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July 20, 2006

The church had openly gay members ...

Topics: Mystics

In an interview with Candace Chellew-Hodge (Whosoever), Philip Yancey provides a distressing answer when questioned about homosexuals in the church:

Whosoever: In your book "What's so Amazing about Grace?" you tell about your friendship with Soulforce leader Mel White and your support of him at the March on Washington in 1987. Your description of your friendship with him and your feelings toward the gays and lesbians you met at the march was probably the most grace-filled writing I've ever read from an Evangelical Christian. What is your position on gays and lesbians in the church?

Yancey: You don't beat around the bush, do you? Mel was one of my closest friends for years before he revealed to me his sexual orientation. (He still is, by the way.) He had repressed and hidden his homosexuality, and in fact was married and was making a fine career in Christian publishing and ministry. Mel became a window to me into a world I knew nothing about. He tells his own story in the book "Stranger at the Gate." Readers of your magazine know well how explosive this issue can be. I get hate letters full of equal venom from both sides: from conservative Christians appalled that I would maintain a friendship with Mel and write compassionately about gays and lesbians, and from the other side wishing I would go further with a full endorsement.

On an issue like that, I try to start with what I'm absolutely sure of, and work outwards. I'm sure of what my own attitude should be toward gays and lesbians: I should show love and grace. As one person told me, "Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do." When people ask me how I can possibly stay friends with a sinner like Mel, I respond by asking how Mel can possibly stay friends with a sinner like me. Even if I conclude that all homosexual behavior is wrong, as many conservative Christians do, I'm still compelled to respond with love.

As I've attended gay and lesbian churches, I'm also saddened that the evangelical church by and large finds no place for homosexuals. I've met wonderful, committed Christians who attend MCC churches, and I wish that the larger church had the benefit of their faith. And at the same time, I think it's unhealthy to have an entire denomination formed around this one particular issue--those people need exposure to and inclusion in the wider Body of Christ.

When it gets to particular matters of policy, like ordaining gay and lesbian ministers, I'm confused, like a lot of people. There are a few--not many, but a few--passages of Scripture that give me pause. Frankly, I don't know the answer to those questions. I'm a freelancer, not an official church representative, and I have the luxury of saying simply, "Here's what I think, but I really don't know," rather than trying to set church policy.

The polarization makes me very sad. My church in Chicago spent a couple of years carefully studying the issue. The church had openly gay members, but did not allow practicing homosexuals in leadership positions (as they did not allow unmarried "practicing heterosexuals," whatever that means). The committee studying the issue looked at the biblical and theological and social aspects and finally came down in the same place: welcoming but not affirming homosexuals in leadership roles. Conservatives got mad and left. Many gays and lesbians also left, hurt that the church reinforced their "second-class citizen" status.

I don't have a magic answer, and I can't see one on the near horizon. Whole denominations are struggling with the very same issue, as you know.

Unfortunate, to say the least, that a Christian leader, such as Yancey, can pull no answers from the Word of God concerning the proper role of homosexuals in the church (an in particular, in church leadership). The answer, according to Matt. 18, is not that complex although it can be quite difficult. Church discipline, has a three-fold aim:

• The Glory of God


• The Purity of the Church


• The Redemption of the Sinner

However, the process of redeeming those who live a destructive life in rebellion to God is difficult, if not impossible, when sin is redefined, considered an inherent blemish or a different way of life, instead of a chronic and wrongful choice.

Posted by calvin at July 20, 2006 12:35 PM

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Posted by: Daniel Payne at September 21, 2006 12:47 AM

Posted by: calvin at September 23, 2006 01:25 AM

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