On May 6, my husband and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. Something we both like to do is give one another a gift and then go out to eat. For a while I have been thinking about what to get him to no avail, and then it finally hit me: A new Bible.
My husband is going to seminary after me, and getting him a study Bible that can last his seminary education would be a worthwhile investment. I found the one worthy enough to be given as a gift: a leatherbound NRSVue with apocrypha published by Cambridge, the oldest Bible producer in the world. I wrote a sentimental note on one of the card stock pages and on the presentation page I wrote “Connor Michael Vernon Hollis — My Favorite Seminarian.”
And that got me thinking.
Carson Hollis
Both Connor and I are queer Baptists. I already am ordained and he is preparing for his seminary training for his ordination. Both of us find ourselves in a tradition that does not universally affirm our marriage, let alone our dream to serve as co-pastors in a church plant. And while there are resources written for the affirmation of queer marriage, there are hardly any that write about this topic from a particularly Baptist framework.
Thus, here I seek to fill the gap of knowledge and, utilizing particularly Baptist modes of theology, affirm queer marriage as a net good for Baptist life.
Diverse Baptist theology
It needs to be said at the outset that the Baptist faith is not a monolith. Baptists on the whole are earthy and contextual in regard to theology, a natural consequence of our congregational polity. Thus, there are various and sundry Baptist conventions and bodies each with their own unique posture, history and orientation. And yet, in the United States, Baptists tend to be popularly squished down to one particular body: The Southern Baptist Convention.
“Baptist faith is not a monolith.”
This, of course, makes sense. The SBC is the largest Baptist body in the United States and has a rather large missionary presence. The SBC also is politically oriented and thus has connections to the upper echelons of American government. While the SBC is not the sole and definitive voice of the global expression of Baptist faith and life, it still must be contended with.
In Bill Leonard’s foundational text Baptists in America, he writes these words that are still true: “Perhaps no single issue has been as divisive for American religious groups in general and Baptists in particular as homosexuality and the role of homosexuals in the church and in the culture.”
To make his point, he maps the general positions of four different Baptist bodies: The Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the American Baptist Churches USA, and independent Baptist congregations. He begins first with Southern Baptists.
Southern Baptists
He begins to trace the Southern Baptist position with the year 1976, when the SBC passed a nonbinding resolution that “affirmed the biblical truth regarding the practice of homosexuality.” The content of that “biblical truth” is not spelled out, but the document concludes with these words: “While acknowledging the autonomy of the local church to ordain ministers, (we) urge churches and agencies not to afford the practice of homosexuality any degree of approval through ordination, employment or other designations of normal lifestyle.”
These words are significant, for while they are condemnatory, they still uphold the autonomy of the local church to discern best practices for local context. Similar resolutions passed in 1977 and 1988.
It was 1996 when the SBC radically departed from this position.
“In an elaborate 1996 resolution, the SBC condemned every aspect of homosexual marriage.”
“In an elaborate 1996 resolution, the SBC condemned every aspect of homosexual marriage. … The convention required that all messengers to its annual meeting sign a statement assuring that the congregation from which they came gave no support to homosexuality in any form whatsoever,” he wrote. Now, failure to comply with the convention’s ruling resulted in exclusion from participation in SBC governance.
Al Mohler — a prominent Southern Baptist theologian and president of the SBC’s flagship seminary — further constricted the permissible and normative position for Southern Baptists, when he wrote in 2014:
Biblical Christianity can neither endorse same-sex marriage nor accept the claim that a believer can be obedient to Christ and remain or persist in same-sex behaviors. The church is the assembly of the redeemed, saved from our sins and learning obedience in the school of Christ. Every single one of us is a sexual sinner in need of redemption, but we are called to holiness, to obedience and to honoring marriage as one of God’s most precious gifts and as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church.
Notice the language Mohler employs.
First, he shifts the language from the 1976 resolution’s “lifestyle” to “behaviors.” The language of lifestyle still has an ambiguous connotation; behavior implies it is something that can be treated and corrected. Behavior also implies it is something that can be unlearned.
Second, he leaves no room for local autonomy like the 1976 resolution did. He expanded the prohibition further from the 1996 resolution by making it binding for all Christianity. Mohler’s position seems to have won the day for the SBC.
