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“Our hope is that the ads will speak to those people who are using religious teachings to justify attitudes of intolerance and discrimination… I felt it necessary for me to develop some concepts that would speak to Christians who hold attitudes I once held.”
— Brent Childers, who, along with furniture magnate Mitchell Gold, has helped create a multimillion-dollar ad and media campaign to fight religion-based bigotry. Quoted from The Advocate.
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Brent Childers has seen the light, and it shines on all of us.
I quote Childers this week not to take issue with his words, but to highlight them. Although you might not know who Brent Childers is now, I suspect you'll be hearing a lot about him and his work in the future.
Once a homophobic Southern Baptist, Childers is now a friend of the GLBT community. Still a devout Christian, these days he's channeling his faith and energies in more loving ways than he did in the past.
Childers had an epiphany of sorts three years ago when visiting some family members, and he recently told The Advocate about it. “I launched into an assault on homosexuals,” he said. “I recall one precious family member stating that she didn't agree with whatever I was saying. She didn't think my attitude when it came to homosexuals was very Christlike.”
After that, a new Brent Childers emerged. The aggressor was humbled. “Perhaps God was looking for less an ardent soldier and more a humble servant,” he said.
One down — a few million to go.
Childers is, indeed, a rare man among many. Like Jimmy Carter — probably the most notable Southern Baptist to break away from the strident and restrictive beliefs of this arm of the Baptist church — he's realized that his obligation to humanity is as important as his faith, and, more importantly, is not in opposition of it.
Redirecting a person's faith might seem like an overwhelming task to those of us who've challenged not-so-Christlike family members and friends with little or no results, but Childers knows it's not impossible. If he can reassess his views regarding the gay community without diminishing his faith in Christ, so, too, he believes, can others. But he's doing more than just believing, he's taking action and aiming at fellow Christians.
Working with Mitchell Gold, the gay, silver-haired and rich prince of furniture, Childers has helped launched a media campaign to fight religion-based bigotry — Faith In America. According to its Website, Faith In America “will utilize newspapers, magazines, radio, T V and film … to publicly expose religion-based bigotry against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and to inform the public how women, people of color and people of minority religions have been mistreated similarly by religion in the past.”
As creative director for the Faith In America project, Childers assisted in developing the concepts of several powerful ads that began running in the Heartland in February, according to The Advocate. In addition to Childers, Mitchell Gold has hired Jimmy Creech, a former United Methodist minister, as the executive director of his campaign. Creech, no stranger to intolerance, was defrocked in 1999 for performing same-sex unions. His job is to be the project's front man and form alliances with various church and community organizations to end the “misuse of religion.”
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