As a committed Christian and a queer atheist who both work to advance interfaith and intercultural understanding, we've watched with heavy hearts as Sojourners and its evangelical founder Jim Wallis have been taken to task in the blogosphere this week for declining to run an advertisement sponsored by Believe Out Loud, an organization committed to full LGBTQ equality in Christian churches. The overwhelming reaction so far has mostly consisted of resounding condemnation, including from many people we both know and deeply respect.
The advertisement at the heart of this controversy links to a video featuring two lesbian women slowly walking their son down the center aisle of a church on Mother's Day, past the judgmental stares of parishioners barely disguising their discomfort and contempt. From the front of the church the pastor says, "Welcome. Everyone." simultaneously addressing the congregation's silent judgment and creating a safe place for two mothers and their child.
At first blush, anger and disbelief at Sojourners' decision not to run the advertisement seems more than justifiable. After all, what decent human being could oppose welcoming a lesbian couple and their son into a church -- on Mother's Day no less? By declining the ad, it follows, the historically progressive Sojourners must have adopted a stance against welcoming gay people into churches. Furthermore, they clearly do not support LGBTQ rights. Right?
Unfortunately, this interpretation of Sojourners' decision and the resulting controversy is a gigantic oversimplification. It ignores Sojourners' public stance on LGBTQ inclusion, decades-long history of defending equal protection under the law for LGBTQ individuals and couples, support for civil-unions, call for the repeal of DADT and Jim Wallis' personal participation in anti-bullying campaigns this past fall. Just as troubling, it also ignores the deeper issues at the heart of this controversy, stemming from cavernous divisions within the Christian world.
Within global Christianity, many, if not most, churches -- even those welcoming gay people -- still believe that this welcome should not extend to ordaining gay people as ministers or having their churches bless gay unions. Sojourners' big tent includes moderate to conservative evangelicals and Catholics who hold these views. Nevertheless, the organization has made huge inroads with these communities on issues of poverty, war and environmental degradation because of their strong commitment to pursuing scriptural integrity and maintaining biblical authority.
Sadly we live in a world where there are real bigots, too-many of them evangelical Christians, who actively oppose LGBTQ rights in the public arena. For this reason, to use this controversy as an opportunity to argue that Jim Wallis -- who has said that true Christians have a duty to stand between homophobic bullies and the Matthew Shepards of this world -- is against equal protection under the law for LGBTQ individuals and couples, or that he would oppose welcoming two mothers and their son into the pews of his church, is as misguided as it is counterproductive.
Those who question the integrity of an organization that adopts a moderate position make it more difficult for many evangelicals to find common ground with the LGBTQ community, in the same way that bullying tactics used by conservative organizations like Focus on the Family under the leadership of James Dobson made it difficult for many of our queer friends to ever believe that they could build authentic relationships with or find common cause with evangelicals.
The fact that we, a queer atheist and an evangelical Christian, are friends is evidence that it is possible to overcome the divisions between our tribes. Though we're both from Minnesota (at one point, we lived less than a mile apart) our paths never crossed until years later. Why didn't we meet? Because we both ran in different circles. While one of us attended a conservative Christian college, the other was an atheist disinterested in engaging with religious people. But we met years later because we both identified a value in fostering relationships with those who hold radically different worldviews. And along the way we learned that people's hearts and minds -- including our own -- are transformed through relationships across lines of difference.
We don't actually wish to defend Sojourners' decision not to run the ad. Nor do we intend to diminish the important work of Believe Out Loud. But we would like to defend Sojourners' right as an organization -- especially one with a theologically and politically diverse constituency, who must walk an unenviable tightrope to broker relationships among an unprecedented diversity of Christian organizations and denominations with fundamental theological disagreements about what "full LGBTQ equality in the church" means -- to make the kind of decisions necessary to hold their constituency together and advance their mission of seeking out common ground and mobilizing for social justice. We may not always agree with every decision an organization makes, but those disagreements shouldn't eclipse the important work an organization like Sojourners has done and will continue to do, especially when the question here is not about whether Sojourners agrees that Christians should be welcoming but a question of their ad policy.
Both of us understand how emotionally charged this issue is for people on all sides. One of us has watched many friends and loved ones grapple with their sexuality within the walls of a conservative evangelical college, and now leads a national movement of young evangelicals. The other secretly struggled for years as a closeted, suicidal queer kid in a Christian youth group, and is today very active in queer dialogues around these issues and works to bridge the divide between the religious and the nonreligious. Because of our experiences, we both know how important resources that promote alternate perspectives on LGBTQ identity are of utmost consequence.
But we also agree that it is fundamentally important to foster desperately needed dialogue between the LGBTQ and evangelical Christian communities. The only way real progress will be made is if we seek out relationships with people who have different views than we do.
