This is how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article headline read Tuesday.
Baptists declare ‘spiritual warfare’ over gay marriage
Since I wasn’t present, I don’t know if the writer got Ronnie Floyd’s words and attitude correct but the article looked about right.
Declaring “spiritual warfare” on gay marriage, thousands gathered here Tuesday for the annual Southern Baptist Convention and vowed that, no matter what the Supreme Court rules this month, they will never yield on the issue.
Floyd was, the article said, “generally defiant.” Fair enough. Probably more than “generally” defiant.
There are 46,449 Southern Baptist churches. You can still count on one hand the number who have been kicked out for being gay approving. We look pretty solid on the issue if also pretty pessimistic about the future of secular marriage law.
Atlanta is known to have very large gay community. I wonder if they saw instead this headline:
Baptists declare ‘spiritual warfare’ on gays and gay marriage
Buried in the article were some quotes from Bryant Wright, perhaps Atlanta’s most prominent (and very popular with the public) Southern Baptist pastor these days. Wright, always smooth and savvy, put his opposition to gay marriage, homosexuals, and lesbians in the context of divorce, adultery, and fornication. The message was that our beliefs call us to teach and preach that there is more to sinful behavior than homosexual activities. Aptly put, I thought.
Another Atlanta pastor against gay marriage and gays in the church was quoted as saying “the church is a God thing.” Perhaps he could refine that a bit before another occasion when his words are put out to tens of thousands to read.
Seems to me that it’s tough to get the tone right on this. We are defiantly against gay marriage and approval of homosexual behavior. We also love our neighbors. It should be clear to both our membership and the general public that we SBC clergy will not officiate a gay wedding and that our church facilities are not available for use for the purpose of gay ceremonies. Better get that written down somewhere, brethren. Additional questions concerning accreditation of our schools, non-discriminiation in the hiring of non-ministerial church or church school positions, and similar matters are of deep concern and in some cases carry a lot of uncertainty.
How to maintain biblical stances on this while conveying genuine love for our neighbors is difficult. This Journal-Constitution author commented that
The tone represented something of a shift from recent years when the convention sought a more subdued tone, focusing more on what people believed in, not what they were against, some longtime attendees said.
Maybe. But most of us will still preach on the Ten Commandments complete with their “thou shalt not(s)”.
Regardless, one would think that we Baptists ought to understand how to function when we are in the minority. We have quite a history there.
It was asked this week, “So what would it look like if 16 million Southern Baptists engaged in civil disobedience?”
No one alive will every find out, for reasons we understand too well.
No church in the U.S can be forced to perform any wedding, let alone same sex weddings. Church’s don’t have to perform weddings at all. I don’t understand what we are planning on “disobeying”.
Ask Kelvin Cochran or Baronelle Stutzman. They were both at the meeting. They are qualified to answer your question.
Most of us are aware of the differences between the fire chief (Cochran) who was suspended for his stance on gay issues while on the public payroll and identified as such but who was fired for insubordination, the flower merchant (Stutzman) who ran afoul of a nondiscrimination ordinance adopted by her community, and a minister performing religious ceremonies or churches conducting or not conducting activities in their facilities.
The BP article about the former SBC presidents cited a single case, now dropped, against a minister and a for-profit wedding chapel who refused a gay wedding.
The post asked about “16 million Southern Baptists engaged in civil disobedience.” Both Bill Mac’s comment and yours, William, seem to presume that the only way that SOGI laws and same-sex marriage can provoke civil disobedience is in the isolated case of a pastor deciding whether to perform a marriage or not. But this post offered no such restrictions and the quote I have offered above from the post clearly represents a broader view that encompasses Southern Baptist laypeople within its scope. That being true, it’s hard to see how the “differences” that you have cited prevent my examples from being germane.
If Ronnie Floyd opens up a flower shop in WA, he may be looking at some degree of civil disobedience. If he refuses a wedding, none is needed.
Some of the presidents mentioned specific areas where churches and ministers might be put into a position of engaging in civil disobedience. Neither of your examples touched on these.
William,
“If Ronnie Floyd opens up a flower shop in WA, he may be looking at some degree of civil disobedience. If he refuses a wedding, none is needed”
Perhaps not YET…but in other countries we have seen where even churches and pastors are not exempt from “hate speech legislation” this legislation is up to and including biblical teaching on issues the state deems to be hateful…there was one case that has now been dropped where a person was threatened with imprisonment over his stance on this issue.
