The Way Forward in the Church

Thanks so much Tim and Chris for engaging in Respectful Conversation. I look forward to your third posts as we consider what needs ongoing attention in our churches engaging LGBT members. Clearly there is much that we agree on and some disagreement, which is not surprising for a matter as controversial as sexual minorities in the church.

In this third contribution to our conversation, I want to identify what I consider to be the heart of the conflict and a way forward for the church. These matters are the heart of my ongoing effort to envision a pastoral way forward. I may not address all of your questions and comments explicitly but I hope that what I offer here implicitly speaks to your concerns.

I begin with what I consider to be central concerns in the conflict between “exclusion” and “inclusion” of members who are LGBTQ in the church. Then I will identify some resources that model The Way Forward and will help the church live into deeper understanding about sexuality, which is not only central to Christian identity but also ton what it means to be human. I believe these are essential for the future church that will no longer be dependent on heteronormative interpretations and determined by heteronormative power over sexual minorities. My hope is for a church living beyond “engaging with LGBT members” into full mutuality that welcomes, embraces, and honors all people on the same basis as valued and essential members of the body of Christ. The Apostle Paul’s beautiful body language of being one body with many members is dependent on difference honoring difference not dominating or dismembering difference (1 Corinthians 12:12ff.)

It’s been my experience, that people from conservative backgrounds really have to get it. They have to buy into Romans 14 [A passage in which Paul exhorts Christians to ‘welcome one another in the face of ‘disputable matters.’]. They have to let go of their privilege in order to follow this path. And some can do it and some can’t. But that’s true of many things in Christianity. How many conservative Christians are obeying the Gospel commands of radical discipleship in the realms of materialism, and greed, and other areas of life? So the fact that it’s not easy for people to do, doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.

I so much appreciated both Tim’s and Weldon’s second posts. They modeled the kind of respectful conversation that I suspect is the hope for this respectful conversation.

Our final posts are supposed to identify issues that the three of us need to give more thought to as a basis for ongoing conversation. Before I do that, however, I’d like, briefly, to answer a couple of the questions that Tim and Weldon posed to me in their second posts. 

The first challenge of this Respectful Conversation for me is that it is taking place online rather than in person. Nevertheless, it is a worthy conversation as we navigate this conflicted concern not only for ourselves but also for this eCircle and even for the church. It seems to me that our focus on “Christian faithfulness and human sexuality” is half of our purpose; the other half is modeling “Respectful Conversation” as faithful Christians who may differ significantly on substantive matters.  I hope my contribution honors both halves of this conversation.

A second challenge is responding to two conversation partners fully and fairly rather than to only one. Nevertheless, being three voices rather than two enlarges the conversation and expands the experience we bring to our particular part of this Respectful Conversation. Hopefully our three-way conversation adds a fruitful dimension to the larger dialogue.

As I’ve experienced conflict in the community in which I live, I’ve reflected on Stanley Hauerwas’s comment that we need to tell one another the truth—but perhaps even more—we must want to hear truth. I appreciate both of you for speaking truth and I hope I have the will to hear it. We were asked to begin with the ways we agree with one another, so I’ll start with that.

First, let me say that it is an honor to participate in this conversation. I very much appreciated both Tim’s and Weldon’s posts, and, in what follows, I hope not only to embrace them as my brothers in Christ, but also to engage their posts with understanding and respect.


I found myself agreeing with Tim and Weldon on many things. I resonated deeply with Tim’s observation that LGBT Christians are not “sexualities to be affirmed or disciplined”, but rather “people” with whom to walk, as well as Weldon’s exhortation to “engage with” rather than “talking and deciding about” our LGBT brothers and sisters.

Pastoral Preface

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (Hymn text: Frederick W. Faber, 1854)
Verse 1:
    There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.
    There’s a kindness in God’s justice, which is more than liberty.

Grace, arising from God’s limitless love, is the central theme of the Bible…
Mercy is just grace in action. Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation (1/30/16)

It is humbling and an honor to engage in Respectful Conversation with you. Our leading question for this season of the eCircle conversation invites us to share recommendations for how churches engage with LGBTQ members. I begin with some prefatory offerings that lead into my contribution to this conversation.

I’ve been asked, as a pastor, to share how churches ought to engage with LGBT individuals, and why. It’s a daunting but important question as we seek to embody the gospel faithfully in our particular cultural context. Among the options currently out there—welcoming but not affirming, welcoming and affirming, and simply “accepting,” viewing the issue as something of a “disputed matter”—my own position is likely a variation on the theme of welcoming but not affirming. What does that mean? The proverbial (and, frankly, often literal) devil is, as is so often the case, in the details. 

Rather than treat LGBT Christians as a sexuality to be affirmed or disciplined, churches should walk with LGBT people with curiosity. Churches should ask the same question of an LGBT member it asks of all its members: how is God at work in this person’s life and how can we cooperate with that?

Churches should model the difficult practice of loving each other in spite of differences—differences like affirming vs. non-affirming. This is preferable to demanding doctrinal correctness (on either side) concerning a small aspect of sexual ethics­: something that affects around 3% of the population, a topic on which there are six explicit verses in the Bible.