by Shyanne Faulconer
Guest Writer
Thanks to evidence offered by the same sex attraction and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, Christian understandings of sexuality and acceptance are being reevaluated, David P. Gushee said Feb. 22 during a lecture at the Robinson Teaching Theatre.
Gushee’s lecture titled “Changing Our Mind: My Journey as a Christian Ethicist toward full LGBT Acceptance” brought students, faculty and community members alike together. The issue of sexuality and gender in the Christian community is one that Whitworth University is currently evaluating while working toward deciding whether or not to include sexual orientation in the information given by faculty and staff.
“There are a lot of LGBT or ally Christians on the fringes,” Gushee said.
There is growing social intolerance of intolerance that has been happening over the last 10 years within society, he said. When issues get controversial, people tend to lose their love for one another and are left only with argument, Gushee said. This argumentation is all too familiar among Christians, especially when it comes to interpreting the Bible. The Bible does not say—we theorize, Gushee said. The argument of deciding whether a person’s interpretation of the Bible does or does not support same sex attraction is just that—an interpretation.
According to Gushee, there are three main groups of Christians when conflict arises, including conflict of whether to accept people of the LGBT community: 1.) traditionalists that say same sex attraction is never ok; 2.) revisionists who want to reevaluate the situation, reinterpret the Bible and see if any changes need to be made; and 3.) avoiders that do not want to talk about the conflict at all.
Due to long-standing traditional assumptions, Christians have often been seen as anti-gay because of their continued participation in anti-gay rhetoric, activism and legislation. LGBT Christians are everywhere, Gushee said, and because this is the case, other Christians must share the community with them. Gushee, quoting the late Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said “we must respond to people in their reality” not in ours. If Christians want to be fully accepting of and loving toward the LGBT community, then it must be on their terms.
Christians need to start taking a position of humility when beginning to move toward acceptance of the LGBT community, he said. Wanting to change who they are or “love the sinner and hate the sin” as one audience member said is counterproductive and only leads to contempt of the person. In order to have full acceptance of SSA and LGBT people, Christians slurs and bullying, criminalization, civil discrimination, violence, stigmatization and contempt and blaming all need to end. Those things are what Gushee called the “mandatory minimums” that Christians must meet.
According to John 3:16, “for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The God mentioned in John 3:16 is the God of whoever believes in Him—including SSA and LGBT people, Gushee said. To change minds we must first change hearts, and a change in heart can only come from having relationships with those being marginalized.
Whitworth is a part of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and being active in pursuing to change how Christians view the acceptance of the LGBT community into the church.
“Whitworth may be in the best position in the Christian college world to make a change,” Gushee said.
Contact Shyanne Faulconer at sfaulconer16@my.whitworth.edu