EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY has changed significantly over the last 40 years on issues of gender, race, and nation. But until now it has not changed on homosexuality. Until the last five years, any self-identified evangelical Christian (in the United States, at least) suggesting that Christians might need to change some aspect of their teaching about same-sex-oriented people and their relationships has been (metaphorically, so far) banished by the evangelical community.
But that reality has begun to shift. Five books, all published in 2013-14, represent the newest wave of U.S. evangelical reflection on LGBT matters. Evangelical New Testament scholar James Brownson published Bible, Gender, Sexuality in February 2013. Vineyard pastor Ken Wilson unveiled A Letter to My Congregation in February 2014; Matthew Vines posted God and the Gay Christian last April; Wendy VanderWal-Gritter’s Generous Spaciousness came out in May; and evangelical Presbyterian Mark Achtemeier released The Bible’s Yes to Same-Sex Marriage in June. And my own Changing Our Mind came out in October.
Brownson’s work reveals that at least some of those who tackle questions about LGBT people and evangelical Christianity are scaling the great mountain of biblical scholarship and related literature on sexuality. In an early chapter he takes on in a broad way “traditionalist” Christian scholarship, notably in the work of Robert Gagnon, a mainline conservative at Pittsburgh Seminary. Gagnon’s primary claim is that the Bible’s consistent message about sex reveals a God-given design in creation (Genesis 1-2) involving physical/biological sexual complementarity between male and female. Gagnon argues that this creation theme underlies Paul’s condemnation in Romans 1:24-27 as well.
Brownson, a professor at the Reformed Church in America’s Western Theological Seminary, takes on Gagnon’s approach. Through very careful research on both Genesis 1-2 and echoes later in scripture, Brownson shows convincingly that the Genesis texts do not emphasize physical/biological complementarity between male and female, in any of the forms argued by traditionalists, but instead the similarity and equal value of male and female. He suggests that Genesis 2:24 (“one-flesh”) is really about the forming by two of a binding kinship relationship, and not about anatomical fitting together in the sexual act.
Brownson then examines the relevant biblical passages and underlying “moral logics” shaping the Bible’s texts on sexuality. He does this through his own original research and digging in the best of biblical scholarship, as well as sufficient reading in contemporary Christian sexual ethics and the literature related to LGBT matters. It is an extraordinary achievement. Brownson identifies the themes of patriarchy (and an egalitarian strand in scripture), the meaning of “one-flesh,” the role of procreation in sexual ethics, and celibacy as central to Christian sexual ethics, carefully reporting on ancient and biblical understandings and then attempting to make a leap across cultures to consider their applicability in our own time.
In the end, Brownson offers a book that graciously reports the traditionalist position but very carefully breaks with it and shows the reasons why. This book is the achievement of a lifetime, in my view the most important work any Christian scholar has contributed to the recent conversation.
MARK ACHTEMEIER IS another senior leader in U.S. Christianity, this time in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is a pastor and theologian who taught ethics for 15 years at Dubuque Seminary. Achtemeier notes that in the late 1990s he took the conservative position when his denomination was fighting over whether to permit the ordination of openly gay and lesbian ministers. But his opening line states, “This book is the story of a change of heart.” Achtemeier here documents his defection from the position he once held, though he remains an evangelical.
Like many of us, Achtemeier’s heart has been changed because he has engaged the suffering of earnest, devoted Christians who also turn out to be ineradicably same-sex in their sexual orientation. Existentially changed, Achtemeier narrates how he then went back to the Bible for a fresh look. Achtemeier classifies the traditionalist texts as “fragments” that do not cohere with the “broader witness of scripture,” and says that the New Testament itself offers plenty of evidence of the way Jesus and the early church rejected applications of biblical law that actually directed people away from the will of God rather than toward it.
Like Brownson, Achtemeier calls Christians to read not just the texts on their face but to seek the “coherent, good sense reasons” for what the texts say and therefore what God the Lawgiver intended. Other principles of good biblical interpretation, he says, include being Christ-centered, interpreting scripture by scripture, and interpreting passages in biblical and historical context. Constructively, this yields a sexual ethic that is marital, holistic, deeply self-giving, and enabling people to grow toward a fuller reflection of God’s image. He does not think this rules out marital-covenantal same-sex relations.