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
Leonard next focuses on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. This is a mid-size denomination that is theologically moderate to progressive with roots in the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC. Moderates and progressives in the SBC were pushed out of the body because of their support for women’s ordination, and CBF was formed as an alternative.
Yet, despite seeing women’s ordination as an uncompromising value, queer inclusion — and by extension same-sex marriage — was not given the same treatment. Some churches felt they could not in good conscience remain in CBF if the group came out in support of queer inclusion and marriage.
“Queer inclusion — and by extension same-sex marriage —is not given the same treatment.”
“Thus, the CBF leaders felt compelled to address the issue, and they produced a document that clarified the organization’s response to homosexuality in the churches and related agencies,” Leonard documents.
The kerfuffle erupted when the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America — an organization affiliated with CBF — released queer-affirming material in various Baptist divinity schools that banned admission to openly queer students, and the schools received CBF scholarship funds. The statement declared CBF would have a moratorium on hiring organizational staff and missionaries who were queer.
Yet this statement was not universally accepted; it was contested. Colleen Burroughs, former CBF moderator, said this proposed policy was “divisive, unenforceable and probably not Baptist.”
David Gushee — theologian-in-residence for CBF when the statement was made and himself a member of CBF — wrote in response to the meeting that year: “It began to seem more and more clear to me that Jesus was more likely to be found among these gentle, hurting gay and lesbian Christians than among their adversaries.”
In recent years, CBF has been slowly drifting toward full inclusion as seen in its partnering with the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists. However, CBF is still not fully inclusive as each congregation has autonomy.
American Baptists USA
Next, Leonard turned from CBF to the American Baptist Churches USA. The ABCUSA made a statement in 1992 that said: “We affirm that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” The next year ABCUSA passed a resolution called “Dialogue on Issues of Human Sexuality” claiming “there exists a variety of understandings throughout our denomination on issues of human sexuality such as homosexuality.”
While the biennial gathering may have somewhat broadened its perspective, regional associations of the ABCUSA were free to disregard it and still disfellowshipped local congregations for becoming welcoming of queer folk. Some others formed AWAB in 1993 and “ordained homosexuals to the ministry or celebrated ‘commitment services’ with homosexual couples,” Leonard noted.
ABCUSA is similar to CBF in that it wants individual congregations to discern for themselves best practices for their individual contexts.
Independent Baptists
The last group Leonard mentioned are independent Baptists. These are Baptist churches generally not affiliated with any particular Baptist body — hence the independent — and on the whole lean from ultra-conservative to fundamentalist. It is common for these churches to be King James Only, have strict norms for members (such as the length of a man’s haircut), and to be extremely exclusionary of queer folk.
Arguably the most famous — and controversial — of the independent Baptist churches is Westboro Baptist Church. Located in Topeka, Kan., this church was founded by Fred Phelps and is largely led by the Phelps family after his death. This is the church famous for picketing queer weddings and funerals with slogans such as “God Hates Fags.” In fact, they are so beholden to that belief that it is the domain name for the church’s website.
Thus Leonard lays out the Baptist landscape, and although he did not cover each and every Baptist body, his analysis is broad enough that most Baptist bodies fall into one of them. The only exception I know of is the Alliance of Baptists, a Baptist body that has released an official statement affirming queer folk and same-sex marriages.
Among the rest, there are the conservative evangelicals (SBC), moderate (CBF), moderate (ABCUSA), and fundamentalist (independent Baptist churches). Within these bodies, two offer the possibility for same-sex marriage to happen in some congregations, but not all. And for two others, it will never happen.
“The Baptist tradition is by-and-large not affirming of queer Christians or same-sex marriages.”
It is largely true, then, that the Baptist tradition is by-and-large not affirming of queer Christians or same-sex marriages. This has detrimental consequences.
Consequences
A study conducted by Julia Raifman, Ellen Moscoe, Bryn Austin and Margaret McConnell concluded that “implementation of same-sex marriage policies reduced adolescent suicide attempts. As countries around the world consider enabling or restricting same-sex marriage, we provide evidence that implementing same-sex marriage policies was associated with improved population health. Policymakers should consider the mental health consequences of same-sex marriage policies.”
