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The Church of Norway apologized on Thursday to the country’s LGBTQ+ community for decades of discrimination, Reuters reports.

Presiding Bishop Olav Fykse Tveit acknowledged the church’s regret at the London Pub in Oslo, site of a shooting during Pride celebrations in June 2022. Two people died in the homophobic attack.

Tveit said the Evangelical Lutheran church, the largest denomination in Norway, had caused harm to gay people and thanked those who campaigned for change.

“The church in Norway has imposed shame, great harm, and pain,” the bishop said. “This should not have happened, and that is why I apologize today.”

A similar acknowledgment by the church’s bishops in 2022 addressed past discrimination, including a description of gay people by the Norwegian Bishops’ Conference in the 1950s as a “social danger of global dimensions.”

Seventy years later, same-sex couples can marry in the Church of Norway.

A service was scheduled to follow the bishop’s remarks at the Oslo Cathedral on Thursday evening.

The church’s acknowledgement of institutional discrimination follows several over recent years by other Christian denominations.

In 2023, the Church of England apologized for “shameful” treatment of the LGBTQ+ community. The Protestant church represents 85 million Anglicans worldwide.

“We want to apologize for the ways in which the Church of England has treated LGBTQI+ people — both those who worship in our churches and those who do not,” the bishops said in a statement.

“For the times we have rejected or excluded you, and those you love, we are deeply sorry. The occasions on which you have received a hostile and homophobic response in our churches are shameful, and for this we repent.”

At the same time, bishops have refused to allow same-sex marriages in Anglican churches. Just this week, bishops turned back plans to officiate discrete blessings for same-sex couples, although these can take place within routine church services.

In August, the United Church of Canada, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, acknowledged harms to the two spirit and LGBTQ+ communities in Canada.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful Creation. We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry,” said the Rev. Michael Blair, the church’s General Secretary, in a message accompanying the official apology.

“We, The United Church of Canada, express our deepest apologies to all those who have experienced homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia within The United Church of Canada,” it read in part.

Those institutional expressions of regret have been accompanied by recent individual apologies by church leaders, many in the Catholic Church.

In January, Catholic Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., issued a personal apology from the pulpit.

“I apologize for my own failure to emulate Christ’s compassion,” he said. “The way that we have treated our LGBTQ brothers and sisters has brought them tears, and to many of us, disgrace.”

“I apologize from the heart for the hurt that has resulted in the loss of so many of our family members who belong to God no less than I do,” he said.

Last year, a Catholic bishop in Germany apologized for the church’s mistreatment of LGBTQ+ people, encouraging congregants to be more supportive of equality and inclusion.

“We want to be a diocese that values diversity,” Bishop Stephan Ackermann said during what he called a “public confession.” The next month, Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin also apologized, labelling homophobia an “unholy line of tradition.”

In 2016, Pope Francis said in a gaggle with reporters aboard the papal plane that Christians owe apologies to gay people and others who have been offended or exploited by the church.

“I repeat what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: that they must not be discriminated against, that they must be respected and accompanied pastorally,” Francis said.

“The Church must ask forgiveness for not behaving many times – when I say the Church, I mean Christians! The Church is holy, we are sinners!”

A formal apology from the Catholic Church has not been forthcoming.

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

A church leader in Indianapolis is doubling down on a sermon delivered at the Sure Foundation Baptist Church in the state’s capital city last week that called on gay people to “blow yourself in the back of the head,” among other incendiary statements.

Church leader Justin Zhong endorsed the remarks delivered by lay pastor Stephen Falco during a Men’s Preaching Night service on June 29, including his assertion that, “There’s nothing good to be proud about being a f*g. You ought to blow yourself in the head in the back of the head. You’re so disgusting.”

The church posted the sermon to YouTube, and it was widely denounced by members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies who called the hate-filled screed “theologically irresponsible” and “pastorally dangerous.”

YouTube has since removed the video for violating its terms of service. A portion of the sermon was reposted by radio station 93 WIBC Indianapolis.

“Why do I hate sodomites, why do I hate f*gs? Because they attack children, they’re coming after your children, they are attacking them in schools today, and not only schools in public places, and they’re proud about it!” Falco said during the Pride month sermon titled “Pray the gay away.”

Another man identified in the same video as “Brother Wayne” followed Falco at the pulpit with a sermon he called “Worthy of Being Beaten,” according to the Indianapolis Star. He blamed society’s moral decline on a lack of discipline and physical punishment, calling beatings a deterrent that have been lost in American culture, while aiming his harshest rhetoric at immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community.

“I don’t even understand why we’re deporting these illegal criminals who are murderers, who are doing drug trafficking, sex trafficking, human trafficking. They’re putting them on a plane, and they’re sending them over to a prison in another country,” he said. “I say we put them to death right here. I say we beat them right here.”

Brother Wayne said of gay people, “I think they should be put to death. You know what, I’ll go further. I think they should be beaten in public first for all their sick and demented, just [slur] and the things they’re doing to our schools, to our government, to our institutions, to our churches. These people should be beaten and stomped in the mud, and then they should take a gun and blow the back of their heads off.”

While not officially associated with the notorious New Independent Fundamental Baptist Church, which has long espoused the death penalty for gay people, Sure Foundation Baptist Church says their pastor, Aaron Thompson, is a new IFB church member from Vancouver, Washington.

Both churches are “KJV only”, referring to their literal interpretation of the gospel from the King James Bible.

“The Bible is crystal clear that sodomites – homosexuals – deserve the death penalty carried out by a government that actually cares about the law of God,” said church leader Zhong in Falco’s defense.

“I will not apologize for preaching the Word of God. I will not apologize for stating facts. I will not negotiate with terrorists, among whom the LGBTHIV crowd is full of domestic terrorists,” Zhong said, before citing multiple verses from the Bible to make his church’s case on Facebook.

A sermon by Falco in March even directed ire at Donald Trump for appearing religious to secure political support while having a life of pride, perversion, blasphemy, and mockery of Jesus Christ.

He cited Trump’s declaration that he would date his own daughter if they weren’t related.

“Unless Donald Trump gets saved, which I hope he does … God will judge him for it and he will go to hell.”

In his June sermon, Falco also wished death on former President Joe Biden, whom he described as “a wicked reprobate.”

“I have prayed for the death of former President Biden many times,” he boasted.

But Falco’s most outlandish and threatening rhetoric was reserved for the LGBTQ+ community, which he shouted down as “evil” and “disgusting”.

Allies and activists rallied in the community’s defense, including an association of Black churches and activists.

“Such messages are not only theologically irresponsible but pastorally dangerous,” faith-based civil rights group Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis said in a statement. “The pulpit must never be used as a weapon to dehumanize, isolate, or incite fear.”

Equality Indiana called Falco’s sermon inflammatory and extremist, saying it could inspire violence against the community.

Tag: church

Church of Norway apologizes for how it treated LGBTQ+ people

Church stands by call to execute gay people: “I will not apologize for preaching the Word of God.”