VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP) — Leaders on all sides of the debate over homosexuality in the American Baptist Churches – USA see little resolution to concerns raised during the denomination's recent biennial meeting.
“I don't think the biennial solved anything, in terms of the future of the denomination,” said Mike Williams, executive minister for the American Baptist Churches of Michigan.
The lack of action means further moves by those disaffected with the national denomination could come between now and the next meeting of the denomination's General Board in November.
Churches in at least four ABC regions threatened to withhold contributions to the national denomination or leave altogether if their concerns over homosexuality were not addressed at the biennial, which took place July 1-4.
The denomination's General Board, meeting prior to the larger convocation in Denver, accepted the first reading of a petition from one region that calls for amendments to documents designed to more clearly state American Baptists' opposition to homosexuality.
Regional fellowships are the channel through which local churches relate to the national body, which counts 1.5 million members in 5,836 churches. In recent years, several gay-friendly churches have been expelled from some of those regional bodies. The ABC General Board changed the denomination's rules in 1999 to allow churches to join regions outside of their geographical area if the region is willing to accept them.
As a result, many pro-gay ABC churches have joined more progressive regions outside their geographical area.
The Indiana-Kentucky region initiated the petition to change the rules on regional affiliation back, as well as to amend a denominational identity statement to read that American Baptists are a people “who submit to the teaching of Scripture that God's design for sexual intimacy places it within the context of marriage between one man and one woman, and acknowledge that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with biblical teaching.”
The petition notes the ABC General Board's 1992 approval of a resolution that declares homosexual practice “incompatible with biblical teaching,” but the petition says subsequent actions by denominational leaders have not sent as clear an anti-homosexuality message.
The denomination has presented “an inconsistent and confusing message to the world about what American Baptists profess to believe and what is actually practiced,” the petition reads.
It and another petition expressing concern over the unity in the denomination will receive a second reading at the November meeting of the General Board. If passed, it effectively would create a mechanism for expelling many gay-friendly churches from the ABC.
But the leader of the Indiana-Kentucky region said, despite the acceptance of their petition, many of his regional leaders who attended the meetings were disappointed.
“Our board … felt that the General Board [meeting] and biennial were somewhat orchestrated in the way that they were presented so that it would present a more open position [on the issue of homosexuality] than we would like,” said Larry Mason, executive minister for the American Baptist Churches of Indiana-Kentucky.
But Ken Pennings, the newly appointed executive director of the gay-friendly Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, had a different view of the meetings.
Mason said the Indiana-Kentucky board had already appointed a task force to study the issue, and that leaders were conducting listening sessions with American Baptists from around the region. The task force will report to the regional board with recommendations on how to proceed at their November meeting — a week prior to the national ABC General Board meeting.
“I have no idea what that task force will decide,” Mason told Associated Baptist Press. But he added he expects the task force will offer some contingencies, should the ABC General Board adequately address the region's concerns.
Asked what such an adequate action would look like, Mason said it might involve the General Board both approving a second reading of the part of the Indiana-Kentucky petition that involves expelling churches, as well as approving the change to the identity statement to clarify that homosexuality is incompatible with the Bible.
“I think that would help a lot of people here in Indiana-Kentucky to think that at least they have been heard, and that the denomination does stand on an issue of what they consider to be biblical authority,” he said. “So, I believe the first point of the petition — if that is not passed, it will be seen as a real statement of our denomination as to where they are going to lead in the future.”
Action may come sooner in the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Southwest, one of the regions that threatened to alter its relationship with the national denomination “if the issues regarding homosexuality [were] not biblically dealt with by the end” of the biennial meeting. Dale Salico, executive minister of the Southern California-based region, declined to comment on his view of how the biennial went until after his regional board meets in August.
But Williams, of the Michigan region, said Salico's region may be the watershed in a wider American Baptist movement. “I think it will be very interesting to see what Pacific Southwest decides to do,” he said. “If they decide to take some action, like formally separating from ABC-USA, then it might be a catalyst for other regions to consider that.”
During his address to about 2,000 delegates to the biennial July 1, ABC General Secretary Roy Medley pleaded for unity in the ethnically, geographically and theologically diverse denomination.
“We stand at a crossroads,” he said, according to the American Baptist News Service. “In our world, the path of radical discipleship — the path of radical love — is the road less taken. We dare not choose another. We dare not choose the wrong road … the road that leads to separation. That choice will certainly unite you with like-minded people but will give you small souls and make you comfortable Christians.”