Saturday, December 5, 1998

Discord over sexuality, gender roles runs like a fault line through America's religious denominations

By Mark I. Pinsky

The Orlando Sentinel

Is American religion facing a Sexual Reformation -- one as divisive as the Protestant Reformation that split Christianity in the 16th century?

Discord over sexuality and gender roles runs like a fault line through America's religious denominations.

This controversy also highlights the differences between mainline denominations, which are losing membership, and evangelical and conservative churches, which have grown dramatically in recent decades.

Moreover, the split threatens to fracture the religious institutions themselves, especially mainline ones.

This is not surprising, said Central Florida Episcopal Bishop John Howe, because these issues "run not only through the religious denominations but through the whole of American society."

In fact this split within and among the various religious denominations is similar to the ones that characterize the country on political matters that have little or nothing to do with sex or traditional religious issues.

Homosexuality is condemned categorically by evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, who cite passages in the books of Leviticus and Romans. But in mainline denominations, positions are not so clearly drawn. The role of women in church leadership is equally contentious.

Although no one can say for certain whether these differences will split denominations, recent events suggest they might. Experts caution that walkouts depend on each denomination's theological center of gravity.

"The question is, who walks?" said Mark Silk, director of the Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. "People have always 'walked' in American religion."

Votes and actions by mainline denominations have run against blessing same-sex unions and ordaining gay clergy, but divided on the issue of women's roles.

"This will be an ongoing struggle in religion because this is an ongoing struggle in American life," said Silk, who believes that the central battle is over sexuality. "The gay issue is the real third rail out there. That's what's sending the sparks flying."

Despite the intensity of the debate, most of the splits have so far taken place along the edges of the denominations.

"Splits are possible, but my sense is there is a recovery of commitment to more traditional positions," said the Rev. Geoffrey Wainwright, chairman of the World Methodist Council's standing committee on ecumenism. "I think those positions will hold, but there will be significant tensions."

At an August meeting in England of the World Anglican Communion -- which includes the Episcopal Church -- bishops voted overwhelmingly to oppose the ordination of gay clergy; to oppose the blessing of same-sex unions; and to allow bishops to refuse to ordain women priests.

For the 2.4-million member Episcopal Church in the United States, a binding vote allowing the blessing of same-sex unions was defeated by a single vote at the denomination's national meeting in 1997 in Philadelphia.

Many traditional Episcopalians expect that when the issue is raised again the vote may go the other way., That is why several of these congregations have left the denomination, either to establish independent, conservative Anglican churches or to join the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Bishop Howe of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida supports traditionalism. As a result, the diocese has withheld money from the national denomination, and he has joined the American Anglican Council, a dissident organization that has not left the national denomination.

Other mainline denominations grappled with the issues of sexuality and gender roles this summer.

The Roman Catholic Church, which condemns homosexual practice, has in recent years actively reached out to gay and lesbian worshipers, establishing special ministries for them. This move has not been without controversy.

In early August, the Rev. John Harvey called on Catholics to join him "in a battle with the gay movement." Speaking to a Massachusetts gathering of a group called "Courage," the New York priest said the fight against homosexuality is part of "a cultural war between Christianity and radical liberalism."

Later that same month, the Judicial Council of the 8.5-million member United Methodist Church ruled that ministers who conduct same-sex marriages violate church law. A pastor who did so in Nebraska was acquitted last March by a church jury that said the denomination's policy was unclear. However, the Rev. Jimmy Creech was not reappointed to his post at the First United Methodist Church of Omaha.

The action by the Judicial Council, which serves as a "supreme court" for United Methodists, may have come too late to retain some restive congregations. The Kingsburg United Methodist Church in California, unhappy with recent trends, already has left the denomination. The California United Methodist Conference has attempted to freeze the congregation's assets.

Church consultant Lyle Schaller said following the judicial council's action that a schism in the denomination was a possible outcome of the "increasing degree of polarization" among Methodists.

"Sadly, I fear that this debate over sexuality and marriage will not go away," said Mark Tooley, director of the conservative United Methodist organization UMAction.

"As long as there's a permanent divide between the rank and file church members and the national permanent bureaucracy, you're going to have an insoluble controversy," he said.

