BEAN BLOSSOM — “Heal us, Lord,” the parishioners of St. David’s prayed, the night they learned that their organist had admitted to defacing their church.
About 18 church members hugged one another and wiped away tears as they arrived for their regular Wednesday service May 3.
Less than 12 hours earlier, news broke that the church’s organist, George “Nathan” Stang, had been charged with a misdemeanor for spray-painting hate messages on the church shortly after Election Day last November.
Stang, 26, of Bloomington, was the one who called the Rev. Kelsey Hutto on Sunday morning, Nov. 13 to report the vandalism.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]On April 28, he admitted to Brown County Det. Brian Shrader that he had spray-painted a swastika, “Heil Trump” and “Fag Church” on the building, according to a probable-cause affidavit filed May 3 in Brown Circuit Court.
The document says that Stang stated he “felt scared and alone because of the election results.”
Coral Hamlin has been a member of St. David’s for 21 years. She learned about the arrest over email. Shock, disbelief and questions swirled in her mind as tears filled her eyes.
“I was glad for the closure of who did it, because I never thought we would ever know who did that. But then my heart began to think, ‘Oh my gosh. Now what? What do we do? How do we handle this?’” she said.
“But then remembering, again, where we started in November, when we promised to love the person whoever it was and forgive them — this is a tough pill to swallow when it’s someone you know,” she said.
“(It is) a betrayal for me in some ways, and then there’s the feeling of, ‘Gosh, why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he come to us?’ Again, the questions.”
Gene Niednagel has been a member since 1988. He was at the church with Hutto when sheriff’s deputies arrived to tell them an arrest had been made.
Niednagel said he was silent for two to three minutes before he began to cry for the situation and for Stang.
“It was the overwhelming sense of the truth that I didn’t expect. We’d always said we would forgive and invite the people who did this to the church, and the person was in our midst all the time,” he said.
“I cannot imagine the pain that he carried with him with this knowledge, going through our whole work at healing, and he was so much a part of it.”
‘Pray for us’
Hamlin and Niednagel said Stang was at the clean-up ceremony Nov. 30, when at least 150 people showed up to help church members scrub off the graffiti.
The congregation had decided to leave it up for a couple weeks to “start a conversation,” before members and supporters gathered to remove it and come together in prayer.
“We were so lifted up by this whole community and the goodness of this community when this event happened, and this discovery has not negated any of that. In fact, it’s something we fall back on to know and help us move forward,” Niednagel said.
“Pray for us, first, and stay tuned, because it will take us a while to work through this and process it. It’s all so new.”
The service Wednesday night was the first step to processing the situation, he said.
Hamlin said the next step will be conversations in the congregation.
“It’s important that we keep talking among ourselves and sharing our feelings, our thoughts, our anger,” she said.
“That’s one of the things I love about our church is that we’re pretty open. … We talk to each other and we’re there for each other and we support each other and we cry with each other and we laugh with each other.”
Stang, who told police he is gay, said wanted to “mobilize a movement” with the graffiti but he didn’t want it to generate the amount of media attention that it caused, the document said.
Hutto was interviewed about the incident on national television. The church received hundreds of messages from across the country and the world.
Niednagel, Hamlin and longtime member Joe Ridenour said they wished Stang had reached out to their congregation for support.
“We’re all family, and it hurts more that we missed the signals to help prevent this,” Niednagel said.
Ridenour said he initially felt guilty about not connecting more with Stang.
“But mostly (I thought) he has a lot of gifts in music, and I hope this doesn’t spoil his career,” he said.
Stang has been working on contract as the church’s organist, pianist and choir director for about eight months, church member Joan Amati said. The church’s website says he is a composer who’s working on a doctorate degree in music at Indiana University.
Stang was “adamant that he did not do it because he was anti-Christian; rather, that his intentions were strictly out of fear,” the police report says.
In a three-page statement to police, Stang wrote: “I suppose I wanted to give local people a reason to fight for good even if it was a false flag,” it says. “I of course realize now that this was not the way to go about inspiring activism.”
The path forward
A court timeline not been set for Stang’s case as of press time.
Brown County Prosecutor Ted Adams said in a news release that he did not believe this fit the definition of a “hate crime.” Indiana is one of a handful of states that do not allow tougher penalties for crimes motivated by bias on race, religion, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation.
Adams called the incident “a blight on our small and diverse community,” and thanked officers for the six months of investigative work that led to the charges.
Hutto and the church’s vestry will decide whether to keep Stang on as the organist and choir director.
“I want him to continue,” Ridenour said. “I personally would like for him to continue with us, because I think we love and try to love everybody and we certainly want to include him, not exclude him.”
“I would point out that the Bible is full of people who have gone astray and have been received back into the fold. There’s ample ways to do that, and I would say that God works in God’s mysterious ways to bring about reconciliation, healing and forgiveness,” Niednagel said.
During the investigation, Amati said Stang had been continuing to attend all services and church meals, even picking up another parishioner and bringing her to church regularly.
Niednagel said that forgiveness is a “two-edged sword” because not only does the congregation have to forgive, but Stang must forgive himself.
“That requires some real spiritual confrontation with God and the rest of us. It’s not going to be easy,” he said.
The door to St. David’s is open if Stang wishes to return, Hamlin said.
“We have to leave the door open for them to come back, always for them to come back. That’s hard, and that’s what I asked for tonight was strength, because this is a tough thing for me,” Hamlin said.
“My heart aches for Nathan. After I read some of the news reports, he’s a hurting young man.”
When asked if they forgive him, Hamlin, Niednagel and Ridenour all said they did.
“Yes, of course. Yes, yes, yes,” Ridenour said as tears filled his eyes. “I hope we end up being the best of friends.”
“Like I always tell my kids, ‘I love you,’” Niednagel said.
“Sometimes I don’t like what you do, but the love doesn’t go away.”
