Open Letter to Regional Executive Ministers
From Rev. Douglas Donley
Below is a letter I
mailed out to Regional Executive Ministers today. It is in response to a
"pastoral letter" the Regional Executive Ministers passed by a 20-3-3 margin
at their November 22 meeting. In their letter (available on the ABCUSA
website under News Releases), they agree to voluntarily refrain from
approving "practicing homosexuals" for regional and national positions,
refrain from conducting same-sex marriages, refrain from making
stereotypical statements about homosexuals, participating in homophobic
behavior,etc. Apparently, they don't see the latter as contradicting the
former. Sigh.
Peace,
Doug
Donley
December 10, 2004
An
Open Letter to Regional Executive Ministers
American Baptist Churches, USA
Dear
Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
Grace
and peace to you from Jesus Christ who sets us all free and calls us to
unique and powerful ministry in this troubled world.
I am
in receipt of a pastoral letter approved by a majority of you at your
meeting of
November 22, 2004. Its
stated intent is to preserve unity in our denomination. I believe it does
nothing of the sort. I believe it represents a blatant disregard for basic
Baptist polity and practice, is a travesty to justice-loving Christians and
will do untold damage to our American Baptist denomination.
I
pastor a church that welcomes all people regardless of all of the barriers
we might erect. I fear this statement calls us to be like the gatekeepers at
the doors of the church in the recent United Church of Christ ad. This
statement will not show our denomination as one of racial diversity and
radical inclusion that it has been for decades. Instead, it pulls us down
into the abyss of factionalism and exclusion. It also tells others who are
looking for a church home what they have too often feared—that they are not
truly welcome in an
American Baptist Church.
With all of its language of humility, it arrogantly excludes
people
like me and those in my church. It assumes that those who believe in the
acceptance of gay and lesbian people are not being faithful to the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. Nothing can be further from the truth. I base my stand on
acceptance and inclusion directly from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am
writing this open letter as an attempt to speak the truth in love to you and
to a people desperately in need of the saving
power
of Jesus Christ.
I know
you are concerned by the way homosexuality has dominated our discourse. It
has certainly blurred our mission as American Baptists. I pray for the day
when we will find the reconciliation in Christ where, to paraphrase Paul’s
letter to the Galatians, there is no male nor female, no slave nor free, Jew
nor Gentile, right nor left, red nor blue and even gay nor straight for we
are all one in Christ Jesus.
I fear
that your statement will be seen by some of those opposed to the acceptance
of homosexuals as too little, too late. If it is meant to appease them, I
have little faith that it will do so. For it seems that many in this group
want nothing short of a purge and pogrom of anyone who does not interpret
scripture as they do. This group is not being true to our Baptist heritage
and polity. But worse than that, the teachings of this group, embraced by
most religious media, do severe damage to our gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender (GLBT) sisters and brothers.
Let us
be clear. This is not simply about homosexuality. It is about people: people
that I love; people in whom I have seen the face of Christ. Almost all of
the gay and lesbian members of the three churches I have served in my
fifteen years of ministry have been victims of hate crimes at one time or
another. Gay young people are seven times more likely to commit suicide than
non-gay teens. The
University of Minnesota
says that hate crimes have increased locally and ationally against the GLBT
community while it has decreased for other groups. I believe this is a
direct result of the teaching of too many of our churches. Your pastoral
letter does nothing to stem the flow of this violence. If anything, it gives
it even more weight. By not decrying hate crimes, the onus is on the
oppressed to change, not the oppressors. Your call to voluntarily refrain
from accepting homosexual people has no clear timeline for ending and no
apparent goal other than to simply not rock the boat. The boat has been
rocking for years and has thrown many in my
community overboard. I should hope that people like you would be the ones to
throw a life preserver to those in the deep water where sharks and cold seek
to wreak havoc. Instead, those in the water see those in the boat turn their
backs on us, hoping that the sharks might make the problem go away. Your
pastoral letter hits those of us in the water like a heavy anchor. And yet,
we are your sisters and brothers. I appeal to your Christianity and your
morality to throw a life preserver to those in the water.
We
have a sickness in our denomination. It has a demonic portion to it. It is
the sin of exclusion. Until we exorcise this sin, we are confounded by it,
confined by it, defined by it, and mmobilized by it. The ongoing revelation
of Jesus Christ demands that we be vigilant against any who would exclude.
Homosexual people are not the problem. Exclusion is the problem. Exclusion
closes the doors of the church and closes the eyes and ears of good people
who need to witness the life-changing power of Christ in our homosexual
sisters and brothers. I have seen this spirit. I know that Jesus Christ
exists and thrives in the hearts of many of our GLBT sisters and brothers.
Whenever Jesus was faced with an opportunity to exclude or to ostracize
someone, he chose not to do so. Instead he constantly called upon us to
welcome the outcast and the stranger. His testimony to the Syrophoenician
woman, the Gerasene demoniac, blind Bartimaeus, the leprous, the religiously
excluded and the poor ought to give us pause as we seek to further encircle
the wagons around our crumbling denominational structure.
I am
encouraged by the recent statement by our American Baptist Black Caucus
which calls us to refrain from excluding anyone. Inclusion is at the heart
of the Baptist tenet of soul freedom and individual liberty. I am reminded
of the words of our ABC brother, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His
/Letter From the Birmingham Jail/, includes some stinging words to the white
clergy who were telling him to not be so uppity in his quest for civil
rights. He wrote:
“History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups
seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral
light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr
has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals. We know through
painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a
direct action movement that was ‘well-timed,’ according to the timetable of
those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For
years now I have heard the words ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro
with a piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”
I
believe your call to voluntarily refrain from appointing people who happen
to be gay or lesbian to leadership positions is a form of segregation. It is
a way of saying “wait.” Since you do not call for dialogue or any kind of
reconciliation, it appears to mean ‘never.’ I believe God weeps at this
hubris.
Sisters and brothers, I call on you to exercise leadership that will uphold
our Baptist heritage, not deny it. I call on you to remove the walls that
divide us and help us to be bridge-builders, as our General Secretary
encourages us. I call on you to resist the temptation to exclude your GLBT
sisters and brothers from ministry and from our churches. I call on you to
show the moral courage to foster dialogue that will lead us to a place of
acceptance and ministry for and with all
of
God’s children.
I hope
that I have spoken the truth in love. I applaud those who voted against this
statement. I applaud all who decry violence against our GLBT sisters and
brothers. And I long for the day when we can all lay down our physical and
spiritual weapons and celebrate the presence of
Jesus
Christ in our mutual American Baptist life.
