A schismatic downtown Durham saga drew to a close on Tuesday when Pioneers Durham—an amalgam of church, coffeeshop, market, and co-working space located inside the iconic Hutchins showroom on Geer Street—announced that it is shuttering.
The last day of operation for the business will be February 25. (The church has “not come to any decision to close,” according to an email from Lopez Jackson received after this article published.)
“We have wrestled deeply with this decision and while we have witnessed beautiful growth every month in the past two years, as we worked to keep up with the changing economic landscape downtown, it became clear that closing was the right decision,” the organization wrote in an Instagram post. “We love what Pioneers is and was, and celebrate the years it was a place of peace for so many.”
As the INDY reported in November 2021 when the space first opened, Pioneers was led by Duke Divinity School graduate Sherei Lopez Jackson and received support from downtown’s Trinity United Methodist Church. Upon opening, it almost immediately drew ire due to its stance on gay marriage.
“It’s a really tender question that needs to be handled relationally,” Lopez Jackson told the INDY in 2021, when asked about her decision not to marry gay couples. “I want to protect freedom. That’s my priority, so why would I politically advocate for someone else’s freedoms to be limited, when freedoms are so essential to what it means to be a part of this country? I’m saying all that to say, I don’t always think that there is a relationship between a theological conviction and a political conviction.”
That anti-LGBTQ+ stance is not singular—other churches in Durham share it, and the issue has become a fault line dividing the progressive and conservative factions of the United Methodist Church. But Pioneers, with its shared business designation, neighboring proximity to a swath of avowedly queer businesses, and rose-gold messaging tailored to affluent transplants, proved a perfect storm.
The United Methodist Church writ large continues to struggle with the question of sexuality. By the end of the 2023 calendar year, as the window for denominational disaffiliations closed, 5,642 of UMC’s 30,000 congregations had split, bringing the total number of exiting congregations to 7,659, over the past few years—an exodus representing churches intent on preserving a homophobic stance.
In response to Pioneer Durham’s presence on Geer Street, over the past two years, rainbow flags have peppered the neighborhood and protesters have regularly congregated outside the showroom holding signs like “Keep Geer Queer.” In March 2022, a group of local UMC pastors also wrote an open letter to the denomination’s regional leadership asking it to cut financial ties with Pioneers.
In June of 2022, Pioneers announced it was leaving the UMC and joining the Wesleyan Church, which adheres to much more conservative sexual doctrines, writing, on its website, that “sexual relationships outside of marriage and sexual relationships between persons of the same sex are immoral and sinful.” Daniel Jackson, Lopez Jackson’s spouse, also announced that he would be joining Pioneers as co-pastor.
“Through investing in redemptive enterprise and partnerships, we will be a church that matters to our city: to bring justice and hope to our neighbors in a tangible way,” reads a mission statement on the church website.
I first wrote about Pioneers Durham in November 2021 and again in June of 2022 when the church switched denominations. Drawing a full circle to the reporting process of that initial article, when I was blocked from viewing the Pioneers business and church Instagram accounts (and then following the article’s publication, unblocked), as of this morning, I am once again blocked. A browser scan showcases an outpouring of support for Pioneers at the closure announcement, though in keeping with the organization’s social media praxis, all negative comments have been deleted.
Pioneers Durham did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment.
Correction: This article incorrectly stated that both the church and the business are closing. In an email sent after the article was published, Lopez Jackson wrote: “The cafe/marketplace is closing in Feb 25. The church has not come to any decision to close.”
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