On May 17, the day that same-sex marriage became legal in the state of Massachusetts, Leadership gathered four pastors to discuss the implications.
Phil Busbee is pastor of First Baptist Church of San Francisco, California.
Tony Campolo is a preacher at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Philadelphia and a sociologist who has taught at Eastern College and the University of Pennsylvania.
Cheryl Sanders pastors Third Street Church of God and teaches ethics at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
John Yates is rector of Falls Church (Episcopal) in Falls Church, Virginia.
The prospect of same-sex marriages raises both pastoral and political issues. What’s the most important thing you want to say, pastorally, to a homosexual couple?Busbee: Our church is located in San Francisco in an area known as “the gateway to the gay community.” We feel that God gave us that location for a reason. We’re there to be good neighbors, to interact with individuals not movements, and to live out the gospel and invite people to follow Jesus.
Campolo: I speak on about 20 college campuses each year, and no matter what topic I talk on—it could be “Einstein’s theory of relativity and the Christian faith”— when I conclude with “Any questions?” one is inevitably “What about homosexual marriage?” You can’t avoid it.
There’s great antagonism toward the church because it’s seen as an oppressive, homophobic institution. I love the church, but it’s important to admit that at times the church has been homophobic, unjust, and downright mean.
After that, then we can help them understand where the church is coming from on this issue.
Sanders: It’s important to articulate what marriage is and isn’t today. Recently in a group discussion I said, “If you took a poll around this table about what century we’re in, we would get different answers.” If we’re all in the twenty-first century, what is the role and purpose of marriage today?
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In our congregation, the typical adult is not married. Now they’re not necessarily homosexual; some are divorced, widowed, or never married. I believe, based on Scripture and the century that we’re in, that marriage is between one man and one woman, but how you speak about marriage is important.
Busbee: That’s crucial. Our current practice of marriage is deficient. So many of the Christian man-woman marriages don’t seem exemplary. If we’re going to have any kind of moral authority to speak out on the issue of marriage, it has to come out of the reality of our lives, not simply out of our doctrine.
Yates: I got concerned about this back in the Sixties, when I saw how dysfunctional so many families were. That led my wife and me into a lifetime commitment to build Christian marriages. A major emphasis of our church is building Christ-centered family life. When Christian marriage isn’t doing any better than non-Christian marriage in our culture, we need to help people gain a fresh vision for God’s purpose for marriage.
So the biblical model of marriage is one man, one woman, one lifetime?Campolo: A “biblical model” is harder to establish than you think. A colleague of mine has identified, I think, 16 models of marriage in the Hebrew Bible, including polygamy, concubinage, handmaidens, levirate arrangements, purchasing of wives, and spouses that accompany political alliances. It’s so pious to say “the biblical model of marriage.” Which of those forms of marriage do you mean?
I do think in the New Testament it gets clearer.
Yates: I believe Genesis 2 gives us the foundation—a man and woman leaving, cleaving, and becoming one flesh—and then I jump to Mark 10 and Jesus’ understanding of the permanence of that relationship.
Campolo: Speaking of Mark 10, what do you do with divorced people who remarry? Do you accept them in your church? I mean, while Jesus never speaks about gay marriage, he speaks very clearly about those who remarry after a divorce. I don’t know many churches that enforce a no-remarriage rule.
Has the church said, “We have to be faithful to Scripture about marriage, except on the issue of divorce and remarriage”? Or do we extend grace? Because if we’re going to show grace toward people who are divorced and remarried, an area Jesus specifically called sin, then how do you not show grace to people in a sexual relationship that Jesus never mentions?
Yes, Paul addresses it. But the fact that Jesus doesn’t is important, because it’s apparently not on his top ten list of sins.
Yates: I think you’re conflating two very different things. Remarriage after divorce, for me, has been more of a painful pastoral issue than homosexual marriage. It has been for thirty years, because we’re always confronted with it. What does the Scripture teach about it? It suggests that reasons for divorce extend from Moses and the allowance for hardness of heart, to Jesus for reason of immorality, and to Paul who mentions desertion.
