One of the blessings or curses of being a columnist – even when you’re only a twice-a-month freelancer – is that you’re always working. Anything you see or hear can plant an idea.

So it was a couple of Sundays ago. I was drinking my coffee before church and turned on “The Sandlot,” one of my favorite baseball movies. It’s about a group of boys who band together to play baseball all summer, with lots of funny side trips along the way.

Scotty Smalls is a kid who just moved into the neighborhood, smart but timid and with almost no experience playing or following sports. He’s spotted by Benny, the best athlete in the neighborhood, who encourages the reluctant newcomer to join their group playing baseball on the sandlot.

Smalls quickly proves to be pretty hopeless, unable to catch or throw. The other kids are inclined to send him home. But instead of rejecting him, Benny encourages him, not only teaching him some baseball basics and urging him to have more confidence but giving him a decent glove and less geeky hat. Smalls becomes part of the tight-knit group thanks to one kid’s willingness to welcome a boy who didn’t seem to fit in.

It doesn’t just change Scotty’s summer. Maybe it changes his life.

At my church that morning, our songs, our scripture readings and the great sermon by Pastor Taylor Hall all proclaimed our continuing commitment to welcoming everyone to come as they are, celebrating the Latin phrase for “Image of God” with Imago Dei Sunday, signifying the belief that all humans are created in God’s likeness and possess inherent value and dignity.

Our church conducts services every Sunday in three different languages, partly because we years ago led efforts to successfully resettle refugees in the Lehigh Valley. On that day, many of us wore T-shirts proclaiming Love, Empathy, Compassion, Justice, Inclusion. Later, many members joined the Pride Day celebration at SteelStacks, which drew a big crowd, including lots of supportive straight people.

Hall, who is gay, reminded us of the story he shared in his first sermon when he came to us six years ago. He was a confused 12-year-old boy, struggling with his sexual identity, when one of his youth leaders told him God punishes those who love someone from the same gender.

“When I heard those words spoken to me as if they were God’s own truth, I believed them,” Hall said. “I believed the lie that God was against people like me. And as a 12-year-old, I began to hate this part of myself. … It took years for God to undo that lie within me. Years to believe again that my identity, my whole self, is made in the image of God … that people like me belong in God’s house.”

I didn’t make it to the Pride celebration, but I read the news stories and the joyous Facebook posts afterward, including a handful of hateful responses that were very much in keeping with the awful turn our country has taken.

It’s a turn that suggests being different is wrong, something not only to be despised, but to be punished. Donald Trump and his party won an election in part by skillfully demonizing outsiders of all kinds, pitting Us against Them. Now they’re putting those ugly words into action.

Sadly, many people who claim to be Christians supported all this enthusiastically, cherry-picking Scripture and ignoring the relentlessly overriding message of Jesus and the rest of the Bible that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and devote ourselves to helping the needy, to doing justice, to loving kindness andpatience.

Jesus is too woke. Hail Trump.

So this column is both a celebration and a lament. A celebration of a day that began with young baseball players welcoming an outsider, continued with an inspirational reminder of why I’m proud of my church and my faith and ended with the LGBQT+ and straight communities proclaiming their pride in how far we’ve come, even if we have so far to go.

And a lament that in so many areas of human interaction, our country is moving in the wrong direction, that people who claim to share my faith – including a president who wouldn’t be caught dead in a church unless there was a camera to record it – are using it as a weapon to divide us, as cruelly as possible.

Daily, we’re confronted with new examples of the kind of country Donald Trump wants us to be. Since our institutions have failed to slow, let alone stop, his determination to impose his vicious will on every aspect of our society, it’s up to us to prove that’s not who we are or want to be, with our votes, with our feet and hands, with our voices.

I might ask myself: What would Jesus do? But since people of many different faiths – and no faith – read the newspaper, I won’t suggest that to you.

How about: What would Benny do?

This is a contributed opinion column. Bill White can be reached at whitebil1974@gmail.com. His Threads handle is whitebil2000. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author, and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. Do you have a perspective to share? Learn more about how we handle guest opinion submissions at themorningcall.com/opinions.

https://www.mcall.com/2025/08/30/bill-white-welcoming-diversity-is-an-american-value/