NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Grammy Award-winner Cynthia Clawson, for years known as one of gospel music’s most noted vocalists, is scheduled to sing at an anniversary gala for the Cathedral of Hope — the world’s largest homosexual congregation — in Dallas July 26-27.
Clawson has been singing gospel music for more than 50 years, including for a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, a Billy Graham crusade and Gaither Homecoming specials. She was only 3 years old when her father first asked her to sing in the small church he pastored, and since then she has sung at venues ranging from neighborhood churches to stadiums and in various countries, including India, Vietnam and Japan.
In a written statement to Baptist Press, Clawson said she accepted the invitation to sing at the Cathedral of Hope because God has called her to share the Good News of who Jesus is and what He did for her. She has been asked to sing at the Cathedral of Hope on three other occasions and accepted those invitations as well.
“Let me assure you that it has been a challenging mission to answer God’s calling to tell the Good News to all who will hear,” Clawson said. “Since I will sing wherever invited, I have found myself singing in places where my theology, my moral values and my political inclinations sometimes differ from my listeners, but I simply sing about the Good News that God loves us. I point my listeners to Christ. That is my calling.”
Other venues, she acknowledged, have included several hotel nightclubs while living briefly in Los Angeles in the early 1970s.
“I am amazed that there are those who would not want me to sing for people who ask to hear what I have to say about Jesus, especially homosexual people,” Clawson said in the statement. “The people who object to what I do are free to think what they please, but they did not call me. I repeat, I have a higher calling. As a sinner doing my best to follow Jesus, I have sung the Gospel wherever invited just as Jesus did in preaching to the Pharisees and those that the Pharisees judged sinners. Some repented, some did not. That is between God and them. And what I have been called to do is between God and me.”
The Cathedral of Hope describes itself on its website as a liberal Christian church that willingly embraces “such traditionally liberal values as helping and advocating for the poor, valuing the environment, and recognizing as sinful such oppressive attitudes as sexism, ageism, racism and homophobia.”
The congregation’s vision statement says their “outreach extends beyond the Metroplex to lesbians, gays and other excluded people across the nation.” It also says its new chapel “is designed as a space to welcome people from all religious traditions and remind them that however we experience God, the objective of our faith is to bring peace — peace to our heart and peace on earth.”
Regarding the Bible, the Cathedral of Hope says on its website, “In our Judeo-Christian society, the documents known as the Bible serve as the primary guide on most issues…. Considering the relatively small amount of attention the Bible gives to the subject [of homosexuality], we must ask ourselves why this is such a volatile issue while other subjects (e.g. judgment, pride, hypocrisy) about which the scriptures say a great deal, receive much less passionate attention…. Early writers had no understanding of homosexuality as a psycho-sexual orientation.”
Clawson, who co-pastors Tarrytown Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, with her husband Ragan Courtney, requested prayer in her endeavor to be true to God’s calling on her life.
“Let me stand beside the oppressed, broken, disenfranchised and the outcast because that’s where I think Jesus lives,” she said in her statement to Baptist Press
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at www.bpnews.net. Photo title: CYNTHIA CLAWSON.
