The Southern Baptist Convention held an important Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Conference last week on The Gospel, Homosexuality and the Future of Marriage.
In attendance were Zack Ford of ThinkProgress and Bryn Tannehill of Bilerico.
There was a very subtle shift in rhetoric about LGB people.
The Convention’s theology on homosexuality has not changed. The Bible, as they read it, declares homosexual behavior to be sexual immorality, and there was no debate about this tenet among any of the religious leaders who spoke at the conference. But the world has changed in its understanding and acceptance of people with same-sex orientations, and the Convention has been affected by these changes. The conversations this week indicated new ways that these evangelical Christians are working to negotiate their beliefs.
--Ford
At the opening session, Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary offered the following:
Early in this controversy, I felt it quite necessary, in order to make clear of the Gospel, to deny anything like a sexual orientation.
I repent of that.
I believe that a Biblical theological understanding, a robust Biblical theology, would point to us that human sexual affective profiles — that who we are sexually — is far more deeply rooted than just the ‘will,’ if that were so easy.
--Mohler
That is, people do not choose to be gay...and church leaders erred in ever claiming that they did.
But Mohler would not go so far as agreeing with the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (AWAB) whose theology does not include Biblical condemnation of homosexuality
If the revisionist arguments are right, then we’ve got to join them. I don’t believe for a minute they are right.
--Mohler
No AWAB members were allowed to speak at the conference. AWAB did hold a press conference, however.
We urge you to not treat LGBT people as “issues” or “cultural phenomenons,” but as “fellow human beings."
--AWAB
Christians should be able to disagree about these sorts of issues without having their salvation called into question by other Christians.
--Brandan Robertson, Evangelicals for Marriage Equality
Questions like these were apparent among the pastors in attendance as well. Though they didn’t doubt the theology that homosexuality is a sin, neither were they convinced that such a belief painted a clear path to ministering on the issue. Speakers who emphasized positive ways to show support to LGBT people, like Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton (Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor (17 minutes)) and Jim Daly (Reconcilable Differences: Building Bridges With Those Who Disagree About Marriage (29.5 minutes)), seemed to resonate with them more than those that were more critical on the topic.
--Ford
The disappearance of cultural Christianity, like a morning mist, is a reminder to us that it was cultural and not Christianity… We are accustomed to ministry from the top side of the culture, not from the underside. We are accustomed to speaking from a position of strength and respect and credibility, and now we’re going to be facing the reality that we are already, in much of America, speaking from a position of a loss of credibility, speaking from the underside, speaking from the wrong side of the moral equation.
--Mohler
Ford was able to ask Russell Moore, who is new leader of the ERLC about the psychological harm LGBT people experience from the theological messages of the Christian Right.
I don’t think there’s psychological harm involved in the theology of the Gospel. Obviously, if we believed that, we would not believe the Gospel. I think that the Gospel is something that heals and saves and addresses all of us.
I think there is a lot of psychological harm that happens for gay and lesbian persons. I think that happens for an entire gamut of reasons. The idea that one is simply the sum of one’s sexual identity is something that is psychologically harmful ultimately. And I think also we have a situation in American culture where gay and lesbian people have often been treated really really badly. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve spent a lot of time trying to work specifically with parents of gay and lesbian kids to say, “How do you respond when your child announces, ‘I’m gay or I’m lesbian’?” And the answer to that is not rejection, the answer to that is not shunning, the answer to that is certainly not putting someone out of the house. The answer to that is loving your child and bearing with your child and if you disagree with your child, you disagree with your child. We have examples of that in virtually every family in the entire Bible.
So I don’t think the Gospel causes psychological harm to anyone. I think meanness does and I think that vitriol does, but that’s not what the Gospel is.
--Moore
Various ERLC employees boasted about Moore’s leadership to ThinkProgress during the conference. He completely rebranded the organization,” one staffer excitedly told me, referring to changes to everything from the logo to the website to the very content the organization produces. Indeed, the mere fact that the conference was taking place was evidence of the change — it was the first of its kind that the organization had ever hosted, and it was a well-oiled machine at that.
But a theology that requires LGBT people to reject their identities — even if it’s through celibacy instead of ex-gay therapy — may still be too extreme and disconcerting for many young people. And of course, Moore is not in control of what other religious leaders in the SBC say. Many at the conference still sounded more like Land at times than Moore, and the talking points were not all on the same page. Nevertheless, the change in tone and tact is readily apparent, and if it results in fewer LGBT homeless kids on the street, it’s a change for the better.
--Ford
So things were looking marginally better for LGB people during the first couple of days. But then came the discussion of the T and the hammer fell.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) may have made some important, if subtle, changes to tone and approach when it comes to homosexuality, but the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) conference demonstrated just how far it has yet to go on transgender issues.
Though the Bible is known for its “clobber verses” that have been interpreted to condemn same-sex relationships, it offers very little context for transgender identities.
--Ford
But that didn't stop Mohler, et al.
We come to understand that in the transsexual/transgender revolution — the revolt against the fixity of gender — that we’re also looking at… a level of confusion that Biblically would be defined as a form of rebellion that at the level of identity should leave us very humbled.
--Mohler
The people who are coming to you — that biologically male person who says ‘I think I’m a woman,’ or vice versa — that person really experiences that and believes that. You don’t have to agree with that at all, and I would say we can’t. The Bible teaches us that God created us male and female.
--Moore
The largest hammer was reserved for Pastor Denny Burk's break-out session. Burk is a professor at Boyce College.
Burk opened by describing the transgender movement as “the next phase of the gay rights movement,” which was surely a surprise to the many transgender people who have felt that the LGBT movement has sidelined their rights in favor of protections based only on sexual orientation. He suggested that trans rights were following a similar course to gay rights, such as the fact that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) stopped identifying trans identities as a “disorder,” much as it stopped classifying homosexuality as a disorder in 1973.
