Lutheran Church in Pleasantville Offers a God-Based Home for Everybody

By Michael Gold

If home is the place where they have to take you in, then the Emmanuel Lutheran Church of Pleasantville is the place where everyone will be welcomed when they walk in the door no matter what.

“We don’t turn anyone away,” Pastor Kevin O’Hara told me. “We want to hear from everybody.”

O’Hara’s church offers the salve of companionship in an often-difficult world.

The church, with 125 members, has a Dungeons and Dragons group for 15 kids – “boys, girls and non-binary children,” O’Hara said.

“They can explore who they are as a character in a safe environment,” he explained.

The group is run by a 14-year-old boy, which gives him “a leadership opportunity. This is what the world needs, the ability to allow people to be who they are.”

O’Hara started a women’s group and a church book club, now run by the congregation. The women’s group, consisting of about 10 to 20 members from both the congregation and the greater community, meets at a local restaurant once a month.

The book club read the Bible over a two-year period and is now exploring biblical characters. The club just finished reading “Abraham,” by Bruce Feiler. The church may form a second book club to examine secular writings and how to apply religious faith in the world, which would be open to the community, the pastor explained.

The church has been exploring plans to host a Pride event next June and, along with the Pleasantville Presbyterian Church, will soon be hiring a youth leader to work with both congregations.

The pastor is “trying to foster inclusivity in the church,” based on his faith.

“Your belief in a supreme divinity tells you we should be welcoming of all people,” O’Hara said. “God is always listening to those who feel most neglected. We’re here to share God’s love.”

The church is “preparing for a season of hard conversations” due to the upcoming presidential election, O’Hara explained. The congregation contains both Democrats and Republicans, and “we want to hear from everybody. There is some validity on both sides,” he said.

“Inflation is a concern to some, with the current price of groceries and gas. We do hear from some families that are financially not as well off as they used to be,” O’Hara explained, even though Pleasantville is “pretty affluent.”

A different aspect of the financial conversation comes from some well-off members of the congregation who get stressed “because they see neighbors with housekeepers and live-in caretakers for the children. Their house has to look spectacular. You have to have a second house.”

Many church members are deeply concerned about women’s rights. They’re worried they won’t be able to make decisions for themselves. The possibility of a national abortion ban “is alarming for the congregation,” O’Hara said. Immigration is another worry.

He’s clear-eyed about the problems facing the congregation and the world including the issues of wars, the climate crisis and financial stability. This is compounded by the narcissism, often displayed online, with the images of “perfection from everyone who posts on Facebook,” and “Sweet 16 parties costing $20,000,” O’Hara said.

He cautions people about egocentric public figures who proclaim, “that they’re the solution to everything.”

There is another complication today.

“Our generation expects instant solutions, and the world will be better,” the pastor said. Instead, he recommends that we do the hard work of trying to understand the different points of an argument in order to find a solution.

“We don’t blame a whole group of people on the basis of one person or a few people,” providing a welcome respite from the too-frequent habit of stereotyping others who have a different religion, skin color or sexual orientation.

“I can’t solve the world’s energy crisis, but I can listen to both sides and try to find a solution to both needs,” O’Hara said.

The pastor is at ease with the combination of his faith and humility.

“We’re trying the best that we can, but we sometimes fail. God speaks to all of us differently. I always thought of God as a cosmic being, a white man with a long white robe.”

He no longer believes in that conception of the deity but believes that “God is the guide to goodness. God is the essence that oversees the direction of the world.”

While the Bible can possibly be read as a parable about how to live life, “when I read the Bible, I’d like to think there was an actual Adam and Eve, an actual Moses.”

“For me, I’m not the savior of the world’s problems. It’s not about me,” O’Hara said. “Here is a place for people who are searching for God. It’s hard to understand the direction of God, but we can all be in this place together. We can walk with each other in these times.”

Michael Gold has had articles published in the New York Daily News, the Albany Times Union, and other newspapers, and The Hardy Society Journal, a British literary publication.