Lenny Curry’s pastor: HRO passage is a “no brainer”

Bruce Jones, the Senior Pastor at Southside United Methodist Church, is an imposing figure, standing over 6 foot tall and resembling a cross between Walter White of “Breaking Bad” and Gus Bradley.

Reverend Jones is not the kind of man who seeks publicity, unlike some other Jacksonville pastors and preachers. He’s a thoughtful, introspective man, albeit one with a resonant voice honed by decades of sermons. And he doesn’t jump into the political realm lightly.

As Jones told FloridaPolitics.com on Wednesday, he doesn’t mix politics and the pulpit; the last time he preached on a political issues, he said, was over three decades ago, as the state of Florida was considering the lottery. He was directed to provide an “anti-gambling sermon,” and he did, yet the lottery still came to pass.

After the vote, Jones related, a parishioner brought him a surprise: a McDonald’s Breakfast, accompanied by a few mock-ups of scratch off tickets.

Since then, Jones has stayed out of the political realm largely. However, he recently was a signatory, along with several dozen other pastors and faith leaders, on a letter of support for expansion of the Human Rights Ordinance to include LGBT people.

For Jones, as the headline states, it’s a “no brainer.”

Pulling out the Methodist “Book of Discipline,” Jones points out that it “plainly states” a position in favor of “equal rights regardless of sexual orientation,” adding that it also “supports efforts to stop violence and coercion.”

Though Jones is not the only Methodist signatory to the letter, he adds that his support was a personal matter, not offered on behalf of the church, which he said has a wide variety and diversity of opinion, on that issue and so many others.

Jones, who has been in the Jacksonville area for a quarter century, is of especial interest in this debate, in part because he is the pastor of Mayor Lenny Curry and his family.

Jones and Curry have met, he related, on “Wednesday mornings when we could” on what Jones describes as a “hit or miss” basis.

As much a friend as a spiritual adviser, Jones describes the mayor as a “pretty grounded guy,” who was a church member long before he entered into the political arena.

Given that history, Jones and Curry typically don’t talk politics.

Of course, Curry is not the only player in the HRO debate with a connection to Southside United Methodist Church.

Roger Gannam, the Liberty Counsel member who was a panelist for each of the two HRO Community Conversations, making the case against possible legislation, was also a member of the church at one point.

“A few years ago,” Jones relates, Gannam participated in a class Jones taught called “Reasoning Together,” which was derived from a point-counterpoint of two Moravian theologians.

The idea of that class: “to think together, rather than operate on feelings.”

Jones recalls the class as “clearly divided down the middle” on issues, and that Gannam, though he was on one side of the argument, was invariably respectful to those with whom he disagreed.

Jones believes that level of respect should be extended to the Community Conversations, which thus far have not been conversations, so much as dueling polemics.

If he could ask one question to panelists, it would be this:

“When you look at the opposition, what valid concern do they have? Where would you give and take?”

That dedication to reasoned resolution, Jones laments, is absent from the debate as constructed.

“What’s going on is a lot of shouting,” Jones says.

If that trend continues, Jones thinks “this thing could become more vitriolic,” saying that “it’s typical of America today; we’re lined up against each other” with people “demonizing” the opposition.

“The HRO [debate] is fraught with demonization of people,” Jones continued, before presenting a sobering scenario.

“What happened in Houston could happen here.”

“How can we avoid this train wreck? Why don’t we negotiate, see how we can accommodate the other side?”

As incredible as it sounds, the HRO debate in its current form is still embryonic.

There’s still time and room for such a discourse.

The question is whether it will actually happen.