Thoughts on gay marriage

The following is a paper I submitted to the Lead Pastor, Ken Davis and the Governance Team of our church (TOB - The Olive Branch Community Church) in the spring of 2007.
The church wanted to implement a 'Standard Marriage Policy' limiting the church's recognition of married couples to persons of the opposite sex.

There are four reasons why I am opposed to our implementing this policy – none of which have to do with my own personal beliefs about gay marriage.  I agree with the fundamental premise that marriage is God’s business and biblically speaking, He is quite specific to its involving two persons of the opposite sex. Gay marriage, like infant baptism, has no evident scriptural foundation.
So I am entirely in line with TOB’s right to not marry gay persons, just as I entirely concur with TOB’s right to not marry any two people with whom viable concerns have been expressed about their getting married.
 
But this does infer one concern I do have about this policy. In the case of a couple for whom we would be reluctant to marry where sexual orientation is not the issue, we would take the time to meet with them and express in person the reasons for our refusing to marry them.
But in case of gay couples, the ‘Statement of Marriage’ policy shields us from the discomfort of such a meeting. What we are willing to extend to the wayward heterosexual couple we withhold from the wayward homosexual one. It would be hard for the gay person to interpret what we had intended to be a boundary to be anything other than a barrier – a sign over our door saying: ‘no gays allowed’. The ‘Statement of Marriage’ exempts us from further discussion.  

If we really want to be a safe place – especially for people on life’s margins, where many gay people live – we have to be vigilant to not prescribe ‘protectionist’ policies that safeguard us from having to meet face to face with the gay couple, the same way we would for the non-gay couple. We are a church without walls – which means we repudiate measures and safeguards which prescribe who we’ll go the 2nd mile with and who we won’t.


If we truly believe that marriage God’s way falls within certain parameters, we must be willing to answer for those parameters not only to the heterosexual couple who we think ill suited to each other, but also to the gay couple whose request to marry contravenes the biblical norm.
No doubt it would make for a hard conversation, but one which I am convinced would be good for all of us. Jesus didn’t shy away from hard questions or hard conversations. If we are determined to engage individuals in a dialogue which asks that they ‘not check their brains at the door’ and require us to give a good answer for what we believe, we have no choice but to engage in hard conversations. It can’t be Ken alone involved in these conversations, he would be have to be assisted by individuals with professional and/or pastoral counselling experience
To implement this Statement discourages any such conversation from taking place and will hinder (if not inhibit entirely) our having meaningful impact on the gay community for whom Christ died.

The second reason for my opposition to this Statement is that I am unconvinced as to its necessity.
We already belong to as denomination which if I remember correctly, already includes in its by-laws, a ‘Statement on Sexuality’ consistent with our proposed ‘Statement on Marriage’.
Since part of our being accepted as a Member Church of the Congregational Christian Church of Canada is our concurrence with their belief about sexuality, why the need for us to re-state it? My understanding – without having researched it – is that if we as a church wanted to adopt a policy which allowed for our marrying gay couples, our membership in the CCCC denomination would be jeopardized, if not outright revoked. The Congregational denomination broke away after 60 years of being under the umbrella of the United Church of Canada, specifically because of the United Church’s decision to allow for the ordination of gay persons. So it is already in our denominational DNA not to marry gay persons.


To reinforce what is already in place conveys a fortress mentality bordering on paranoia. It is hard enough for us as evangelical Christians to escape the charge of being homophobic. Why compound the matter by Policy overkill on this one issue?
Jesus spoke repeatedly against greed and not a word about homosexuality. But we wouldn’t think of drafting a ‘Statement Against Greed’ because of who would feel excluded if we did. That’s not to say that we’re indifferent about greed, but it is symptomatic about how our notions of grace suddenly revert to legalism when it comes to the matter of sexual orientation.

The third reason for my opposition to this Statement is the complicating ripple effect it will have on ‘eligibility’ requirements for ‘ministry partner’, employment at TOB, etc.
What happens when a gay couple – legally married elsewhere – wants to join our church? Will we deny them membership unless they commit themselves to either celibacy or the annulment of their union?
There are at least two situations I’m aware of, where TOB ministry partners have grown children who are in a gay marriage. Can we guarantee, were we to adopt this Statement, our receiving their children with the same openness and warmth we’d extend to them without question were they not gay?

Finally – in principle it’s wrong to adopt a policy which impacts people excluded from either the input or decision making process. All we have to do is look at the history of our country’s dealing with Native Canadians or our city’s dealing with the poor in the early 1950’s to realize the folly of trying to develop policy when we don’t have representation from people directly affected by the policy we’re implementing. We only deepen the divide between us.


Think for a moment of the issue of women having leadership roles in the church.


For decades, Male Church Board after Male Church Board, were implementing policies affecting women without including them at the table. When asked to justify their exclusiveness, they cited two scriptures: 1 Timothy 2:11,12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35…one calling for women not to be permitted to either teach or have authority over men and the other insisting that women not be allowed to speak in church for ‘it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church’. To permit women to have leadership roles in the church was deemed to be in defiance of the ‘inerrancy of God’s word’.
And yet we have women in leadership at TOB. Why? Well, for a number of reasons including the feminist movement, the evident skill of women in leadership roles in other organizations – business, government, volunteer organizations, NGOs etc. - and because we’ve determined that a verse in Galatians (3:28) overrides the legalistic applications of I Tim 2:11,12 and I Cor. 14:34,35 with its insistence that ‘in Christ – there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus’ …making all positions of authority accessible to all.
The reason TOB chose to allow one verse to take precedence over 2 other contrary verses was as much situational as it was scriptural. We considered the women and determined from their conversation, their commitment and their contribution that our future as a church would be in jeopardy were we to exclude them from leadership.
It would have been wrong had we sought to answer the question of ‘women in leadership’ without their input…even though it meant our defying two scriptures which at face value validated their exclusion from either the input or decision making process.


The same applies here.


We’re agreed there are scriptures which at face value oppose gay marriage. But does that make it right for us to make a decision affecting gay persons when they are not represented either in the input or decision making process?

Most of us know gay people who would do well to attend our church. And we would do well for having them. But had any been there at last Sunday’s congregational meeting and as a ‘seeker’ witness to the first reading of our ‘Statement of Marriage’ policy – they might have never returned. That scares me…mainly because of the incredible lengths Jesus went to make his kingdom accessible to the lost and because of his stern warning to those who obstruct them from coming. Our mission statement commits us to open the doors to Christ’s kingdom as wide as we possibly can and put no obstacle in the way.


Please understand I am not saying that we re-define marriage more in keeping with the society we live in. 75% of our membership would leave the church if we did.
Nor am I in advocating our having no ‘Statement on Marriage’ suggesting that we refrain from the subject entirely, anymore than I would argue that our not having a ‘Statement on Greed’ inhibits us from speaking against it.
What I am saying is our response to couples considering gay marriage – must reflect a willingness and ability ‘to deal gently with those who are going astray…since we ourselves ‘are likewise subject to weakness’ (see Heb 5:2).  We must be willing to engage with gay people in what could very well be the defining moment of their lives rather than allow a disengaged ‘statement of marriage’ to answer for us.

I close with a quote from a contributing theologian to a church in the US called ‘Emergent’. Their lead pastor is Brian McLaren, who Ken on occasion has quoted in some of his recent messages. If you replace the phrase ‘Statement of Faith’ with ‘Statement on Marriage’, it summarizes exactly why I am opposed to it...

Please feel free to call or email me if you wish to discuss this further.
Respectfully,