Remember as short a time frame as two or three decades ago there was no government, anyplace in the world that embraced, or had ever embraced the idea of legal homosexual marriage. Now there are few, including the US who do not….
You many be right if you had said “it is not needed now”….but I am confident that given the lightening and break neck speed of the trajectory we are seeing unfold before us…it will likely be soon – You did not include the world “now” at the end of your pronouncement that civil disobedience for pastors is not needed…perhaps you meant to?
I was at the SBC and heard Dr. Floyd’s President’s sermon and read the statement of the SBC Presidents on the Gays and Marriage issue. I also listened attentively to the Presidential Panel that was assembled Wednesday afternoon to discuss how pastors and churches can respond pastorally. Apparently that was after the editor of the piece with that headline had the information that they wanted to run a story. Yes, Dr. Floyd was firm in his sermon but he was not calling for warfare against anyone.
I am a PhD student studying social and religious friction in Colonial Virginia, where the roots of religious liberty first sprang to life. I’ve noticed a trend that Baptists (as well as other Christians) have been on both sides of many social conflicts. Slavery was introduced in the 1600s in Virginia as an tool for tobacco production. It quickly became “the way things are.” Baptists in Virginia at first did not support slavery, but as they gained wealth and land and needed to cut expenses for tobacco production, they too joined in purchasing human beings. Their preachers justified it in the 1800s as “the curse of Ham.” Other Baptists moved out of the region when their opinions against slavery got them in trouble with their neighbors. Abolition was a church-based movement and helped create the tension that eventually engulfed this nation in Civil War.
After Reconstruction, White Southerners created a system of managing “the negro problem.” The Jim Crow system was pervasive throughout the South. Southern white pastors felts powerless to fight it; they meekly tried to ameliorate it by advocating for better infrastructure. Black Baptist pastors (among others) began the resistance movement called the Civil Rights movement.
In both cases, the abolitionists and the civil rights marchers were resisting the larger culture. These can both be examples for Baptists today who are facing the “Bonhoefferian” where we resist what the culture wants on gay marriage or, whether, like the German Christians, and Jim Crow advocates, and defenders of past slavery, we will once again go along with what the culture.
Laverne,
I agree with much of what you wrote here concerning the church in America and the growing need for counter cultural engagement.
I would like to take issue with one point in your post that was quoted and attributed to Ronnie Floyd on twitter during the SBC. The invoking of Bonhoeffer.
As many here know, Bonhoeffer was a part of the dissenting and rebelling body of the Confessing Church that came about after the Nazi Party engineered a takeover of the German church after the arrival to power. That is not happening in the US.
Further, Bonhoeffer was ultimately executed for his actions by the Nazis. No one is threatening to imprison pastors or Christians in the US at this time, nor are we being accused of plotting the violent overthrow of the state. (Although truthfully neither was Bonhoeffer. He was lumped together with conspirators because of his solidarity with them.)
We need to stop invoking the language of persecution and martyrdom in the US. It cheapens what our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, China, and Africa are enduring. It makes us out to be hysterical alarmists. Most especially, it makes us less likely to engage our culture and more like,ly to retreat into holy huddles to wait for our coming doom. Which is not forthcoming.
I know this is a time of transition for many and so many are not sure how to live in a post-“Christian” America. My plea is that we would take the time to learn before making hysterical pronouncements. This is the time for wisdom, thought, and engagement. Let’s stop walking in fear.
Repeat:
“We need to stop invoking the language of persecution and martyrdom in the US. It cheapens what our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, China, and Africa are enduring. It makes us out to be hysterical alarmists. Most especially, it makes us less likely to engage our culture and more like,ly to retreat into holy huddles to wait for our coming doom. Which is not forthcoming.”
Though that lwasn’t a key point in Laverne’s exposition.
The key takeaway in Laverne’s exposition is Baptists are sometimes right and sometimes wrong on cultural issues.
I would add that we are almost always wrong on putting the moral-instruction cart before the proclamation-of-the-Gospel horse.
Sinners sin. So do believers though over time believers learn some sensitivity to the impact sin has on themselves, others, and their relationship with God. It’s okay to ask unbelievers to consider the same impacts. It’s not okay to ask for moral behavior since being righteous is an impossible personal accomplishment this side of the River Jordan. It takes deliverance.
Actually, I’d say that the key takeaway in Laverne’s excellent comment is that bad things usually happen when we kowtow to sinful culture. Additionally, I’d add that culture, after it leads us to compromise the truth, then turns around and criticizes us for our compromise. So, it not only betrays Christ when we commit this foolishness, but it also makes us LESS effective in the culture, not more effective.
