A good choice, but a sad occasion for having to make it:
The Catholic Diocese of Tulsa has resigned from membership in the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice because of the organization’s involvement in last Saturday’s Tulsa Pride parade, according to a letter from the Rev. Msgr. Patrick Gaalaas to OCCJ President and Chief Executive Officer Jayme Cox and Board of Directors Chairman Russ Florence.
…
“The executive committee’s decision to join officially in Saturday’s ‘Tulsa Pride’ parade, inviting board members to celebrate the event by marching behind the OCCJ banner, was, we are fairly certain, not made without careful thought,” Gaalaas wrote. “To march in such a parade seems to us to be a deliberate and full-throttled expression of support for the so-called gay agenda, a central component of which is same-sex marriage. Unless a clear statement can be made by OCCJ that its participation does not imply support for same-sex marriage or be seen to condone sexual acts outside of marriage, we have no option but to withdraw from membership.”
(source: Tulsa Catholic diocese drops out of OCCJ over Pride parade participation)
It is important to realize that these decisions are being made for reasons. If we do not want to anticipate the moment, or overreact, neither do we want to wait until “it’s too late now” or “how can you object to this, when you didn’t object to that” become the arguments that envervate, emasculate, and sterilize our participation in reality–as they have so many times in the past, and in recent years. It is never less than about “witness,” though it is almost always more than that.
Protestant friends have been seeing the same thing happen. A not-particularly-orthodox figure in American evangelicalism, predictably in line with “progressive” groupthink, suddenly announces as a change what his organization had quietly supported for years. Christianity Today, the flagship publication of the Billy Graham segment of American evangelicalism, had the gumption to respond appropriately:
The unity and depth of Christian teaching on marriage may not be news. Neither are the hundreds of thousands of planes that land safely each day. It’s not novel. It’s not surprising or counterintuitive. But it is reality—and a reality that is not going away anytime soon. Any time at all, for that matter, because it is grounded in the deepest realities.
We at CT are sorry when fellow evangelicals modify their views to accord with the current secular thinking on this matter. And we’ll continue to be sorry, because over the next many years, there will be other evangelicals who similarly reverse themselves on sexual ethics.
We’ll be sad, but we won’t panic or despair. Neither will we feel compelled to condemn the converts and distance ourselves from them. But to be sure, they will be enlisting in a cause that we believe is ultimately destructive to society, to the church, and to relations between men and women.
So yes, another couple of prominent evangelicals have come out in support of gay sexual ethics. It’s disappointing, but no reason to react defensively or angrily. We plan to treat with charity and respect those with whom we disagree, while we continue to call for a sexual ethic that, by God’s design, is one of the key ways to foster human flourishing.
(source: Breaking News: 2 Billion Christians Believe in Traditional Marriage)
And I agree that there is no reason to “feel compelled to condemn,” and indeed that even the “distance” we may not be able to avoid is a “distance” created when others push off against us or insist on our approval, coerced if necessary, for what we cannot possibly call good without being condemned in what we approve. But I do also understand why conservative Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler felt the need to point out the uncomfortable possibilities latent in such nuance:
Those statements, drawn from the editorial, are clear, convictional, and timely. Galli put Christianity Today on the record as opposed to same-sex marriage and to the affirmation of same-sex relationships in the church.
…
I have to admit that I do not understand how those two sentences can be combined. If the view of the “converts” to same-sex marriage and the acceptance of homosexual partnerships is “ultimately destructive to society, to the church, and to relations between men and women,” how can that distance be avoided?The reality is that it cannot. This is a moment of decision, and every evangelical believer, congregation, denomination, and institution will have to answer. There will be no place to hide.
(source: Which Way, Evangelicals? There is Nowhere to Hide)
The time of decision is, indeed, upon us. Has been, in fact, for longer than most people think.
You cannot serve two masters.