Tony asks an uncomfortable question about the consequences for Christian public leaders who come out in favor of gay marriage and all that implies. They risk, esp. in the Evangelical world, losing speaking and publishing opportunities, and even jobs. Many have private thoughts but waffle or keep silent in public. Tony asks if this lacks integrity. I admit that I kept relatively quite in this blog about my views during the years I was at Yale as a result of concerns my boss had about delicate donor relations. Making my views too public might cost us, literally. So I agreed. While I think such self-silencing does lack integrity, as a Lutheran believer who understands the reality of our lives as sinner-saints, I think everything I do lacks integrity in the sense that I can't resolve the sinful motivations within me for whatever I do. What integrity I do have comes, to put it in pious but theologically accurate terms, from 'Christ who lives in me'. So I consider my views on sexuality, too, not something to be held on to but out of love and concern for those who suffer the indignity of rejection and condemnation, I need to be conformed to Christ, breaking open what I have learned in my study and reflection, giving it to those who need that food for thought. Now at Luther Seminary, I feel more free to speak, and also more responsibility to do so as a theologian of the church teaching at one of its seminaries at a time when the discussion is so central in church and nation. Too many good people don't take up the work of articulating our reasons for supporting gay marriage, and then it seems as if we don't have them. We do have them, and we need to say it for the sake of those who might otherwise have reason to despair.
Anon, and peace,
Chris
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