RICHMOND — By a close margin, the Richmond Baptist Association voted March 19 to retain the membership of a church which ordained a gay man to the ministry last fall.
The 176-158 vote endorsed a committee’s recommendation that the association “embrace Ginter Park Baptist Church as a sister church,” while acknowledging that “many RBA congregations would not choose to ordain a person who is homosexual.”
Ginter Park Baptist Church will remain affiliated with the Richmond Baptist Association following a March 19 vote.
|
Last September Ginter Park ordained Brandon Scott McGuire, a member of the church who says he feels called to minister to persons with disabilities and special needs and to their families. In response, the Baptist General Association of Virginia ended its nearly century-old ties to the church late last year.
But the BGAV’s action didn’t affect Ginter Park’s affiliation with the RBA, a network of about 70 congregations in Richmond and adjacent counties organized in 1951 — coincidentally in the sanctuary of Ginter Park, which is one of its founding members. At its fall meeting last October, the RBA authorized an 11-member ad hoc committee to consider whether the association should retain ties to Ginter Park.
Affirming principles
The committee’s recommendation, presented March 19 at a meeting called expressly to receive it, affirmed “historic Baptist principles of soul competency, congregational autonomy and voluntary cooperation” and the RBA’s mission to spread “the gospel of Jesus Christ by encouraging and facilitating congregational witness, fellowship and cooperation with others.”
The recommendation acknowledged “that many RBA congregations would not choose to ordain a person who is homosexual and might wish to discontinue fellowship with Ginter Park Baptist Church,” but maintained that the association’s churches could nevertheless “continue to work together in the RBA’s common calling to cooperative ministries” and urged that the association continue “to embrace Ginter Park Baptist Church as a sister church.”
Committee members were not unanimous in support of the recommendation and one member — Craig Sherouse, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Richmond — resigned. Sherouse was among nearly 30 church representatives who spoke for and against the recommendation during over an hour of discussion at the called meeting.
“Since I opposed it I resigned before a [committee] vote was taken to be freer to speak against it,” Sherouse said.
Ginter Park has “crossed the membership boundary of maintaining New Testament principles, and that requires our autonomous response and a stronger one than this recommendation calls for,” he said. The issue was not about being “welcoming and affirming,” he added. “It is about ordination.”
If the recommendation were adopted, “enough churches will leave to handicap us,” he warned. “Other associations are evaluating whether they will continue to cooperate with us.”
Beyond the boundaries
Other speakers echoed his concerns.
“There are some things that are clearly beyond the boundaries and this is one of them,” said Travis Collins, pastor of Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond. “We’re not talking about stoning prostitutes or the woman at the well or gay family members. We’re talking about ordination. This is clearly beyond the boundaries of historical Christianity."
The Richmond Baptist Association’s 70 congregations minister in a metropolitan region with about 1 million people.
|
“We need to distance ourselves from the decision made by Ginter Park,”
Collins added.
“The issue before us is not whether we love homosexuals,” said Jim Booth, pastor of Staples Mill Road Baptist Church in Glen Allen. “Of course we love those who struggle with their sin. We all need the same grace. … The issue is the nature of the gospel and how we can partner together. … Even this discussion tonight shows how challenging it is if we don’t know what sin is.”
“Has God spoken to the issue of homosexuality?” Booth asked. “The answer is yes, and very clearly.”
Phil Faig, pastor of Gayton Baptist Church in Henrico, saw a “clash of two values — faithfulness to biblical principles and church freedom.”
“Freedom is a high value in Baptist life, but freedom is not the end goal,” he said. “Glorifying God and advancing his mission in our city is the end goal. In this clash of values, the committee has gotten it wrong and chosen freedom as the higher value.”
Higher priorities
But Sterling Severns, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Richmond, said an even higher priority compelled RBA churches to remain in fellowship. “On the Thursday preceding Easter we see Jesus with his disciples … and to my knowledge not one of them was baptized or ordained. He looked at them and said the way the world will know who you are is how you love each other, and then he got on his knees and washed all their feet.”
The reason the RBA exists is “diversity coming together and loving children” in places such as its Camp Alkulana and in Baptist centers, “which shows what loves looks like when people come together and exude love …,” he said. “I am here by choice and my congregation is here by choice because we believe there is value in living in the tension and showing the world the love of Christ even though we don’t see eye to eye.”
Lisa Wells, a member of Grace Baptist Church in Richmond who said she was both an ordained minister and gay, said she had learned “from the witness of my congregation what being Baptist is about.”
“I know this is a difficult issue — trust me, I live on the margins; I know what it’s like to be there. … I encourage us to be bold to live in the mystery of our faith, to trust one another, to do our work together. This is what I know being Baptist means.”
The issue was not primarily about homosexuality, said Jim Somerville, pastor of First Baptist Church in Richmond. “We came to talk about a church which has done something most of our churches wouldn’t do and whether it can be a part of our fellowship,” he said.
Somerville said his own congregation recently ordained a young, biracial woman who grew up in his church and “the claim of Christ has been clear on her life.”
“Some would tell us that was a clear violation of Scripture and they wouldn’t do it,” he said. “That’s their prerogative, and we wouldn’t want to tell them who they can and can’t ordain. … But we did it and I’m proud. The question is, can the RBA still work with us?”
For Mandy England Cole — pastor of Ginter Park for less than two months — the “key issue is trust.”
“Why would we want to continue to be in partnership with those who call us sinners and in need of repentance?” she asked. “Why would we want to be in fellowship with those who stand in judgment? Why would we want to partner with those who believe fundamentally different things theologically than we do? Because we believe that God is at work in all of us, not merely in some of us.”
“Somehow in the mystery of all that is, we in our differences can bind together in some form of fellowship and association and do more than we can do alone, whether we agree or disagree,” she said. “We want to be part of the good work of the RBA and we want to continue in faithfulness.”
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.
Related stories:
Virginia Baptist committee asks Richmond church to end affiliation after ordination of gay man
Richmond Baptist Association creates task force to study ordination of gay man by affiliated church
BGAV upholds committee action to dismiss church over ordination of openly-gay man
Ginter Park declines to withdraw from BGAV, acknowledges its affiliation will end Dec. 31
Richmond association committee recommends retaining ties with church which ordained gay man