Two Baptist Churches in the South Discuss the Issues Related to Christian LGBTQ Persons&Differently: As Expressed by Their Pastors in Recent Books
Editor’s Note: Two very respected Baptist pastors have recently published books describing the process they led their congregations through and the conclusions they made regarding how to apply biblical teachings in consideration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) persons who attend their churches. Both southern churches exist in enclaves of the “bible belt” where strident opinions are often expressed on matters of politics, sexuality, biblical interpretation, and the proper role of religion in public life. These two pastors and the churches they serve determined to conduct a civil, thorough, and thoughtful examination of the issues and to set a course for their congregations’ faith and practice. The two churches arrived at different conclusions while exhibiting, as best they could, their own understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I asked a pastor friend, Dr. Cody Sanders, to review each book and compare the different conclusions for our readers.
Two Baptist Churches in the South Discuss the Issues Related to Christian LGBTQ Persons…Differently: As Expressed by Their Pastors in Recent Books
By Cody J. Sanders
Travis Collins, What Does It Mean to be Welcoming? Navigating LGBT Questions in Your Church (Downers Grover, IL: IVP Books, 2018)
No church is exempt from serious discussions about sexuality and faith. This book is evidence of that new reality. Even a big steeple Baptist church in the heart of Alabama cannot skirt the subject–either by relying on the false assumption that everyone in the church agrees on the matter, or by subscribing to simple position statements from denominational bodies without a full engagement of the multivalent concerns bound up in this lived human experience. But the fact remains that churches too often have avoided a robust, prayerful and humane process of discernment about sexuality and faith. This book is an attempt to change that.
Travis Collins, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama, first wrote this text as an internal document to resource his own congregation’s discussions of same-sex sexuality. Collins agrees that churches can no longer avoid what might be a difficult conversation, arguing, “Even difficult conversation…is better than having a statement handed down by authoritarian church leaders, or having church leaders assume (often incorrectly) what members of the congregation think” (p. 123).
The simplest statement of Collins’ theological and pastoral commitments on same-sex sexuality and faith comes on pages 128-9 where he states:
Simply put, I believe we should welcome all followers of Jesus who want to be part of our church families….I also believe we are to make clear the biblical message about sexual intimacy—that it is to be expressed only within the marriage between a man and a woman. I further believe that spiritual leadership should be reserved for those whose life choices reflect biblical values.
More simply put: Collins and his congregation are welcoming but not affirming. There is nothing especially new or unique about this book that sets it apart from all of the “welcoming but not affirming” texts that have come before it except, perhaps, its more conciliatory tone. For example, Collins does not disparage churches that come to affirming positions, though he disagrees with them. And he doesn’t question the faithfulness or striving toward Christ-likeness of LGBT persons in loving relationships and those who support them, though he questions the validity of their biblical interpretation and believes same-sex couples are practicing sin.
Collins and his church do welcome gay people in same-sex relationships to be church members. Seeing no biblical teaching for “membership” as we’ve typically practiced it in modern churches, he sees no theological rationale for making sexuality a litmus test for church members (p. 129). The stipulation, of course, is that members engaged in same-sex sexual relationships will necessarily be second-class members cut off from church leadership positions because of their unbiblical behavioral choices. And, ultimately, embracing gay people into church membership is in service of their potential “transformation” from their sinful choices (p. 130).
Surprisingly, outside of church contexts, Collins opposes a second-class citizenship for LGBT people. He states without equivocation, “From what I know…it seems only fair and prudent to extend the legal privileges that straight people enjoy to those people who are in same-sex relationships” – a conviction rooted in his belief that discrimination in society is unchristian, leading us all (and he does say “all”!) to “support the full recognition of a gay person’s legal rights” (p. 27). This is indicative of a new generation of “welcoming but not affirming” texts that address LGBT concerns within churches differently from LGBT equality in society.