Emphasizing that point, Creech released a letter from 363 Methodist ministers on Oct. 11, urging the denomination to end its ban on celebrating gay and lesbian marriages. The next day, Chicago Bishop Joseph Sprague filed a formal complaint against the Rev. Gregory R. Dell, pastor of Broadway United Methodist Church, for failing to uphold the council's ruling by performing a service uniting two men.

In June, the 15.7-million member Southern Baptist Convention -- which permits but does not favor women pastors -- generated controversy over a resolution saying wives should "graciously submit" to their husbands.

"The debate within Baptist life is about human sexuality more than homosexuality," said the Rev. Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville. "A bigger issue than the ordination of women is the affirmation of professional women. Will professional women be recognized and given authentic leadership in Baptist churches?"

Provoked by the Southern Baptist Convention action, First Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., one of that city's oldest and most prestigious Baptist congregations, announced this fall that it was compelled to leave the SBC. The congregation has had women deacons since 1874.

"I'm very sad we were in a position that we had to make a decision," the church's senior pastor, Rev. Daniel Day, told the Associated Press. "The mood of regret and sadness was heavy within the room."

Baptist churches in Asheville, N.C., and Austin, Texas, also announced their intention to leave.

"One of the real dangers of the vote is that it is scaring away bright, professional Christians from Baptist churches," said Parham. "They are too embarrassed to admit being Baptist in their workplace."

Denomination leaders said the departure of the Raleigh church would be no great lossand wished them well. In fact. two other North Carolina congregations were expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention in 1992 for acting "to approve or endorse homosexual behavior," the first such action in the denomination's history.

Leaders of some denominations, like Reform Judaism, find the debate over sexuality so divisive that they simply stop talking about it. Before their recent national convention, a decision was made to keep the issue off the agenda.

Earlier this year the 2.6-million-member Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., voted 2-1 to require clergy to remain chaste outside of a traditional marriage between a man and a woman. At its annual General Assembly in Charlotte, N.C., in June, church members rejected by a 412-94 margin an effort to reopen debate on the sexuality issue.

"The issue is not going to go away," said the Rev. Homer Spencer, a retired Presbyterian minister and missionary in Lakeland, Fla., who supports gay ordination.

There are those on both sides of the divide who say the debates are only superficially about sexuality and gender roles. What is really at stake, they say, is the way believers approach historic Christian tradition.

"The bigger issue that the fault line is about is the question of how one interprets and uses the Bible," said the Rev. Michael Hopkins of St. George's Episcopal Church of Glen Dale, Md., a national leader of Integrity, a organization that supports gay Episcopalians. "That to me is the bigger question that the whole sexuality issue brings to the fore."

On that point, at least, even Orlando's Bishop Howe agrees.

"I believe that the efforts by the 'gay activists' within the (Episcopal) Church are expressive of a much larger re-interpretation of the Christian faith itself," Howe said.

Another question is what drives the current debate over sexuality.

Religious traditionalists maintain that they are acting as a bulwark against aggressive, homosexual activists who are pushing an "agenda."

This agenda, they charge, seeks to make gay rights the next item on the broader civil rights agendas that has to date carved out legal protections for racial minorities and the disabled.

In the Sunbelt, where evangelicals set the tone for most moral and political debates, there has been convergence of interests between religious conservatives and the Republican Party.

With the emergence of "Christian scorecards," distributed in church parking lots before elections, this convergence has turned into a tactical alliance.

Those in mainline religious dominations charge that social conservatives are raising money and building political support by demonizing homosexuality as a sinister, "lavender menace," in much the same way as American liberals, radicals and communists were once portrayed as a "red menace" a half-century ago.

Republican congressional leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, have denounced homosexuality in recent months, and the GOP-controlled Congress has been hostile to legislating gay rights.

For their part, many members of mainline denominations with more liberal positions on sexuality have been allied with the Democratic Party.

In years past, these same churches have opposed the Reagan administration's policies in the 1980s Central America and, before that, joined Democratic opposition to the Vietnam War and backed civil rights legislation.

But, as Americans can tell from the attention given President Clinton's activities with Monica Lewinsky, sex sells.

"Armies need recruits," said University of Chicago church historian Martin Marty. "The stalemated abortion wars stimulate few new partisans. But entrepreneurs can exploit homosexuality."

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(c) 1998, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

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