The progressive Christian organization Sojourners propelled this ad into greater attention, as the TV networks did for the UCC’s “bouncer” ad a few years ago, by refusing to run it. Their executive director, Jim Wallis, explained with a six-point essay that in my eyes adds up to: “The church is split on this and we don’t want to alienate either side.” They want to focus on their mission and not get involved in something that is not a “critical issue.” Aside from the insult of trotting out the existence of one’s own staffers as a shield (“We have been accepting and welcoming of gay staff here at Sojourners for many years”) while implying that the church’s ostracism of those staffers and their families is a minor issue, I’ll just note that if Wallis hoped not to have to spend any time on a controversy about LGBT issues, well, I’m guessing he has spent at least half his week fighting this fire, and it isn’t out.
He wrote, “Essential to our mission is the calling together of broad groups of Christians, who might disagree on issues of sexuality, to still work together on how to reduce poverty, end wars, and mobilize around other issues of social justice.” I can appreciate this point of view to an extent. They are building a coalition (as all social-change organizations do, some better than others), and that means setting aside issues on which the coalition members do not agree in order to make progress on the ones on which they do. However, in that case, they should define themselves more narrowly than they do, perhaps as an economic justice and anti-war organization. According to them, their mission is “to articulate the Biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church and the world.” That’s pretty sweeping. Also, the church is no more divided on homosexuality or even abortion than it is on the death penalty, war, and economic justice–and one can cite one’s Bible to defend a wide range of positions on all of them. So all Wallis has done is to beg the question, “Why do you take sides when it comes to our economic arrangements, but decline to do so when it comes to our exclusion of LGBT people?”
As Robert Chase of Believe Out Loud, the project that created the ad, has said, it isn’t even as if the ad is asking the church to support civil marriage for LGBT people, or to ordain LGBT clergy. It’s asking the church to welcome us as members–and especially, to welcome our children. Even this is controversial to some churches, but that it is controversial to Wallis and Sojourners is just depressing.
The fact is that Christian churches, particularly the largest and most powerful ones in the US–the Catholic and evangelical Protestant–have long led, and continue to lead, the ostracism of LGBT people. Wallis knows very well that the church has to take sides on questions like this; he’s one of the most eloquent voices against the idea that moral neutrality is desirable or even possible. And yet he is trying to justify neutrality here as a “third way.”
It seems to me that Sojourners wants to reap the advantages of being controversial (for example, appearing morally courageous by knocking powerful groups like the GOP leadership) without reaping the disadvantages (such as alienating some of your supporters). They should take a cue from Jesus: it takes as much courage to stand up to your friends as to your enemies. Oh, wait, that was Dumbledore. They’re so easy to mix up . . . Jesus is the one who defied his religious leadership by teaching his congregation to go beyond the teachings of the Torah and prophets; who alienated his disciples by welcoming those they despised into his circle: Samaritans, tax collectors, women. He believed that his God called him to go beyond what was comfortable for him or his followers. I’m not even a Christian, nor a theist except in the naturalistic sense, and yet I believe that too. What does Sojourners believe?
Events like this one ought to teach them, and all of us who try to engage in controversial issues, which is what all religious bodies are called to do, that when it comes to the most pressing moral issues of the day, you are eventually going to be asked where you stand, and then you will be hopping on the hot seat no matter what you do. Jesus knew all about that too.
But it’s easy to pick on someone else. I think what Chase and his organization are trying to do is push self-described Christian progressives to take a stand, not just on the issues they’re comfortable with, but on the ones that challenge them. So I’ve just assigned myself a re-reading of “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” so that the most vivid writer on the topic can goad me again to answer the tough question: on what issues am I playing the good wishy-washy liberal, when I should be challenging myself and my church? What does the divine require of us that we are shying away from doing?
Sermons in Stones 
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May 10, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Leslie-Anne
I think you’ve nailed it Amy. Wallis seems like a wonderful guy, but this might be a bit of an Achilles heel for him. It seems as if he’d rather pretend that this issue doesn’t exist, because in his mind there are other ones that he finds more compelling and important.
And yet, I’m also thinking of the recent “Freedom vs Unity” topic, which in my mind covers similar issues. While Unity is generally admirable, sometimes the majority gets it wrong. Negotiating those waters, especially when you are in the minority, is incredibly painful and difficult.
I think that the ad is *amazingly* beautiful. It uses love to conquer hate. It “turns the other cheek” and tries to make a fundamental request, simply and hopefully, without any trace of anger or hatred. I myself became a Christian ever so long ago because I fell in love with such teachings and the man who taught them.