Should homosexuality be treated by the church differently than heterosexuality?Busbee: I want to say about as much about that issue as the Bible does. And about as often as it comes up in the Scripture. Communicating redemption and God’s mercy, regardless of the situation, is more critical. I mean, homosexual offenses are listed in 1 Corinthians 6 alongside all kinds of other immoral behaviors that we’ve managed to deal with, by the grace of God—the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers …
Attitudes speak louder than any position we articulate. There has to be an openness that says, “Whosoever will, let them come.” —Cheryl Sanders
Sanders: I explained to my church that “we’re not going to do any kind of hunt to discover who is homosexual and who is not, because it’s not fair to subject homosexuals to certain scrutiny that heterosexuals are not subjected to.”
At least in the African-American community, I’m much more concerned about heterosexuals who have decided that marriage isn’t important. In our city, 70 percent of children are born out of wedlock. It’s now the norm!
If you minister in that setting, you’re going to be surrounded by people not living the biblical ideal. I don’t affirm that, but I don’t have to condemn them.
Now the difference is, if a man and woman who are living together come and say, “We want to join this church,” I will say to them, “In our church we believe that if you’re living together in a committed relationship, you need to be married.”
Well, they may need to rectify some things—like finalizing the divorce from the previous marriage. But we believe marriage is better than just living together. Their relationship can be acknowledged by the church; they can get married.
What do you do when a homosexual couple wants to join the church?Sanders: There’s nothing I can do to endorse their relationship. But in no case do I reject people or ask them to leave on the basis of their sexual orientation.
We do outreach ministry. We open our doors to the poor every day. Among them are transgendered, cross-dressing, and homosexual individuals—all kinds of people who come in, and we welcome them even if we don’t affirm everything they do.
Do you welcome practicing homosexuals into membership?Sanders: We don’t emphasize “membership” in the Church of God.
Campolo: I like that, because I think church “membership” is a false definition of reality. In our society two-thirds of the people who claim church membership never go. So what does membership mean? And yet we have somehow said, “I love gay people; I just don’t want any in the membership of the church.” Maybe the time has come to do away with “church membership” and just say whosoever will may come into the congregation and be a part of the growing ministry and fellowship.
Yates: I’ve always said the only requirement for membership in our church is to acknowledge yourself as a sinner in need of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. And that just cuts across everything.
Is it right for same-sex couples to marry?Campolo: The late Lewis Smedes raised what I think is the center of this issue. My loose paraphrase of his argument is this: “God’s original intent for creation has been marred by the Fall. In the context of fallenness, we look for the best alternative.”
I don’t want to be known for my stand on “the issue.” I want to help a person meet Jesus and grow into mature faith. —Phil Busbee
Smedes holds up his own marriage as an example. “The design of marriage in Genesis is not only one man and one woman, but progeny—having children.” Smedes and his wife didn’t have any children. So they adopted. They were making the best of a less-than-ideal situation.
My wife (who doesn’t happen to agree with me on this issue) would argue that in light of the fallenness of creation, and in light of certain people having a homosexual orientation, that gay marriage is a viable alternative. She would say that marriage is better than living together without marriage, and it’s certainly better than promiscuity.
Busbee: I’m not convinced that the majority of the homosexual community wants to get married. Not long ago in San Francisco, when the civil union law was passed, only 3 percent of the gay population took advantage of it.
Campolo: Opposing gay marriages does put Christians in an uncomfortable situation. A gay man told me recently, “We can’t please you evangelicals, Campolo. First, you condemned us for our promiscuous lifestyle. Now that we want to settle down and be married, you’re all upset. You claim we’re a threat to marriage. We’re not a threat to marriage. Some of us want to get married, want committed relationships. The threat to marriage is divorce, the desertion situation, and the number of children being born outside of marriage.”
I didn’t have a snappy answer for him. If we attack gay marriage and don’t address the bigger threats to marriage, it does look like we’re a bit homophobic.
