By Brittany N. Howerton
Standing before a room of about 20 pastors and ministry leaders from Tuskegee Lee Baptist Association on Jan. 13, Bob Stith introduced a topic he said most Southern Baptists don’t want to deal with — homosexuality.
“Churches would rather avoid this issue and deal with it as I used to — harsh and condemning,” said Stith, Southern Baptist Convention national strategist for gender issues.
And avoid it they have as the Tuskegee Lee Association meeting was the first associational meeting in the nation that the Alabama native has been invited to since acquiring the newly formed position in 2006.
In an effort to change that mind-set, Director of Missions Bill King invited Stith to speak so pastors and churches could learn just how to minister to homosexuals and their families.
In sharing his story, Stith confessed he had been “one of those guys” who was contemptuous toward homosexuality. But when God broke his heart on the matter 15 years ago, he knew he had to make a change.
“I realized a lot of what I had done was a reaction to what I had seen of gay activism in the media and entertainment. … I didn’t know there were thousands of men and women and families whose hearts were breaking for a struggle they didn’t ask for and one they didn’t understand,” Stith said. “My attitude was — it’s a choice. It’s just a choice. What I learned was sin is always a choice … but you don’t always get to choose what temptation you get. You don’t always choose the dragon, but sometimes the dragon chooses you.”
But “thousands” was an understatement, Stith said, as he found that various studies show 1.4 percent to 4 percent of the U.S. population — or about 9 million people — deals with homosexuality.
Factor in parents, siblings and a few friends and other relatives and that number increases to 90 million to 100 million people who, in some way, are affected by homosexuality, Stith said.
“And that’s a conservative estimate. What are we doing as Christians to meet the needs these people have?” he asked.
In the book “UnChristian,” authors David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons pointed out that 91 percent of “unchurched” Americans think the Church is anti-homosexual.
“Not that we believe it’s sin but that [the Church] is anti-homosexual,” Stith said. “And 80 percent of churched young adults felt the same way.”
He said the 80 percent of churched young Americans also feel the Church is not equipping them to “minister effectively” to their homosexual co-workers.
“The homosexual community knows we think it’s a sin, but do they know we care?” Stith asked, adding that his goal is to get churches to be proactive and not reactive.
King said he hopes pastors will take Stith’s message, along with those who are “sometimes ignored by the church,” to heart.
“I think his being here will hopefully cause the pastors to be more sensitive to the needs of families in the church that are dealing with homosexual problems,” King added. “Sometimes we just kind of brush that under the carpet and hope that it will go away.”
Ross Kilpatrick, pastor of First Baptist Church, Reeltown, in Notasulga, agreed with Stith that every person has temptations he or she deals with.
“The bottom line is we are all right there — a sinner saved by grace, all of us,” Kilpatrick said, referencing 1 Corinthians 6:9–11. “Apart from seeking Christ and His power being made perfect in our weakness and overcoming sin, there is not one of us not vulnerable to sin.”
Even as he continues to receive hate mail from gay activists and pastors alike, Stith’s challenge to Southern Baptist churches across the nation will not change.
Echoing evangelist and author Josh McDowell, Stith said, “If your church is healthy, you’ll have drug addicts, sex addicts, unwed mothers and those kinds of things. And [McDowell] said you will have them because if your church is what it ought to be, God will send them there to be healed. So my question is if you don’t have that problem, then why not?”
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Church Resource List
Books:
- “101 Frequently Asked Questions About Homosexuality” by Mike Haley
- “When Homosexuality Hits Home” by Joe Dallas
- “God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door” by Alan Chambers
- “Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth” by Jeffrey Satinover
- “An Ounce of Prevention” by Don Schmierer
- “Bringing Up Boys” by James Dobson
- “The Bible and Homosexual Practice”by Robert Gagnon
- “The Gay Gospel?: How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible” by Joe Dallas
Web sites:
- www.homosexuality101.com
- www.narth.com
- www.livehope.org
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