The church often trails behind. Under pressure from conservatives, Baylor University recently returned a $640,000 grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation for a project titled “Courage from the Margins” designed to study how the church can be more welcoming to LGBTQIA+ individuals.  A matter of days later, Dr. Jon Singletary stepped down as Dean of Baylor’s Garland School of Social Work. The timing of these events suggests that conservative pressure may have also influenced Dr. Singletary’s decision. I find these developments troubling in three respects, in particular.

First, from the perspective of higher education, they both constitute an affront to academic freedom and they also call into question the wisdom of Baylor’s leadership. We are no longer in the medieval period, when church and academy were so intertwined that the results of scientific inquiry required the church’s imprimatur. There is no freedom of inquiry if the outcome has been predetermined. In purely practical terms, surely, Baylor’s administration could and should have anticipated the conservative reaction to their initial decision to accept the grant. As it is, they have brought trouble upon themselves, including the appearance of insincerity.

Second, from the perspective of faithfulness to the way of Jesus, ironically, by repudiating the project that set out to study how the church can be more welcoming – more hospitable – and by apparently pressuring Dr. Singletary, Baylor’s leadership acted contrary to the Gospel’s call to love one’s neighbor. The whole affair reminds me that institutional structures seem unable or unsuited to being Christian. Almost invariably, they seek to sustain themselves at the expense of individuals. They inevitably find it expedient to sacrifice individuals to preserve the corporate entity.

Finally, the opposition to “Courage from the Margins” rests on an inadequate and dangerous hermeneutic that selectively absolutizes scriptural texts (Lev 18:22 and 20:13, but not Lev 11:1-8 or 19:33-34), that fails to comprehend the dynamic movement toward inclusion evident within Scripture (cf. Deut 23:1 with Isa 56:3-5 and Acts 8:26-40), and that misapprehends or willfully ignores the testimony of modern science (all truth points to God). This is perhaps the most troubling aspect of Baylor’s actions. The Bible can be very dangerous and destructive when its interpreters misuse and misconstrue it, stumbling over the letter and thereby missing the spirit of liberation that breathes through it.

Too often in the history of the human struggle for justice, the church has trailed behind. In 1688, Quakers issued the “Germantown Petition” calling for the end of slavery only 69 years after the first enslaved people were brought to the colonies, but the rest of the church…. As Rev. Lauren Ng of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists has reminded us, “The Gospel calls us to radical love and justice.”