A ‘woke’ church in Idaho has landed in hot water for replacing a stained glass window portrait of Abe Lincoln, George Washington, and Robert E Lee, with that of a Black female Bishop in an LGBTQ scarf.
The new stained glass window, previously the place of the three American heroes, will now show the late Bishop Leontine Kelly who died at the age of 92 in 2012 after living with her family in Richmond, Virginia.
The Cathedral of the Rockies First Methodist Church in Boise, Idaho, had taken down the stained glass windows with Lee, Lincoln, and Washington back in 2020 in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The primary reason was that Lee represented a time of racial injustice in America. And now, Kelly’s portrait, adorned with a rainbow-colored LGBTQ scarf, stands in place of the erstwhile window. The change did not sit well with conservatives who dubbed it as a ‘facepalm’ moment.
“‘We voted to remove it, not knowing whom we would put in the window, but we would figure out something to represent,” senior pastor Duane Anders told the Statesman. “So for a year and a half, the windows have been clear. In a sense, we let some light in.”
Kelly’s name featured in the top among the 50 influential personalities shortlisted by the Idaho Methodist Church to replace the Lee window. After a year and a half, the church finally figured out who they wanted to represent – the bishop – after the window was blank.
The cost of the new stained-glass window was $25,591. The church felt that the price was well worth it because they did not want to show support for the Confederacy.
Bishop Kelly was chosen among fifty possible candidates for the stained glass window. Because of her influence, she was a respected person in the Christian church.
“As we started working through the names, one just kept rising to the top because of our connection to the person and their connection to Boise,” Anders said. “And that’s Bishop Leontine Kelly.”
Willet Hauser Architectural Glass in Minnesota designed the new window. The church’s endowment fund was used to pay for a costly replacement window depicting Robert E. Lee, which had been previously installed.
Bishop Kelly’s children are looking forward to visiting the Boise church so they can see the window erected in memory of their mother.
Though the move is being criticized by many, Kelly’s children are overjoyed at the honor and wish to visit the church soon. “Some people were saying it can’t happen, it’s not going to happen. So the fact that it happened, for those of us who recognize and believe in the Holy Spirit, it was divinely guided,” Kelly’s daughter Angella Felder said.
Source: AWM