Collins attempts to honor the complexity of the intersection of sexuality and faith for churches by acknowledging arguments and perspectives from multiple sides. He even includes a brief (14- page) chapter on “the affirming position” in which he lays out what he understands as the best arguments from those who affirm LGBT people in same-sex relationships. Unfortunately, this chapter is quite light on its treatment of the substantive scholarship in this area. While he quotes a few affirming biblical scholars and ethicists (e.g., James V. Brownson, David Gushee, etc.), the arguments he engages from an “affirming” perspective are largely less scholarly and more colloquial. For example, “The church’s reputation and future are in jeopardy if we don’t change our views on sexuality,” or, “It’s hypocritical to oppose same-sex relationships but be soft on divorce.” For those truly desiring to engage a biblical exploration of the topic from an affirming perspective, one should engage a text like James Brownson’s Bible, Gender, and Sexuality (Eerdmans, 2013) or Matthew Vines’ helpful summary of the affirming scholarly corpus in God and the Gay Christian (Penguin Random House, 2014).
Collins then moves into a much more substantive treatment of what he calls “the traditional position” on the subject in which he does engage in more scholarly arguments that he, unfortunately, failed to provide in great detail for “the affirming position.” Collins holds a Ph.D. in Christian mission from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and served for 25 years as a missionary, including in Nigeria. His expertise on the subject of sexuality and faith is that of a pastor. He is clearly concerned to walk his church – and now others – through this intersection in ways that exhibit fidelity to the biblical witness. But as a pastor and missiologist, his biblical and historical scholarship is derived from other established texts in this area of inquiry. The notes turn up the typical names of prominent non-affirming scholars like Robert Gagnon and Stanley Grenz.
Collins ends the chapter on the “traditional position” with another statement that caught me off guard when I read it, speaking again to his generosity toward those with whom he disagrees: “I hope anyone who has said, ‘No true Christian could advocate for same-sex marriage’ will say that no longer” (p. 63). And this speaks to the single greatest strength of Collins’ text: the tone he sets at the beginning of the book and strives to maintain throughout is one of humility-in-conviction. One gets the sense throughout the text that Collins firmly believes he is right about his perspective, but never to the point of believing that he couldn’t possibly be wrong. And on the subject of same-sex relationships – which he believes is “not central to the gospel” (p. 23) – he is unwilling to alienate his Christian siblings who disagree with him on the matter.
But even in his humility and desire for relationship across lines of difference, Collins has room to grow. For example, in imagining someone in his “traditional position” making a loving overture toward a gay person, he poses the simple question he would ask to them: “How do I represent Jesus to the LGBT community?” (p. 142). Fine question. But it doesn’t seem to occur to him – even amid his desire for his own ongoing spiritual transformation – to ask how the gay person across the table from him, or the LGBT community more broadly, represents Jesus to him. A further step of Christian theological humility would be for Collins, and others in his circles, to acknowledge that they may have something to learn about being Christian from those LGBT people who have tenaciously practiced their faith at the margins of their families, communities, and churches for ages – even if they believe those LGBT people are falling short of Christian standards of morality. These lessons are the subject of my own book, Queer Lessons for Churches on the Straight and Narrow (Faithlab, 2013).
Additionally, there are some inconsistencies in the book that are indicative of inconsistences that pervade Collins’ “traditional position” more broadly. For example, he says at one point, “What seems absolutely clear is that the attraction is not the choice of the person. The behavior is a choice, but not the attraction” (p. 15). Yet later in the text he makes the typical argument that “same-sex sexual behavior is ‘unnatural,’ meaning it violates the divine design” (p. 93). What, then, is the theological anthropology behind an embrace of a perspective on sexuality as a feature of one’s lived experience that isn’t “chosen,” and the theological claim that same-sex behavior is “unnatural” and violates the divine design? How does one understand the relationship between the morally charged category of “natural” and what actually does occur in nature? What part of LGBT persons’ embodiment and human experience is made in the imago Dei and how does that correspond to a presumed created order that includes non-chosen, presumably naturally occurring, same-sex attraction? All questions that remain unaddressed.
