I understand the need to be culturally sensitive when making hiring decisions, and I understand that applies whether you are sending missionaries to Nigeria or New Jersey. But the existing bylaws of the CBF leave those hiring decisions in the hands of the executive coordinator, and I trust Suzii Paynter. I trust her to be culturally sensitive, but I also trust her not to discriminate.
CBF & LGBTQ Baptists: Thanks for the Illumination
Illumination makes things clearer for those willing to look where the light is shining. And these are a few lessons I’ve learned from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Illumination Project.
Illuminations: The healing space between ‘good’ and ‘bad’
While scrolling through the pages of the Illumination Project Committee report, my opinion pile began to grow: Good decision; bad decision. I like this; I don’t like that. This is progressive; that is regressive. But as I quieted my own internal committee and let myself become still, I felt the Spirit pressing a cool cloth to my fevered, dualistic mind. “God is at work and more will be revealed” is the word that came.
Breaking the ‘Four Fragile Freedoms’: A response to CBF’s decision on the Illumination Project’s recommendation
The recommendation was written by straight people for straight people. It was written by people who are not affected by the hiring policy for people who are not affected by it either. By including any language of exclusion in the hiring and implementation policies, they have chosen discrimination. It is a policy written from a place of privilege.
Illumination Project: On cooperation, transformation and hope
People are frankly weary of “either-or” thinking and conversations that devolve into shouting matches. They want to see an instance where people of good intentions on all sides of a given topic come together to speak their hearts humbly, charitably and respectfully. If we as people of faith can’t offer such a witness, then who can?
CBF prepares for vote on proposed hiring policy
A two-year review of a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship policy banning the employment of gays is wrapping up. The CBF Governing Board plans to receive the final report of the Illumination Project at a meeting Feb. 8-9 at First Baptist Church…
Former moderators sign petition urging repeal of CBF hiring ban
Twelve former moderators of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are among more than 500 names attached to an online petition urging current leaders to drop the organization’s 17-year-old ban against hiring LGBT people. The petition — delivered this week to a…
Southern Baptists say Christian baker has right to refuse same-sex wedding
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is siding with a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple in a case headed toward the United States Supreme Court.
‘Nashville Statement’ condemns LGBT Christians and those who support them
Top leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention joined other evangelical leaders in a statement Aug. 29 declaring homosexuality and transgender identity to be sinful and not something about which faithful Christians can agree to disagree. The Nashville Statement was discussed…