The Supreme court is set to hear a case next June about a Colorado Baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple saying it violated his right to religious freedom. This is one of many cases of religious objections where the church has been seen as being at odds with the LGBT community. Will Burney reports that Christian churches are becoming increasingly divided when it comes to gay people in church.
Waco is a pretty religious town. In fact, it’s even been known as “Jerusalem on the Brazos.” And when you get here, you’re likely to be asked two questions: “Are you married?” and the most important question “Where do you go to church?” But for Waco’s LGBT population, it’s not a simple set of questions.
“You’re lying to people and going yeah I’m married yeah I got a ring on. You have to... pretty much have to not say you’re with a male because you want to be accepted in society.” David Bass
David Bass is a Waco native. He realized he was gay back in the 80’s. He says his biggest struggle was with his Christianity.
“Which is another reason I didn’t come out for a very long time, because I didn’t want to you know… Well you’re gay and Christian how can that be?” Bass
Kyndall Rothaus is the pastor of Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco. She says Bass’s reaction is pretty common. It very often can be.
“Sometimes in particularly religious places like Waco or maybe other towns in Texas, the whole community kind of has a don’t ask don’t tell atmosphere and you end up with a lot of religious people that don’t even know that they have so many friends who are gay or who are transgender.” Rothaus
When Rothaus became the pastor at Lake Shore, the congregation was already discussing changing their bylaws to allow all people to serve in the church. Including gay and transgender people. The discussion began on the heels of The Supreme Court Ruling on Same sex marriage in 2015.
Rothaus explained to me that Baptists believe that local churches are autonomous. They’re allowed to disagree on any number of morality issues outside of major Christian doctrines like Jesus, and baptism.
“That’s never been an issue in terms of if you’re congregation allows dancing you can no longer be in fellowship with the rest of Baptists” Rothaus
So, the next year Lakeshore changed their bylaws to include people from all walks of life. The change never mentions sexual orientation but was meant to include LGBT people.
“You know in theory we should all be able to sort of follow god in the way that fits our own conscience and still be in fellowship together” Rothaus
However, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, or the BGCT didn’t approve of the change and removed Lake Shore from Cooperation. Rothaus says the BGCT broke with the general traditions of Baptists. In fact, issues with gay affirming churches dogged the BGCT last year during the same time Lake Shore began looking into the change of its bylaws. Ahead of a BGCT convention in Waco, one church in Austin and another church in Dallas were put on notice for discussing similar changes and were ultimately removed for what the BGCT calls not being in “harmonious cooperation”.
“I’m sure the BGCT would explain it to you differently but I don’t know how else to interrupter that other than we have somehow made sexuality central to Christian Doctrine” Rothaus
Which according to Rothaus puts the issue up there with Jesus and baptism. The BGCT did not explain their doctrine to me. Instead, the Baptist organization sent a statement that said that they had a stance on this for a while, and that any relationship outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. It goes on to say that any church that chooses to “affirm any other form of marriage or expression of sexual behavior effectively chooses to withdraw itself from harmonious cooperation with the churches of the Convention."
Rothaus disagrees on what constitutes sexual sin. Rothaus and Lake Shore are not
a church without beliefs. Their doctrine on sexual sin is about violating someone else’s body not about if you marry someone of the same sex.
“You can have all the fruits of the spirit and be gay. You cannot simultaneously rape someone and have the fruits of the spirit. Those are in contradiction to one another.” Rothaus
Rothaus thinks that assault and rape are the places where the church should place their energy.
“That has impacted a lot of people and left a lot of damage and really the church has failed to not only address that appropriately we’ve also been a part of the cover up...in many places” :Rothaus
Gaychurch.org, a website where LGBT people can find open churches, has surveyed for several years the number of churches that have been added to the site. It shows an increase of over 6,500 churches in the last two decades. If the trend continues the divide will only grow larger on the issues of how churches view the role of LGBT people in their congregations.