Critics Push Back on SBC’s ‘Road to Orlando’ Feature of David Uth Over LGBTQ+ Ministry Stance

“The people in charge here of SBC coms are not good people,” said Dr. Nate Schlomann, executive pastor of Village Church RVA in Midlothian, Virginia. “Come on, get real. You can’t make excuses for this stuff.”

“Note that @SEBTS is sponsoring this event with David Uth,” said Tom Buck, pastor of First Baptist of Lindale in Lindale, Texas. “Uth’s church has knowingly baptized openly practicing and unrepentant homosexuals. Uth supports women pastors. Are the Trustees at SEBTS ever going to wake up?”

Schrock and Buck reposted an X thread by polemical news site Protestia explaining why the decision to feature Uth was “terrible.” The thread featured a clip of First Orlando’s Senior Executive Pastor Danny de Armas appearing to say that people who serve in the church include those who are pro-choice and LGTBQ+. 

“We have choir lovers and non-music lovers, a pipe organ and loud electric guitars. We have the 99-year-old World War II hero and the Millennial immigrant who doesn’t know anything about American history,” said de Armas in February 2022, “sitting on the same row and listening and learning about Jesus together. We have transgender, LGBTQ, straight, single, married, divorced, and cohabitating people. These same people attend, listen, serve, grow, and give.” 

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“We have Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and non-registered people. We have documented and undocumented people,” he continued. “We have politically active and socially responsible people. We have pro-life and pro-choice and pro-war and pro-peace. We have Support the Blue and Black Lives Matter sitting together and serving together.”

Protestia’s thread specifically mentioned a man named Joe Mills, who Facebook photos indicate married another man in 2021. Photos posted in 2022 show him helping to baptize others and serving in church ministry.

First Orlando’s statement of faith includes a section on family. It says:

We teach that the family is an institution created by God. God’s vision for the family is the uniting of one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage for a lifetime. Human sexuality is a gift created for expression within the boundaries of marriage. For those who have children, God has given the parents the responsibility to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4; Proverbs 22:6). We believe that a consistent and whole education will occur when home, church, and school work closely together and are in agreement on the basic concepts of life.