The Battle is Joined

by James C. Hefley                                                                                             Vol. V, No. 2, April 1992

The year was 1976. The year of the Bicentennial. The year a Southern Baptist deacon from Plains, GA, was elected president. The year that Anita Bryant began warning Southern Baptists about the militant homosexual movement.

The convention met in Norfolk that year and passed a resolution "affirm[ing] our commitment to the biblical truth regarding the practice of homosexuality and sin," and "while acknowledging the autonomy of the local church to ordain ministers, urg[ed] churches and agencies not to afford the practice of homosexuality any degree of approval through ordination, employment, or other designations of normal life-style."

Conventions came and went. Courageous Anita Bryant lost her career and ultimately her marriage during her fight against gay activists. We passed more resolutions opposing the practice of homosexuality. Gay promiscuity gave America the greatest plague of the 20th century, even as homosexual lobbyists pressured publishers to change the definition of a family in school textbooks to "two or more persons" with "a commitment to one another over time." A U.S. Department of Education study found that neither the word "marriage" nor "wedding" occurred even once in 40 social studies textbooks for elementary school children.

As Judeo-Christian morality decreased, the gay movement gained greater acceptance. A Massachusetts congressman admitted to having homosexual relations with a teenage boy but was re-elected. Gay cohabitation became respectable on TV and in the movies. Gay "artists" obtained taxpayer-paid grants to further legitimize their obscenities. "Politically correct" power blocs kept university faculties in line. Anyone who dared speak against homosexual practices was pronounced homophobic – "unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality." The good guys were homophiles – "advocating the rights and welfare of homosexuals."

The 1988 Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution protesting the firing of Southern Baptist newspaper publisher Dennis Shere by Cox Newspapers for his "decision as a Christian not to legitimize homosexuality by accepting advertisements from gay and lesbian organizations ..." A second resolution called homosexuality "deviate behavior" and "the primary cause of the introduction and spread of AIDS in the United States." At the 1990 convention a resolution "On Homosexuality and Human Rights" failed for lack of a quorum. In 1991 the convention said "Scripture condemns any abuse of sexuality ... including homosexuality..."

Even as the SBC kept pounding away with resolutions, homophiles in other denominations promoted homosexual and lesbian marriage and ordination to the ministry. They conveniently wrote off scriptural prohibitions against homosexual acts as "cultural." More militant homophiles invaded a Catholic church service, shouting blasphemies and obscenities at New York's Cardinal Spellman who had dared say that homosexuality was wrong.

Among the major denominations, only the SBC and smaller conservative denominations seemed to be navigating in calm waters. But this was only a surface calm. Rumors spread that some SBC seminary professors were sympathetic to homosexuals. A firestorm erupted at Southeastern Seminary when trustees voted in October 1988 not to rehire Rev. and Mrs. Mahan Siler as adjunct professors. The Silers had been teaching family life courses at the seminary.

Mahan Siler, pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh had written in SBC Today that homosexual orientation could be "truly a gift from God, a grace to be received with gratitude." Siler said, "One's basic sexual orientation is a given and cannot be changed."

The tenured seminary faculty at Southeastern expressed "outrage and deep regret" that the Silers had not been rehired. The trustee action there was also condemned by leaders in the Southern Baptist Alliance. Siler had been one of four moderates to lead news conferences when the SBA was announced. Later he was a featured speaker at an SBA convention. He also served on the faculty of the 1989 Furman University Pastors Conference, despite "deep concern" expressed about his homosexual views by Ray Rust, then the South Carolina state convention executive.

In January of this year Siler dropped a bombshell before his deacons. Two gays – one a member of the church – had asked him, Siler said, to unite them in "Holy Union" in a wedding-like ceremony. The church was informed and the congregation voted on February 9 to use a secret ballot to decide whether to sanction the "same-gender union." [The Washington Times of 3 March reports Pullen Memorial Church sent out 750 ballots and received back 531. Of those, 94% supported full membership for homosexuals and 64% backed a service to bless the union of the two homosexuals.]

