LGBTQ students at Baylor want to form a campus group and the Baptist university should say yes

An open letter to Baylor University President Linda A. Livingstone:

I am writing as a Baptist pastor to join the many students, faculty, staff and alumni of Baylor University in urging you to take the small yet significant step of granting LGBTQ student groups official status on campus.

The step is small, because the school would not be taking an affirming stance on a matter that continues to be contested among Christians of goodwill. It would be significant, because it would signal Baylor's commitment to welcome and serve all students equally by providing safe space for LGBTQ students to support one another as they pursue their education and discover more about themselves.

Baylor strives to take its place among America's great research universities. Free inquiry is crucial to the pursuit of truth. This requires an environment where differences of opinion are respected, claims to truth are tested and conformity is not expected.

Christian tradition must also be respected at a church-related institution, but questioning tradition is part of any genuine educational process. What's more, honoring dissent is characteristic of true Baptists. New understandings often grow out of minority views that begin at the margins and only later become widely accepted. This is true in the social sciences as well as the hard sciences.

Some will view this decision as a betrayal of Baylor's core religious values, and the short-term consequences may be daunting. Donors could withhold money. Some families may choose not to send their young people to the school. And the Texas Baptist establishment may attempt to align against you.

I know of what I speak. When the congregation I serve in Dallas, Wilshire Baptist Church, voted in November 2016 to treat all members equally, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, we lost nearly 300 members, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual giving. Our decision also put us out of "friendly cooperation" with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Painful as these consequences were, I can gladly report that other joyful consequences followed. More new members have joined our church than the number of those who left. Our financial giving rebounded quickly. And we have discovered surprising new friendships and associations with those who share an inclusive moral vision of LGBTQ sisters and brothers.

I remember the 1991 Texas Baptist Convention in Waco when one of your predecessors, Herbert H. Reynolds, led the successful effort to change the school's charter, freeing it from the threat of political takeover by those of a fundamentalist mindset. I was the first speaker at the microphone that day, supporting that courageous move to protect the integrity of Baylor's mission.

Since that time, I have been disappointed by less courageous stances that have served to mollify a particular strand of conservative supporters and perhaps prove in the eyes of some the school's continued Baptist bona fides. The Baptist community is, however, increasingly diverse. It has always been a Christian tradition of debate and difference. Many are now hungry for Baylor to become known not only for its fidelity to an orthodoxy of faith, but also for its broad hospitality in campus culture.

Dr. Livingstone, we do not know one another personally, but I know and respect the two women who are your current and former pastors and who both think highly of you. I have watched your leadership with appreciation. I am not a Baylor alumnus, but I cheer you on from my seat in the stands.

Mostly, I am a devoted ally of my LGBTQ friends, and I will speak up for them and stand with them whenever and wherever possible. They are our sisters and brothers, our children and grandchildren. They have increasingly found protection in the law and acceptance in the wider culture. They should expect a Christian institution to do more on their behalf, not less, given our foundational faith that all human beings are created in the image of God and deserve our respect for their dignity.

You have my prayers as you consider this request. While the decision to recognize LGBTQ student groups on campus will not soon beget all the changes some of us continue to work and pray for, it will hearten many of us who long for a day of true equity and full equality.

I leave you with the words of God to Joshua as he prepared to lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land: Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you.

George A. Mason is the senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Baylor’s decision on LGBTQ inclusion: Will my alma mater become invested or irrelevant?

OPINION | DAN MCGEE | APRIL 30, 2019

H. L. Mencken famously remarked that for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong. Most of the clients I have treated over the years who have identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) would take issue with the suggestion that sexual orientation is ever a choice. Some were devoutly attempting to follow Christ and to reconcile the conflict between what they felt internally and what they believed or had been taught that the Bible teaches.

As a researcher and clinician, my study of human sexuality, as well as my overwhelming volume of clinical exposure, led me to lean strongly toward the notion that there are indeed biological factors involved in the origin of sexual orientation. Yet, as a Christian and an ordained minister, two questions haunted me. First, how could I go against what for centuries have been the broadly accepted interpretations of scriptures regarding same-sex behavior? Second, how could I come to such conclusions with conviction when the moderate wing of my own denomination – those who nurtured, educated, ordained and employed me – overwhelmingly opposes my convictions?

For many years I wrestled internally with efforts to spiritualize rejection of gay and lesbian persons with “hate the sin but love the sinner” language. All the while what I was observing privately in the lives of my clients was a great deal of unnecessary pain.

When you take mental health seriously as a calling you don’t pick who will show up at your door. God continued to allow very special people to cross my office threshold from whom I learned a great deal. I diligently reviewed biblical passages, their historical settings, the languages involved and the variety of scholarly interpretations of them.

Why did I decide to “come out” as a heterosexual Christian sexologist who believes in the “whosoever will” of the Gospel? It should come as no surprise: I began to listen to the right Voice.

Two things are clear to me in God’s “whosoever” invitation: I personally have done nothing to earn God’s invitation, and it is not my place to judge who is and who is not welcome into the family of faith. For 2,000 years Christians have been divided and institutionalized based on different interpretations of selected Bible passages. Yet we all share a common faith based on the words of Jesus quoted in John 3:16 and the verse that follows it: God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them! (CEV)

Jesus left no doubt as to how his followers are to respond to those who are rejected, marginalized or who do not fit into our own expectations. He has not called us to define who is and who is not acceptable to him.

Emotional connectedness is crucial to our well-being. At the simplest level of observation, we know that the cruelest form of punishment in any society is solitary confinement.

I am one of more than 3,000 persons associated with Baylor University to sign an open letter to Baylor President Linda Livingstone that asks the university to “reconsider its exclusion of student organizations that are designed to provide a community for individuals in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning (LGBTQ) and allied community.”

If my alma mater doesn’t begin to recognize and respond in Christian love to the diversity of its students we not only have failed to measure up to the model of Jesus; we are identifying with the rigid textual literalism he faced 2,000 years ago. Furthermore, we are isolating Baylor from the very principles that a legitimate research university must uphold. The largest Baptist university in the world stands at the crossroads. It will either become more invested in the challenges of our day or it will become irrelevant.

Opening the Baylor campus and community to allow a safe space for LGBTQ students, their friends, families and seekers to assemble is both compassionate and just – just what Jesus would do.