At one point Collins even slips back into a more typical tone for those in the presumed “traditional” camp when he states his belief that “giving approval to same-sex sexual behavior, no matter how loving our motives, is not healthy for the church and not healthy for a society” (p. 95). This may be evidence of a paucity of thought for “traditionalists” on the relationship between church and society, when earlier he claimed full support for the rights of LGBT people in wider society. It is also indicative of a typical feeling of bait-and-switch on behalf of those espousing loving, welcoming tolerance of LGBT people, but who still hold that these people they “love” are unnatural and engaging in behavior that is corrupting to society. Collins laments the fact that LGBT people so often don’t see his position as loving or embracing, unsure why such a dynamic must exist, but this is a clear reason why.
Further, while Collins believes that “people on both sides are driven by admirable motives” (p. 11), he too often equates coming to an affirming position with throwing up one’s hands and proclaiming, “Anything goes!” (p. 154). Similarly, he often conflates an affirming position with the confusion of love and morality as well. This strain of thought that shows up here and there throughout the book misses the the point that serious moral/ethical, theological, pastoral, and biblical works have been undertaken for many decades now to move Christian communities toward a practice of love and justice that is affirming of LGBT people. Collins portrays the divide to be one between those who are simply moved by their love and compassion toward affirmation, and those who are lovingly and compassionately engaging in serious biblical hermeneutics toward a “traditional” position. This is simply sloppy scholarship.
One further limitation that needs to be mentioned to potential readers is one with the title itself: While the book purportedly addresses “LGBT questions” there is actually no substantive grappling of gender identity (the “T” in “LGBT”) whatsoever. Readers looking for help navigating questions related to gender identity – a person’s social, psychological, spiritual and behavioral experience and expression of “gender” as male or female, both, neither, or those for whom gender is experienced in a more fluid state not captured by the male/female binary – need to look elsewhere. See, for example, Justin Sabia-Tanis, Trans-Gender: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith, rev. ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2018).
I heartily agree with Collins that “avoidance of a decision and position on this matter is no longer an option for churches” and that “a proactive conversation is much less emotional and much less divisive than a reactive conversation” (pp. 119-20). However, if one decides to read this book to enable conversational dialogue on sexuality and faith, I would highly recommend reading it alongside an equally pastoral and evangelical text that truly engages an affirming perspective more robustly like Ken Wilson’s text, A Letter to My Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor’s Path to Embracing People Who Are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender into the Company of Jesus (Ann Arbor, MI: Front Edge, 2014). Collins’ book is a slightly more hopeful addition to the welcoming but not affirming corpus, but needs serious augmentation from other texts to enable the robust, prayerful, and humane process of discernment about sexuality and faith that he hopes for congregations to have.
Jim Dant, This I Know: A Simple Biblical Defense for LGBTQ Christians (Macon, GA: Nurturing Faith, 2018).
This I Know is a different kind of book from the LGBTQ affirming texts that have come before it. I should be forthright in stating that it is also a book that I endorsed when it came to me to review in draft form. Neither a thorough theological discussion nor a complex biblical defense, it is, rather, “a survival manual for those on the firing line” (p. 5). There really is no other book quite like it.
Jim Dant, senior mnister of the First Baptist Church of Greenville, SC, writes this book out of pastoral concern for LGBTQ people for whom “someone in the church turned the Bible into a weapon and Jesus into an inaccessible friend” (p. 2). Throughout, Dant’s style and tone are both pastoral and colloquial. Readers are invited into what feels like a conversation.
Dant’s premise is stated at the outset: “There is no valid, Christian, biblical argument against same-sex relationships between consenting adults” (p. 2). Every subsequent chapter follows that premise by tackling the most prevalent arguments made against LGBTQ people, their committed same-sex relationships, and their place of equality within churches. Though his main arguments are about same-sex relationships, Dant also tackles transgender concerns in a few places as well.
