It seems to me that the primary issue dividing the church at this time centers around sexuality. Most people that I know feel strongly about marriage equality and the LGBTQ issues facing the church – one way or the other. My heart led the way for my decisions on these questions several years ago, but I have continued to read and study to learn more and more from the opinions of respected theologians, medical scholars, and many others. Some time ago I found that my heart and my mind fully agreed.

Today I want to introduce the readers of this blog to two significant books by highly respected theologians. The first, by Jack Rogers is Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). The second, by Mark Achtemeier is The Bible’s Yes to Same-Sex Marriage: An Evangelical’s Change of Heart (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014).

In this post I will let the two writers speak for themselves. First from Mark Achtemeier:

This book is the story of a change of heart. In the middle 1990s, I was a conservative church activist working hard to defend the “traditional” teaching of my own Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that was condemning homosexual practice. In the fall of 1996, I published an article supporting traditionalist efforts to keep openly gay and lesbian people from serving in positions of ordained church leadership. Those efforts proved successful, and the result was a constitutional ban on gay ordination in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), beginning in the summer of 1997.

The passage of fourteen years found me working to repeal the ban on gay ordination I had once helped put in place. My own efforts came to fruition, along with the work of a great many others, when on July 10, 2011, the PC(USA) officially repealed the constitutional language that had prevented faithful gay and lesbian Presbyterians from serving as ministers, elders, and deacons of the church. On October 8 of that year I was privileged to preach the sermon for the ordination of Scott Anderson, the first openly gay Presbyterian to be granted ministerial credentials under the new rules.

And now from Jack Rogers:

I have had a change of mind and heart. I had never really studied the issue of the status in the church of people who are homosexual. I opposed homosexuality reflexively – it was just what I though Christians were supposed to do. However, studying this issue in depth for the first time brought me to a new understanding of the biblical texts and of God’s will for our church. The process was both very serious and painful. I wasn’t swayed by the culture or pressured by academic colleagues. I changed my mind initially by going back to the Bible and taking seriously its central message for our lives.

Since then, my new conviction has been reinforced from many sources. I have studied how the church changed its mind on other moral issues. I worked through how the church, guided by the Holy Spirit in understanding the Scriptures, reversed our prohibitions against ordination to leadership for African Americans, women, and divorced and remarried people. I saw a clear picture of a shift from a literalistic method of biblical interpretation to one that looks at Scripture through the lens of the redeeming life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

The writings of these two theologians have aided my biblical study so that my mind supports what my heart felt first. While I was studying the medical literature on substance abuse recovery I was also studying the ways that the medical community was learning that homosexuality was not a matter of personal choice. Before that I knew what I knew by working with a number of LGBTQ people in the areas of church music and musical theatre. Many of these people had become dear friends – people that I trusted in every way – people I would trust with my life. My heart was convinced that many of my friends in the arts were far stronger people than many of the heterosexual people I knew and had worked with in the church. My heart knew where I needed to stand – now my mind has found agreement with my heart – and now – my life is dedicated to working for full human equality.

In the next post I will try to explain how my heritage with the Native American peoples had already taught me to love all of creation – not just the two-legged humans.