In my mind, though, Jim Wallis is one of those who is bravely trying to reform Christianity and turn it back to the religion “of Jesus” (namely, His teachings) instead of a religion “about Jesus” where those teachings are almost an anecdote. And I remain mindful of that hard work, and incredibly thankful of it, even while I cringe about his stand on this important topic.
You said, “It seems to me that Sojourners wants to reap the advantages of being controversial”, and I guess I disagree with that conclusion. When one fights for social justice is one doing it in order to “reap advantages”, or is one doing it because they believe that the cause is just and their conscience demands that they stand up and fight? For me it is the latter, and it is my inclination to believe that others do the same.
Finally, IMHO, it is rather easy for “an outsider” to criticize conservative Christians. It is a very different thing for “an insider”, namely a fellow Christian, to do the same thing. Our traditions have historically been “when in doubt, do what we tell you”; church members have, in general, been trained to bite those tongues. Keep in mind that Christianity is full of words like “heresy” and “ex-communication” that get bandied about when one doesn’t hold “the proper beliefs”. And if those words “stick” to you, then you lose significant credibility with “the independent voters” (in other words, the moderate Christians) that you are trying to reach in the first place.
IMHO, what Sojourners is doing in general is very difficult and very brave, and perhaps it is difficult for those who are not Christians to understand that. And how many leaders eagerly embrace issues that are divisive among their own supporters? I don’t admire Wallis’ action on this one topic, but I have empathy for the difficult situation he is in.
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May 14, 2011 at 7:46 am
Robin Edgar
“So I’ve just assigned myself a re-reading of “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” so that the most vivid writer on the topic can goad me again to answer the tough question: on what issues am I playing the good wishy-washy liberal, when I should be challenging myself and my church? What does the divine require of us that we are shying away from doing?”
Well Amy, I personally believe that you and every other Unitarian*Univeralist minster (to say nothing of U*Us more generally) should be challenging yourself and your church regarding the UUA’s past and ongoing failure to provide genuine and tangible restorative justice for ALL victims of clergy misconduct. The UUA and its all too aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee have a lamentable track record when it comes to responding with genuine “justice, equity, and compassion” to all manner of clergy misconduct complaints. At the year 2000 UUA GA held in Nashville Tennessee UUA Executive Vice President Kathleen Montgomery officially acknowledged that “the Association has largely failed the people most hurt by sexual misconduct, the victims and survivors. Other denominations have done better. These brave and bruised people have, more often than not I suspect, been left lonely, confused, afraid, angry and betrayed. Un-ministered to.” She went on to “pledge that this gap, this failure, will be remedied.” Unfortunately the UÙA has repeatedly failed to remedy that acknowledged failure and it continues to respond in a negligent and effectively complicit manner to all manner of clergy misconduct.
In fact the UUA and MFC would appear to have virtually no concern for most victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct and continue to turn a blind eye to complaints about non-sexual clergy misconduct, even going so far as to effectively whitewash U*U ministers who are justly accused of non-sexual clergy misconduct. To my knowledge the only U*U minister to ever face any serious accountability for non-sexual clergy misconduct was a minister who plagiarized the sermons of some of his professional colleagues. Other U*U ministers are guilty of far worse forms of non-sexual clergy misconduct, including engaging in anti-religious intolerance and bigotry, deeply insulting and defaming people, or otherwise verbally and psychologically abusing people, etc. etc. but they have not been so much as reprimanded by the UUA and MFC. Au contraire, the UUA and MFC have pretended that such unbecoming conduct is acceptable, even going so far as to pretend that it is “within the appropriate guidelines of ministerial leadership.” You and other U*U ministers should be utterly ashamed about how shabbily the the UUA and MFC have treated victims of clergy misconduct for decades, if not the whole 50 year span of the UUA’s existence, but it seems that shame and guilt are anathema to U*Us, even when they are human emotions that U*Us should rightly be feeling as a result of their harmful and shameful behavior. . .
The UUA owes a long overdue institutional apology to victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct and, in light of the UUA’s failure to properly honor and uphold Kay Montgomery’s pledge to “bend towards justice” for victims of U*U clergy sexual misconduct, it should issue a new apology to U*U clergy sexual misconduct victims that its failure to keep its promise. Above and beyond this, the UUA and MFC owe individualized apologies to every single person who has filed a legitimate clergy misconduct complaint against a U*U minister only to see it negligently mishandled by the UUA and/or MFC. Institutional blanket apologies are not enough to amend for the sins of commission and sins of omission that the UUA and MFC are clearly and unequivocally guilty off committing.
As Kay Montgomery said –
“There is only us.”
And that includes you and every other U*U minister Amy. . .
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