In memoriam to theologian/psychol-ogist Henri Nouwen who died in September, the popular evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, devoted all of its November 11th “Reflections” page to excerpts from his works. CT states that this beloved Catholic writer “left behind a wealth of insights that have brought encouragement and ministered to thousands.” According to Harold Myra, CEO of Christianity Today, Inc., “Henri Nouwen’s recent death saddened a surprisingly diverse range of Christians.” Myra may or may not realize just how diverse those grateful Christians are. Absent from the CT memorial page was any mention of Nouwen’s unconditionally loving insights that were so strongly supportive of actively homosexual Christians. [see RECORD, Fall 1996] Myra asks: “What was there about this Dutch Catholic priest and Ivy League professor that so profoundly affected us?” He remembers the first of CT’s “numerous times” with Nouwen, back when, Myra thinks, Nouwen may have had “some misgivings about us in light of some anti-Catholic articles in the early CT.” He recalls “Nouwen’s spiritual presence, his brokenness, his disregard for reputation, his focus on God’s sufficiency.” [Books & Culture]
In August, Nouwen was interviewed by Rebecca Laird, editor of Fellowship in Prayer journal. That conversation is reported in the December issue. Laird and her husband (Nazarene/Methodist scholar Michael J. Christensen) were numbered among Nouwen’s longtime friends. Nouwen spoke with Laird about his having been “very attached to a person who loved me and I loved that person very deeply.” He says that “that person had enormous capability to open up a place in me that had been closed” and says he “became very dependent on that person. In the presence of that person I felt very much alive.” Nouwen says that when that person no longer wanted to be with him, “I was totally paralyzed — I couldn’t do ministry, so I left the community.” He says he “totally broke down.” Nouwen’s psychiatrist told him: “you got infatuated with somebody, that person dropped you, you are depressed … [you] never should have been a celibate.” But Nouwen says that he eventually “knew that what I experienced was a God-given relationship, that the love was real, that I experienced something that was extremely important, and that I didn’t have to leave my community.” According to Nouwen, he finally “reestablished contact with that person who by that time realized that I was no longer projecting it all. Now we are very, very good friends.”
Evangelical theologian Paul King Jewett’s last book has now been published posthumously. In it, the late Fuller Seminary professor writes at length on a Christian view of homosexuality. In what he calls “A ‘Conclusion’ of Sorts,” Jewett asserts: “Something has to be wrong with teaching that evokes absolute hatred, loathing, and disdain for homosexual people. …We are left with the feeling that the church has overdone it, no matter how you cut it; and that homosexuals have certainly suffered more wrong than they have committed; and that there must be flaws in whatever theology of nature or hierarchy of sins has made homosexuality be viewed as the nadir of depravity (even as something was wrong with the theology of place that was used to justify the Crusades). This feeling increases when one becomes acquainted with responsible, Christian, homosexual people.” He ends by asking: “when we defined marriage as a unique relationship between a man and a woman, should we have added, ‘or, on occasion, between a man and a man, or between a woman and a woman’? Is there a real possibility here that we have somehow missed? Or must the celebration of love between people of the same sex perhaps wait for heaven … when, we trust, all that is precious in the myriad forms of frustrated love will at last be fulfilled?” Jewett’s book, Who We Are: Our Dignity as Human, was edited by his daughter and published by Eerdmans.
Peter Gomes is minister of The Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard. He is also a black Republican who is openly gay. In his new book on “Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart,” entitled The Good Book, Gomes writes on the use and abuse of the Bible in a wide range of topics including race, homosexuality, anti-Semitism, women, wealth, science, evil, and suffering as well as other subjects. He credits a Christianity Today essay by the late Yale church historian and Luther scholar Roland Bainton with an insight that guides his discussion in these matters. He relates that Bainton’s position for total abstinence of alcoholic drinks was, as the historian wrote, based “on biblical principles” and “not based on biblical precepts or biblical practice.” Gomes points out that Bainton derived his principles from the writings of Paul. Gomes extrapolates: “In addressing a moral issue with both public and personal implications on the basis of Christian principles derived from a reading of the Bible, rather than simply on the basis of biblical practice and precedent, Bainton liberates us from a simpleminded bondage to texts whose context may be unrelated and unhelpful to our own.” He asserts that “in the case of the Bible and homosexuality in contemporary American culture, the tragic dimensions of this biblically sanctioned prejudice among the most devout and sincere people of religious conviction are all the greater because no credible case against homosexuality or homosexuals can be made from the Bible unless one chooses to read scripture in a way that simply sustains the existing prejudice against homosexuality and homosexuals … Given the appeal to the Bible in the case against homosexuality, one would assume that the Bible has much to say on the subject. It has not.” Gomes goes on to give a brief review of the significant scholarship on the Bible verses that antigay preachers use today against homosexuals.
