Pastor Kyle Lammott of Wichita’s Exodus Church told me he has no regrets

Jun 12, 2024

A Kansas pastor’s plan to disrupt a library’s celebration of Pride month by having his congregation check out all the LGBTQ-themed books has, predictably, backfired. But in his first interview since this story made the news, he told me he stood by his actions.

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Earlier this month, Pastor Kyle Lammott of Wichita’s Exodus Church revealed his plan on his (now private) Instagram, showing a collection of LGBTQ books checked out from the Andover Public Library. Given the limit of books one person can check out, this appeared to be the work of at least a few people from his congregation.

It’s Pride Month, a good time to recalibrate what it means to love your neighbor. One way you can love your neighbors and your community is to gather together some of the men in your church and go empty the local library of all their LGBTQ+ books. Start with the kids’ books and work your way up. This really is a great way to love your neighbors and serve your community.

This whole stunt raised so many questions.

Why the subtle dose of misogyny? Only men can check out these books? Why?! Are they worried that if women-folk get near literature, they might start learning and educating themselves and then churches will really be screwed?

Why these books? Just look at their sizes! It didn’t even look like they grabbed many kids’ books. A closer look at some of the titles showed that they just grabbed anything they could find, including at least one romance novel, a book about Black Lives Matter, and a biography of tennis legend Billie Jean King.

Why was there a Deepak Chopra book in the pile? They can keep that one. The rest of us have no use for it.

And, perhaps most importantly, what was the point?

A library exists so that people can check out books. If a book is unavailable, visitors can just reserve it or check it out another time. This act of pretend-heroism wasn’t preventing anyone from reading LGBTQ stories; at best, it just delayed their efforts. It’s also important to realize that a book doesn’t have to have a rainbow on it to include LGBTQ characters or situations. This church was literally judging books by their covers… or at least what was presented on a display celebrating Pride month.

Perhaps the funniest thing about this stunt was that it was never going to work, as the Wichita Public Library and reporter Suzanne Perez of KMUW pointed out:

[Tom Taylor, director of the Andover library,] and other area librarians said the protest strategy likely would backfire because checkouts are an indication of demand for certain materials. Libraries track demand as they replenish their collections.

“When there’s a high demand and usage of books, those are the ones we want to keep and even replace if they get damaged or not returned,” Taylor said.

“If the strategy is to get them away from kids, in the short term it would work. But in the long run, we’d be more likely to buy those titles because of the usage.”

Talk about backfiring…

Because of what this Christian pastor did, the library may end up with more LGBTQ books in the future. Lovely. (Maybe the church members should’ve picked up books about karma.)

The stunt didn’t even work on its own merits because even the library didn’t notice anything weird happening at first:

Wichita Public Library officials said they highlight LGBTQ books with special displays during Pride Month. They have not noticed an unusual uptick in checkouts at Wichita branches.

The library just dunked on the church with the equivalent of a sexual partner who says, Wait, is that it?

Lammott soon shut down his public Instagram account. But I really wanted to know what he was thinking, what he planned to do with the books, and whether he understood why this sort of stunt never worked.

To my surprise, he agreed to talk.

He sometimes requested that our conversation be off-the-record, which I honored, but he never shied away from the questions I was asking. Over the past couple of days, as more stories have come out about this, he’s been inundated with threats and nasty comments that go well beyond fair criticism. (All of that is unacceptable. Please don’t contribute to that. Don’t escalate.) All the more reason I appreciated his willingness to speak with me.

Lammott wanted to clarify a few things right away: He knew checking out those books wouldn’t stop kids from reading them (eventually). He also wanted everyone to know he will be returning the books before their due date. The church, contrary to what some people online were speculating, has no plans to steal or burn the books or anything like that.

That said, he didn’t feel like this plan backfired at all—and he didn’t shut down his Instagram account because he was afraid of criticism:

I don’t think the plan backfired at all. No, the truth is, I rarely check Instagram. However, when I stumbled upon the comments fomenting on my post, I decided it was best to turn down the delightful commentary.

I asked him what he thought about the library’s comments that checking out LGBTQ books could lead them to buy even more in the future. He told me he was aware that could happen—it didn’t come as a surprise to him—but this was merely one way to voice his displeasure with those books. What the library did as a result was out of his control, so it wasn’t something he worried about:

[The] intention and goal were not to influence the library’s future inventory. My concern lies elsewhere. 

What were those concerns?