Each chapter is laid out in a simple format: First, a typical challenge to LGBTQ affirmation is presented in a sentence. Then a simple response to this challenge is presented in a sentence or two. Following this, Dant offers a slightly longer (two to four paragraphs) explanation to substantiate his response. And each ends with a “just for fun” section in which Dant tells a story from his personal or ministerial experience related to the challenge at hand – often with great humor.
The biblical scholarship represented in the “explanation” sections of each chapter is up-to-date and congruent with the scholarly literature on the subject, though you won’t find sources footnoted or a bibliography for further reading. Readers are left to find these sources on their own, should they so desire. Though I am not certain that the book is really an entrée into more scholarly texts for most of its readers, I believe what Dant has done with this text is to tap into a cultural propensity for engaging difficult and complex concerns with ever-briefer messaging. And whatever problems are inherent in that tendency toward sound bite theology and Twitter-length critique, Dant has used it for good.
The gift of this text is that most LGBTQ people and those who love them will not be presented with a lengthy biblical treatise against them in the course of their daily lives. They will be confronted by the little barbs and bumper sticker challenges presented and refuted in this little book. And make no mistake: The length or sophistication of a message of derision meant to cut you down, invalidate your love, or question your relationship to the Divine is no measure of its potential to harm.
During my dissertation research on suicide among LGBTQ people, I discovered time and again that the messages that really stuck with my interview participants – sometimes decades after they encountered them – were messages that could be contained in a word (e.g., “abomination”) or a simple phrase (e.g., “Your feelings are wrong before God.”). For many in similar situations, a little book like this one can serve as an accessible shield in the midst of a barrage of injurious speech – “a survival manual for those on the firing line,” as Dant says.
The weakness of this book will come for those wishing for a more typical treatment of the subject at hand. There are no footnotes, no bibliography, and no parsing of the Greek text. But it’s just not that kind of book. And those books are, frankly, plentiful. This book is one of a kind. LGBTQ-affirming churches would do well to invest in a few dozen of these little books to give away liberally to those in their congregation in need of a little support on their journey toward LGBTQ affirmation.
So what is the critical difference between the journeys of Jim Dant’s First Baptist Church of Greenville, SC, and that of Travis Collins’ First Baptist Church of Huntsville, AL? Both are big-steeple churches in the socially and politically conservative south. Neither is an “early arriver” at the conversation on LGBTQ inclusivity and justice in the church. Both have pastors who willingly led the way into a process of congregational discernment on LGBTQ concerns. Both engaged in long processes of prayerful study and conversation and eschewed pastoral pronouncements on the matter. And each one came out of the process in a very different place: Huntsville as welcoming but not affirming, Greenville as fully welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ people in the life of the church. So what are the critical differences that got each church to where they are today?
It’s hard to say with certainty (though this question would make a good doctoral research project for someone), but after studying the two texts and their approaches, here are a few observations that may be clues to these two churches’ divergent pathways:
Firstly, I suspect that the role of LGBTQ voices played very different roles in the process of discernment. Churches can choose to have conversations “about” LGBTQ issues, or churches can choose to have conversations about and with and among LGBTQ people. Baptists have a rich history of testimony – bearing witness to that which God has done in one’s life. And it is always surprising to me when churches engage in discernment about LGBTQ inclusion without hearing the rich testimony of LGBTQ Christians who tenaciously practice their faith in the midst of severe rejection and even attack from the communities of faith to which they’ve historically belonged.
I can’t say for sure what role the voices of LGBTQ people held in the process of discernment for Huntsville, but I know that Greenville invited LGBTQ Christians to speak of their own experience of the Divine in their lives. I was one of them invited into such a role one Sunday morning in an all-church Sunday school class followed by my preaching in the worship service. This was before any final point of welcome and affirmation in the process was reached. But, importantly, they were open to hearing how God might be speaking and moving in the lives of queer folk before they got to any point of “decision.”
Today, Huntsville won’t allow LGBTQ people to take leadership roles in the congregation, presumably including preaching, teaching, worship leadership, etc. Greenville, in contrast, invited the 250 member San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus to perform a standing-room-only concert in their sanctuary. What gifts of beauty and goodness and grace do we forfeit when we exclude the voices of LGBTQ people from our sacred communities? This is a critical question for churches believing in the power of testimony as evidence of the Spirit’s work in our lives.
