It was curiosity that led 21-year-old Keegan Elder to google “LGBTQ Soul City” one cold, February night in Chicago. Keegan had already been attending and volunteering at Soul City Church for three years, and just signed on as theirmarketing intern.

That is when he learned about former congregant Johnny Santiago’s experience with discrimination at Soul City. It took years for Johnny and several other former members of the church to decode Soul City’s definitions of equality and its leadership’s preemptive gaslighting.

The problem revolves around Soul City’s stance on affirmation. Affirmation is loosely defined as a church allowing the LGBTQ+ community the same rights as everyone else. Church Clarity says, “Affirming policies place no restrictions on people who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and/or Queer; they are allowed to participate and lead at all levels of church leadership and liturgy.”

A WeWork, but church

Keegan first walked into Soul City three years earlier. At age 18, a newly minted college student at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he came fresh from a small town in Southern Illinois. A staff member introduced herself immediately and within a month, asked Keegan to help watch over Soul City’s merchandise store.

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The steady decline of young people attending church has contributed to the rise of “modern,” hip churches like Soul City, that are aimed at millennials, teens, and young families. There are no pews or stained-glass windows, but there is consistent messaging with nods to pop culture and social issues. When you walk into Soul City doors, Ralph Lauren pendants decorate the walls above you. There’s a rooftop to relax, West Elm furniture in the lounges, and during worship, smoke fills the stage like a rock concert. On their website, there is a link directing you to “Black Lives Matter” content.

Keegan had been going to a small-town church his entire life, and Soul City looked like a beacon of progressive views.

“We don’t marry gay couples.”

A few months later, Keegan tells me that the same staff member asked him to get coffee: “She said, ‘I want to talk about your sexuality.’”

Keegan, who is openly gay, agreed, and it was over that cup of coffee she told Keegan upfront Soul City “doesn’t marry gay couples.” Keegan never thought to ask about gay marriage when he joined at 18; he thought it irrelevant.

“Marriage didn’t apply to me, so it didn’t bother me,” Keegan explained.

I asked Keegan what he thought about Soul City during the beginning. He called it ‘welcoming.’ There were people his age that attended, but mostly everyone was older, which is the age group he’s used to being around. It was comfortable for him. The aesthetics drew him in, and it was near UIC’s campus. He said the venue looked cool.

I asked him what made Soul City welcoming. “I don’t know…They wanted me there to work in the store. But then that became…every Sunday, they’d ask, “can you stay later?” Keegan tells me. At the same time, Keegan enjoyed having the routine of going to church every Sunday.

For three years, attending Soul City services and volunteering was a part of his life.

Keegan asks questions

During the Fall of 2020, before Illinois’ second COVID-19 lockdown, Soul City held an event for volunteers. Keegan had recently returned to Chicago from his hometown after spending the first lockdown back home. It was at the event where Founding and Lead Pastor, Jarrett Stevens, introduced Keegan to Soul City’s Marketing Director, which led to an unpaid internship opportunity with the church. Keegan accepted, thinking the experience would help him build his resume before he graduated from college that spring. He tells me he fulfilled menial social media tasks, but also worked on ‘merch’ mockups, because ‘Jarrett was doing a book relaunch.’

I asked if the mockups were for Soul City or [Jarrett himself]. Keegan replied, “For Jarrett. A lot of what the Marketing Director [for Soul City] was doing, was ‘what should we do for Jarrett?’”

On one hand, Soul City became a second home for Keegan. On the other hand, he felt they were taking advantage of him. Keegan noted, “I look back. I was going to Soul City every Sunday, and they were probably using me. They always asked me to stay, sometimes for every service, because they’d say, ‘we don’t have enough volunteers.’”

After interning for two weeks in early 2021, Keegan found Johnny’s storyonline. He texted a close friend of his, Breanna Sweeney, “I don’t know what to do or how to feel.” Breanna had also recently left Soul City.

Keegan assumed Breanna left Soul City because she was moving out of state, but she told him that was only part of it. “There was a long history of events that people don’t know.”

Keegan said the difference between now and 2018 [when the staff member approached Keegan], was maturity. Heexplained, “I didn’t realize their stance hadn’t changed at all. It not only means a lot to me, but I’m a part of that.” After speaking to Breanna, Keegan decided to leave Soul City.

A start-up church

Young people favor the modern setup, the storytelling in sermons. It’s a reflection of themselves. At Soul City, you can see your friends, visit the coffee bar, attend church, and go to brunch nearby afterwards.

But for Keegan, Johnny, and former member Emily Bennett, at times, it felt too much like a business, where you needed to volunteer more “to belong,” — where fundraising felt more like you were building a personal brand for the institution and its founding pastors.

Fundraising

Soul City’s website identifies fundraising as “a transformational component to how members can build their relationship with Jesus.”

Soul City uses the word “transformation” often*, including it in their mission and vision statements, too. Using the word “transform” indicates one can be changed by fundraising or attending Soul City, and it’s used so often that it begins to sound meaningless. How exactly should one become transformed by fundraising?

They’ve recently embarked on a $9 million campaign to build two new Soul City churches, and a broadcast studio to launch podcasts and original music, among other things. Their Vision Guide for the campaign lists donation tiers up to $1 million that you can use as “personal transformation tools.” The guide states, “Your Transformation is the primary goal of [this campaign].

