EDE, Netherlands (ABP) — A friendly debate about the Bible, human sexuality and the church’s response to the advance of gay rights during the Baptist World Alliance’s recent annual gathering revealed differences between some in the developing world and some in the Western world — but also expressions of hope that global Baptists would not divide themselves over the question.
“We do come out at different points on the issue, but I hope you’ll notice there are considerable areas of agreement in our papers,” said Scott Stearman, pastor of Kirkwood Baptist Church in suburban St. Louis, describing essays that he and an African pastor summarized to the BWA Commission on Christian Ethics. The presentations and discussion came during the gathering, held July 28-31 in the Dutch city of Ede.
Stearman said participants — who had toured nearby Amsterdam the day before — might have noticed banners all over the city advertising Amsterdam’s gay-pride festival, one of the world’s largest.
“We Baptists cannot act like this is going to go away,” he said. “We’ve got to discuss it.”
Ayo Gbode, pastor of Christ Baptist Church in Gbagada, Nigeria, agreed that Baptists had to deal with the issue squarely.
“The church can no longer stand aloof and believe that some angelic host from heaven will come and cleanse the earth of this gangrene of a behavior called homosexuality,” he said. “The church must respond, but her response must be ethical.”
The two pastors disagreed, however, on what exactly comprised such an ethical response.
Gbode contended that both testaments of Scripture unequivocally condemn all same-gender sexual relationships, that the church must oppose what he described as the “radical homosexual agenda” and that the church must “always be willing to assist [gays] overcome attraction to the same sex.”
But Stearman said scientific evidence makes it increasingly difficult to affirm the idea that sexual orientation is a changeable trait. He drew a parallel between how science and changing social standards altered Christians’ interpretations of the Bible’s passages on slavery and how emerging scientific and social evidence may cause Christians to take another look at what they have, in the past, viewed as unambiguous scriptural injunctions on homosexuality.
“Our understanding of sexual relationships, of monogamy, polygamy and the status of women has changed radically since the Bible was first compiled in the 4th century,” he said.
“This change is not in spite of the Bible, but in fact because of the Bible,” Stearman continued. “For while there are many texts rooted in systems of injustice that we find abhorrent [such as slavery and gender inequality], the teachings of Jesus prompt us inexorably to another level of freedom.”
In a response to the presentations, Mercer University professor Richard Wilson noted that “these two papers gave us two very different reactions to seven or eight passages that are found in holy Scripture.”
He continued: “I am saying that Scripture is always before us as our guide and our authority, but that means that Scripture itself must always — in every generation — challenge the easy, repeated interpretations that were useful by one majority sometimes as weapons against another minority.”
He noted that the meeting was held in the Netherlands to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Baptist movement — which began in Amsterdam with a group of English non-conformists who had been exiled from their homeland because of their theological views.
“Do we as Baptists in this 400th year of our existence have the courage of our convictions as people of the Book to let the Book speak to us in new ways — in fresh ways — in the midst of crises and controversy and tensions?" he said. "I hope we do.”
Gbode, asked in a question-and-answer session if this issue would eventually tear Baptists apart along Western-versus-developing-world lines the way it has the worldwide Anglican Communion, said it didn’t have to.
At his church, he said, “We’ve been focusing on the issue that matters — the issue of salvation. Some of those things really have nothing to do with our salvation — and in that way it keeps us together.”
Nonetheless, Gbode added, “I stand by the traditional interpretation of the Scripture. To me the truth of the Scripture doesn’t change. It will never change — and it will never change even if our cultural standards change.”
Several speakers affirmed that Christians can remain in fellowship while having reasonable disagreements about what the church’s response should be — both on a theological level and on a civil level — to homosexuality.
Commission officials noted that BWA had taken an official stance in 1994 affirming the view that homosexual practice was incompatible with Scripture. But at least one attendee at the meeting criticized that statement as limiting the discussion.
“I find the resolution of the Baptist World Alliance not helpful, not useful — because it goes toward closing the debate,” said Italian Baptist Massimo Aprile.
Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.