Baptists of most ages will cringe at the rest of this sentence, but here goes: Sexuality is in the air. This subject makes us squirm more than a too-long sermon on a too-hard pew in a too-hot church. But as it touches on some of the most basic of human needs, it won’t go away.
One of the issues making the news seemingly each day is gay marriage, and while they squirm, Baptists are also scrambling to make sense of it, figure out how to deal with it — and even pro-tect themselves from it. Initially, the questions revolved around wedding cakes, county clerks and corporations seeking legal protection from aspects of new laws they cannot abide. Nothing unusual about that.
But churches, as institutions, are especially given to finding strange bedfellows (there I go again!) in the ways they seek relief. In Baptist circles, possible measures I have heard include incorporation, as some believe that will harbor the church from being forced to accept marriage among gay people, and now statements they believe are necessary to “protect” not just churches, but their pastors, too. They consider these measures essential because they do not trust the court system or the First Amendment to offer them protection — yet turn to that same court system and that same First Amendment to protect them from the questions swirling around gay marriage, while possibly in the process trampling on the liberty of its members. That tension is at the heart of four centuries of Baptist practices. It goes to the heart of who Baptists are.
An eager lay member of a church where I was recently speaking (not mine) proudly handed me, unasked, a statement his church is considering adopting at an upcoming business meeting. It makes allusions to brief passages and statements scattered throughout Scripture believed to bolster opposition to gay marriage. It concludes, “We affirm that all marriage ceremonies peformed in the name of [this church] and any related celebrations or activities allowed in its facilities shall be for unions that meet the standards named in this church’s constitution and bylaws ….” Constitutions and bylaws should be changed only rarely. But as I understand the principle of church autonomy; a church is fully within their rights to do so.
The issue that troubles me the most is how that paragraph ends: “… and further, that its pastor(s) and ministerial staff will engage only in marriage ceremonies in keeping with this church’s adopted biblical and theological definition of marriage” [emphasis in the original]. In fact, the lay person who handed me the statement expressly told me it was under consideration “to protect our pastor.”
Protect him (I know, but in this case, he is a male), sure, but from what? Couldn’t this same statement be used as a means of controlling the same pastor? Could not his (or her) conscience be in conflict with the church’s position? Once this statement is enshrined in a church’s bylaws or its constitution, does the pastor’s conscience go out the window? Suppose he performed such a ceremony away from church property because his conscience could handle it — couldn’t this statement be used to attack him from within the church? If so, it becomes a new twist on an old question concerning Baptists: Should the local church’s autonomy from a church hierarchy and, in this case, the state, on the one hand, be placed above the individual member’s conscience? In this case an employee, yes, but still a member — does he not have the same right to believe as he chooses?
I know the responses. “If you, church member, don’t like it, then leave,” or, “If the pastor doesn’t like it, then he/she should not have taken the job,” and individual soul freedom be damned. As these ideas in Baptist life developed over 400 years, they were believed to be in harmony. But there are times when they conflict, and the consequences of that friction are worth pondering. They say something about where we are, and where we might be going.
Are our churches not empty enough that we have to appear yet more unwilling to accept a con-scientious thought independent of our own? The statement quoted above makes it clear that God “judges and holds accountable those that break the covenant” of marriage — but don’t expect us, it seems to say, to do likewise! Based on the countless conversations I have had and on countless articles I have read, I would hazard a guess that it is that same sort of attitude that has hollowed out our churches in the first place.