Why I’m Glad We’re Having a Discussion on Sexuality

by Rev. Laura Barclay

In the conservative Southern Baptist Church in which I grew up, as well as the non-denominational Christian high school I attended, discussions of sex were taboo. The one conversation I remember about sex took place in high school health class which covered dating etiquette, then skipped straight to scaring us with slides of STDs. You can imagine how unprepared I was for life on a public school college campus.

This reality is all too common as many schools don’t follow mandatory sex education policies and churches have long been afraid to bring up any issues of sexuality in church. Because the word itself brings a host of feelings like shame and secrecy, it’s no wonder that many articles and comments about the Baptist Conference on Sexuality and Covenant are centering around LGBT issues. We who are heterosexual don’t want to discuss or admit to needing to have a comprehensive discussion in our churches about sex. It’s much easier to “other” this issue and make it a discussion solely about gays and lesbians. This conference will cover a wide range of topics in addition to LGBT issues that reflect the realities of our time, including high divorce rates, elder sexuality, delayed marriage and cohabitation of couples.

The truth is that we badly need this discussion. All churches need this discussion. Church should be a safe place where youth and young adults can come with questions that aren’t getting answered elsewhere, or are getting answered in unhealthy ways by media and uninformed peers. Youth ministers I’ve known who were brave enough to have these discussions found that their youth were willing to come to them with questions they could never feel comfortable asking parents or teachers. I wish I had access to such a place during those confusing teenage years.

And, yes, I’m going to name the elephant in the room. CBF National has a hiring policy that excludes gays and lesbians from employment. Many, including myself, don’t agree with it, but many others are comfortable with it. But guess what? This conference on Sexuality and Covenant is not to debate this policy, but to provide a starting point for discussion about a wide range of sexuality issues and we badly need a first step. We are taking that first step together, which will produce fruitful dialogue and church resources before any discussions on policy take place down the road. We are a fellowship of people who can disagree on issues and still come together for missions and ministry in the name of Christ. I’m glad to be in an environment like CBF where social issues don’t tear us apart like 21st century American political parties. We are kingdom people who cross bridges rather than dig trenches. Let’s remember that…and let’s talk.

If you'd like to be a part of the Baptist Conference on Sexuality and Covenant at First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA, on April 19-21, please register here: https://www.thefellowship.info/conference. Registration closes April 16.

Is History Repeating Itself?

by Dr. David Stratton

"Had the holding of slaves been a moral evil, it cannot be supposed, that the inspired Apostles, who feared not the faces of men, and were ready to lay down their lives in the cause of their God, would have tolerated it, for a moment, in the Christian Church."

Baptist hero Richard Furman wrote the words above in a document entitled "The Views of Baptists Relative to the Coloured Population of the United States." The first edition of this pamphlet was published in 1822 and a second edition was produced in 1838, some 13 years after Furman's death. For decades this biblical defense of slavery became the model for Bible-based arguments in favor of owning people in this country. Baptists and many other Southern evangelicals were just sure that there was nothing wrong with holding slaves and they adamantly claimed to have the Bible on their side. On the other hand, other Christians, mainly in other parts of the country, made biblical arguments against slavery.

These days we think Southern Christians were wrong to defend slavery back then and we are ashamed of the biblical arguments made by Furman and others. We repudiate their take on the scriptures as adamantly as they clung to it.

This bit of history is one thing that concerns me about the prevailing position of evangelicals regarding homosexuality. Most evangelicals, including most Baptists, say today that all homosexual behavior is wrong and they point to a handful of biblical passages to support this claim. But some other Christians interpret the scriptures in a more affirming way regarding homosexuality.

Is it possible that someday Christians will look back on the prevailing position of Baptists and other evangelicals on homosexuality today in much the same way that we look back on the position concerning slavery of Richard Furman and other Baptists of the 1800s? Whatever your answer to that question, we have got to learn to talk about this issue in a healthy way. We've got to figure out a way to discuss this important topic with a humility inherent to the realization that we see as through a glass darkly--we don't know it all.

And we've been wrong before.

CBF and Mercer University will be hosting a Conference on Sexuality and Covenant at First Baptist Church of Decatur, April 19-21, 2012. For more information, please visit the website: https://www.thefellowship.info/conference.


Dave Stratton is the Pastor of Woodhaven Baptist Church in Apex, NC, and he serves as Chair of CBFNC’s Wealth and Poverty Committee. This article originally appeared on Dave’s blog, David’s Deliberations.

Reflection on Cutting Edge Relationship Tools

by Dr. David Rayburn

One of the ways that God loves each of God's children (and we all are God’s children, even those who do not believe) is by giving good gifts. Those gifts include making the sun to shine and the rain to come on the good and the bad alike. People that are atheists who are gardeners have wonderful gardens. There are thousands of ways God gives good gifts to us all. These gifts often include world-shaping ideas. It has not been only Christians who have come up with brilliant and universally helpful inventions or made vitally important discoveries. People from every philosophy, theology, ideology, and nation have provided these things.

