“Dear Friends of Westminster” by Peter Lillback, September 14, 2023
by Dr. Ralph Blair
(PDF version available here)
Westminster Seminary’s President, Peter Lillback, notes with relief, that, 2023’s June Pride Month “has officially concluded”, but gripes, “its iconography and creeds remain displayed in many shops and private residences.” He’s been inside their residences? To him, “these symbols and sayings designate spaces which are safe and affirming of ideas and beliefs that were unthinkable one hundred years ago.” Wrong! 19h Century evangelicals called for compassion for all; and a few called for that for homosexuals.
Over 100 years ago, C. S. Lewis’ “first friend” and, ”first love”, as Jack referred to his dear Arthur Greeves, was a young, handsome, bedridden and a very devout Christian when Jack was an atheist. Arthur was also, openly homosexual. And each would be each other’s best friend throughout their lives. Shortly before Lewis died on the day of JFK’s assassination, he’d written to his “dear Arthur”, over in Ireland, grieving that, with both of them now bedridden, they’d never again see each other again in this world. Of course, both looked ahead to life together, forever, with Christ.
Lewis was a vocal advocate of The Wolfenden Report’s pro-homosexual position in 1957. He entrusted his literary estate’s custody of a fairly new secretary/companion and a longtime Lewis fan from North Carolina, Walter Hooper, who saved many of Lewis’ works from Jack’s drunken brother Warnie’s bonfires. After the death of Joy Davidman, whom Jack had married for her and her kids’ legal protection, Jack, confided to Hooper, “I’ve always been a bachelor at heart.”
To Lillback: “It is truly remarkable that an ideology loosely held by a small minority years ago has evolved into a religion whose force and influence has swept much of the world” – a bit of overstatement. Yet, his disgust duplicates that of the pagans and Jews against Jesus’ new views, 2,000 years ago and also echo slave-owners’ anger after the Civil War and their descendants’ anger over the end of racial segregation.
It took time for people to accept Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that, “his four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” For too long, there’s been the same sort of ignorance and prejudice against other “little children who grow up” with an unsought sex orientation that they no more chose than King’s children chose their skin color. In both,
it’s a matter of genes, formative years, and all they were given by God’s Providence.
In all cultural shifts, some accept what facilitates fairness for all while others couldn’t care less for fairness for all. Thank God, as in the revising of meanings of skin color, there’s a revising of meanings of sexual orientations. But sadly, as always, so many try to meet their own given needs while opposing others’ meeting of their given needs. In Machen’s day, some saw WTS’s founder/funder as homosexual and didn’t hold that against him, but others smirked behind his back, faulting him for what he never chose.
Lillback needs to consult with evangelicals who’ve come to a lovingly Christian way of relating with those who, by no fault or credit of theirs, are same-sex oriented, and are accepted, affirmed and treated as all want to be, and all should be, treated under God.
Jesus told us to love each other as we love ourselves. It’s a truly effective standard, for we all love ourselves, yet so often, we hurt “others” so selfishly. Many “others”, not loved by Christians, are those that Christians caricature as “dirty queers”. Still, some evangelical Christians truly do love others as they love themselves – including same-sex oriented brothers and sisters in Christ, and those same-sex oriented folks who don’t yet know the Savior, but might, if they weren’t so disdained in the Savior’s Name.
Lillback should recall the words of Westminster’s founder in his dealing with “a moral fault that no ordinary man could understand”. And, the first recipient of WTS’s doctor’s degree, Marten H. Woudstra, had to deal with his “given” sexual orientation. He then went to Calvin Seminary to teach Old Testament and chaired NIV’s OT translation. He noted that the only same-sex acts condemned in the Bible were rapes of slaves and enemy soldiers. The Bible has nothing about same-sex orientation. Woudstra was also elected President of the Evangelical Theological Society.
Shortly after EC’s 1975 founding with the enthusiastic endorsement of Bob Rayburn, founding President of the PCA’s Covenant College and Seminary, the noted historian of evangelicalism, Richard Quebedeaux, predicted that “evangelicals will finally come out closer to Ralph Blair than Anita Bryant.” His prediction has been quite clearly fulfilled.
For Lillback’s encouragement, here are some of the evangelicals who’ve endorsed EC’s ministry, e.g., by keynoting EC retreats. Many are now at Home, while others are still here: David G. Myers, Harry R. Boar, Hendrik Hart, Kay Lindskoog, Ray McAfee, Fisher Humphreys, Rosalind Rinker, Eugenia Price, Craig Detweiler, Doug LeBlanc, John W. Landon, J. Roberts McQuilkin, June Hagan, Walt Hearn, Cynthia Clawson, Andrew Kuyvenhoven, H. Wayne House, Robert W. Lyon, George E. Moreland, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Walden Howard, Donald W. Dayton, Roy Clements, Tom Key, Clark Barshinger, Randall Balmer, Ken Medema, John F. Alexander, Marsha Stevens, Reta Halteman Finger, Chip Miller, Stanley A. Rock, Letha Dawson Scanzoni, Charlie Shedd, Val Clear, Jane R. Dickie, Michael J. Christianson, Chuck Smith, Jr., Gerald T. Sheppard, Paul King Jewett, Philip Yancey, Lewis B. Smedes, Jim Rayburn III, Phyllis Hart, Mark Olson, Joan Olson, Douglas J. Miller, Jack Rogers, Howard L. Rice, Doris Akers, Charlie Shedd, Mel White, Amy Plantinga Pauw, Ken Sehested, Nancy Hastings Sehested, Peggy Campolo, Tony Campolo, Virginia West Davidson, Ken Van Wyk, Nancy Hardesty, Marchiene Rienstra, Kirk Talley, Stephanie Sandberg, David Augsburger, Mahan Siler, Caroline J. Simon, James V. Brownson, and more. Wikipedia’s Westminster website cites Woudstra, Jewett and Blair from WTS’s own website’s list of “Notable Alumni”, and it includes EC’s ministry and Blair’s Homosexual Community Counseling Center.