Changing Our Mind

Dr. David Gushee is ordained in the Southern Baptist church and a leading ethicist in the evangelical church. As such he has made reasoned arguments against homosexuality, the LGBT community and same-gender marriage. In his own words “Homosexual conduct is one form of sexual expression that falls outside the will of God.”

David Gushee no longer holds this view and has been open in stating his new outlook despite the criticism of many in the evangelical fold. He has written about his change of heart and mind in a book called Changing Our Mind and in a number of publications including The Washington Post newspaper. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/04/im-an-evangelical-minister-i-now-support-the-lgbt-community-and-the-church-should-too/

In the WP piece he expresses his conviction that God sent gay and lesbian persons into his life to help me develop a new perspective. One of them is his sister. At the same time he offers a different ethical focus which he relates to the persecution and marginalization of other minorities rather than fixating on sexual practice. Here is how he Gushee puts it:

For me, the answer to this debate has become simple: There is a sexual-minority population of about 5 percent of the human family that has received contempt and discrimination for centuries. In Christendom, the sexual ethics based in those biblical passages metastasized into a hardened attitude against sexual- and gender-identity minorities, bristling with bullying and violence. This contempt is in the name of God, the most powerful kind there is in the world. I now believe that the traditional interpretation of the most cited passages is questionable and that all that parsing of Greek verbs has distracted attention from the primary moral obligation taught by Jesus — to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially our most vulnerable neighbors.

You may be thinking, surely this discussion is over! The United Church of Canada earnestly wrestled with all this in the 1980's and 1990's and many congregations now marry same-gender couples and have called LGBT clergy. This is true, but it is important to realize that many Christians still struggle with how to be faithful to scripture and traditionally approaches to morality while addressing what it means to be inclusive and loving. Gushee is one of many thoughtful evangelicals who have worked through these issues to come to new conclusions. A willingness to change our minds is not watering down the gospel or heresy. It can be an openness to the work of the Holy Spirit and a commitment to the broader message of the scriptural mandate to love as Christ loves.