What saddens me, however, is that I am encountering with greater frequency people having experiences and developing practices, especially when it comes to human relationships and interactions, outside of the church that they should be getting from the church. I am learning about people-skill tools, wisdom and discernment tools, and conflict resolution tools that are being created and developed by non-Christians outside the church. These should come from inside the church because of the way that we should be loving one another.

Why is it that the perception of so many about the church is that it is a place of disharmony, dissension, and mean-spirited fighting? Why are we not on the forefront of showing people what love, unity, and edification mean? But more important than these questions is the one that asks, “How can we become a place that is on the forefront of love, unity, and education?”

David Rayburn is that pastor of First Baptist Church of Black Mountain, and this article originally appeared in their church newsletter, The Builder.

True Power in an Angry Age

by Dr. Steve Bolton

Our country has again been shocked and grieved by senseless murders and mayhem. Does it not seem that America is afflicted and even infected by violence? Hardly a month goes by that random citizens aren't victimized by some miserable, angry young man with a gun who feels justified in wounding and destroying human life. Anger and insanity have always been at work in the world and, certainly, in this country. Our nation has too often suffered the tragedy of cold blooded assassinations: Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and others. Politics and racial hatred have always incited violence. Yet, today, there is evidence of an unnamed, but seething rage bubbling just below the surface. Since the University of Texas massacre in 1966, there have been over 100 school shootings in the United States, with Columbine High (2004), the Amish School (2006), and Virginia Tech (2007) murders among the most senseless and shocking. America suffered eleven school shootings in 2010, and already in 2011 another has occurred in Omaha, Nebraska. These troubling situations point to an epidemic of anger. How easily we escalate and intimidate. Too often retribution is justified and revenge glorified. It seems as if America has become addicted to anger and the false sense of power that using angry words or dangerous weapons gives us.

I recall a story about a man who was held up and threatened with death by a bandit if he didn't give him his money. As the robber brandished his sword in his face, the man confessed that he had no money. But pointing at a nearby tree he said, “But if you are going to take my life, grant me two dying wishes. First, cut off the branch of that tree.” The thief swung his sword and the branch fell to the ground. “Now what?” he asked. “Now put the branch back again,” the man said. “You must be crazy. No one can do that!” the bandit said. Then the would-be victim replied, “On the contrary. You are crazy to think you are mighty because you can wound and destroy. The truly mighty are those who know how to create and heal.” As the story goes, this caused the bandit to spare the man. It’s only a story, but there’s truth in the statement that the true power in life is not to be found in either anger or violence, only in healing and creating.

For Christians, these violent events are not cause to despair...only reasons to witness to true Power. We who follow Jesus, the Prince of Peace, have the creative power of His healing touch in our hands and hearts. There are many situations where we, as servants of Christ, by acting with His compassion, self-control, and patience can bring healing and life. It is time for Christians to quell destructive anger, control our tongues, wage Christ's peace, promote God's goodwill, proclaim and exhibit the power of God's love and forgiveness. In every public and private discourse this wounded world desperately needs a Christian witness of reconciliation and an example of Christian kindness. Therefore, in an angry and violent world, let us be instruments of His peace.

Steve Bolton is the pastor of Oxford Baptist Church in Oxford, NC. This article originally appeared in their church newsletter, "The Forecaster."

Politics and In-Laws

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Whatever your political party, chances are high that you have Republicans, Democrats, and possibly Independents in your family, whether you are aware of their affiliation or not. This is certainly the case among my relatives. When I was home over Easter, my husband and I had dinner with my mother and father, as well as his father and step-mother. For the first time, our two families endeavored into a deep discussion on religion and politics. Let me stress that our religious and political views are many and varied. I shifted nervously in my seat, hoping we wouldn’t hit a verbal wall as topics related to immigration, health care, and racism were broached.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, but I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath.

In the middle of all of the discussions and negotiations, we kept finding ways to affirm our respect for one another. Perhaps it was the shared underlying belief in our discussions that we were all made in the image of God. “I don’t understand where you’re coming from” became “How much can we agree on?” Eventually we experimented with how our Congress works with statements like, “If we were to introduce a bill on immigration, on what topics could we agree to start forming statements?” The conversation ended with laughter and a solid agreement on the need for term limits and honesty about mistakes, corruption and greed on both sides of the aisle.

Over the course of the last year, we have watched heated ideological differences lead to yelling, spitting, throwing bricks into government offices, growing militia movement numbers, and open-carry rallies that aren’t even about gun rights. We’ve watched some Republicans criticize a Democratic President for negotiating a new START nuclear treaty with Russia, though President Obama used the same terms for negotiating as Republican President Reagan in the 1980s. Conversely, President Bush was never heartily celebrated by many Democrats for his commitment to global AIDS relief or declaring certain environmentally endangered areas to be protected near the end of his presidency.

If we stop seeing the underlying image of God in our neighbor, regardless of political party or religious belief, then we fall into the trap of belittling them or inciting violence against them. Perhaps if both parties could find a way to humanize the other side and figure out what we can agree on, rather than boiling the sum of a person down to a list of issues, we could all sit around a table and laugh heartily like family.