Sanders: The Bible warns us against those who are proud of being right, even when they claim Scripture as their authority. Jesus rejects that self-justifying, judgmental attitude.
Based on history, the African-American perspective would suggest that white evangelicals are not to be readily trusted on biblical interpretation. It goes back to what they said about slavery. That’s why black people didn’t get too excited about debates over inerrancy and the authority of Scripture, because you look at the behavior of the people carrying on the conversation. Are they using the Bible to justify themselves?
I’m learning from Jesus that it’s more important to be righteous than to be right. Our attitudes and actions speak louder than any position we articulate.
The Bible’s always talking about reversal. That’s Mary’s Song. God has taken the high and mighty and cast them down. The lowly he elevates. That’s the perspective I bring to this issue. You can’t be too heavy-handed. There has to be an openness that says “whosoever will, let them come.”
At the same time, we have to have some sense of righteousness and unrighteousness that we articulate in a fair way. It doesn’t just condemn people based on some categorization or prejudice that comes from the fact that I have power and you don’t.
If a same-sex couple comes to you and says, “Would you perform a ceremony to bless our relationship?” what would be your response?Sanders: I would say, “I have no basis either in my faith tradition or in my understanding and application of Scripture to bless a same-sex union. So I can’t do that.”
Campolo: I agree. The church has been around for 2,000 years, and like Wesley, I think one has to consider church tradition. And the church has unanimously, for 2,000 years, rejected same-sex marriage. I’m surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, and I’m not arrogant enough to call them all wrong.
The church has unanimously, for 2,000 years, rejected same-sex marriage. I’m not arrogant enough to call them wrong. —Tony Campolo
Having made a High Church comment, let me also say that, as a Baptist, I think this question should be determined by each local congregation.
What if same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land? Would you be obligated to perform the ceremony?Busbee: No, even now I sometimes tell heterosexual couples I won’t marry them. Not only am I conservative in the area of divorce and remarriage, but for many other reasons I may feel that a couple should not marry, and I’ll say so.
So from the standpoint of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19 about what marriage is, I would have to say to a same-sex couple, “I don’t believe that you qualify to be married.”
Yates: I too have had to say no to heterosexual couples who considered it fine to be living together and now want to be married. My heart says, “I want you to be married,” but my head says, “Until you can ask God to forgive what you’ve done up to this point, I don’t think I can take the further step in blessing your marriage.”
Campolo: I think we need to follow the European model, where there are two ceremonies. A couple goes to the courthouse for the civil union, and then if they’re Christian they go to the church for the marriage. They are two separate things. The church blesses Christian marriages and the government establishes civil unions.
Our word marriage has become an umbrella term for both holy matrimony and the civil partnership, with its attendant rights of inheritance, insurance coverage, and so forth.Campolo: And that’s a problem. When I perform a ceremony, you know what I have to say? “By the authority committed unto me, by the state of Pennsylvania, I hereby declare you man and wife.” Wait a minute! Where did my authority come from? I thought it came from the church, from God. All of a sudden I have shifted from being a representative of the Kingdom of God to being a representative of an earthly state. What does that mean for me if the state changes the definition of marriage?
How can you be pastoral amid the heated political situation?Campolo: It’s become heated because extremists at both ends have manipulated us into this intense debate. That’s not just my opinion. The editors of Advocate, the gay magazine that is legitimately trying to deal with issues, wrote a book called Perfect Enemies. They described how the religious right and groups at the other extreme like Queer Nation need each other and feed off each other. Both sides use similar tactics—any time either side needs to raise money, it quotes a hostile statement from the other side. This turns up the heat, generating fear, distrust, anger.
Eric Hoffer said it well in his book The True Believer: “A movement can exist without a god. Many have—Nazism, Communism. But no movement can exist without a devil.” The extreme left has made the religious right the devil, and the religious right has made the gay community the devil. That makes it tough for those of us in the middle trying to express the love of Christ in a way that makes sense.
