Sex on the Mind--Evangelicals in America

No, it's not enough to follow Jesus of Nazareth. It is not enough to have a burning passion for the poor. It's not enough to strive toward some semblance of social justice. We have to have sex on the mind.

Let me illustrate.

According to the Baptist News Press, five churches in North Carolina are at odds with the Baptist State Convention over the issue of homosexuality. Last fall, the Convention voted by nearly a three-fourths margin to "change the convention's articles of incorporation regarding membership."

On what issue, you might guess, are the Convention's articles to be changed and made more exclusionary? Sex!

The original BSCNC membership article stated, “A cooperating church shall be one that financially supports any program, institution, or agency of the Convention, and which is in friendly cooperation with the Convention and sympathetic with its purposes and work.”

The addition to the article states, “Among churches not in friendly cooperation with the Convention are churches which knowingly act to affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual behavior. The Board of Directors shall apply this provision. A church has a right to appeal any adverse action taken by the Board of Directors.”

The deacons at St. Johns, one of the five offending churches, noted that

as a “community of the new creation,” we are “open to all and closed to none. This includes a welcome to gay and lesbian persons who wish to follow Christ with us here.”

“We have not changed our mission,” St. John’s said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the [Baptist State Convention] has changed its mission and has chosen to narrow its membership to exclude churches and institutions that do not adhere to its exclusive and discriminatory view of who is welcome in its fellowship.”

Both the NC State Convention and St. John's church have sex on the mind. But more than being simply on the mind, the State Convention and the church govern themselves around the issue of sex--sex is a topic that justifies exclusion and inclusion into this or that community. How we think about and act toward sex helps define who "we" are.

A similar article appeared in the NY Times this morning. James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins and other conservative Christian leaders wrote a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals. Their aim was to put pressure on Rev. RichardCizik, the DC policy director.

Why, you might ask?

“We have observed,” the letter says, “that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time.”

Those issues, the signers say, are a need to campaign against abortion and same-sex marriage and to promote “the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.”

The NC Baptist Convention, St. Johns and the various evangelical leaders that signed the letter seem to have sex on the mind and a burning passion for the politics of sexuality and purity.

With sex on the mind, where does that leave the poor? Or the environment? Are they secondary? Tertiary? Are their care not an issue of morality?

Make some mental space for issues other than sex.