Philip Yancey, in one of his recent columns in Christianity Today, states: “It is safe to say that I have learned more about grace, forgiveness, diversity — and, yes, original sin — from my family than from all the theology books I have read …. Troublesome issues like divorce and homosexuality take on a different cast when you confront them not in a state legislature but in a family reunion.”
“Before we learned our son was gay, we believed ‘gay Christian’ was an oxymoron. We also assumed homosexuality would not affect our Christian family. We were wrong on both counts.” This is what Carmen Bergman writes in a “Soapbox” column in the Christian Reformed Church magazine, The Banner (October 28, 1996). She comments on the very poor preparation Christians generally have for dealing with homosexuality: “Our theology placed him in a box with no way out. Fortunately, he was not abandoned by God, and neither has he abandoned God or the church.”
In the meantime, the young man’s father, Don Bergman, has been kicked off the CRC Homosexuality Study Committee by the CRC Board of Trustees. His support of his son’s desire to find a life partner of the same gender did not sit well with CRC general secretary David Engelhard and the other church officials. The Bergmans had encouraged their son to remain celibate but when he told them that he did not have the gift of celibacy, Bergman told his son to find one man and settle down with him: “commitment first, then passion.” But the Board objected. Earlier, the Board had refused a Committee seat to a celibate gay minister, Jim Lucas.
Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), though not a religion group as such, often serves as a safe haven within communities where hostility to homosexuals is commonplace and is stirred up by local religion groups. The most recent national newsletter of PFLAG reports that the 16-year-old son of a PFLAG member in Fayetteville, Arkansas was severely beaten by eight other teens during a lunch break from school. His nose was broken and he sustained injuries to his kidneys, knees and back. His attackers called him “faggot” and other antigay epithets during the beating. His mother says: “I thank God for PFLAG!” Her local chapter rallied around her and her family in the aftermath of the attack. Two teen-agers have been arrested. This incident in “the Bible Belt” illustrates the grim statistics on gay-bashing throughout the country. PFLAG chapters in places remote from the stereotyped “gay community” such as small towns in Georgia, Mississippi, North Dakota, Montana and Washington state have held recent meetings on the Bible and homosexuality and local pastors are sometimes the facilitators at PFLAG meetings. The national address is PFLAG, 1101 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005.
Voters in Colorado have rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution declaring that parents had inalienable rights to “direct and control the upbringing, education, values and discipline of their children.” The religious right had pushed for the bill as part of its “family values” efforts against sex education in the schools.
Church historian Martin E. Marty, in a recent issue of The Christian Century, reports on a study by University of Oregon sociologist Benton Johnson. Johnson compared his study of clergy in the early 1960s with his findings in the late 1980s and found that, while those he called “liberals” had not changed much, he found that “Despite the posture of militancy and holding the line on doctrinal issues, a process of quiet accommodation has been going on within many old evangelical denominations.” Alcohol was the most important issue to evangelicals thirty years ago. Today “they spend virtually no energy [on it.] Why?,” asks Marty. “(Answer: they drink.) Their other big issue used to be divorce. …Why do they now make no moves to change laws on the divorce front? (Answer: they divorce.) … Decades ago Protestants staked much of their moral capital on holding the line on Sunday closing laws.” Why do they do so no longer? “(Answer: they like to earn and to shop on Sundays.)” And today evangelicals celebrate all the professional football heroes who proclaim their “born again” testimonies after every Sunday game while deploring the fact that “the godless media” don’t rerun the testimonies on the Sunday night newscasts. Marty quotes Johnson on answering “my ‘why’ questions this way: ‘A major part of the answer lies in what these leaders believe their constituency will wholeheartedly support.” Marty asks what all this means: “Is it the moment for moderates to remind evangelicals that they, too, are negotiators with modernity, selective drawers of lines?” Says New York Times religion writer Peter Steinfels: “You can view this ‘negotiating with modernity’ as hypocrisy or evidence of creeping compromise. Or you can take it as the moderation that comes with experience.”
