cgenerate traffic to their website,\u201d and to alert church leadership with \u201cany information the members need to have.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1104,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions\/1104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}