Ted Grimsrud—August 28, 2017

The first two posts in this series on “The Mennonite Failure to Find Common Ground on LGBTQ Inclusion” tell the story of my thirty-year journey as an advocate for welcome and offer reflections on some of what I have learned from that journey. I told there how I was stimulated to write about these subjects again by an assertion by Mennonite pastor Harold Miller in a blog post discussion on the Mennonite World Review site that I had failed to “engage with the strongest biblical arguments” (“My Denomination Swings Left,” [July 19, 2017]). Challenged by that assertion, I initially set out to demonstrate that I did want to (continue to) engage such arguments. I figured I would do that with an extended engagement with Harold’s own articulation of those arguments.

As it turned out, I ended up writing something quite a bit different. However, as a two-part appendix to those first two articles, I want to go ahead an offer my response to Harold’s version of the biblical arguments. What follows may seem dry and overly detailed to many people, so I offer a “reader beware.” Unless you are particularly interested in close-grained debates about the meaning of a few verses in the New Testament, what follows might not really be worth your time. That warning given, I do think there is quite a bit at stake in this part of the discussion. A lot hinges on the restrictive reading of these particular verses, since these are two of the main biblical bases for their views. The soundness of “the strongest biblical arguments” would seem closely connected, then, to the soundness of the restrictive perspective in general.

In this first post, I will respond to Harold’s essay, “Romans 1:18-32 – Interpretations I Have Met” from his Interacting with Jesus blog (July 8, 2016), and in the second post, I will respond to a somewhat shorter post on the same blog, “1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – A Strong Interpretation” (July 12, 2016). My main interest with my two additional posts is to illustrate the kinds of arguments I have been using in exploring the meaning of the biblical passages. I have and do understand myself to be responding to “the best biblical arguments” that support the restrictive approach—and here I will do so in some detail with regard to those arguments as presented by Harold. I am open to further discussion concerning the interpretation of these texts, of course. But that is not my main intent here. It’s merely to show the kind of thing I have been doing the past 30 years as I have sought to have a conversation around the Bible with other Mennonites about issues many of us disagree about. My website, Peace Theology, contains many other examples. Continue reading “The Mennonite Failure to Find Common Ground on LGBTQ Inclusion: Appendix on Romans 1:26-27” →

Ted Grimsrud—August 22, 2017

[This is the second of a four-part series of posts. The first part sketched a thirty-year history of my involvement in trying to be part of Bible-centered conversations about LGBTQ inclusion with other Mennonites. I discussed how surprisingly (to me, at least) difficult it has been to find conversation partners—especially with those on the restrictive side who would actually interact with my interpretive arguments. In this post I will suggest some possible explanations for that difficulty.]

A long time conversation partner

There has been one Mennonite on the restrictive side who has been willing to respond to my thoughts many times over the years, Mennonite pastor Harold Miller (I recently uncovered an interchange we had from as far back as 1997). While I appreciate Harold’s perseverance and general congeniality, I also doubt that these interchanges have actually been cases of the Mennonite practice of examining the Bible together.

One reason I think this is that Harold himself has continually stated in public forums that progressives avoid engagement on the key texts. Quite recently he repeated that assertion in a conversation about his blog post on the Mennonite World Review site, “My denomination continues to swing left” (July 19, 2017). He wrote: “We worry that those making inclusivist arguments are mainly echoing our culture. We who are conservatives don’t see them carefully grappling with the strongest biblical arguments that support the church’s historic stance against same-sex relations.” When he was challenged in the comments about this characterization of those making “inclusivist arguments,” he doubled down:

“I have witnessed great love of Scripture among inclusivist pastors and much “scriptural engagement.” I have eagerly read their biblical arguments for full LGBTQ inclusion in the church, genuinely open to beginning to sympathize with those holding our culture’s rather than our church’s stance…. But as I read them, I don’t see them interacting with the strongest biblical arguments that support the church’s historic stance.”

I found these comments troubling. I would be an inclusivist (or “progressive”) who has indeed published dozens of pages “interacting with the strongest biblical arguments” used by restrictivists—including a co-authored, 317-page book published by the Mennonite Church’s own publisher that featured such interaction. Not to mention a large number of blog posts that have done likewise, many on which Harold himself commented.

So I wrote in a comment that I found Harold’s assertion that we on the inclusive side avoided “the strongest biblical arguments” disrespectful. And he still wouldn’t back down: “I wish I didn’t feel the need to see you engage those arguments, that I could just quickly say ‘The differences are because of honest disagreements, not a willful failure to engage the argument.’ But I’m not there yet.” In other words, Harold seems to say, I do believe that you are willfully failing to engage the “strongest biblical arguments.” Continue reading “The Mennonite failure to find common ground on LGBTQ inclusion: Part II—Learning from the journey” →