Near the same time, Linda Jordan, pastor of Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, NC, said her church was in the process of deciding whether to license a gay ministerial student at Duke University to the ministry. A decision is expected in April. Actions by both churches broke in the press shortly before the SBC Executive Committee (EC) convened for its February meeting in Nashville. With little opposition, the EC passed a resolution sponsored by NC member Bill Horton expressing "deep and compassionate concern for these churches showing willingness to consider departure from doctrine and theology generally held by Southern Baptists concerning homosexuality." The Bible, according to the resolution, "regards homosexuality as a gross perversion and unquestioned sin. ... The nation and the world are watching" how church bodies "respond to homosexuality which has been abhorred in six convention resolutions during the past 16 years."

EC Virginia member T.C. Pinckney presented two motions to add "teeth" to the resolution he said. One motion would amend the SBC constitution and bylaws and exclude participation of messengers from "churches endorsing homosexuality." The second motion would ask the convention to instruct its credentials committee not to seat messengers from such churches at the Indianapolis convention, and further instruct SBC entities not to receive donations from such churches.

The debate over Pinckney's two motions centered on questions of procedure, precedents, and legality. EC attorney James Guenther cautioned that short-term remedies might cause legal problems. Court rulings have allowed churches to determine their own membership, he said, but the courts "want to know whether membership rights have been interpreted arbitrarily." Instructions to deny seating based on homosexuality actions might fail that test because of denominational precedent. The convention, he noted, had previously based messenger participation only on financial contributions to denominational causes.

EC member Fred Wolfe urged adoption of the motions. "We're too far in the water to turn back. If we don't approve this, it will be interpreted by the liberal press that we chickened out, just like the Methodists and Episcopalians and all those others."

The motions were referred to the administrative subcommittee and the bylaws workgroup. These entities were instructed to report their recommendations to the EC in its meeting on Monday before the Indianapolis convention opens. The EC will then make a final decision on what, if any, recommendations on the issue will be presented to this year's convention.

Later Charles Sullivan, Indiana executive director, said, "If they recommend that the convention vote to exclude, that will set a precedent. The critical question then would be: How do we deal with adultery, drunkenness, and other sins. While there's no doubt that we need a whole lot more holiness and ethical and moral living in the convention, this could put us into a puritanical approach."

In a follow-up interview, T.C. Pinckney said, "No Southern Baptist church is advocating open endorsement of adultery. If some church did consider adultery to be an acceptable lifestyle, then the convention would need to take a stand. We do have at least two churches that are now contemplating endorsing homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle.

"We are not [in the motions voted by the committee] trying to impose any requirement on or endeavoring to determine the beliefs and practices of these churches. They initiated the issue. If the convention accepts messengers and donations from churches that endorse homosexuality, then it is allowing those churches to establish homosexual practice as acceptable to the denomination."

The battle between morality and immorality in America goes far beyond the Southern Baptist Convention. Militant homophiles are becoming bolder and bolder. The Boy Scouts are now being pressured to accept homosexual scoutmasters. The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) wants laws repealed that criminalize sexual relations between adults and children. NAMBLA has consistently been permitted to march, without censure, in San Francisco's annual Gay Freedom Day parade.

Mahan Siler is admittedly not in agreement with the practices of many gays. Siler told Associated Baptist Press, "I share the concern over the rampant promiscuity in the homosexual as well as the heterosexual community." However, Siler also believes that "the church should support the desire of Christian persons to live out faithful, monogamous, lifelong commitments within a same-gender union."

Most certainly this will not fly with 99% or more of Southern Baptists.

Will/can the SBC exclude messengers from churches that favor homosexual marriage and ordination?

That looks to be the big question in Indianapolis.

[The above is slightly condensed from the 10 March issue of The Indiana Baptist .)