I Don't Think Upholding Pluralism First Requires Winning the Culture Wars

I encountered a headline recently that Bethany Christian Services will update their protocols and policies to no longer allow LGBTQ+ couples to foster or adopt. This is a reversal of a policy and protocol change they implemented back in 2021.

A couple of quick observations and some nuanced thoughts I think are worth highlighting.

1) Even after their policy change in 2021 Bethany was never a truly affirming organization:

Bethany no longer includes in its position statement a line about upholding God’s design for marriage as between one man and one woman, but it doesn’t come out and affirm same-sex marriage either.

Reporting from the NYTimes back in 2021 dedicated the top half of their coverage to discussing religious exemptions pressures, particularly in Blue/progressive municipalities as a part of the calculus for a more open stance on LGBTQ+ fostering and adoption BUT I was always intrigued by the second half of their coverage that dug deeper into some of the Protestant organizational and cultural fault-lines the decision revealed. Bethany gave a decent amount of autonomy to its local boards/governance structures and their 2021 policy change was meant to lean into the diverse perspectives on this issue you would naturally find for an organization of their breadth and depth.

2) The loose affiliations of Evangelical churches rooted partly in doctrine, and partly in organizational networks or cooperative affiliations combined with the additional lack of a true magisterium makes evangelical organizations uniquely exposed to the shifting front lines of culture warring.

It’s worth noting that there are individuals, congregations, and whole denominations that consider themselves BOTH affirming of LGBTQ+ identities (with a whole spectrum of positions on how to define that term) AND Christian. Of course, particularly in evangelical circles, the immediate next question after declaring one’s position on sexuality in conjunction with Christian bona fides is to then start a whole line of debate about who truly gets to define themselves as Christian. Also, the evangelical movement’s braided relationship to fundamentalism means that the borders and boundaries of evangelical social/civic engagement has a proclivity to define itself by who must necessarily be excluded from collaboration rather than by defining itself by the breadth of its ecumenism (whether within Christian traditions, other faiths, or those with no faith at all).

3) Culture warring makes organizations choose short-sighted decision making over long term goal achievement.

I’ve written about this elsewhere. What may look like prudent decisions to protect the integrity of an organization in the face of an immediate crisis or area of internal strife might actually be paving a pathway to long term decline. Whether it’s a shooting or a culture war, all warfare involves a large dose of fluctuating vision-scapes and unpredictability. The institutional capacity and relationships one severs today may include vital connections or social capital that could become invaluable tomorrow.¹

4) This whole affair adds to a pile of evidence that, in the words of Skye Jethani,² “culture warring Christianity” could just as easily be labeled “Crotch Christianity.”

Its worth noting the substance of Bethany’s governance changes:

In a press release posted Wednesday, the Michigan-based agency announced that its board voted to “clarify and reinforce” its Christian faith commitments. Those changes require staff and board members to “personally agree and adhere to” a belief statement that includes the Apostles’ Creed, recognizes the authority of the Christian Bible, and affirms the image of God in every person. The belief statement also defines God’s design for marriage as “a covenant between one man and one woman.”

One can affirm the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds, or biblical authority (though possibly not inerrancy) and take radically divergent positions on human sexuality, gender roles, church ecclesiastical structure and so-forth. In the U.S. right now the hot topics the defining boundaries of what counts you as inside or outside the circle of the “Evangelical” movement are your stances on sex and gender. That’s a shame, because 1) It wasn’t always like that and 2) I think evangelical churches and organizations have an important role to play in shoring up the wobbly legs of our multicultural/multiethnic pluralistic democracy. I’ve don’t think the answer for how best to do that is to take a “everyone gets their own corner of the sandbox and you aren’t welcome in my corner” approach to civic engagement. We’ve got to figure out how to live together and find excuses to build stuff TOGETHER.