Another fundraiser called “Hope for All” from late 2020 designated 80% of $300,000 towards renovations for a ‘healing center.’ 20% went to discounting Christmas gifts for their store, and Thanksgiving meals for local families. It’s unclear if the healing center will offer free services.

A few years ago, Jarrett Stevens, Soul City’s Founder, explained his stance on building a business. He spoke of treating Soul City as a start-up, how he used concepts he learned from former marketing executive, Seth Godin, and entrepreneur Jason Fried, and that one needed to “learn to love raising money.”

A recent Crain’s Business article featuring Jarrett, and his wife and co-founder Jeanne, describes them as “non-profit executives.”

Why does this matter? Because as Vox puts it, “Modern American evangelicalism has always spread in part by being adjacent to power.” To former members, the reason behind Soul City’s unwillingness to affirm homosexuality is money. They believe there are big donors that would pull money or donate less if Soul City was truly inclusive. Whether that is true remains unclear, but it does lead to another question. Why not just tell the truth? It’s been done before.

With a majority of congregants aged 20 to 40 years old, it’s likely that being transparent to a non-affirmative stance could hurt the brand and attendance. Several former members agreed that Soul City appears to accept allpeople. Their slogan “Everyone is welcome to the table,” infers that everyone is afforded the same rights and privileges.

Keegan Elder

Everyone welcome, mostly

The Sunday after reading Johnny Santiago’s story, Keegan attended and “worked”Soul City’s Sunday service. On this particular Sunday, Pastor Jon Jorgensen led the congregation. In his sermon,Jorgensen preached:

“If you have ever been told that you couldn’t be a part of the church because of your background……. your sexual orientation, that you couldn’t be welcomed in a church community, I want you to know the good news. It includes you, too.”

Keegan sent a video of this excerpt privately to Breanna. By mid-day, many people shared it on their Instagram Stories asking Soul City for clarity, noting “Welcome does not equal affirming.” Emily Bennett found the preaching hypocritical. It reminded her of an excerpt from Soul City’s PreMarriage Process guide, which is linked on Soul City’s website:

Excerpt from Soul City Church’s PreMarriage Process Guide: The guide says everyone is welcome, but the last sentence says otherwise.

Several people tagged Soul City’s social handle that day, but they did not reply or comment.

In preparation for leaving Soul City, Keegan e-mailed his boss, that day, asking to speak to her privately. Keegan wrote a letter he intended to read aloud explaining he would no longer intern at Soul City, that he’d be leaving permanently, and why.

When Keegan read the letter to his boss a few days later, she thanked him for his time. Keegan described the interaction as “P.R. friendly.”

Because of several current and former Soul City members requesting clarity that Sunday, there was allegedly a staff meeting the next day at Soul City. Jeanne and Jarrett announced to staff that “the Johnny situation was being brought again.” Jarrett and Jeanne told staff nothing would change unless the situation comes up again. It’s likely that the marketing director already prepared her response to Keegan in advance.

A call for difficult conversations

Churches like Soul City can thrive despite exclusionary practices because they are more inclusive than other churches. But when the church is not transparent on how they exclude certain people, it causes even more pain and trauma, because some community members have joined the congregation believing they are equal. The LGBTQ+ community and their allies don’t want to be “welcome to the table” just to volunteer, donate, and attend services. They want affirmation, to be loved and treated equally as God loves his children, otherwise it’s a lie.

Peripheral discrimination hurts the members of the community directly and indirectly involved. When Johnny asked for clarification, Soul City’s leadership opt for maxims like “you shouldn’t always say what you think.” The lingo seems eerily similar to Alissa Wilkinson’s critique of Adam Neumann’s hollow “community-building” in WeWork before his ousting. Wilkinson writes:

“If [the WeWork community] dared to be “authentic” and “real” enough to question the leader, they’d find themselves on the outside.”[**]

Maybe this is where you get transformation. It’s not by attending places like Soul City long enough or donating x dollars, but by entering institutions and discovering your own power. As you settle into Sunday mornings for quiet reflection and meet people that do want to have tough conversations, you bloom. You crave leadership that lives by its words. You question in what ways they support Black Lives Matter past a website link, what words like authenticity and transformation actually mean, and whether you depend on the institution more than you should.

These places aren’t perfect. For some, the curated stage can leave one feeling empty and alone.

And over time, when it’s clear that what the church says contradicts what the church does, the roses wilt. Maybe your time there becomes a lesson on how churches are more interested in brand than beliefs, but the time was still necessary to get where you are today.

Soul City still won’t be honest on their non-affirming stance. They also won’t share why. Current members can do their part by putting pressure on staff and leadership, and demand transparency, so people like Keegan or Johnny can make decisions with the truth in mind. It will continue to be an uphill battle, but these difficult conversations are truly where transformation happens.

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Footnotes

* Character ‘transformation’ is an element of great storytelling. People love to see stories about characters who experience change. Take Pixar — their stories thrive off it.

• *I encourage you to read this critique of the new Hulu documentary on WeWork. Wilkinson directly compares Adam Neumann’s practices to “a very specific variety of cool young ‘church planters’ — mostly male pastors of mostly white and mostly conservative evangelical churches.”