What they concluded about global governments also may be said about Baptist churches. Without the approval and blessing of Baptist churches — especially the Southern Baptists, whose convention makes up the largest Protestant body in the United States — mortality via suicide will only continue to happen. Not just for adolescents, but for adults as well.
Therefore, Baptists have the moral imperative to do what they can to stop unnecessary death. Christians throughout the ages have affirmed weekly that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life. And while Baptists are traditionally noncreedal, we nonetheless have confessed this truth in our various confessions and statements of belief. We owe it to queer folk to affirm same-sex marriage, and we owe it to them to do it in the way we know best: the Baptist way.
“Baptists have the moral imperative to do what they can to stop unnecessary death.”
We do not need to borrow from Presbyterians or Anglicans or Methodists or any other tradition to develop an affirming theology for the good all God’s children. Although those are good in their own right, we have all we need right in our own tradition.
Baptist polity is congregational, rooted in a particular understanding of the kingship of Christ. David Bebbington describes it like this: “From the theme of the kingship of Christ flowed the principle of the kingship of all believers. Christians were incorporated into Christ and so shared his offices. … Hence Baptists were governed by church meeting, the gathering where the members assembled to make decisions for the church.”
This statement needs to be unpacked.
First, Baptists believe, like other Christians, that salvation is a mystical union with God via participation in Christ. This is a theme found throughout the pages of the New Testament with the highest concentration of the language in the Pauline epistles. For Paul, salvation looks like being drawn up into the presence of God in and through Christ Jesus, so that when God beholds Christ Jesus, God beholds us and declares us worthy via the worthiness of Christ.
The idea of participation in Christ has shaped the way Baptists have spoken about church governance. As Christ is king and is Lord over the church, we who are “hidden with Christ in God” share in the kingship of Christ over the governance of the church. Thus Baptists are free to self-determine via congregational meeting without the oversight of an ecclesiastical figure like a bishop.
Baptist polity has positive potential for the affirmation of same-sex marriage for the betterment and flourishing of queer lives. As Baptists participate in the kingship of Christ in the governance of the church, Baptists are free to affirm the sanctity of same-sex marriage without worrying about institutional blowback. This polity frees us to live into the radical inclusivity of the gospel.
“Baptist polity has positive potential for the affirmation of same-sex marriage for the betterment and flourishing of queer lives.”
While the polity cannot force the hand of individual Baptist churches, it frees Baptists to act contrary to the rulings of their bodies or associations. After all, Baptist identity is not formed by ecclesial connection but identification with a particular history and governance.
Baptists have a second belief that can be used for the approval of same-sex marriage: the priesthood of all believers.
Usually Baptists are taught — and continue to teach — the belief in these terms: the individual Christian is wholly a priest unto themselves; therefore, they need no intermediary (sacerdotal clergy) to go directly to the throne of grace. There is merit in this theology that I do not want to unravel. However, leaving the belief in the priesthood of all believers solely in individualistic terms misses the social dimension of priesthood as present in the biblical witness.
In the Scriptures of Israel, the priesthood is instituted by YHVH to be a communal priesthood. Priests pray for the children of Israel; they aid them in maintaining their purity status in light of the Holiness Code; they accept their sacrifices. This social dimension is carried over into the New Testament by Paul, who describes the church as a body. As we are priests who participate in the priesthood of Christ, we therefore have the responsibility to care for all others in the body just like the Levitical priests tended to the needs of the children of Israel.
This is why Paul admonishes the church in Romans and 1 Corinthians not to value one member above another. Meghan Byerly correctly points out that the priesthood of all believers necessitates solidarity with all others: “You cannot say that an individual has the priesthood of all believers within themselves just in the same way you cannot say that an individual has solidarity within themselves.” Like solidarity, the priesthood of all believers necessitates identification with the least of these and to seek their welfare.
For Queer folk, marriage is that welfare, and to seek it is to seek their good.
Carson Hollis is a member of the First Baptist Church of Austin, Texas, and recently was ordained into ministry there. A recent graduate of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Carson is passionate about affirming ministry and plans to plant a church in Appalachia. He is married to Connor, and the two of them share their life with a three-legged cat named Chickpea.