Public Statement
For Immediate Release: July 2007
Statement by the Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches On the Death of Tammy Faye Bakker Messner "We will always remember Tammy Faye as a woman of God who reached beyond the boundaries to include all people," says MCC leader.
Remarks by Rev. Elder Nancy L. Wilson MCC Moderator
July 2007
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner's larger-than-life personality often made her the focus of caricature and satire. Yet beneath all the perceptions -- and misperceptions -- millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people saw and experienced the depth of her unconditional love and the authenticity of her spiritual faith.
Though never implicated in any legal wrongdoing, throughout the late 1980s she was a symbol of what went wrong with TV evangelism. Over time she transcended that image and with the eyes of the world upon her, she showed us how to survive profound personal trials and emerge with spiritual transformation and re-invention. That she was ministering on international television the day before she died is an enormous tribute to her personal stamina, her spiritual convictions, and her passion for the love of Jesus.
We loved her for another reason: Tammy Faye was always herself; that's what attracted people to her. And that's what often got her in such trouble with religious fundamentalists.
She not only preached God's unconditional love and grace, she consistently lived those values in her own life. Through life's ups and downs, she managed to convey a kind of innocent open-heartedness that endeared her to millions, including many in the LGBT communities, and certainly in Metropolitan Community Churches.
Many of her obituaries noted, as did the Los Angeles Times, that she had been "the only member of the televangelist community to embrace AIDS patients, interviewing a gay man on her PTL show, "Tammy's House Party," during the early days of the AIDS crisis in the '80s."
Left unsaid in many news reports is this part of the story: The gay man interviewed by Tammy Faye was Rev. Dr. Steve Pieters, a clergyperson with Metropolitan Community Churches and the first Director of HIV/AIDS Ministry appointed by any Christian denomination in the early days of the AIDS crisis. He was also "patient number 1" on the first-ever HIV anti-viral drug trial in 1985.
Dr. Pieters, today a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist and one of the world's longest surviving persons with HIV/AIDS, this week said, "Tammy Faye's 1985 interview with me on PTL was one of the highlights of my career as an AIDS activist and minister. Her courageous, public affirmation of me as a gay man living with AIDS was an extraordinary event in TV evangelism and I was deeply moved by our conversation. In subsequent years, I always traveled with a copy of the interview because people all over the world wanted to see it again and again. My condolences go out to her family. I will always treasure the memory of the time we shared and the history we made on her TV show."
This past weekend I was in Atlanta with Rev. Paul Graetz and First MCC of Atlanta. Tammy Faye preached in their church several years ago. While there, she extended a personal invitation to Rev. Graetz' parents, Assembly of God missionaries who had not been accepting of his sexuality or his ministry, to attend the service. They accepted her invitation, which, in Rev. Graetz' words, "was a turning point, and changed my relationship with my parents for the good."
On behalf of the friends and members of Metropolitan Community Churches, I extended my deepest sympathy and love to Tammy Faye's husband, Roe Messner, and to her children, Jay Bakker and Tammy Sue Bakker Chapman.
We will always remember Tammy Faye Messner as a woman of God who reached beyond the boundaries to include all people.
/signed/
+Nancy
The Reverend Nancy L. Wilson Moderator Metropolitan Community Churches _www.MCCchurch.org_ (http://www.mccchurch.org/)
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE MEDIA INTERVIEWS WITH REV. NANCY WILSON OR REV. DR. STEVE PIETERS, CONTACT:
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Jim Birkitt MCC Communications Director Phone: 310-625-4177 E-Mail: _info@MCCchurch.net_ (mailto:info@MCCchurch.net) Web: _www.MCCchurch.org_ (http://www.mccchurch.org/)
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