Nate Silver is one of the people I trust when it comes to statistics. He has announced recently that it is fair to say a majority of Americans support marriage equality. Story here.
“But, Jim,” you may ask, ” are you not on the leadership council of the Gay Lesbian and Affirming Disciples (GLAD) Alliance and of Chalice Christian Church (an O&A congregation, really since its inception)?” “And, by the way, don’t both these organizations have exciting new webpages?” you might add as a shameless plug.
Yes, to both I would respond. The reason this information makes me sad is that it makes me feel the Church Universal lost a crucial opportunity to be a leader for Justice in the way that Jesus was a leader for Justice. In one of the two civil rights struggles of our age, it is only fair to say that the church for the most part sat on the sidelines. Frankly, GLAD’s work will be to help Disciple churches catch up with the more Christ-like position that secular society has already staked out.
Of course, this was true back when the trend lines were moving this direction. And 50% in support of justice is 50% shy of the target and whatnot. I just wish the church could have been more a part of this as it was the 1960’s civil rights movement.
So, let’s do the clean up work of purging archaic anti-Christian views of people based on orientation. And let’s get in front of immigrant rights and maybe the environment.
2 replies on “This Makes Me Sad”
I understand your mixed feeling in this. I can be happy in the growing movement, but there is a solid, unmoved percentage that borders on hateful and for that I agree,things should be better in the churches.
Bill
Actually the blog you referenced is very exciting to me. Not so long ago I feared we would not see this kind of progress in my lifetime. In these matters the glaring reality is that "church universal" is an oxymoron. Opinions about same-sex marriage are diverse within the church, as they are outside the church (even factoring in the exodus of political liberals from church, which may make the ratio of support for glbt rights higher outside the church). The gap between public opinion and legislation will continue as long as conservative voices dominate progressive voices. The wheel that squeaks louder gets the legislation. AND I agree whole-heartedly that followers of Jesus, especially, should be so grounded in a passion for justice that all the issues you named would be non-issues. In fact, if we removed legislation as a player, I can imagine people just not finding the issue important enough to fight over. Politicians need to have us disagree over how to get along – otherwise they would lose their leverage.