SAN FRANCISCO – Song and spirit fill the air at Glide Memorial Church on Sunday morning as the Rev. Marvin White takes the stage to lead an inclusive sermon.
In his official capacity as Minister of Celebration for the historic church, he continues the message of his beloved pastor Cecil Williams: welcoming with unconditional love – but with his own twist.
“I remember asking Cecil because people would say you’re not Cecil or you’re the next Cecil,” he told CBS News Bay Area. “I went to Cecil and said, ‘What do I do with this?’ He said, ‘You have to be yourself. We have seen you and that is what we invite you to bring to this church.'”
As one of his first acts as Glide’s new leader, he chose to raise the Pride flag directly outside the Shrine. It was a first for the historic community in the heart of San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
“That’s one of my favorite sights, the flag flying through the windows. You can see the LGBTQ flag,” White said.
He is on a mission to do his part to beautify the community, with the intention of showing everyone who steps foot inside that they too are worthy of beauty.
“The other side of being gay is that I have campaigned to ensure that beauty and aesthetics are part of unconditional love and the way we serve the community,” he explained. “If we don’t have a building that people are proud of, we won’t be the community anchor that people need.”
And that’s exactly what he does through the lens of his upbringing as a member of a religion that he knew couldn’t accept him because he was gay, but with a longing for a spiritual home.
“From being a Jehovah’s Witness, to staying away from church, to chasing boys into their churches and being told not to stay in those churches because my freedom would endanger their freedom, and the realization that all of that was created, so I would never come into my power as a black, queer prophetic man who has special access to the divine,” White said.
But he applies that story to his practice, using himself as an example of why the church should welcome with unconditional love as spiritual leadership within the Christian faith grapples with the growing call to expand queer people into their ranks.
“When the church runs out of gays, they say, ‘You’re too powerful and I can never stop you from getting too close to your power.’ And we generally believed it,” White said. “I want to explore the return of ourselves to ourselves and what a wonderful world to live in for queer people to return to their spiritual power.”
His journey to Glide is as unpredictable yet thoughtful as his choice of outfit for Sunday mass. But one that can only end with fate.
“I came to Glide when I was 18. I didn’t understand it,” White remembers. “I thought, what is all this? There’s black people, white people, gays, straights, people saving seats like they’re in Stern Grove.”
And now with White in the pulpit, forty years later, the scene persists.
“Sometimes I still look over my shoulder to see if it’s me. That I’m here,” White said. “I just have to step into it, not on top of it or over it. I don’t have to put a stamp on it or go over it, I just have to step into it and that’s what I do.”
