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Big Tent, Tiny Ideas

Outwardly mainstream, Akron's largest church teaches fundamentalism behind closed doors.

By David W. Martin 

Knute Larson, the senior pastor at the Chapel, projects an image more Rotarian than evangelist. In television commercials, the easygoing Larson proffers an invitation to know Jesus Christ as though he were promoting a retirement village or a liberal-arts college. No fire, brimstone, or shiny suits.

Larson's neighborly approach works. The nondenominational Chapel was already Akron's largest church when, last spring, it opened a second campus in Green. In some ways, the Chapel is to Akron what the Catholic Diocese is to Cleveland: the big religious show in town. The Akron Beacon Journal heralded the opening of the Green sanctuary on the front page.

And like the diocese, the Chapel does not always welcome the attention it receives. In October, the Akron Area Interfaith Council criticized the church for offering a course on Islam, advertised in a flier as armament for the "spiritual battle for the hearts and souls of our Muslim neighbors." The council interpreted this as an effort to convert Muslims, an interfaith no-no.

Of course, the Chapel does not belong to the interfaith council -- it's a world unto itself. Actually, two worlds. The church is fascinating for the way it straddles the secular and sectarian realms. It's like a political candidate who beckons to the middle with one hand while shaping the other into a hardliner's fist.

The worldly Chapel enjoys its position as an Akron institution -- even the name exudes a certain ecumenism. Larson is a frequent speaker at the City Club and has formed a public friendship with the Reverend Ron Fowler, who ministers to a black congregation at Arlington Church of God. When vandals struck a Kent mosque in 2002, Larson called for "peace and love to rule the day." Emanating professionalism, sincerity, and calm, Larson has spoken critically of Bible-thumpers ("Nobody gets nagged into the kingdom," he said once) and poked fun at evangelists who hang on the word "Gawd" when they speak of the Almighty.

"Instead of endlessly quoting minutiae from the Bible, he puts it in laymen's terms and doesn't make people work real hard to figure out what he's driving at," says Beacon writer Bob Dyer, who profiled Larson a few years ago. "He's a good speaker. He's a handsome guy. He doesn't sit up there in the pulpit and spew out these things. He mixes it up with people."

The otherworldly Chapel, in contrast, thinks and acts more rigidly. This Chapel doesn't "mix it up"; rather, it draws a sharp line between the saved and the godless. This was the Chapel that couched its course on Islam in terms of a "struggle . . . against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." This Chapel also believes that homosexuals can pray away the gay and, with the help of a support group, "strive to discover their own true heterosexual identity as they were created by God."

Certainly, homosexuality confounds many a church. Last summer's confirmation of a gay bishop divided Episcopalians. Congregations approving of gay and lesbian relationships must decide whether to bless same-sex unions. But in advancing the notion that change is possible for people who "struggle" with homosexuality, the Chapel has left the mainstream for fundamentalism. The American Psychiatric Association sees no evidence that sexual orientation can be changed and has stated its concern about the "potential harm" of so-called conversion therapies.

The Chapel rejects such expert opinions. A brochure for Genesis, the support group, states the belief that "homosexuality, or many types of it, are in fact evidence of arrested emotional and gender identity development . . . Genesis believes that people who struggle with homosexuality are broken in their capacity to love others according to God's original intent."

The Chapel's teachings appear to coincide with those of a church advertising salvation with depictions of a bloody Jesus on the sides of semi-trailers. The Church on the Rise in Westlake -- whose trucks parked alongside I-90 ask motorists whether they're "Hurting? Confused? Addicted?" -- offers a 12-week change ministry called Freedom From Sexual Brokenness. As the trailers suggest, Church on the Rise is not bashful about what it believes. A church representative responded promptly to Scene's requests for information about its "ex-gay" ministry. Chapel officials, however, declined to speak to the paper.

Exodus International, which touts itself as the world's largest Christian referral and information center dealing with homosexual issues, is careful not to state unequivocally that gays can be made straight. Instead, it offers "hope for change for men and women who do not want their sexual orientation to be homosexual," which sounds a lot like self-denial.

Indeed, abstinence is not healing. John Paulk, a leading "ex-gay" who appeared on the cover of Newsweek, was spotted and photographed at a gay bar in Washington, D.C. Two Exodus founders left their wives for each other. Members of Courage, the British version of Exodus, gave up on the notion that homosexuality constituted rebellion against God. The group is now gay-affirming.

Perhaps aware of the limits of the Holy Spirit, Larson has seemed ill at ease discussing homosexuality with those outside the church. He told Dyer he's merely preaching what the Bible says. "I teach the same thing on heterosexuality: 'We're all immoral, let's just not practice it.'" Speaking to a Beacon reporter on another occasion, he said homosexuality is "no bigger a sin than others." Yet the Chapel does not appear to offer a support group for bacon lovers (Leviticus 11:7) or women who adorn their hair and put on fine apparel (I Peter 3:3).

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