A Letter

Wednesday April 1, 2009

Here is a letter about a subject that we believe will become much more of an issue in evangelical churches in the next decade. I am soliciting your responses today (civility must obtain) and tomorrow I have a guest response from Andrew Marin, who has a book coming out very soon from IVP on homosexuality. (I'll be posting about it late April or early May.) On this letter: Would you deal with this person privately? Do you have a policy in place for these issues? Do you think a policy is needed or necessary or even wise? What would you do?

Dear Scot,

We have a college student on our worship team who has been struggling with issues of homosexuality. He had voluntarily removed himself from the team last year due to this issue. He has since come to the conclusion that homosexual unions are acceptable to God, not sex outside a civil union, but within a union.

He currently has a boyfriend, although he is not sexually active. He believes he is "right with God" and wishes to rejoin the team, with the understanding that should he cross the line and become sexually active outside of a civil union, he will no longer be eligible to be on the team.

As the worship leader, the decision lies in my hands. I do not want to condone the theology that God is accepting of homosexual unions or acts. I would appreciate some advice as to how to handle this situation.

What do you think?

Comments (92)

Filed Under: Homosexuality

posted by Scot McKnight @ 6:46am Permalink email icon

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LutheranChik

April 2, 2009 10:15 PM

http://lutheranchiklworddiaryblogspot.com

Eric, one of my friends is a (straight) PCUSA pastor who identifies as an Evangelical, who admires my and my gay friends'/colleagues' patience in situations like this one, who has advised me to not give up hope. I told her that my role model is the persistent widow in Jesus' parable of the unjust judge.;-)

Eric

April 2, 2009 11:19 PM

LutheranChik,

Interesting that you mention PCUSA. Out of frustration with traditional evangelical churches I had attended (on similar issues to those described above), I recently started attending a PCUSA church. My 36 years in conservative evangelical churches had led me to believe there were only two approaches -- "believe the Bible" -- or, more accurately, a particular approach to understanding the Bible -- or don't believe it at all -- i.e., attend a mainline church.

Anyway, I was happily surprised -- far from throwing out the Bible, the mainline, evangelical PCUSA church I now attend (yes, mainline and evangelical are not mutually exclusive categories) takes the authority of scripture very seriously -- without the sort of interpretative approach I had seen in conservative evangelical churches that had seemed to me to be too simplistic. Their approach is similar to the approach outlined in Scot's Blue Parakeet book, for example.

I sometimes wonder whether the less conservative evangelicals, the more conservative mainliners, and emerging church-types are converging; they seem to have more in common with each other than any of them do with the more conservative evangelicals. What I would love to see is a broad ecumenical focus on core issues and mission, with an approach that is more humble on non-core issues. E.g., let folks agree to disagree in humility on homosexuality, but set aside those differences for purposes of their shared mission.

Incidentally, its seemd odd to me that this post on homosexuality gets 90 (!) or so posts, with some very harsh language from some conservatives, while most other posts get far less attention.

LutheranChik

April 3, 2009 8:49 AM

http://lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com

And -- not to bump up traffic on my blog, but if people visited it and learned about me and about my household, they'd find an unscary, normal, boring, small-town Upper Midwestern Lutheran family right out of Prairie Home Companion. And I don't even talk about The Troubles much other than my reactions to conversations like this one.

Jim Martin

April 3, 2009 7:33 PM

Scot-- Just an observation but I think you are right on regarding this being a huge issue in the next decade. (I suspect the number of comments on this post may reflect this) Glad you posted this letter which challenges us all in reflecting on this issue in the context of ministry. Far too often, we get ourselves in trouble isolating an issue from ministry and the church.

Mike M

April 4, 2009 1:03 AM

Two thoughts on re-reading these posts:
1. Most Christians simply parrot back what they hear in church.
2. Most Christians are mean. And I mean MEAN!

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Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986). Click to continue reading Scot McKnight's Bio...

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