The Rev. Elder Cecilia Eggleston, moderator of the MCC denomination, today issued a statement condemning the apparently hate-motivated murder last weekend of openly gay Muslim Imam Muhsin Hendricks near the town of Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth, in South Africa. His murder, Eggleston said, “is a tragedy that underscores the dangers LGBTQ persons face on a daily basis.”
According to The Guardian, Eastern Cape police said Imam Henricks was in a vehicle with another person on Saturday, Feb, 15, when a second vehicle stopped in front of them, blocking their way. Then, “Two unknown suspects with covered faces got out of the vehicle and started firing multiple shots” at the vehicle the imam was in,” according to a statement from police.
Police said that after the suspects got back into their car and fled, the driver of the imam’s vehicle saw that Hendricks, who was in the back seat, had been shot to death.
While police say the motive for Hendricks’ murder is unknown, Eggleston and others in the LGBTQ community believe it was a hate crime and that the imam was targeted because he was gay and because of his work with the LGBTQ community.
Julia Ehrt, executive director of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, said, “The ILGA World family is in deep shock at the news of the murder of Muhsin Hendricks, and calls on authorities to thoroughly investigate what we fear may be a hate crime.”
Eggleston agreed: “Imam Hendricks appears to have died in a targeted attack, likely related to his work in reconciling ministries for LGBTQ Muslims. As leader of a Christian denomination that shares the goal of bringing queer people into a relationship with God, I find this murder to be particularly upsetting. Moreover, it serves as a grim reminder that LGBT folk are in peril in much of the world simply for being themselves.”
Again according to The Guardian, Hendricks, who came out as gay in 1996 and who was the subject of a 2022 documentary called The Radical, has in the past alluded to threats against him: “He told the Guardian he had been advised to hire bodyguards but said he never feared attacks and insisted that ‘the need to be authentic’ was ‘greater than the fear to die.’”
The Rev. Elder Nokuthula Dhladhla, a member of MCC’s Council of Elders who is based in South Africa, said, “Imam Muhsin Hendricks was a champion for human rights, a beacon of love and justice and a fearless voice for inclusion.” Dhladhla continued, “His murder is not just a loss to the interfaith community but a brutal attack on the values of compassion, dignity and equality that he dedicated his life to upholding. We condemn this act of violence in the strongest terms and call on all people of faith and conscience to stand against the rising tide of hate and intolerance.”
Eggleston concluded, “I pray for a swift investigation and a just outcome in this matter, and call on religious and spiritual leaders of all faiths to condemn such acts.
“Surely, our God is not pleased by violence and hatred, which run contrary to all faiths.”
The MCC denomination was founded in 1968 specifically for LGBT Christians and now has more than 100 churches around the world — including in South Africa.
— Tammye Nash