By Bob Allen
A local association of Southern Baptist churches is poised to kick out an Alabama church after a member of the congregation who is an ordained minister received media attention for performing a gay marriage.
Representatives of the Madison Baptist Association met Feb. 17 with David Freeman, pastor of Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., seeking clarification about his views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
Freeman, in a statement to church members, described the meeting as “cordial” and respectful, but in the end the leaders said they will recommend to the association’s executive committee that Weatherly Heights be “disfellowshipped” for positions outside beliefs embraced by the 91-church association.
Weatherly Heights got international attention Feb. 9, when a minister who performed one of the state’s first legal same-sex marriages was identified in media reports as its minister to the community.
The minister, Ellin Jimmerson, later clarified she was ordained by the church but not a paid member of the staff, and she used the “minister to the community” title with reporters to connect her documentary film The Second Cooler to her volunteer advocacy work with immigrants as a member of the church.
By then top leaders of the Alabama Baptist State Convention had issued a statement warning that “any church that allows staff members” risks expulsion from the statewide affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Madison Baptist Association website carries a statement affirming “the Biblical truth that marriage is a union between one man and one woman” and the Baptist Faith and Message declaration that “marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.”
“Thus, we are deeply saddened that, as of February 9, 2015, homosexual couples have been permitted to marry in Huntsville and the state of Alabama,” the statement says. “The Madison Baptist Association in no way endorses this decision or its resulting actions.”
Freeman said association leaders at the meeting had copies a sermon titled “What Are We to Believe about Homosexuality?” that he preached in 2013 and an article “About Same Sex Marriage” in the Feb. 10 issue of the church newsletter, The Weathervane.
In a Sept. 29, 2013, sermon posted on the church website, Freeman said he believes the Bible passages usually quoted against homosexuality address behaviors that are predatory and abusive rather than “adult, loving, monogamous, same-sex relationships” at the center of the current debate over gay marriage.
In The Weathervane article, Freeman said he had been asked to officiate a same-sex marriage but after meeting with the couple he declined. He met with a group of church leaders, who agreed the pastor was free to marry a gay couple, but since the church has not taken a position on the issue he would be functioning as a “minister to the gospel” and not in the church’s name.
In the meeting with the association leaders, Freeman said he emphasized the congregation has not taken a position on the issue of same-sex marriage. “Members of our church are free to form their own positions,” he said. “My positions are mine alone.”
In light of the outcome, however, Freeman said “I believe we need some time to discuss this as a congregation” and called for a meeting to discuss the matter next Sunday afternoon.
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Ala. Baptist head says churches whose ministers perform gay marriages ‘not in friendly cooperation’