Yates: I really resonate with that. We have men in our church who are desperately trying to deal with sexual addiction—heterosexual, homosexual, whatever. Their group is called SALT (Sexual Addicts Learning Trust). They’re learning to trust Jesus. It’s a highly confidential group. We don’t go around condemning them. We’re trying to encourage them and figure out what God is calling them to, and how to deal with these addictive attitudes.
But while in my heart I feel I have a moderate spirit, as soon as I preach any message, based on the authority of Scripture, that explains that God has called us to either celibacy or heterosexual marriage, then I am branded as a homophobe and our church is labeled, by elements of the homosexual community, as “a hostile church.” It’s happened over and over again. I’ve sort of accepted it as inevitable.
Campolo: One way to get out of that box is by championing calls for justice on behalf of gay and lesbian people. When the church stands up and says, “Landlords have the right to discriminate against you with housing,” then it’s pretty hard to say convincingly, “But we love you in the name of Jesus.”
It’s important for the church to stand up for civil rights for our gay and lesbian friends on legitimate concerns of discrimination; so that they see us as their friend. A pastor can say, “I don’t have to buy into homosexual eroticism to recognize that discrimination is wrong, and I’m going to stand with you on this matter.”
Would you baptize someone who was still in a homosexual relationship?Busbee: We’ve really struggled with that. I just baptized a man who at this point does not know enough of Scripture to be convinced he needs to stop practicing homosexuality. But he has indicated a willingness to follow Jesus as Lord and obey his commands as they become clear. I’ve also baptized men in drug recovery programs who have not completely conquered their addiction.
What’s necessary for baptism in such a case?Busbee: I ask each candidate for baptism two questions: “Have you asked Christ to come into your life and forgive you of your sins?” and “Are you willing to follow Christ wherever he will lead you?” And each of them said, “Yes, absolutely.”
I cannot refuse to baptize someone just because he does not yet understand everything the Scripture teaches. I believe Jesus is powerful enough that if he gets in the door he’s going to make the transformation. I’m convinced that in this case God was saying to me, You’re not going to stand before me and give an account of his life. You’re going to give an account of your life. So let him stand before me and give an account. He said he’ll follow me when I tell him what to do. He’ll have to answer to me for that.
Another pastoral question. If an older couple comes to you and says, “Our son has a gay partner. Would you pray for him?” As you’re sitting there with the parents, what do you pray for?Yates: I will pray for that young man to come to know the love of God, to see his need for Jesus Christ, and that he will begin the process of turning from sin. None of us fully realizes the degree of sin in our lives. But I’d pray that his eyes are opened to the sin in his life, and that he’ll be pulled toward the love of God in Jesus Christ and find new purpose in him.
I don’t want to focus primarily on a person’s sexual behavior or even on a person’s sexual temptation. What God is looking for is people who realize their need for God. When someone comes to God and says, “Help!” that’s the beginning of salvation.
No matter what a person’s sin is, we don’t start by trying to fix the sin but with the gospel. We’re all in need of a Savior, whether I’m homosexual or heterosexual. And Jesus is looking for our recognition of that.
Busbee: A couple years ago, a man began attending our church, and for three months he just worshiped. He never talked to anyone and kept to himself.
Then suddenly he showed up at a different small group every night of the week, and in each group he told his story of sexual addiction and drug addiction and homosexuality. We have about 30 groups, and he hit seven of them in a row just to see what would happen.
Later he testified that he anticipated negative reaction from every group, but instead, every group just surrounded him and prayed for him and loved him. By the end of the week he was so loved, he was blown away. That transformed him.
As a pastor, I don’t want to be known for my stand on “the issue.” I want to help a person meet Jesus and grow into mature faith. That guy needed tremendous healing. He still does. And it goes beyond his sexual activity, though that’s part of it. There was a deep wound in his life that only God can heal, and he just needed a healthy context to be healed in. We loved him and accepted him. There’s great power in that.
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