Billy Graham says that “Unlike the so-called Christian right, I decided that I can’t go in that direction, because I don’t believe it.” This is what the leading 20th century evangelist told editor John Kennedy in an interview in George (December 1996). The magazine points out that at mid-century, Graham “wrote articles for Reader’s Digest and Life magazine supporting what was then called nonsegregation.” In 1956 Graham argued in Life that the “Bible Forbids Segregation.” In the face of violent opposition from many fundamentalists and even other evangelicals at the time, Graham invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to give the closing prayer at the evangelist’s 16-week New York crusade in 1957.
According to Sen. Mark O. Hatfield: “We are getting to the place where the single-issue mentality, a demand to conform to a certain viewpoint, is destructive to us as a people — and also counter to our Christian faith.” He says that “That’s my problem, especially with the Religious Right, which is so powerfully committed to a political agenda. How many times have you heard these people relate their agenda to a Christian tenet or a Christian teaching? Political, political. It’s either to stop communism or the threat of the liberals, or the homosexuals are going to take over the government if you don’t send in your $15 contribution. All of these things they’re expounding don’t have a biblical base. And that bothers me.” Hatfield, who has just retired from the Senate, after five terms, made these remarks in an interview with Jim Wallis in Sojourners magazine (October 1996).
The Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania has voted to endorse the blessing of gay and lesbian relationships. The local bishop, Allen Bartlett, said he was surprised by the wide margin of support (176-96). The move is still subject to approval by the church’s general convention that will be held in Philadelphia in July.
The Presbyterian Church in America has voted that any government action “to sanction and legitimize homosexual relationships … is an abominable sin calling for God’s judgment.” The PCA is a 271,000-member denomination whose members left larger Presbyterian bodies over liberalism.
United Methodism in America now numbers 117 congregations, 16 campus ministries, and 6 regional conferences that publicly welcome all persons regardless of sexual orientation. This news was announced in December by the Reconciling Congregation Program, a national network of United Methodists.
The Wesleyan Church’s General Conference has again said that all homosexuality is sin, “even the propensity toward homosexuality. On this matter we cannot and will not compromise.” At the same time, the Wesleyan Church reaffirmed its longstanding support of the ordination of women and called on political parties to “cease their petty bickering.”
The Columbus (Ohio) Baptist Association expelled the First Baptist Church of Granville for being fully supportive of lesbians and gay men. Since then, there has been a 60 percent increase in attendance at the Granville church, with some lesbian and gay parishioners traveling as much as sixty miles to attend the worship services.
The Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church of Oakland, California was the venue for the ordination of a man who had waited almost a quarter of a century. Rick Mixon, who has long been involved in the gay/lesbian caucus in the American Baptist Churches, was finally ordained to the Gospel ministry as an openly gay man. A former pastor at Lakeshore who now teaches preaching at Yale Divinity School delivered the ordination sermon. Several American Baptist officials were present to show their support, though they did so as individuals and not as representatives of the denomination. The Lakeshore church had been ousted by the Board of Managers of the American Baptist Churches of the West for welcoming homosexuals into membership.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has distributed a message called “Sexuality: Some Common Convictions” to its 11,000 congregations. The message is said to represent denominational consensus on issues of human sexuality. It does not address homosexuality because of the disagreement on that within the denomination.
“Gays and the church” was listed as fifth among the “Top Religion Stories of 1996” by the moderate/liberal magazine, Christian Century. Ranking higher were church burnings, religion and politics, ecumenical ferment, and Cardinal Bernardin’s witness.
