Seeking to Stand Where Jesus Would Stand: The Price for Accepting Gay Couples into the Church
by Tony Campolo
My life changed dramatically on June 8, 2015, when I declared, in a very public way, that I no longer opposed welcoming into the Church gay and lesbian couples who were in monogamous lifetime relationships. Previously, my identity had been wrapped up in being a high profile evangelical speaker. The previous year, I had spoken more than 200 times for churches and conferences across America and around the world. However, since declaring myself supportive of gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships being part of the Church, I have become persona non grata in evangelical circles.
The fact that I affirm the doctrines delineated in the Apostle`s Creed, that I preach having a personal relationship with Jesus as the basis for salvation, and that I declare the Bible to have been written by persons imbued by the Holy Spirit, making it a book with transcendent origins, is not enough. Within days of putting my changed position over the internet, cancellations of my scheduled engagements came pouring in. As I look at my calendar for the year ahead, I see week- after-week with few opportunities for preaching and teaching the Gospel.
I anticipated these cancellations, but what I had not expected was how I would feel about all of this. I had to start asking myself about my personal identity. Who was I apart from what I did as a speaker? I began to ask myself how to handle being alienated from so many fellow Christians who had been my friends.
For more than 50 years I have served as a professor at Eastern University, a Christian school firmly fixed in the evangelical community. Though I am now "professor emeritus," it is easy to understand that I might fear how former colleagues would treat me, and the possibility that the school would sense a need to distance itself from me.
There is seldom a night when I do not wake up from a sound sleep with deep concerns over all that has happened since that fateful day in June. I think of all those deeply committed Christians who now are disappointed in me. But I also remember each of those students I have taught over the years who have walked away from the Church, and even from Christ, because they believed that there was no place for them in the household of faith. Then there is the peace that comes as I consider the good news that there is now a network of 600 mothers of gay and lesbian children who have promised to pray for me daily, knowing the emotional turmoil I am going through as I try to deal with my sense of estrangement.
Recently I heard a young man preach a sermon in which he said, "Whenever you draw a line and put some people who are being rejected by the religious establishment on the other side of that line, you can be sure that Jesus is on the other side of the line with them." I have thought about that sermon many times of late, and I wonder if the stand that I have taken on behalf of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters allows me to stand where Jesus would stand.
As I reflected on the history of Christianity since its earliest days, I realize there have always been defining and divisive issues for the Church that seemed at the time to be monumental but, in retrospect, are viewed as undeserving of the upset and schisms they created. Consider the divisive concerns with which St. Paul had to deal in the first century, such as whether Christians could eat meat that had been offered to idols (I Cor. 8) or whether Gentiles had to first be circumcised and become proselyted Jews before becoming Christians. Then there was the fact that during the days of the Protestant Reformation, some Christians put other Christians to death because they differed on modes of baptism. In the 19th century, beliefs about slavery were extremely divisive issues. When I was a boy, I remember church members being excommunicated from my American Baptist Church because they were divorced and remarried. Today these matters have become non-issues in most churches, and I hope that this also will be so when it comes to gay marriage.
When I am asked why I risked my speaking career and my relationships with fellow evangelicals by making my statement on gay couples in the Church, I answer that it was listening to those gays and lesbians who were in emotional turmoil and even despair because they could not reconcile what they were hearing from Christian pulpits with their sexual orientations which they never chose. Empathizing with these brothers and sisters in Christ drove me to say something I have come to believe is true, and that hopefully might lessen their pain.
I miss my former role on the evangelical speaking circuit, even though I am heartened by new opportunities from progressive congregations that will enable me to go on preaching the Jesus whom I love, and who loves gays and lesbians even more than any of us do.
Tony Campolo is Co-Director of the Red Letter Christians Movement. He can be contacted for speaking engagements at tcampolospeaker@eastern.edu