In a time when people in our neighborhoods and around the world are suffering and dying because of homophobia -- from LGBTQ students bullied in our schools, to homeless youth sleeping in our streets, to the many individuals who live under daily threat of violence all around the world -- we need to prioritize building coalitions to combat intolerance and injustice. These coalitions will need to include people who disagree on issues of theology and LGBTQ identity.
The two of us may be very different -- a heterosexual man committed to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and a queer atheist who spends his spare Sunday mornings dreaming up new tattoos -- but we share something more significant than our differences: a common desire to see compassion and reconciliation in the world between people of all religious and nonreligious perspectives. Sadly, controversies like these make it more difficult, rather than easier, to build these bridges and participate in the important work of healing the world's bitter divisions.
We trust that Sojourners and Jim Wallis know this, and attempts to publicly shame them for trying to build broad coalitions make their job, and all of our jobs, that much harder.
Follow Christopher LaTondresse on Twitter: www.twitter.com/latondresse
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One other item from me as I putter around at work and think about the conversation so far:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/14/new-york-man-spends-life-savings-ahead-21-doomsday/
Is it possible that you and I could agree that the people this news story discusses have not interpreted the Bible but exploited it for their own apocalyptic vision?
Now, how did the criticism of Sojourners refusal to run a 'welcoming gays in church' ad constitute an attack against its right not to air it? There's no such attack on its right. Sojourners was attacked for its DECISION/STAND not to run the ad. It was attacked for a perceived inconsistency in its stand. True, Sojourners has the right not to run the ad, but so do its critics for condemning it.
Fair enough?
Sojourners indeed has to walk a tightrope. But there is precisely a moment in which you may have to jump to one side of that rope.
Are there any atheists who like you? Just curious.
..."Sojourner" has the right to accept or decline whatever it wants, and can justify these decisions however it chooses. They also, as a public organ, have to take the consequences for those decisions -- and for their justifications. Right. But the Christophers' relentless apologism doesn't contribute to the debate, and I know that Stedman (I don't know LaTondresse) is a lot smarter than such a poorly constructed, weakly defended, emotionally overwrought but unsupported essay would indicate.
I'd be much more encouraged, and much more persuaded, by an article that, itself, did not take sides, but presented the issues on both sides with some intellectual (as well as moral) integrity and insight. Integrity and insight are absolute prerequisites to any of the goals mentioned above -- building bridges, connecting, creating a basis for future understanding, etc. Not more scolding and finger-pointing.
It's safe to say that Sojourner has discovered that taking sides is taking sides, whether you do it by commission or omission, and even when you deny doing so. I do think the Christophers could have learned from that, and written a more useful -- nay, bridge-building! -- essay. I hope they do. This is definitely not it.
Chris Stedman, if you are in fact gay (because bluntly, I doubt your atheism) you must be aware that gay people already DO have relationships with people of differing views. In many cases those are our parents, siblings, and the friends. We've heard their views, and rejected them, yet continue to love them. I think we do pretty well managing our side of this challenging relationship.
I mean, at least we don't try to pass laws that deny Christians the right to marry. We don't claim to speak for a god who wants them punished. We haven't supported criminalizing fundamentalism, nor have we fought to preserve such laws.
I don't think LGBTs are the people who need to work harder in this relationship; I think it's up to evangelicals to truly love and respect us. And I don't think they can. How can you respect someone when you believe that the most perfect creature in the universe will sentence them to eternity in torture because of their sinful choice? I don't think evangelicals can offer us respect: only pity, as they help their God carry out his agenda of punishing us.
That said, if the case is therefore that, like slavery, there is an unconscienable wrong being done because of a moral principle greater than the law, let's hear that case. In the case of slavery, the over-riding (Christian) moral principle was that every man is made in the image of God. If someone could point me to the moral principle which requires that every person be empowered to make a social/sexual union which the law enforces until such a time when that person then says, "um, do over," then I'd be willing to listen up.
The fact that marriage is broke in the West does not mean that we should break it some more. Show me the reasoning and I'll give it a fair shake.
You require a Christian principle to acknowledge that slavery is inhumane, wrong, revolting, morally repugnant, and far beyond the bounds of any basic sense of decency? You can't just figure it out on your own that it's wrong to own a fellow human being? You can't think for yourself?
The Bible is one of the last places you want to look for decent moral values. It in fact never, EVER says anything negative about slavery. There were plenty of Christians using Bible quotes to justify slavery. The ones who were abolitionists were simply decent people who realized slavery was wrong. They may have used the "man is made in God's image" argument as Biblical justification, but the sentiment came from outside the Bible. The decent human sentiment.