So, Kelvin Cochran is not a victim of religious persecution? Would you define only torture and martyrdom as persecution?
Does it cheapen what the nineteenth-century slaves who were our brothers and sisters endured if we still speak of racism existing yet today? If so, I guess you’re consistent, and we’ll look for you not to speak any longer of racism in our time and culture. If not, I’d love to hear your rationale for why racial persecution is racial persecution whether it is slight or severe, overt or covert, confrontationally personal or systemically institutional, while religious persecution must not be acknowledged until it arrives in its most severe variant.
Bart,
I would say Kevin Cochran has been discriminated against. Not persecuted. And to try to compare what happened to him to slaves, civil rights protestors, etc is ludicrous. He lost his job, but he now has a plethora of speaking opportunities and backers.
Slaves were beaten. Torn from their families. Killed. Treated as property.
Civil rights advocates were jailed. Attacked with billy clubs and dogs. Castrated. Lynched.
The two situations are completely different.
There is a differenc today between racial discrimination and persecution. The differences would be similar. I am not sure if I have ever used the term “racial persecution” on this or any site. I would be comfortable using that terminology in very few incidences occurring today in the US.
Persecution would be defined historically as torture and martyrdom. As you suggested. It would also be defined as being jailed for ones beliefs. Having ones property seized for ones beliefs. Being exiled for ones beliefs. Having ones children seized. Having ones family forcibly broken up. And all of these things happening with no recourse.
Kevin Cochran can sue. The florist will have her day in court. Slaves. Civil rights advocates. They suffered for years with no recourse and even when they were given legal relief in many cases their plights were ignored.
Our bothers and sisters in China, the Sudan, Iraq. They are in these positions. Not us. Not yet.
I’m sorry we disagree.
Ryan;
So you’re not terribly upset that Kelvin Cochran was fired for expressing Christian views- he can sue, etc. And, of course, you would interpret this the same way if he had been fired for being African American. Of course, you would………
I agree, Ryan, that we have not resisted to blood. However, it has happened. When resisted, the majority culture does push back. Those in Colonial Virginia pushing for religious liberty were beaten, bloodied and jailed. Abolitionists risked their lives to protect runaway slaves. Thousands died in the civil war. Southern whites terrorized any one who challenged the established order and beat up black and white freedom riders who pushed for civil rights. Resisting what the majority culture expects comes at a price.
Dale-
That would also have been discrimination. And at no point did I say I was not upset about him being fired.
But thanks for taking my words and twisting them and for ascribing less than honorable motives to my positions.
Your lack of grace for a brother in Christ is noted.
“Not us. Not yet.”
But now is the time to look down the road to the “yet”.
If one is not willing to endure discomfort now, in the name of the Lord, how will they endure when the persecution is ramped up?
By drawing the line in the sand today, we also must realize that many, whom we now call brother and sister, may decide that the fight is not worth the trouble tomorrow.
When you have a lot of fat on you and you wish to compete, even the beginning of exercise can seem hard or harsh. Can it compare in intensity to those who have been competing? No. But in a relative sense, yes: for it may be just as hard for some to run that first mile as it is for others to run a marathon.
And for the brave souls who lose their jobs or businesses, it might be quite hard on them and on their families.
Embrace the discomfort brothers, it seems there is more pain on the way. But all those who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
Ryan,
We define “persecution” differently. For my part, I say that any time people in authority direct ill treatment toward someone on account of that person’s race, faith, etc., that person in authority is persecuting such a person. You define it differently.
How shall we resolve this?
All I know to do is to appeal to sources or authority. I’ll let you go first. On the basis of what authority do you define persecution in this way?
Laverne,
I wrote a book about much of what you are talking about that you might find interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603063501/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?qid=1433783384&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&keywords=when+heaven+and+earth&dpPl=1&dpID=517JUQAHCuL&ref=plSrch
Check especially chapters 2-5 for more on what you are talking about re: slavery, Virginia, the subversion of the church, the Civil War, and Jim Crow and Theology of the Lost Cause and Baptists’ role in all of that. Lots of lessons there.
Yes.
Thank you for your recommendation.
