Andrew Walker
April 20, 2012
Pastor Guy Sayles lamented the use of “proof texts” regarding sexuality. (Photo credit: Storiesof.us) |
Decatur, GA—A highly anticipated conference sponsored by self professed moderate Baptists on the topic of sexuality kicked off its first day on April 19 with conference attendees hearing speakers discuss the issue of sexual identity and how to discern new understandings of authority. It was sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), a group of churches that left the conservative dominated Southern Baptist Convention.
Dubbed “A [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality & Covenant,” day one was attended by roughly 300 people at the historic First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA, home to pastor Julie Pennington-Russell, a prominent CBF pastor.
Organized by Mercer University ethicist David Gushee, the purpose of the conference has been to provide an atmosphere of honest discussion on sexual issues facing the church, not the least of which was homosexuality, a palpable undercurrent and unavoidable subject in each of the presenter’s remarks. Organizers went to great lengths in their introduction to carefully and explicitly state that the presence of any particular speaker was not an endorsement of the speaker’s position, but a willingness to give each a hearing, in keeping with the “conversational” intent of the conference.
Jenell Williams Paris, an anthropologist from historically evangelical Messiah College in Pennsylvania and author of The End of Sexual Identity, spoke first on the topic, “While We Were Avoiding the Subject: What’s Going in the World (and the Church).”
Non-controversial in nature, Paris’ address focused on the sexual climate of present-day America, noting that America is awash in sexual brokenness, with sexual problems affecting the larger population and Christians alike. Paris noted that between out-of-wedlock child birth soaring, divorce rampant, pornography increasing, and shifting attitudes toward homosexuality occurring, Christians in an increasingly pluralistic society must “turn from exemption to implication”—to see the sexual brokenness of Christians as endemic to larger society’s brokenness.
Christians also, Paris added, must see that a one-time consensus on sexuality within the church has shifted into an “internal pluralism” where Christians now openly disagree on sexual ethics. Paris stopped short of endorsing the idea of sexual pluralism within modern Christianity but urged recognizing its existence.
Sexual minorities, too, Paris said, “are now as close as our favorite TV shows, our extended families or even as close as the image in the mirror.” We must, said Paris, “turn from abhorrence to tolerance.” All of this, Paris summarized, “is an invitation to a new game – walking away form the tug-of-war where people line up their side of the issue and start struggling against their opponents. It’s an invitation to reconciliation. Refusing to accept pre-packaged options and positions; thinking together as believers about ways to assess and approach various issues. Refusing the social belief that sexuality is an identity-constituting element of life; instead putting sexuality in its place – an important place, but one that doesn’t eclipse the real truth of human identity, that we are made and loved by God […] This work of reconciliation may well be a challenge to traditional sexual ethics. Can we uphold a traditional Christian sexual ethic and really love those with whom we disagree?
Guy Sayles, Pastor of First Baptist Church Asheville, North Carolina, followed Paris with an address on “Faithful Listening in Challenging Times: How Do We Discern God’s Voice?” More pointed in nature, Sayles focused his address on the issue of authority, noting that “people read the Bible in astonishingly diverse ways,” and that “Baptist Christians acknowledge how personal experience affects what people see, hear, feel understand, do and become.” Sayle went on to suggest that Christians ought to “remember that the risen, still-acting, and still-speaking Jesus is the norm by which we interpret Scripture and evaluate other sources of authority.”
Using the Ethopian Eunach as an example for marginalized voices seeking inclusion into the present-day church, Sayles noted that the Old Testament prohibitions would have forbidden the Ethiopian Eunuch from fellowship. “Their Bible said it: A man like him could never call the Temple his home. The Ethiopian experienced what too many people experience from God’s people: the ugliness of exclusion,” Sayles noted.
Sayles lamented the use of “proof texts” and suggested that Christians look to the overarching themes of Scripture— such as creation, brokenness, and new creation, slavery, liberation, covenant, and promise—to guide their sexual ethics more than individual texts.
“Too often, Christians read the Bible in ways that overemphasize isolated texts and use them to push aside the just, gracious and merciful God whom the grand overarching themes reveal,” Sayles said. “The result,” Sayles concluded, is that “followers of Jesus think, feel, and act in ways that aren’t Jesus-like but seem to be required by their reading of the Bible.”
“Would his [the Eunuch’s] race, or the fact that he was a foreigner or his high-place of authority, or his peculiar status as a eunuch bar him from following Jesus? Would he be held back, hindered, and cut off once again? Were there hidden barriers in the Gospel, exceptions and exclusions written into the fine print of the Good News?” Jesus, in contrast, “made the radical inclusiveness of God unavoidably clear.”
Sayles warned of churches becoming “ecclesiastical border patrol officers” by focusing on characteristics such as race, gender, class, divorce, and sexual orientation that prohibit entrance into the church.
“What prevents people who make us uncomfortable, or who raise issues for which we lack adequate responses from being baptized?,” Sayles asked. “What bars their becoming and being full and equal participants in the Christian community? Nothing in God […] Therefore, it is a denial of God’s unconditional love and of salvation by grace if the conditions of someone’s life seem to us to justify our excluding him or her from the community.”
Although the conference professes not to try to sway denominational policies or ethics, the topic of homosexuality has been a conference overtone.
The conference has been plagued with critics who insist that the conference is an invitation to invite immoral sexual arrangements into the life of the church. And with the CBF’s current moderator, Colleen Burroughs, calling for the CBF to re-examine its hiring ban on homosexuals, her untimely statements have cast a shadow over the conference. Conference organizers insist that the intent of the conference has nothing to do with formal policy, specifically the hiring ban.
Attendees of the conference have expressed appreciation for the denomination’s willingness to have a “conversation” about controversial sexual topics often swept under the rug or considered “off-limits” due to denominational hierarchy.
Some attendees considered the conference a good “starting place,” but that it was “long overdue” as one person said.
And asked about the conference in conjunction with the CBF’s hiring ban on homosexuals, individuals who wished not to be identified said: “It was time to do away with the hiring policy and pursue justice.” They hinted at the need for the CBF to bring formal inclusion of LGBT persons into the CBF’s life.
One young attendee pointed to what he sees as a denominational breaking point over issues of sexuality, saying “the debate over homosexuality is one of money and generational divide. Will the CBF make it another generation? Or will the younger generation leave?”
Indeed, a generational divide seems apparent as attendees’ responses on the question of homosexuality ranged from all-out endorsement to unease and reluctance.
Of the seven exhibitors at the conference, three of them are sponsored by explicitly pro-gay ministries, a fact which reinforces the perception that denominational shifts are in play, despite conference organizer’s attempts to downplay the debate.
Still, others were happy to attend the conference just as hopeful learners, seeking to discover “how to live faithfully and how sex influences our faith.” Two pastors remained hopeful about the idea of creating a place where honest conversation could occur, hoping to “reach out to those who have been hurt or misunderstood because conversation has not taken place.
Stay tuned for a summary of day 2 tomorrow. As of this writing, a request by this reporter has been placed with conference organizers to help identify and speak with attendees who hold to more conservative positions on issues of sexuality.
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