Gay Marriage and the Church in the Pacific Northwest

Are churches (especially churches in the Pacific Northwest) that draw a line in the sand by taking a stand against homosexuality shortsighted?

In his book Jesus the Savior, Presbyterian theologian William Placher contends that "here is precisely not the place to 'draw the line'" (102). Placher first observes that Jesus says nothing about homosexuality, and that the Bible mentions "sexual intercourse between people of the same sex...only about half a dozen times, and never at any length" (96). Placher then considers Paul's undeniably negative comments about at least some "homosexual activity," wrestling inconclusively with the question of whether Paul condemns all such activity or only exploitative relationships and acts (98-100). Looking for clarity in the story of Jesus, Placher finds that "the pattern of Jesus' ministry"--what Jesus repeatedly and consistently did--affirms the generous treatment of "the outsiders, the disreputable, and the fearful" (102).

Jesus the Savior was published in 2001--more than a decade ago. In 2014, there is an additional reason to question the wisdom of drawing a line in the sand by taking a stand against homosexuality. Today, it appears increasingly likely that these churches will find themselves on the wrong side of history in the near future. As Bob Dylan puts it, "The times they are a-changin'."

• A 2013 Barna poll found that 53% of Americans now favor "changing laws to enable more freedom for the LGBTQ community"--an increase from 42% in 2003. Increased friendliness toward gays and lesbians was seen in each of four subgroups--including "practicing Protestants" and "practicing Catholics." Will this trend continue into the future? The poll found that 65% of Americans under forty favor more gay-friendly laws. (Note that Washington, the most populous state in the Pacific Northwest, is relatively young.)
• A new survey from Public Religion Research Institute verifies Barna's earlier findings. PRRI reports that 53% of Americans now support gay marriage (with only 41% opposed). In the West (a region that encompasses all of the Cascadian states), 58% "favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry." (Gay marriage is legal in the state of Washington and the province of British Columbia, where the majority of Cascadia's population lives.) Again, generational demographics point to the likelihood of increasing support for gay marriage in the coming years: "Today, nearly 7-in-10 (69%) Millennials (ages 18 to 33) favor same-sex marriage, compared to 37% of Americans who are part of the Silent Generation (ages 68 and older)." For Northwesterners, also pertinent is the fact that "unaffiliated Americans (73%), white mainline Protestants (62%), white Catholics (58%), and Hispanic Catholics (56%) all favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry"--62% of Washingtonians and 57% of Oregonians belong to one of these groups.
• Interestingly, Gallup's tracking of attitudes toward interracial marriage shows that 48% of Americans approved of these relationships twenty years ago; in 2013, 87% of Americans approved of them. Will approval of gay marriage grow at a similar rate? If so, then gay marriage will be no more controversial in two decades than interracial marriage is today.

My point is not that churches should base their teaching on cultural changes. My point is that Scripture and culture should be read in conversation with each other; theological integrity demands that we start with the first, and pastoral sensitivity demands that we move to the second. Bible-onlyism is likely to lead to under-contextualized ministry (just as ignoring Scripture is likely to lead to over-contextualized ministry). Context matters. Our changed and changing context is one in which most people now have at least one loved one who is openly gay (see the PRRI poll above); Christians know how much relationships matter--we worship a relational God.

In my presbytery (a regional body of Presbyterian churches that encompasses southwestern Washington and much of Oregon), several churches have drawn a line in the sand by taking a stand against homosexuality--specifically, they have left our denomination for more conservative denominations. In two decades, these churches may think no differently than they do now, continuing their countercultural stand; after all, Jesus was and is countercultural.

Still, as admirable as countercultural attitudes and actions can be, they are not always so; sometimes the culture is ahead of the church, with gender equality one of the best examples. (The Spirit's work is not confined to the church!) It is possible, then, that the aforementioned churches will regret drawing a line in the sand where they have. They may regret making something that Jesus never mentioned a focus of their ministry. They may regret that they did not embrace a more gracious reading of Scripture. They may regret that they under-contextualized their teaching and practice, picking a battle more likely to alienate their neighbors than welcome them.

When I was a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary fifteen years ago, I worked in the school's library. One day as I shelved books, I came across a large portrait of the seminary's founder, Presbyterian theologian Robert Lewis Dabney, in a secluded section. It seemed a strange place for this painting, as few people would see it. Later, I learned that Dabney (armed with various Bible verses) had supported slavery. Then I understood.

Book Review: EVANGELICAL VS. LIBERAL

James K. Wellman, Jr., Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 306.

