Until 2 p.m. on May 16, 2016, the ‘Our Church Staff’ section of St. John’s Lutheran Church and School’s website described Reverend Matthew Makela as an associate pastor who enjoys, “family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and sports.”
Screenshots obtained by Queerty from a source who asked that his name be withheld shed light on some of the Reverend’s other favorite past times — namely nude make out sessions and sex with other men.
Of course, how someone behaves between the sheets is really nobody’s business but his own, except when he’s actively doing damage to others. We’ve seen it time and time again. The lawmaker who spends his days fighting against gay rights and his nights cruising for bottoms, or the ex-gay activist who isn’t quite as ex-gay as he’d like everyone to believe.
Which brings us back to Makela. The married father of five from Midland, Michigan doesn’t just preach Jesus’ love and help with bake sales. He also uses his position of authority and respect in his community to broadcast his self-loathing view on same-sex attraction.
A simple Google search reveals his sentiment.
In November 2014, a fellow Midland man of God, Pastor Dan Dickerson, wrote an op-ed titled A Stand For The Truth which reads in part:
“A sexual attraction to the same sex is a sinful temptation to be resisted and overcome by God’s grace and power, just as a temptation to steal or lie or overeat must be resisted and overcome by replacement with working hard, telling the truth and moderation in appetite.”
Makala can be found in the comments section (UPDATE: his comments were deleted after this story was published) thanking Dickerson and echoing his view:
“Thank you, Pastor Dickerson, for believing the Word of God and loving people enough to reveal God’s will for their lives and also His plan of salvation for all believe in Jesus…I love people who have same sex attraction, and so does God. The proof is in the sacrifice He made for all of us who sin…We don’t tell a person born with tendencies to abuse alcohol to keep on giving in to his innate desires because he can’t help it. We try to help him in his struggle.”
Two months before promulgating the ridiculous (not to mention dangerous) notion that homosexuality is akin to alcoholism, Makela offered this cultural prescription (Screen Shot,Above Right) via Facebook:
Yet while Makela urged his community to seek deeper meaning in their marriage commitments, here’s screen shots that five a taste of what was going on behind the locked screen of his smart phone:
In an email exchange with Queerty, Makela confirmed the authenticity of the screen captures but declined to comment.
He also told Queerty that he had “resigned” from his position at the church after the story surfaced, and that his wife and senior pastor had been made aware of his extracurricular activities.
But his community also deserves to know. If Makela made even one LGBT kid at St. John’s “Christ-based” elementary school, their parents, friends, family or anyone who ever stepped foot in the church feel like being true to yourself is shameful (and it seems all too likely that he did), then we’re glad to share his hypocrisy with the world.
Midland, Michigan made headlines in March when a local Planet Fitness came to the defense of a transgender woman utilizing the gym’s female facilities. Here’s how Makela framed the conversation (Screen Shot, Below Right) to his followers:
How’s that for Christlike?
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