Burk went on to assert that “at the heart of the transgender revolution is the notion that psychological identity trumps bodily identity.” He then discussed a rare and little-studied psychological disorder called Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), in which people desire to have limbs amputated, “like a one-legged man trapped inside a two-legged man’s body. Since transgender people often receive treatment through surgery, Burk believes the two conditions are similar, and if the amputations seem wrong for BIID patients, surgeries should seem no more right for transgender individuals. “Does the body need adjusting,” he asked, “or does the thinking?”
Insisting that the Bible dictates everything that a person needs to follow, Burk dismissed all of the research that shows that gender is fixed and that there are mental health consequences for denying a person’s gender identity. The task of parenting, the task of discipling,” he resolved, “requires understanding those [gender] norms and to inculcate those norms into our children and to those who want to follow Christ, even those who have deep conflicts about these things.”
--Ford
Tannehill, Director of Advocacy for the transgender military organization SPART*A, pointed out to Ford that there is an increasing body of research that demonstrates that transgender identities have a biological origin. Thus comparing transgender to BIID, which is not even recognized by the APA, is an obscenely false comparison.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong or harmful with having a brain that developed along more stereotypically male or female patterns.
--Tannehill
Tannehill also highlighted the fact that many transgender people do not even pursue surgery as part of their transition. Sometimes they can’t afford to, sometimes they don’t feel the need to, and sometimes they wish to retain their reproductive ability. Research has found that affirming a person’s gender identity is beneficial to their mental health, while rejecting a person’s gender identity can be quite harmful. Burk also claimed that using hormone suppressants to delay puberty for a young person who might identify as trans could have side effects, but a recent study found that the treatment was fully reversible and an effective way at helping young people who experience gender dysphoria, regardless of whether they continue to identify as transgender or not.
--Ford
Ironically, Burk also addressed a question about intersex identities, people who might be born with ambiguous sex characteristics. He indicated that he believed that chromosomes indicate a binary there, even if it’s not manifested in physical characteristics. After spending the better part of an hour refusing the idea that transgender people could determine their own gender identities, Burk seemed to suggest that intersex people can, in fact, so identify themselves, noting the Bible’s references to eunuchs.
--Ford
The notions about trans identities advanced by Mohler, Moore, Burk, and the rest of the SBC utilize a very small amount of theology to dismiss all of the research on the medical needs of transgender people — not to mention their very existence. Though the ERLC conference demonstrated a few small steps toward better recognizing the experience of people with same-sex orientations, it did just the opposite for transgender people, rejecting them outright.
--Ford
Tannehill gathered together some tweets emanating from the observers.
Burk is preaching that transgender children are violating what the Bible says about gender.
Why would you change a body with puberty suppression? Because it's fully reversible! Puberty is not.
You know why parents are chastised for rejecting trans identities? Because it HARMS them.
You can alter your body through surgery, but it doesn't alter your identity" - @DennyBurk. True! It provides cohesion.
--Ford
The SBC fully endorsed reparative therapy for transgender people, including children.
So all those headlines about rejecting reparative therapy? That was only for gay people. Time to start the auxiliary generator, get out the battery cables, and buy a bottle of ammonia; we're going to "cure" some trans people today!
Or something. Because it worked so well the first time.
--Tannehill
Does the body need adjusting or does the thinking need adjusting?" Some thinking that needs adjusting, but not trans people's...
Jesus reaffirmed that God made them male or female, so take that transgender people! --@DennyBurk, basically
Decades of research on trans identities. @DennyBurk's only authority: "God made us man and woman." Sad and dangerous.
I hope everyone at #ERLC2014 appreciates that what @drmoore just said about transgender people rejects a WHOLE lot of science.
--Ford
What @drmoore is suggesting about transgender people contradicts the recommendations of every major professional medical org. #ERLC2014
--Carlos Maza, Media Matters for America, Equality Matters
@drmoore: A transgender person "really experiences and believes" their identities, but "you don't have to believe that.
@drmoore: This understanding that "I'm different from my body" is not what the Bible teaches us. We're soul and body together.
Ooh, @drmoore is telling us where transgender identities come from!
--Ford
The resulting message couldn't be clearer: allowing your child to live authentically endangers their mortal soul, and it endangers yours as their parent as well.
It doesn't matter that transgender youth living in homes that aren't affirming have a 57% chance of attempting suicide. Followers of the summit online supported this position, even when provided with these figures and research.
The SBC's messaging couldn't be clearer: we don't care if rejecting your child's gender identity will probably result in them attempting suicide, because they're going to hell if you affirm them.
I used to ask myself what sort of inhuman monster could willingly torture a child until they died. Somehow, though, we managed to pack 1,200 of them into one room.
--Tannehill
The Wall Street Journal apparently attended the conference in an alternate reality:
Southern Baptists, Gay Community Break Bread at Conference
Baptists Strike New Tone on Homosexuality From the Pulpit, in Private
Evangelical Christians should graciously and truthfully minister to homosexual people while also pursuing a family reformation, speakers said Oct. 29 in the final session of a Southern Baptist-sponsored conference.
--Biblical Recorder
Transgender people? Not so much.
Back in June, the SBC approved a resolution “On Transgender Identity,” which declared that “gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception,” describing transgender and intersex identities as manifestations of “human fallenness.” The resolution also expressed opposition to any form of physical gender transition, as well as any governmental or cultural validations of transgender identities.
--Ford
Contrary to SBC "ethical thought," the high rate of attempted suicide among transpeople is not caused by our "inner confusion," but by external rejection of our identity, eviction from our communities, and denial of attempts to treat us equally. It is clear that the SBC would prefer that we didn't exist. You do the math.