Owen Strachan writes in the most recent First Things about a species of pastor with whom I—as an ordained elder in the last mainline Protestant denomination to adhere to orthodox Christian doctrine on human sexuality—am well-acquainted: the “affirming pastor.”
Strachan has noticed their tendency to trumpet their own heroism:
The affirming pastor traveled through fire and wind to get where he’s landed. Long did he wrestle with Stubborn Paul, with Unbending Church History, with Steely-Eyed Jesus. Heroically did he (or she) weep over the Unmoved Apostles, pleading with Peter to soften his tone—to lower his pitch, and use an inside voice—against false teachers and their compromised sexual practices, their correspondingly corrupted sexual ethics. Again and again the affirming pastor threw himself against the wall of Christian witness, imploring it to fall, to fall, and to fall, but it would not.
As examples, he cites the words of affirming megachurch pastors like Ryan Meeks of EastLake Church in Seatttle and Stan Mitchell of GracePointe Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Strachan quotes Mitchell and writes the following:
“Could you be a church in Selma and not march, just handle your own community?,” Mitchell queries rhetorically. “I don’t think I can do that. We are on the front edge of a movement that means so much.” Those lonely few pastors who embrace what Scripture abominates are in Mitchell’s mind just like the civil-rights activists who suffered, bled, and died to advance racial equality. Never mind that few of those righteous activists called for personal attention. Never mind that their own activism called the church to own Scripture, not abuse it. Never mind that they are in many cases unknown. Today, we have many heroes, but so little heroism.
Let me cite the words of the United Methodist pastor Wade Griffith, whom I wrote about on Monday, as one more example for Strachan. At the end of his “coming-out-as-an-affirming-pastor” sermon in 2013, he said the following:
When I was in high school I had to take a class in Alabama history. I don’t know if they do that anymore. But part of the curriculum was the civil rights movement, and we studied about the water fountains, “colored” and white. Did anybody ever see one of those? I never saw one of those. So I went home that day and Mom was cooking supper. And I said to her just totally out of the blue, I said to her, “Mom, did you ever drink out of the white water fountain?” She said, “I did.”
I couldn’t believe it. Your parents are like, they can do no wrong. Until you get to a certain age, they can do no wrong. They define what’s right. I was like, “Mom, how’d you do that? How could you do that? That’s so evil.”
She said, “Wade, I didn’t know any better. That’s all I knew.”
One day, my sons will ask me if I drank out of the “colored” water fountains. [Long pause.] And I plan on being able to say “no.”
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.
I think he meant to say “white water fountains” that last time, but never mind…
His point is that “non-affirming” pastors like me—who, like him, stood before God, our bishop, and our fellow Methodists and promised that we believed in our church’s doctrines—are now no better than racists in the Deep South during Jim Crow, except worse, because what excuse do we have? Aside from—you know—the Bible and not to mention the unanimous consensus of nearly two millennia of Christian interpretation of it.
As I said on Monday, these words give the lie to Griffith’s earlier, conciliatory words about how our view of homosexual practice is a “non-essential” about which Christians of good faith are free to “agree to disagree.”
Agree to disagree, nothing! Not if we’re no better than Bull Connor with his fire hoses and attack dogs! Are you kidding me?
But before we go pinning a medal on Griffith for being able to say he never “drank from the white water fountain” of bigotry and oppression, remind me again what exactly he’s done that’s so heroic? Preached a sermon?
Big deal!
Meanwhile, he continues to give his money—and his church’s money—to support an institution that practices widespread discrimination, which causes such harm, as he insinuated earlier in his sermon, that kids are committing suicide because of it. He continues to refuse to perform LGBT weddings. He continues to support a system in which “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” are unable to get ordained.
Honestly, while we’re on the subject, did he not read MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”? All those white clergymen to whom King addressed his letter—some of them southern Methodist bishops—already opposed racial discrimination. That wasn’t the issue. The issue for King was that the time for passively waiting for change was over: it was time for action!
But no, says Griffith, we will continue to support our Discipline. We will continue to “agree to disagree” because this is, after all, a non-essential of our faith.
Good heavens, man! Don’t you see you’re still drinking from the white water fountain, whether you admit it or not?
Don’t misunderstand: I’m happy that he continues to do so. But just how strongly does this affirming pastor believe what he affirms?