Secondly, it is important to set this conversation on LGBTQ concerns within the larger narrative arc of each congregation. No congregation comes to the question of LGBTQ inclusion and justice out of the blue. It never shows up as a question that no one was expecting. There are always conversational antecedents that make this conversation a sensible next narrative move in the ongoing story of the congregation. And there are always clues in our congregation’s historic narrative that help inform each critical conversation of discernment that arises in our present.
If I were going to undertake a research project studying the processes of these two congregations, I would want to know the history of other critical conversations in the life of the church that necessitated the tightening, maintenance or loosening of boundaries. From my experience working with many churches on this question, my guess is that many of these historic questions, whether about baptism, or the ordination of women, or a church’s relationship to the community’s homeless, or their interaction other religious traditions, would suggest something about how the conversation on LGBTQ inclusion is undertaken. Did those questions end in a closed-off stance, a moderated position of partial embrace, or a full, albeit risky, relational embrace of those deemed “other” at the time?
The good news is this: Our historical narratives don’t bind us, but we are strongly influenced by them and we need to look carefully at how we can make sense of current decisions in light of our past.
Finally, both Dant and Collins – and presumably their churches, too – take the Bible very seriously, prioritizing its message in the life of the church. But each of us has multiple lenses through which we read the text of scripture, whether or not we’re willing to own up to and question their influence on our vision. Dant says, “It is important (particularly when attacking or critiquing the life of another) that we dig beneath the surface of Scripture, beneath the English translation of obscure words, and beneath the biases of our own culture to find the true intent of the text” (p. 62). And it is the question of the text’s intent that seems most at issue in how Collins and Dant approach the Bible.
For Collins, too much is risked by mistakenly reading the text of scripture as affirming the life and love of LGBTQ people, even to the point of having a corrupting influence on society. For Dant, too much is risked by mistakenly reading the text of scripture as excluding LGBTQ people from the life of the church and the love shared between partners. Dant explains his position, stating:
“God is not looking down from God’s heaven and nullifying our baptisms when we are nice to homosexuals. In fact, if John is correct (and most of our critics believe the Bible), the opposite may be true. The merciless rejection of LGBTQ persons may impede access to our heavenly abode….I would rather stand before God one day and be told, ‘You loved too much. You shared love with too many people. You were too liberal in your love and mercy and grace,’ rather than, ‘You did not love enough. You did not love the people I loved. You withheld love from those who needed it most’” (p. 67).
For many readers of the text, the intent of the sacred text is to help us continually broaden our vision and practice of love for those whom God so loved, beyond our culture’s imposed strictures and prejudices. For other readers, the intent of the text is to help us remain pure of doctrine and practice, draw the proper boundary lines of inclusion and exclusion in the church, and defend ourselves from corrupting influences. And you can get both of these messages of intent from within the text itself. Each lens on intent has an influence on how churches read the text of scripture in relation to questions of LGBTQ inclusion and justice.
So, in addition to all of the typical questions of theology and biblical interpretation we ask in relation to LGBTQ inclusivity, further questions for churches engaging in these complex concerns in the life of the congregation today are these: Whose voices are heard and whose testimonies are taken seriously in the process of discernment? What does our historical narrative as a congregation suggest to us about why this conversation makes sense as a next narrative move in our ongoing story, and what can we learn from our past that will help guide us into our future? What are we willing to stake our church’s life on? And, if we’re going to err, in what direction are we willing to err more egregiously: too great an inclusivity in the house of God, or too little?
Cody J. Sanders, Ph.D., is pastor to Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge, MA, American Baptist Chaplain to Harvard University, Special Advisor on LGBTQ+ Issues in the Office of Religious Life at MIT, and author/editor of several books including, A Brief Guide to Ministry with LGBTQ Youth (Westminster John Knox, 2017).
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