Before I moved to Spokane, the last time I pretty much knew that somebody thought I was going to hell for not being Christian was in middle school. My upper-middle-class Detroit suburb, my higher education at ultra-liberal Oberlin College, and my decade spent living in wonderfully debaucherous Seattle — home of Hempfest and a pornographic film festival — did not prepare me for Spokane. When I came to live here, I sensed that for the first time in my life, I was venturing outside my liberal bubble. Eastern Washington was something closer to the vast stretch of corn-fed, Bible Belt-y terrain that keeps the East Coast and West Coast apart like a hockey ref breaking up a fight. Reader, I was not wrong.
Welcome to a world where a Messianic Jewish congregation has more advertising dollars than a Reform Jewish one. Where a megachurch has the best sound system in town. Where the local Moody Radio affiliate uses the phrase “so-called homosexual marriage” so often that I’m amazed I haven’t torn the radio out of my car. Where “Real Men Love Jesus” bumper stickers are affixed to cars with no discernible irony. Welcome, in other words, to ‘merica.
I know that’s a lot of bluster. It’s probably just me venting after going a dozen rounds on the latest conservative article to enter my newsfeed. (Being a Spokanite tends to mean having some conservative Facebook friends, which is definitely not a bad thing.) David French’s lengthily titled new commentary, “Sorry to Disappoint the Social-Justice Warriors, but the Faithful Won’t Yield on Religious Liberty,” certainly comes out punching. French sets up some “conventional wisdom” in his first paragraph, then wastes no time knocking it down at the start of his second. Looking back at Roe v. Wade, French writes: “The PCUSA, UCC, Episcopal Church, and others steadily liberalized — bending to the prevailing intellectual winds.”
The idea that these branches of Christianity could actually have discerned their way to a progressive stance on a complex issue doesn’t merit consideration, apparently. America’s sinful secular culture must have had its claws in them. Why else would they turn away from the Bible’s teachings and court apostasy?
French also makes reference to Nashville’s GracePointe Church, whose pastor recently, and very visibly, announced that he supports same-sex marriage. Again, French’s cynicism knows no bounds. He supposes that other Evangelical churches will follow GracePointe’s lead, “losing members, buildings, and property.” And why will they suffer such losses? For “the love and respect of MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Huffington Post,” of course.
Now look at what GracePointe’s pastor, Stan Mitchell, told his congregation after announcing his stance regarding same-sex marriage:
“[I]f this stretches you to the point of having to compromise your soul, and you do need to separate, I would be a hypocrite to say I do not understand that, because conversely, my soul has been stretched to the point that if I do not say what I say today, I cannot be here any longer.”
We all can bear, spiritually, only what we can bear. This pastor could no longer bear to pretend that some of God’s children are less entitled to human rights than others. Mitchell invokes Selma when he talks about the LGBT rights movement, and he’s certainly not the first to do so.
That French dismisses a pastor’s sincerely felt crisis of conscience as a ploy to win favor with the liberal media, or at least avoid demonization by the Left, tells me a lot about French. What it doesn’t communicate is why full inclusion of LGBT people, “with the same expectations of faithfulness, sobriety, holiness, wholeness, fidelity, godliness, skill, and willingness,” is somehow out of step with what Jesus would do.
