The Rise and Fall, and Hopefully Rise Again of the Rev. Craig Duke.

Writing in Portland, Oregon, the home state and hometown of Darcelle, the world's oldest drag queen, 91 years "young," and thus one of the longest running drag show impresarios, in which the very theater that Darcelle performs in was recently made a historic national landmark, I was struck by the initial story about the Rev. Craig Duke of Newburgh United Methodist Church (UMC) in Evansville, IN, as well as Penny Cost, another certified candidate for ordination in the UMC at Hope UMC in central Illinois. I was delighted to see that there were two UMC religious leaders who had found their calling in life, which was mixed with their drag queen persona.

I knew about Pastor Duke not only from Facebook and other people in the UMC, but because of the HBO series, "We're Here," in which a traveling group of drag queens--Eureka O'Hara, Shangela, and Bob the Drag Queen--interview various drag queens in rural parts of the US, among unknown, very small villages and hamlets. Pastor Duke was one such drag queen that the series interviewed. His episode was aired on Nov. 8, 2021. Duke said he wanted to be on th program in order to "better empathize with LGBTQ people in his community and to express support for his daughter, who recently came out as pansexual. Duke, himself, is married to a woman.

Sadly, Pastor Duke is no longer at Newburgh UMC. I first heard or saw rumors to this effect on Facebook, in which my connections in the UMC were talking about whether he had been removed by the denominational offices, or had voluntarily asked to move from his position at the church. 

On religionnews.com, that was answer today in an article by Emily McFarlan Miller, with the banner headline, "Pastor who appeared in dragon HBO's 'We're Here" forced to leave his church" (Dec. 6, 2021). 

After the program aired, some of the message Duke received from the congregation were "positive." However, enough  were so negative that--"at the 'insistence' of Newburgh's (church's) Staff-Parish Relations Committee (SPRC), Duke said--he requested a new assignment from Bishop Julius C. Trimble of the Indiana Conference of the UMC."

McFarlan Miller wrote that there was a "'negative, bullying attacking email from a church person' (that) arrived (on) Nov. 14 that 'flipped the tide' for the pastor.

It just got to the point where the conflict, the anger grew too much, and so for my mental health, too, I started to back away, and I told my district superintendent that the conflict was so much, it was at such a level from some, that I was unable to be an effective leader,' he said."

For new, an interim pastor has been named for Newbergh UMC. Duke will receive a "signficanly reduced" salary from the church through Feb. 28, 20212 and he will no longer be able to perform any pastoral function. Duke and his wife, Linda, can continue to live in the church parsonage for the time being. A GoFundMe pages was set up last week to hep the family, which has already raised $23,000. 

I was struck at the end of the article, that Ross Murray, a deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) and senior director for eduction training for GLAAD Media Institute, said that Duke's appearance on "We're Here" followed Jesus' example: 

"Pastor Craig Duke gracefully engaged a community that has experienced disproportionate church-based trauma and exclusion to proclaim a message of God's love for all of creation. Pastor Craig is emulating the example of Jesus, who also spend time with those who were rejected by the pious." 

For more on this story, go to this link: https://religionnews.com/2021/12/06/pastor-who-appeared-in-drag-on-hbos-were-here-forced-to-leave-indiana-church/

In reflecting on this story, having outed myself and been outed in churches and institutions of higher education, I have to say that it never goes as smoothly as one would like. Nor do the chorus of all the people admire those of us who are LGBTQIA+ and courageous enough for "coming out." There are always--always--those who wished we had simply stayed in the closet, stayed married, stayed with the children, stayed as the simply empathetic pastor, or in this case, never been on the HBO series as a drag queen. I have always found it is these people, who want us back to the closet, for life to never have changed who, for the short term, usually get the upper hand, and we are asked to leave the parish or the institution of higher education. Why we have to do then, as LGBTQIA+ people and allies, is re-write or re-set our stories. As I've been told time and again after I came out and was outed at Duke Divinity School by some of the faculty members, the best revenge we have is a life well-lived, in spite of it all. It drives those who hated us, crazy. I hope that Rev. Duke will now take this time to begin re-writing and re-setting his story. I hope he rises again, both as clergy and also  his drag persona. These twin vocations seem to be his calling from God in life.

I think Jesus would agree. 

Amen.