James K. Wellman, Jr.'s Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest is a fascinating read that should be of interest to evangelical Protestants, liberal Protestants, and Protestants in between. Wellman is "a liberal Christian" (284) and a Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor who teaches comparative religion at the University of Washington. The study he narrates in this book compared twenty-four growing evangelical Protestant churches with ten growing liberal Protestant churches, all of them located in the largely unchurched states of Washington and Oregon. (The churches were studied between 2000 and 2005 [45], making the book's findings a little bit dated.) Because of this region's progressive leanings, Wellman went into the study guessing that the liberal congregations would have an advantage; instead, he found that the evangelical congregations were growing more dramatically (numerically, at least) and that growing liberal churches were hard to find (xiii).

One possible reason for Wellman's difficulty is his narrow definition of liberal. To qualify as liberal for this study, a church had to see "Jesus [as] a model of radical inclusiveness," had to believe reason to be as authoritative as Scripture, had to leave "personal morality" up to "the individual," and had to support a range of positions that included a public pro-gay stand (5-6). Thus, a mainline Protestant church that saw Jesus as more than "a model of radical inclusiveness," that valued reason but that believed Scripture to have greater authority, that occasionally addressed "personal morality," that was pro-peace, anti-poverty, and concerned about the environment, and that practiced gender equality but had taken no stand on the subject of homosexuality would not be considered progressive enough to be called "liberal" in this book. The evangelical churches studied seemed to include greater variety, with everything from Pentecostal churches (six) to Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations (two) (48).

After noting that even evangelical Protestantism is declining overall (3), Wellman sprinkles many reasons for the evangelical advantage over liberal Protestantism--particularly in the Northwest--throughout his book.

• Evangelicals have more children and retain a higher percentage of these children than do non-evangelicals (6-8). As one evangelical pastor interviewed by Wellman put it, "We believe in out-reproducing the liberals" (278).
• In a reversal since the 1970s, evangelicals are now more public with their faith, and "[t]he public voice of liberals is now relatively mute" (19). Interestingly, evangelical activity in the public square seems not to have impacted the Northwest's politics; in fact, Washington and Oregon became even bluer in the 2008 presidential election than they had been in 2004. ("Of the 298 evangelicals [interviewed] in the study, only 7 claimed to be Democrats" [238].)
• Evangelicals nurture one another in "smaller religious enclaves" (32). "Forty-three percent of evangelicals talked about participation in a small group whereas less than one percent of liberals were active in a small group" (155).
• Consistent with their belief in hell, evangelicals emphasize evangelism; consistent with their belief in tolerance, liberals do not try to convert others--they "prefer everyone to be accepting as they are" (37). Interestingly, Wellman found that the evangelical churches in his study did no better than the liberal churches in true evangelism; rather, the evangelical edge was in recruiting churched people to their churches, taking advantage of the large number of newcomers to the Northwest in recent years (53-54). Evangelicals wanted larger churches; liberals did not (134). 
• Although the Northwest leans left in many ways, "the region is not liberal in the sense of being communitarian or devoted to larger public projects for the common good. It is fundamentally entrepreneurial and libertarian." The evangelical pastors interviewed by Wellman were the more entrepreneurial (43).
• Because of the Northwest's progressivism, people living there can find most of what liberal churches offer outside of these churches: "What do liberals add to the regional ethos? My conclusion is that...liberal theology mostly mirrors the egalitarian and inclusive nature of the regional moral landscape" (43). Offering little that is distinctive, liberal churches may seem unnecessary.
• Twenty of the twenty-four evangelical churches were suburban; seven of the ten liberal churches were urban (45).
• Evangelicals target young people, both families with children in the home and young adults, contextualizing their ministry with these groups in mind; most of the liberal churches studied by Wellman were making little if any effort to engage these groups (110, 158-159). The fastest-growing liberal church was an exception (131). All of "the [evangelical] worship services include[d] contemporary rock music" (15) and were informal (132-136); "worship in liberal churches...was relatively formal and traditional" (128). Tellingly, when Wellman sent students to observe churches, many of them returned describing the evangelical churches as "liberal" and the liberal churches as "conservative" (83).
• The evangelical churches in this study made more effective use of technology than did their liberal counterparts; for example, their Web sites tended (1) to have a more local focus, (2) to be more interactive, and (3) to be updated more frequently (148-151).
• The study's evangelical churches saw their service to their communities as a means to an end--a way to bring new sheep into the fold; the study's liberal churches saw service as an end in itself (212).

Wellman concludes:

Evangelical theology and organizational structures appeal to people in need of human connection. The PNW [Pacific Northwest] is a region that is entrepreneurial and respectful of a market mentality; evangelical leaders in particular resonate with this mentality of growth, expansion, and reward.... Liberals, on the other hand, appeal to the individualism of northwesterners, who value the freedom to think for themselves. Liberals, however, are less entrepreneurial, less interested in growth and expansion, and less organizationally dynamic, though they offer a religious ideology that is open and expansive, which northwesterners treasure and mirror. And yet, in this way, liberal religionists may be too much like the region. (282)

Can I have a third option?