I asked Lammott why he thought some of these books were bad for children. While he didn’t have an explanation for all of them (e.g. Chopra), he brought up books like Gender Queer, the popular graphic novel that he believes normalizes different gender identities. He also felt some books, intended for younger readers, were too sexually explicit.

But those weren’t the only books he checked out, were they? What about books that simply had gay characters? What about books that gave voice to feelings a lot of younger people have, especially when they’re questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity? What about the fact that many of the authors of those books wrote them specifically because they didn’t have resources like that growing up and wanted to offer comfort to other kids who may be struggling like they once did?

Lammott gave what I felt was a boilerplate conservative Christian response: It wasn’t LGBTQ people he had a problem with; it was the ideology.

I think there could be some misunderstanding here. My worry doesn't stem from reading about LGBTQ issues or characters. No, it's about trying to love our community by helping protect the hearts and minds of children from an ideology that has an insidious appetite.  Some will hear of this and interpret it as a personal or hateful act. Nothing could be further from the truth. To the contrary, I am convinced that humanity is fully realized and flourishes in union with the incarnated Christ. The ideologies promoted in many of these books aimed at children is an ideology that dehumanizes.

To me, showing kids that there’s nothing wrong with them if they have a crush on someone of the same gender, or if they feel like they’re trapped in the wrong body, is an act of love. In that way, those books can save lives. Furthermore, that message is not one that people in his church will ever hear. Which means those kids who have to go to conservative churches, and who are taught to suppress who they are in order to align themselves with whatever the pastor says the “incarnated Christ” wants, will struggle even more.

You don’t show “love” by censoring, in any way, books that call for common decency and basic humanity by helping readers understand LGBTQ lives.

What harm, I asked Lammott, did these books really cause? What “ideology” was he worried about? He again avoided specifics and gave the stock conservative Christian response:

Children are the most vulnerable in any society. The ideology of many of these books prey upon the God-given dignity, beauty, and worth of these little ones. My hope is that parents, children, or any other readers of your article would look and see that there is truly a glory and freedom to being made in the image of God and to provide that which true, good, and beautiful for children. 

That… didn’t answer the question.

If you believe children only have worth if they’re cis and straight—and that’s what I took away from his answer—then your religion isn’t teaching you to love people and you should stop pretending otherwise.

If you love children, then you should want them to love themselves. These books help them do that. You know what doesn’t help? Telling them they’re sinners who need to change their very essence to fit into some made-up mold of Jesus.

By the way, I asked Lammott what his reaction would be if a bunch of atheists decided to check out every Christian book in a library—not to read them but to prevent other Christians from reading them. He would get angry about that, right? RIGHT?! Wouldn’t he be the first to call that religious persecution?

Nope. He insisted he would be fine with it.

As a Christian pastor, I happily affirm the principle of liberty in literary pursuits. If atheists wish to peruse all the Christian texts, let them. After all, the truth has a funny way of revealing itself, regardless of one's intentions.

Maybe. Then again, nothing turns people into atheists faster than opening up a Bible...

I do find it ironic, though, that he affirmed “the principle of liberty in literary pursuits” when the whole reason we were chatting in the first place is because he wanted to prevent children from checking out certain books he didn’t personally like.

Ultimately, this whole stunt tells you a lot about the conservative Christian mindset. Instead of facing reality, some pastors want to shield people from ideas that may go against what their churches teach. Censorship is one of those tools. I think there’s an underlying belief Lammott holds that if people never learn about LGBTQ issues, or read about those characters, they’ll never become LGBTQ themselves. As anyone who’s LGBTQ could tell you, that’s not at all how it works. Kids who are gay or trans will continue being gay or trans. Whether they can accept that—and whether they make it into adulthood at all—is an open question.

What doesn’t help is withholding useful information. Pastors often take the same approach to sex and atheism; it’s why they fight comprehensive sex education in schools and flip out at the prospect of objective lessons on world religions. Education is treated as the enemy of faith. If Lammott really had the courage of his convictions, then he should be encouraging people to read those LGBTQ books because his sermons would override the “ideological” message they’re offering. Instead, he’s trying to stop people from opening those books at all.

If Lammott and his colleagues read some of these books, they could learn a lot. They could empathize with the struggles LGBTQ people have faced, often at the hands of Christians like them. Christians who claimed they were acting in the name of love.

I hope they consider it. After all, they have plenty to choose from for a couple more weeks.