Christian group cancels California Easter service over LGBT controversy

After 16 years, there will be no citywide Easter sunrise service in Stockton, Calif., this weekend.

The Christian leadership group that sponsors the event called it off because it doesn’t want any more of the bad publicity that it has had since late January.

That’s when Jim Reid, senior chaplain for the city’s police department, sent an invitation for the event to the Rev. Terri Miller, whose Valley Ministries church has many LGBT members.

Miller had never been invited to participate in the event. But the pleasant surprise didn’t last long.

She was later uninvited.

According to Fox 40 in Sacramento, Reid followed up his invitation with an email in early February telling Miller that she’d been invited by mistake.

“Your congregation are welcome to attend but we do not feel it would be appropriate to have you sitting on the platform with the pastors as we are diametrically different in our view of scripture when it comes to homosexuality.” Reid wrote.

The email made Miller angry, and she made it public. The police department placed Reid on paid leave and later fired him.

“What he wrote in there does not match what we stand for as a police chaplaincy nor as the Stockton Police Department,” the Rev. Michael Delgado with the police department told local media.

The department also apologized to Miller, who said she wanted to use the flap to educate people about acceptance and inclusion.

So even though she wasn’t welcome to sit with other pastors on the main platform, she made plans to attend the service with her wife.

Which could have been the end of the story. Until it wasn’t.

Earlier this month the Stockton Leadership Foundation, the group of community leaders and pastors that sponsors the Easter service, canceled it.

In a statement, the group pointed out the “large time and resource investment” that the event required.

“This investment has always been worthwhile because we believe there is no more powerful message than Jesus crucified, buried and resurrected on the third day,” the group wrote.

“This year SLF believes that this transforming message will be overshadowed as a result of the well-publicized clergy invitations. Now the discussions throughout our city and in our publications do not emphasize the core message of Easter – Jesus’ resurrection.”

Reid, who serves on the group’s board of directors, told the Stockton Record that the controversy would have created a “media frenzy” and inferred that it was Miller’s fault that the service had attracted public attention.

“I felt it would defeat the purpose of having it,” Reid said. “I didn’t think it would bring glory and honor to God. I was in favor of canceling.”

Stockton assemblywoman Susan Eggman told The Record she hoped a more inclusive sunrise service would rise out of the controversy.

LGBT publications that have weighed in have couched the story in pointed terms: Stockton is the town that canceled Easter so it wouldn’t have to pray alongside gay people.

“It’s just disheartening to me that here these folks claim to be Christians … and are squandering this opportunity because of some perceived differences instead of uniting under the banner of what this day is supposed to mean,” said Miller.

The Record’s editorial board weighed in as well, calling the group’s decision “unfortunate.”

“Much has been written and said about Stockton’s reputation over the years,” the paper wrote. “Shuttering a community Easter sunrise service isn’t going to help that ‘rep.’

“But if an inclusive replacement is accomplished, then Stockton is the city that puts aside intolerance for Lent — and well beyond.”

Miller’s church has decided to host its own sunrise Easter service at 6 a.m. in downtown Stockton; pancakes later at the church.

Everyone is invited.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Christian group cancels California Easter service over LGBT controversy."