By Editor Bob Terry
Two very different organizations are currently caught in the troughs of disagreeing with culture. One is a popular conservative parachurch organization. The other is an elite academic and research facility. But both are being squeezed because of positions related to homosexual activities that don’t fit the new American culture.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA is a large organization which sprouted from conservative theological soil in the early 1940s, although its roots go back to the University of Cambridge in England in the 1870s. It is best known for its campus ministry program with more than 1,000 chapters on nearly 700 college campuses across the United States.
InterVarsity also has a publishing arm, InterVarsity Press, which is a popular nameplate among conservative lay readers and academics alike.
The parachurch group finds itself in trouble because of a recently adopted requirement that staff members “believe and behave” in a manner consistent with the statement, “Scripture is very clear that God’s intention for sexual expression is to be between a husband and wife in marriage. Every other sexual practice is outside of God’s plan and therefore is a distortion of God’s loving design for humanity.”
Traditional understanding
“Believing and behaving” is defined as agreeing with the substance of the statement, not engaging in sexual immorality and not promoting positions inconsistent with the statement.
To be clear, there are more issues discussed in InterVarsity’s position paper “A Theological Summary of Human Sexuality,” but the statement affirming the traditional definition of Christian marriage has sent those supporting gay “marriage” into orbit.
The traditional understanding of marriage is not new for InterVarsity, according to organizational spokespersons. The organization released the new official statement because of cultural changes around sexual activity. It other words, the organization was attempting to clearly communicate its theological commitment to the traditional understanding of marriage because of cultural questions which have arisen about marriage in recent times.
Some staff members predict InterVarsity will be kicked off numerous college campuses because of its support for traditional marriage. InterVarsity counters that it hopes campuses will continue to welcome the group just as they welcome Catholic campus ministers whose church holds the same teaching.
But InterVarsity has already been banned from the 2017 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The society questions whether InterVarsity’s actions are consistent with the society’s values of diversity, inclusivity and tolerance.
So because InterVarsity acts to promote a traditional understanding of Christian marriage, it is banned from exhibiting at the nation’s largest gathering of biblical scholars. One cannot help but ask which organization is violating the values of diversity, inclusivity and tolerance.
Are individuals or organizations that uphold traditional Christian values allowed to participate in this new American culture?
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland is one of the elite schools of medicine in the nation. And even though “Johns Hopkins Medicine’s commitment to the LGBT community is strong and unambiguous” (to quote school officials), Johns Hopkins is now under attack from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) civil rights organization.
The reason? A research project done by two Johns Hopkins professors.
Earlier this year Lawrence Mayer, a scholar-in-residence there, and Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, concluded there is little scientific evidence supporting the “born that way” and other theories on sexual orientation.
Their report, titled “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological and Social Sciences,” said, “Some of the most widely held views about sexual orientation, such as the ‘born that way’ hypothesis, simply are not supported by science. The literature in this area does describe a small ensemble of biological differences between nonheterosexuals and heterosexuals, but those biological differences are not sufficient to predict sexual orientation, the ultimate test of any scientific finding.
“The strongest statement that science offers to explain sexual orientation is that some biological factors appear, to an unknown extent, to predispose some individuals to a nonheterosexual orientation,” the report continued.
HRC called the study a “misguided, misinformed attack on the LGBT communities” and threatened to punish Johns Hopkins if it did not disavow the study by its two scholars.
HRC announced it is beginning to rate hospitals and will consider whether hospitals and health care systems practice what HRC called “responsible citizenship.” In the case of Johns Hopkins Medicine, HRC threatened its numerical score will be “reduced substantially” unless the institution distances itself from the Mayer-McHugh study.
HRC has offered no scientific study to challenge the “Sexuality and Gender” study. Instead it resorted to bullying as if they were the meanest kid on the playground. HRC evidences no concern for truth, academic inquiry or academic freedom. It seems only to stomp on anyone who dares disagree with them.
Culture in America is changing. There is no question about that. The nastiness of the recent presidential campaign is just one more example of that fact.
More and more culture resembles the hedonism of pagans. Less and less culture reflects the long recognized norms of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And those who embrace the new culture will not tolerate anyone who challenges nor questions their behavior.
‘Stand firm’
It costs to disagree with culture and the cost will only go higher.
To the Christian, the Bible offers guidance and encouragement. The apostle Peter affirmed, “The Word of the Lord endures forever” (1 Pet. 1:25). The Bible, not cultural norms, must be the believer’s guide. To that, the apostle Paul added, “Be alert. Stand firm in the faith. Be valiant and strong. Let all you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:13–14).
That is great advice for the individual Christian, for Christian organizations and for churches no matter the culture in which they live.
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