If you require something Biblical in order to get on board with same-sex marriage, then you are perhaps a lost cause with regards to this issue. The ignorant (by the standards of a well-educated modern 10 year old) writers of the Bible inexplicably despised homosexuals. Try finding justification for gay marriage in the Bible. Maybe you can. It's been said that you can use that book to justify anything.
Oh, and despite your assertions, Christians did not invent marriage. Read some history. Read some serious biblical scholarship. You may very well find the argument that you're asking for if you seek it yourself.
Gays and lesbians (and their straight allies) are trying to change it. That's no secret. Why do you think this question needs "extra work"?
"At no time (...) has "marriage" been defined (...) as "any two people in a civil union".
That's why we want to change it, silly.
"if (...) there is an unconscienable wrong being done because of a moral principle greater than the law, let's hear that case."
I figured everyone was pretty familiar with the case. "It's wrong for one group of people to have special legal privileges that are denied to others." There's no logical argument to prohibit same-sex marriage, it's just bigotry.
"In the case of slavery, the over-riding (Christian) moral principle was that every man is made in the image of God."
If you want to credit Christians for freeing the slaves in 1863, please explain why they waited so long. Britain had ended slavery a hundred years earlier, and Canada beat us by 60 years.
You want a moral principle to support equal marriage rights? Democracy. I have to support marriage through my taxes, but it doesn't benefit me. So I support the "marriage penalty" on income tax: you get more perqs, you should have to pay more.
If you want my political support for marriage, cut me in on the deal.
That's a straw-man. Who has attacked that right? All I see are people holding them responsible for their decision and what it says about their mission.
Sojourners claims to seek social justice. That means equality, human rights, and respect for each person's dignity. But many of their supporters don't think gays and lesbians deserve these things, and Sojourners wants those bigots' support more than they want social justice for LGBT people. It's *literally* a sell-out.
If you think you can pursue social justice for certain types of people and not others, I don't think you really embrace the concept of "social justice". You might still do good work, but you need to *own* the compromise you made, not pretend to be more egalitarian than you are.
I wasn't familiar with Sojourners before, so I read some of the links in this article. This actually reinforced my negative view. Stedman hails them for supporting civil unions, but their actual position is that gays shouldn't be *allowed* to get married -- we should have a "separate but equal" institution of civil unions.
Sojourners wants to elevate racial minorities from their second-class status, while leaving LGBTs in the back of the bus -- or even *under* it. I think they've earned all this criticism.
No, it isn’t. Saying that something is evidence doesn’t make it evidence.
“we need to prioritize building coalitions to combat intolerance and injustice. These coalitions will need to include people who disagree on issues of theology and LGBTQ identity.”
We do *not* need to prioritize relationships with people who reject facts in favor of their religious fantasies. We need to educate people about the truth and expose their lies. Progress is not made by allowing regressive propaganda to rule.
Those who call designating gay people as The Other a “moderate” position make it much easier for many evangelicals to feel like their hateful position is defensible.
As if by not showing the ad - not an ad showing a church ordaining anyone or marrying anyone, but simply welcoming an LGBT family - they are pandering to the bullies, letting them have their bigoted way.
I still think Sojourner missed a wonderful opportunity to simply let the ad be there, quietly sending a message of welcome to worship. Not shove anything in anyone's face, just show something lovely. Maybe, though, the kerfluffle and conversation over their NOT allowing the ad has done more good, brought the matter to more venues and into more hearts and minds. It gave those of us who feel that that our LGBT citizens have been discriminated against long enough another opportunity to speak up and say so.
By the way, some Christians insist that the earth is 6000 years old while others accept the rational scientific explanation in the matter of geology. Has Sojourners tried to split the difference on that subject too? If not, why not? (Reason, after all, is reason.)
Persuasion takes place over time, by baby steps, not by leaps and bounds.
I can't find any with homophobes.
I see -- you're deeply confused. Well, don't worry about it too much, there are a lot of people out there like that. Chris Stedman, for example, claims he is a queer atheist, but if he weren't always claiming this, I don't know of any way you could tell it was the case.
"Sojourners' decision to walk that unenviably tightrope, however well-intentioned"
You know what the say the road to Hell is paved with.
The walking-a-tightrope metaphor reminds me of the German Army officer Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (That's actually a shortened version of his name), who recently became much more famous because Tom Cruise played him in the movie Valkyrie. He attempted to kill Hitler and lead a coup on July 20, 1944. Before the war started to go badly for Germany, Stauffenberg had attempted to "walk a tightrope" with the Nazis: he thought that killing Jews in extermination camps was wrong, but he had been glad to see their influence in the arts being curtailed. Charming details like that were left out of the movie completely.