Homosexuality figured in two of the top religion stories of 1996 as selected by ten editors of the conservative/evangelical Christianity Today. Ranking third was the Romer v. Evans ruling and ranking seventh was the Episcopal Church’s heresy trial of the bishop who ordained a gay man. The top-ranked story according to CT: “Worldwide persecution of Christians increases.” The second-ranking story: “Black church arsons.”
David Atkinson, now Canon Chancellor of Southwark Cathedral in London, wrote a book back in 1979 called, Homosexuals in the Christian Fellowship. It was a very conservative approach and he has been a speaker at “ex-gay” conferences. But now, according to Third Way magazine (January 1996), Atkinson has revised his thinking at least pastorally if not theologically and may be counted among those who say that committed gay relationships are at least morally better than promiscuity.
Southwark Cathedral was the scene of Britain’s 20th Anniversary Festival of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. This first Anglican cathedral worship service for homosexuals brought together more than 2,000 gays and lesbians. Antigay church groups billed the event as “a day-long festival of gay sex” and a protestor complained: “Next we will be told there ought to be a service in Southwark Cathedral for a paedophile Christian fellowship” and another said: “Soon we’ll have an adulterers’ Christian fellowship!”
A 20-year-old group photo in the “ex-gay” Exodus newsletter’s celebration of the “ex-gay” movement’s 20th anniversary pictures the founding members. But the photo includes, though does not identify, those who have long since left the “ex-gay” movement, renounced it, and those who continued to engage in homosexual behavior within their “ex-gay” organizations as well as those who are in the movement today.
The Exodus “Special 20th Anniversary Message” from director Bob Davies includes this quote from “ex-gay” leader Frank Worthen: “It will take the Church about 100 years to understand what we’re doing” in the “ex-gay” movement.
Calvin Theological Seminary has dismissed its “Distinguished Visiting Professor,” Jan Veenhof, after only three months of a two-year appointment at the Grand Rapids school. Veenhof, who succeeded the great G. C. Berkouwer at The Free University of Amsterdam and is one of the world’s foremost Reformed scholars, was forced out once the Calvin trustees learned of his many years of support for gay and lesbian Christians in the Netherlands. Veenhof’s views were reported to the trustees by an antigay religious newspaper in Canada. Ten years ago, Veenhof wrote: “The letter of the law murders many homosexuals but the Spirit makes alive.” He went on to note that “Sometimes we ourselves are trying to get out of the Bible texts what we beforehand would like to see come out. Good exegesis has to guard itself against this.” He concluded that “the Bible does not speak directly about homosexual relationships in which the values of love and loyalty are upheld” and “So homosexual love can also be a matter of gift and purity sanctified in Christ.”
Calvin Seminary students expressed surprise at hearing of his views on homosexuality. They said they had never heard him mention homosexuality in class. Some said they were confused since he was so orthodox in his lectures. They said: “He was a very people-oriented person,” “We all appreciated him a great deal,” “He is a wonderfully caring individual.”
Wheaton College gay/lesbian alumni membership is at 170. Association facilitator Deborah Twigg is looking for the personal stories of other Wheaton alumni. She may be reached at www.wcgala@aol.com.
AND FINALLY:
“Feed him or destroy him?” This is the title of publisher Joel Belz’s column in World, his religious right newsmagazine. Angered over President Clinton’s statements favorable to the employment rights of citizens who are homosexual, Belz asks if “blatant behavior like that make[s] President Clinton my enemy?” Belz says we must identify every enemy and then determine “with cautious wisdom whether the circumstances call for feeding him or asking God to wipe him out.” So much for Jesus’ command that we’re to love our enemies and actively seek their welfare. [Luke 6:27; 9:54. cf. Jeremiah 22:3] In a more recent column, Belz asks: “If the courts supplant liberty, can we still pledge allegiance?” He asserts: “When a government, through its courts, gives its approval to … homosexual marriage, it has betrayed its right to call for the support of its people.” The same sort of argument was used by white fundamentalists who opposed civil rights for blacks a few decades ago. During the recent Presidential campaign, World was running ads for copies of the slogan: “I WON’T VOTE for Rodham and Gore-morrah.”