{"id":28248,"date":"2015-06-10T11:36:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T15:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=28248"},"modified":"2015-06-10T11:36:54","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T15:36:54","slug":"tony-campolo-offers-an-official-statement-on-his-stance-on-the-issue-of-homosexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/06\/10\/tony-campolo-offers-an-official-statement-on-his-stance-on-the-issue-of-homosexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Campolo offers an Official Statement on his stance on the issue of homosexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Popular author and evangelist Tony Campolo (finally) released a formal statement yesterday<\/a> \u201curging the church to be more welcoming\u201d of LGBT Christians and their relationships.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t surprising. He is, after all, married to Peggy Campolo, who has long been a formidable, indomitable voice within white evangelical Christianity for the full inclusion and equality of LGBT Christians in the church. Most American evangelicals have avoided losing this argument with Peggy Campolo by avoiding it and ignoring her, but that wasn\u2019t an option for Tony.<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/a>
Tony Campolo (photo via Eastern.edu)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Plus, he\u2019s 80 years old and semi-retired. That means he\u2019s no longer in a hostage situation when it comes to the thousands of children aided by his former ministry, EAPE. Perhaps it seems unseemly to suggest that was a factor in Tony Campolo\u2019s prior ambiguity on the subject of LGBT people, but the stakes were real, and high, for those kids. And the implicit (sometimes explicit) threats were real, too \u2014 as the recent experience with World Vision demonstrates. That Christian development agency lost 10,000 child sponsors due to its brief, abortive wobble from the Official Required Stance, so it might be understandable if this had been a factor in Campolo\u2019s prior reluctance to speak as forthrightly as he now has.<\/p>\n

Campolo\u2019s change of heart and change of mind is important. It might have been far more important had it come sooner, of course. Agreeing with his spouse back in 2005 would\u2019ve been genuinely prophetic and bold. Agreeing with her back in 1995 might\u2019ve been a seismic game-changer. But in 2015 it\u2019s not quite as impressive.<\/p>\n

Still, as Sarah Pulliam Bailey points out<\/a>, Tony is a prominent figure, and it\u2019s still rare to see white evangelical leaders from his generation getting on board with a growing share\u00a0of their younger counterparts: \u201cCampolo joins a handful of Baby Boomer evangelical leaders who have shifted into supporting same-sex marriage. Just 21 percent of evangelicals who are above the age of 50 favor gays and lesbians marrying legally, compared to 37 percent of evangelicals between 18 and 49.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

(Before diminishing Campolo\u2019s statement as too-late on board the bandwagon, consider even that 37 percent figure for younger evangelicals. That\u2019s roughly the same share of white evangelicals who are willing to admit to pollsters \u2014 in secret \u2014 that they favor legal abortion.)<\/p>\n

The substance of Tony\u2019s announcement is also a bit more tepid and apologetic than it ought to be. He takes an oddly misdirected pastoral tone that seems to focus more on his pastoral concern for anti-gay evangelicals than for the LGBT Christians they\u2019ve been excluding, dehumanizing and declaring unclean. That gives it a cautious, defensive air that seems more concerned with not<\/em> afflicting the comfortable than\u00a0with comforting the afflicted. He urges his fellow evangelicals not to exclude LGBT Christians, but at the same time he pleads with them not to exclude him<\/em> for saying so.<\/p>\n

Kimberly Knight<\/a>, Brandan Robertson<\/a> and Eliel Cruz<\/a> all express appreciation for Campolo\u2019s statement as well as optimism about the potential impact he may have as a prominent and popular leader. But they all also express some thoughtful, solid critique, and those are all worth your time to click over and read:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Kimberly Knight, \u201cRegarding Evangelical Tony Campolo\u2019s \u2018acceptance\u2019 of gay, Christian couples\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Brandan Robertson, \u201cTony Campolo Calls for Full Inclusion of Gay & Lesbian Christians\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Eliel Cruz, \u201cTony Campolo announces support for inclusion of \u2018gay Christian couples'\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Let me just quote a bit from Kimberly Knight\u2019s response:<\/p>\n

