What really happened at St. John’s Church on Easter Sunday

By Brian Schoeneman | Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013 | Politics

“…Our church sits next to the White House, so we have the honor of hosting the President a few times a year.  He joined us again on Sunday for Easter.  And, as usual, he brought with him two things that are ubiquitous of the presidency – press and controversy….”

“I spent Easter Sunday the way my family has spent Easter Sunday for the last six years – attending services at our church, St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square.  One of the reasons we still attend St. John’s, rather than finding a parish closer to our home in Fairfax that doesn’t require a 20 mile commute every Sunday morning, is the Rev. Luis Leon, our rector…”

“…In his sermon, Luis made reference to “captains of the religious right,” and it was reported in many places that he accused the religious right of wanting to keep blacks in the back of the bus, wanting to keep women in the kitchen, and immigrants on their side of the border.  Conservatives erupted in outrage.  The news was originally reported by the Weekly Standard, hit Drudge’s front page and was picked up by Breitbart.com and a number of other outlets.  The story was basically the same – look at this guy race baiting on Easter, pandering to the President.

That’s not what happened.  It’s a mischaracterization of what Luis said, and it was certainly not what he meant.  But that didn’t stop people from jumping to ridiculous conclusions and vilifying him, our church, and Episcopalians in general.

Sunday night, I perused the blogs after an excellent Easter dinner and saw that my pastor – my friend – was being accused of being the next Jeremiah Wright.  They called him a “dunce,” an “oaf,” and a “clown,” even going so far as to say that he’s a “false prophet,” or a “fake Christian” pastor, and that he was preaching “Satan’s deception.”

This isn’t a joke.  This is just the tip of the iceberg of the vile hate and disgusting nonsense that came out of people on Easter because of what they thought my pastor said.  Can you imagine someone saying that about your pastor?…”            read the full unedited article at the “BearingDrift blog, “Virginia’s Conservative Voice”

This incident, like many others, is reminiscent of the edited video of Shirley Sherrod speech that led to a right-wing feeding frenzy in 2010: 

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