A full picture of what took place at the SBC will show both a resolve to stand against the tide of culture while we stand for the liberty to practice our faith in the public square (including, if necessary, civil disobedience) AND a love for gay and lesbian persons and a desire to see them transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This issue is just part of a broader issue, sexual immorality in America. People want their lifestyles to be accepted and considered “normal” by the vast majority of America. I believe this to be a very cut and dry issue for Christians. Homosexual marriage is against what God set forth with His creation. There is no greater form of love than to tell someone the absolute truth. The idea that you have to do this in a loving manner is where Christians seem to falter. Why? I think it is a lack of understanding. It is hard for the majority of people to understand why people embrace this lifestyle. We need more teaching and coaching on this subject within the church in order to have peoples mind awaken to this matter and to help them know how to engage in a non confrontational manner. We are against a huge tide of media marketing and the whole issue being shoved down our throat through the media. No one wants to be labeled backwards, simple minded, or the like. So we must learn how to engage people without it being a confrontation that dissolves into a verbal fight.
Persecution is persecution. Some is obviously more severe, as in the cases of our Brothers and Sisters in other countries being imprisoned, tortured, and even killed for the Faith. But, being ostracized, mocked, ridiculed, fired, and fined by the govt. is persecution, as well.
I was there….and I was there (spent loads of money to get there) for the purpose of hearing our national leaders speak to the issue of homosexuality and same sex marriage.
First, when I read, “This is how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article headline read Tuesday. Baptists declare ‘spiritual warfare’ over gay marriage” – I wondered if the Constitution was actually ‘on-site’ and listening to the verbiage. Yes, we were firm on our Biblical stand against sin, but in the same breath, every speaker implored us that homosexuals (like gossips, liars, & adulterers) need the love and grace of Jesus. We were challenged to reach out sharing the love of Christ with them.
Next, while it is true as of yet (and I say ‘yet’ because if the current trajectory of our culture is not changed, it will happen) there has been no one of record beaten or jailed because of their beliefs, I dare say discrimination precedes persecution.
Finally, why not call things by Biblical names. The reason (even in this thread) the word “GAY” is used – is because our culture has attempted to redefine terms. Until a few years ago, ‘gay’ meant happy & and light-hearted. Candidly, not to be offensive but to be accurate, I continue to use the word homosexual. It is clear, accurate, and a Biblical term.
These are sad and difficult days, but the Bible tells us that the end times will be darkest; calling evil good and good evil.
I think this article sums up the coverage on this issue quite nicely: http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2015/6/17/jihad-journalism-did-southern-baptists-really-just-declare-spiritual-warfare-on-same-sex-marriage
(HT: Trevin Wax, “Trevin’s Seven”)
The call to civil disobedience (when not if) it becomes necessary is rooted more in standing firm and strong (even willing to go to jail, lose exempt status or go to jail) once the govt. begins to intimidate pastors and churches into embracing and allowing homosexual unions to take place in their churches or risk imprisonment for “hate speech” and/or fines for denial of what the courts may soon declare a fundamental right (and, I think they are right it is coming).
As others have stated this is nothing new. SB have always opposed homosexual behavior and unions and will continue to do so. IT should surprise no one the song Floyd sung, nor should the the standing ovation be received for saying it to the choir. It also should not surprise us that the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation misrepresented it.
That said…I will say this again….
Word of warning to my fellow pastors – – – –
I can also envision a court ruling at some point that if pastors perform marriages/ or the church allows wedding ceremonies of such to take place in the church for unbiblically divorced persons -or pastors and churches who do not expect public repentance from those who unbiblically divorced and then remarried – they cannot then with impunity claim “biblical fidelity” when denying people a “fundamental rights” (once the US Supreme court declares them so). In other words – I think we will soon see a day when our decades of laxness regarding consistency on the “sanctity of marriage” issue will bite us in the posterior. I have made this point many times and it is often ignored – I wonder why?
Laxness and lack of biblical fidelity in the past, or relating to the *whole idea* of the sanctity of marriage – does not mean that we should not stand for what is right today….WE SHOULD AND I WILL….but we collectively have got to be intellectually honest enough to say that, as a whole, the SBC and many other evangelicals have created a difficult bed for ourselves by “embracing” and being really, really quiet about unbiblical divorce for decades.
Persecution can happen by degrees. You don’t have to wait till the water’s boiling to say that you’re being cooked.
That is right, Jeff.
Reading John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration this afternoon, and ran across a prescient comment of his regarding the limits of enforcement by civil magistrates. “Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make men change their inward judgement that they have framed of things.” (Kindle edition, p. 4). Government is a blunt, inefficient, instrument that cannot change minds. All the legislative protections in the world won’t make people stop hating; only God’s love can change minds and hearts.