I am holding in delicate tension my genuine gratitude for folks who do and are changing their hearts and minds every day, exasperation (and a little suspicion) with late starts, and faithful clarity that anything less than full inclusion in church and society is a denial of the sacred worth and very humanity of LGBT people. Of me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Her frustration recalls what Dr. King called \u201cthe fierce urgency of now\u201d \u2014 an urgency and ferocity that Campolo\u2019s Official Statement fails to convey.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a function, in part, of genre. This is an Official Statement announcing his change of \u201cstance\u201d on an \u201cissue.\u201d Such Official Statements are a kind of ritual genre in the white evangelical tribe, and that genre both limits what can be said and shapes how it can be said. They cannot be about justice or injustice directly, but only about one\u2019s \u201cstance\u201d toward them. And they aren\u2019t constructed to accommodate or acknowledge actual people, only the \u201cissues\u201d that affect them.<\/p>\n

This displaces the conversation \u2014 removing it several steps from the fierce urgency of now and pushing it off toward some more abstract and ethereal discussion of the relative validity of various possible \u201cstances\u201d and their status within the tribe.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that such formal, rigidly constructed and conscribed Official Statements cannot still do some good. As Knight says, \u201cEach and every voice in the evangelical world that speaks of out loud about loving gay people is good. Those words might fall upon the ears of just one other pastor who will for maybe the first time consider thinking differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they can give occasion, and give courage, to others who may also choose to speak up and speak out. Tony\u2019s statement has already done so \u2014 inspiring former long-time Christianity Today<\/em> editor David Neff to offer an Official Statement of his own, praising and agreeing with Campolo and writing that \u201cI think the ethically responsible thing for gay and lesbian Christians to do is to form lasting, covenanted partnerships. I also believe that the church should help them in those partnerships in the same way the church should fortify traditional marriages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff is, like Tony, retired<\/em>. CT\u2019s<\/em> current editor, Mark Galli, is not. Galli thus responds to Neff\u2019s Official Statement with an Official Statement of his own<\/a>.*<\/p>\n

Galli\u2019s Christianity Today<\/em> editorial, posted yesterday, could be summarized by the opening\u00a0lines of an essay also posted yesterday by an evangelical scholar at a leading evangelical seminary:<\/p>\n

Certain kinds of people simply cannot be part of the people of God.<\/p>\n

Making such a judgment is not based on bigotry. It is simply based on the story of God in which the people of God are defined in particular ways. These definitions demand that some are out while others are in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those definitions are definite, Christianity Today<\/em> says. They are given to us by the inerrant, authoritative, unchanging Word of God. And to question those definitions is to question the authority of the Bible itself.<\/p>\n

All true, says that evangelical professor. But we need to see what else he says as well.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll get to that next.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Is Mark Galli piously \u201csaddened\u201d by Neff and Campolo? Of course.<\/em> Does this \u201csadness\u201d seem like a fatuous, hollow, sanctimonious regurgitation of everything the tribal gatekeepers require in an Official Statement Reaffirming the Official Required Stance? Of course.<\/em> Does he employ this pious sadness to mischaracterize the statements and arguments of those who sadden him in a blatant exercise of sheer dishonesty? Of course<\/em>:<\/p>\n

We at CT<\/em> are sorry when fellow evangelicals modify their views to accord with the current secular thinking on this matter. And we\u2019ll continue to be sorry, because over the next many years, there will be other evangelicals who similarly reverse themselves on sexual ethics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But let\u2019s not judge. The performance of such\u00a0fatuous, forced piety is, again, partly a function of genre. And unemployment really, really does suck.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tony Campolo offers an Official Statement on his stance on the issue of homosexuality","description":"This is an Official Statement announcing his change of \"stance\" on an \"issue.\" Such Official Statements are a kind of ritual genre in the white evangelical tribe, and that genre both limits what can be said and shapes how it can be said. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}