Congregants turn on Lee descendant

Pastor quits post in wake of church reaction to VMA speech against racism

He was the great-greatgreat-great-nephew of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and he felt it was his moral duty to speak out against his ancestor, “an idol of white supremacy, racism and hate.” He said as much when he took the microphone near the end of the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, when he introduced himself by a familiarsounding name: Robert Lee IV.

Lee’s speech at the VMAs on Aug. 27 quickly caught internet fame as among the night’s most memorable events. As he appeared before the cameras, Lee stood in stark contrast to the sleek, geometric set behind him, dressed simply in a black cleric’s shirt and collar. Soon he would introduce Susan Bro, whose daughter Heather Heyer had been killed 15 days before, after being struck by a car as she protested white supremacy in Charlottesville, Va.

“As a pastor, it is my moral duty to speak out against racism, America’s original sin,” he said. “Today, I call on all of us with privilege and power to answer God’s call to confront racism and white supremacy head-on. We can find inspiration in the Black Lives Matter movement, the women who marched in the Women’s March in January, and, especially, Heather Heyer, who died fighting for her beliefs.”

On Monday, Lee announced he would be leaving his church — Bethany United Church of Christ in Winston-Salem, N.C. — after speaking out against white supremacy and the idolization of Confederate monuments.

In his statement, published on the website of the Auburn Theological Seminary, Lee wrote that while he did have congregants who supported his freedom of speech, many resented the attention the church received after the VMAs.

“A faction of church members were concerned about my speech and that I lifted up (the) Black Lives Matter movement, the Women’s March, and Heather Heyer as examples of racial justice work,” he wrote, adding that his “church’s reaction was deeply hurtful.” Lee wrote that he never sought the kind of attention that has followed him since the protests in Charlottesville last month, even while his visibility as a religious leader and staunch opponent of Confederate memorials garnered international recognition.

Lee did not describe specific responses he received from congregants. But the comments section on an article about his VMA speech in the Winston-Salem Journal gives some sense of the backlash. One commenter wrote that there was “no way” Lee was a Christian and that “it seems anybody that wants to protect our country is a racist, or white supremacist . ... It’s a sin to use your position to namecall and judge.”

In an Aug. 18 interview with BBC News, Lee argued that statues of his ancestor honor white supremacy and endorse a system in which it is acceptable to be racist in America. He pointed to the lack of markers to fascists in Europe following World War II as evidence that there is a way to “remember your history and not commemorate it.”

Lee talked of how he had spoken with a descendant of a slave owned by the Lee family, describing his heartbreak over hearing the firsthand experiences of those “hurt and oppressed by statues.”

Lee has spoken openly about how he arrived at his own conclusions about his lineage, saying he has at once felt pride in the fact that Lee family members signed the Declaration of Independence and shame over Robert E. Lee’s leadership of the Confederate troops.

From his pulpit, Lee implored his parishioners to condemn the racism swirling around them, insisting they would be doing the church wrong if they remained silent.

“It’s not the message that we’re used to hearing from our pulpits. But maybe now is the time to start having those messages,” Lee said in the NPR interview.

In his first appointment out of seminary, Lee has been the pastor of Bethany Church since April, according to the church’s website.

The United Church of Christ has been known for its liberal views, given its support for social justice issues.

For instance, it has called on the Washington Redskins to change the team name.

A graduate of Appalachian State University and Duke University Divinity School, Lee is a regular columnist for the Statesville Record & Landmark.

Lee did not return for an interview week.

But in an Aug. 31 column for the newspaper, Lee emphasized the “cost of discipleship,” particularly when condemning hate.

“I wish I could say it was easy to speak up and speak out in God’s name,” Lee wrote in the column. “But it wasn’t.” requests last