Mr Grumpy

One Sunday morning, I was sitting on my couch watching LakePointe’s service online when Pastor Josh Howerton began telling a story about his grandfather. As he talked, he explained that his grandfather had a limb difference similar to the one I was born with. Then, in front of thousands of people, he physically mocked the way his grandfather walked and compared him to “Frankenstein.” The moment he said it, my stomach dropped. I remember sitting there frozen, staring at the screen, feeling a wave of humiliation wash over me. My first thought was not theological. It was painfully personal. “My friends are watching this right now, and they are picturing me.” They were picturing the limp I have always been most insecure about. They were picturing the way I walk. They were picturing the body I spent years trying to accept. I was born with a rare condition called fibular hemimelia, which means I was born missing my fibula bone. It caused severe deformities in my leg, hips, and knees. By the time I was 21, I made the difficult decision to amputate my leg in order to improve my quality of life. I now wear a prosthetic leg and still walk with a limp. For most of my life, I have worked hard to believe that my body is not something to be ashamed of. And in a matter of seconds, from the pulpit of my own church, that insecurity was turned into a joke. What makes this even more frustrating is that when Josh Howerton says something that begins receiving significant negative feedback, it often seems to disappear from the internet. The sermon containing the “Frankenstein” comment was later re-uploaded with that portion removed. If you try to go back and find exactly what was said, in many cases you can’t - because the most controversial moments are frequently edited out or scrubbed once people begin speaking up. Those of us who were there, we know what we heard, but the evidence is often gone by the time others go looking for it. What makes this even more significant is that I am not someone who is easily offended. I joke about my disability all the time. I have a thick skin and a dark sense of humor. I know how to laugh at myself. But there is a profound difference between a disabled person joking about her own life and a pastor standing on stage using disabled bodies as comedic material. Months later, during the fallout from Josh Howerton’s infamous wedding-night joke about women, he gave what appeared to be an apology. I hoped that perhaps the controversy would lead to greater sensitivity. Instead, a mere ten minutes after apologizing, he launched into another defense of his humor. While referencing Jesus’ words, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off,” he acted out someone with one hand typing an angry email and used a mocking voice. Once again, disability was the punchline. Once again, thousands laughed. Once again, I sat there stunned. By that point, I knew I could not keep quiet. I met with church leadership and tried to explain what this felt like from the perspective of someone who actually lives with a disability. I told them that disabled people already spend our lives being stared at in grocery stores, whispered about in public, and treated as if we are strange, broken, or less than. I told them that church should be the safest place in the world for us. It should be the one place where our bodies are not mocked for laughs. I expected someone to look me in the eyes and say, “Jay, what happened to you was wrong, and I am so sorry.” Instead, I was told it was a “gray area.” I was told how wonderful Josh is. I was told how humble he is. I was told that if he were in the room, he would sit there and tell me he was “so, so sorry.” But no one simply acknowledged the obvious: a pastor had publicly mocked a physical disability twice, and a disabled member of his church was deeply hurt by it. Then I was asked to email Josh directly, but even that came with instructions. I was told to start by complimenting him. I was told to mention a sermon I appreciated. I was told to keep my concerns short. I was told not to make it too emotional. In other words, I was taught how to package my pain so it would be easier for a powerful man to receive. So I did exactly what I was told. I wrote Josh a gracious and respectful email. I explained my condition. I explained my amputation. I explained how deeply insecure I had been about my limp and how painful it was to hear it mocked from the stage. I explained that disabled people want to feel welcomed, seen, and safe in church. His response was brief. “Thank you for your encouraging, kind, and respectful email. I will of course receive this and take it into prayerful consideration for the future. Love you! Josh.” I wanted to believe that meant he understood. I wanted to believe that maybe my vulnerability had mattered. I wanted to believe that perhaps the next disabled child watching from home would be spared from feeling what I felt. Then a video was brought to my attention of Josh speaking from the stage several months later. He said: “A lot of times what happens is people, especially the internet mafia, they’ll take one statement from a sermon and apply it to some insane fringe edge case and say, ‘I can’t believe you said that. Can you imagine how that would make that person feel?’ They’ll say, ‘My cousin’s sister’s brother’s uncle’s wife has this rare genetic disorder that affects one out of every three billion people... can you imagine how that would make her feel?’” (This part has also been scrubbed from their social media as of today, but was originally at around the 3 minute mark of the “The Power of a Godly Woman” sermon and I, thankfully, do have the clip of this.) I have a rare genetic disorder. I had already told him that. I had already explained how his words affected me. I had already entrusted him with one of the most vulnerable parts of my story. And now I was sitting there listening to him mock the very idea that someone with a rare genetic disorder might be hurt by what he says. I cannot prove he was referring to me specifically, but I can tell you exactly how it felt. It felt like I had exposed one of my deepest wounds, and instead of tending to it, my pastor laughed at it from the stage. I have been breaking under the weight of my experience at LakePointe for several years, but I have remained quiet because I have seen what happens when people speak out. Normally, I am not shy about using my voice to stand up for what I believe. But when you are vulnerable about something this deeply personal, it is hard to watch the flood of comments: “I love my church.” “Pastor Josh is amazing.” “You’re way off base.” “You just don’t know how to take a joke.” It is hard to see people accused of “dividing the church” when many of us tried very hard to address these issues privately because we wanted unity, healing, and accountability. We are speaking now because private conversations did not bring meaningful change, and we do not want others to be hurt the way we were. I have realized that the issue was never just a few poorly chosen words. The issue was the pattern. The issue was the defensiveness. The issue was the inability to sit with someone’s pain without minimizing it. The issue was a church culture that seemed more concerned with protecting a pastor’s reputation than with listening to the people he had wounded. And the thing is, it should be okay to acknowledge that he is HUMAN and that he makes mistakes, because humans do. But LakePointe cannot seem to do that. They defend him, make excuses for him, and attack you if you even suggest he may have crossed a line. I want to be very clear: I do not hate everyone at LakePointe. I am not cutting off friends who still attend that I adore with my whole heart. There are even members of the staff that I adore that genuinely love Jesus and think they are doing the right thing. I have empathy for them, and I believe God convicts each person in His timing, not mine. But the truth is the truth. Josh Howerton mocked disabled people from the pulpit. I respectfully confronted him. Church leadership minimized my concerns. I left feeling unheard and dismissed. A PASTOR should not mock disabled people. A PASTOR should not compare people with limb differences to Frankenstein. A PASTOR should not imitate the way disabled people walk, talk, or move for laughs. A PASTOR should not respond to sincere pain with a generic reply and a backhanded “love you”. A PASTOR should not brag about driving away members. A PASTOR should not tell people that it’s okay if they leave because, “we need your parking spot.” A PASTOR should care about the feelings of his members. Yes, pastors MUST speak truth even when it hurts, but JOKES are not TRUTH, and they are not necessary. A PASTOR should be humble enough to admit when he has caused harm. A PASTOR should protect the vulnerable. A PASTOR should not need to rely on people defending him and his staff scrubbing any evidence of his hurtful words from the internet. A PASTOR should make every image-bearer of God feel safe in the house of God. And A PASTOR should never make someone feel like the body God gave them is a punchline. Shepherds are entrusted to care for vulnerable people, not to turn their pain into entertainment. This is my story, but I am one of many.

…I refuse to include the statement from Emmanuel Wimbledon) For people who claim to follow a Christ who came for the weak and vulnerable that’s a massive indictment ‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up’