Ken Wilson writes with the heart of the Vineyard Church pastor he has been for more than 40 years. Like Achtemeier, he chronicles his own surprising change of mind and heart toward a posture of “acceptance” and “embrace” of LGBT Christians. The way he does this, though, is unique in the literature—he writes a long letter to his congregation, only later deciding to share it with a wider audience in the form of this published book.
This extraordinary pastoral letter describes what it is like to be a pastor attempting to do gospel ministry, especially in relation to the constantly excluded gay and lesbian ones in, near, and out of the church. He discusses the difficult responsibility of pastoral leadership on such a conflicted matter, the challenge of moral and spiritual discernment, the homework required in theology and exegesis, his disappointment with what passes for biblical scholarship, and the difficulty of “simply” making decisions for and with one congregation when a “clenched” evangelical world starts paying politicized attention as well. The broader back story concerns Vineyard Church politics, as a pastor-teacher-writer formerly recognized as a denominational leader begins to experience his own increasingly severe exclusion due to his decision to follow what he believes is God’s leading.
The most innovative proposal Wilson offers is for congregations to treat LGBT concerns under the neglected “disputable matters” rubric offered in Romans 14-15. Wilson’s “third way” is found right here: a gospel- and Christ-centered willingness to live together in grateful community not dependent on shared moral convictions on all matters. I think he is right, that Paul was indeed saying this; I also fear that this task will prove almost impossible in our contemporary churches, with our shallow commitment to particular communities and our cultural context of angry, ruthless, ideological polarization.
Wendy VanderWal-Gritter’s book is experiential in a different way. A Canadian, Gritter comes out of the ex-gay ministry world with massive direct ministry experience with the human beings at the center of this horrible dispute. Her book tells her own story of turning away from reparative therapy approaches with their associated political baggage toward a posture of “generous spaciousness” as the key response to gay Christians in the church. In her rather lengthy book, she offers reflections on such varied matters as the legitimacy of ex-gay ministries, the nature of sexuality, the spectrum of views on sexuality in the church, the coming-out process, best practices for congregational dialogue, and the biblical and hermeneutical issues. Like Wilson, Gritter also thinks that a “disputable matters” interpretation is very helpful in working through these questions.
The book offers a detailed and narratively rich discussion of the actual experiences of LGBT evangelical Christians, showing that their responses to their sexuality vary dramatically, and calling the rest of us toward a respectful posture. This in itself makes it an excellent pastoral resource, especially in the conservative evangelical world. It should be able to be heard there because Gritter never takes a normative stance embracing same-sex relationships. She wants to encourage a certain set of Christian virtues, such as hospitality and peaceableness, as the preconditions for adequate response to gay Christians and to the church’s dialogue with and about them.
MATTHEW VINES HAS quickly become the most famous advocate for full inclusion of LGBT Christians in the U.S. evangelical world, and he is only 23 years old. Raised in a conservative evangelical congregation in Kansas, the whip-smart young man graduated from high school and started at Harvard University. But there his acknowledgment of his own gay sexual orientation led him on a journey back home to apply his intelligence to the controverted question of same-sex relationships. For several years he read everything he could get his hands on, finally producing first a video that went viral, then God and the Gay Christian, and finally an organization (The Reformation Project) with mushrooming visibility and impact.
Vines’ overall project is to revisit the biblical materials and the massive related scholarly literature to show that the Bible does indeed make space for covenanted same-sex relationships. One might quibble with particular judgments, as have a battalion of credentialed critics, but overall I would describe the level of scholarship that Vines offers here as better than most of what one finds on the revisionist side and extraordinary in light of his level of training. It deserves a place on the shelf of works one must read when engaging these matters.
But it is the person who matters at least as much as the book. This cheerful, confident young man—a person under constant attack by “Christian” enemies—is an out gay Christian not pledged to lifetime celibacy and utterly clear about his evangelical identity. He is leading a youth movement demanding reconsideration of evangelicalism’s exclusion of people like him.
The current situation, then, looks like this: Evangelical revisionists are growing in number and voice. Voices counseling respectful dialogue are still speaking, but the main normative issues are increasingly being joined. Some young gay evangelicals are staying and fighting rather than running away. Evangelical young people generally find their intransigent elders obnoxious and their silent leaders cowardly. Many are deeply attracted to youth movements for change led by Matthew Vines and others. A few senior scholars such as Brownson and Achtemeier (and now Gushee) are supporting the youth crusade. This is creating ever greater anxiety and anger among increasingly marginalized traditionalists. This fight feels like it is reaching a crescendo. History will record who was on what side, and when.
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