On The Nashville Statement
Aug 31, 2017
Our evangelical/fundamentalist friends have done it again. The Nashville Statement on gender and sexuality was gifted to the world this week, crafted by a group from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
The statement is an amalgam of positions on sexuality that will surprise no one familiar with American Evangelicals/Fundamentalists.
A couple of things are striking about the document. First, the timing of the document is curious. At a time when evangelicals are, or should be, smarting from the startling statements of some of their leaders and the odd silence of others of their leaders about racism, Nazism, and white supremacy, it seems a bit odd to release this statement now. Imagine Jesus finding money changers in the temple and speaking up then and there to explicate what he really meant by his writing in the sand at the feet of the woman caught in adultery. If explanations are necessary, there is a time and a place.
Which brings us to a second issue: place. Like the Danvers Statement issued years ago by the CBMW, these men and women (but mainly men) decided their statement should be named after the city where they gathered to compose it, this time in Nashville, Tennessee. These Christians see themselves as heirs of the Great Tradition of Christianity with its custom of using place names for dogmatic statements—like Nicaea and Constantinople and Augsburg and Barmen, all noble attempts to state Christian truth in trying times.
But that was then and, well, that was then. For the sake of neighbor love, not to mention just plain good taste, it would be nice for Christians to stop assuming that our statements deserve a name already claimed by hundreds of thousands of our neighbors, just because some of us came into town for a few days to hash out our thoughts. Nashville did not make this statement. A few evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who like visiting Nashville did. And many in Nashville, including its mayor, don’t like the association. Call it petty if you like, but is this really the sort of thing you want people to stumble over?
Add to time and place the actual content of the document, and our suspicion is that the release of this statement will do little or nothing to lead people to experience the love of Christ. It will likely, rather, impede the work of Christ as the world stumbles, not over Jesus whose words give life, but over some of his followers who lob dogmatic statements into the world like grenades in a culture war.
It’s all too reminiscent of the man so many of them admire, Donald J. Trump, who volleys offensive statements in succession so as to double down on his efforts to divide and conquer the political landscape. Let’s just say that in this case (as Trump is wont to do), these Christians shot themselves in their collective foot. And then put that foot in their collective mouth.
One can hope this statement blows over without much ado, like most sectarian creeds do. In the meantime, our neighbors are taking notice, and they are not recognizing by our love that we are the disciples of Jesus.
The statement is an amalgam of positions on sexuality that will surprise no one familiar with American Evangelicals/Fundamentalists.
A couple of things are striking about the document. First, the timing of the document is curious. At a time when evangelicals are, or should be, smarting from the startling statements of some of their leaders and the odd silence of others of their leaders about racism, Nazism, and white supremacy, it seems a bit odd to release this statement now. Imagine Jesus finding money changers in the temple and speaking up then and there to explicate what he really meant by his writing in the sand at the feet of the woman caught in adultery. If explanations are necessary, there is a time and a place.
Which brings us to a second issue: place. Like the Danvers Statement issued years ago by the CBMW, these men and women (but mainly men) decided their statement should be named after the city where they gathered to compose it, this time in Nashville, Tennessee. These Christians see themselves as heirs of the Great Tradition of Christianity with its custom of using place names for dogmatic statements—like Nicaea and Constantinople and Augsburg and Barmen, all noble attempts to state Christian truth in trying times.
But that was then and, well, that was then. For the sake of neighbor love, not to mention just plain good taste, it would be nice for Christians to stop assuming that our statements deserve a name already claimed by hundreds of thousands of our neighbors, just because some of us came into town for a few days to hash out our thoughts. Nashville did not make this statement. A few evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who like visiting Nashville did. And many in Nashville, including its mayor, don’t like the association. Call it petty if you like, but is this really the sort of thing you want people to stumble over?
Add to time and place the actual content of the document, and our suspicion is that the release of this statement will do little or nothing to lead people to experience the love of Christ. It will likely, rather, impede the work of Christ as the world stumbles, not over Jesus whose words give life, but over some of his followers who lob dogmatic statements into the world like grenades in a culture war.
It’s all too reminiscent of the man so many of them admire, Donald J. Trump, who volleys offensive statements in succession so as to double down on his efforts to divide and conquer the political landscape. Let’s just say that in this case (as Trump is wont to do), these Christians shot themselves in their collective foot. And then put that foot in their collective mouth.
One can hope this statement blows over without much ado, like most sectarian creeds do. In the meantime, our neighbors are taking notice, and they are not recognizing by our love that we are the disciples of Jesus.
