Pastors Opposing Lecture of Lesbian Bishop at Christian College Are Practicing 'Idolatry of the Bible,' School President Claims
Forrest Harris, president of American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee, shot back at a group of pastors protesting the institution's decision to invite a married lesbian bishop to lecture students next week, charging that they're using "idolatry of the Bible" to discriminate against gays.
"It's sad that people use religion and idolatry of the Bible to demoralize same-gender-loving people," said Harris, in an interview with The Tennessean about the decision to allow lesbian Bishop Yvette Flunder of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ, who's married to her same-sex partner Shirley Miller, to speak at the college.
Flunder is scheduled to speak at the college's 58th Garnett-Nabrit Lecture Series on March 18. She's a staunch advocate of same-sex marriage and is shown in the video below voicing that support.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
To further explain what he means by "idolatry of the Bible," Harris said: "When people say (the Bible) is synonymous with God and the truth."
"We can't be guided and dictated by a first century worldview," he said.
Pastors protesting against Flunder's invitation to speak a the college have branded the administration's behavior as blatant heresy.
Revs. Randy Vaughn and Dwight McKissick, who are co-coordinators of The National Baptist Fellowship of Concerned Pastors, said Harris' reaction is "disheartening" and "heretical," and charged that he has "trampled on the beliefs of the school's founders."
"It is so disappointing and disheartening that at the American Baptist College, where the land was bought and paid for by Baptists who took the Bible literally, their blood, sweat and tears are being trampled on," said McKissick, who serves as senior pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas. "We believe the Bible and its teachings. We believe homosexuality — as a matter of fact all the Bible talks about as sin — is sin."
Harris argued, however, that the protesting pastors criticizing the school's decision have misinterpreted the theology of the Baptist convention.
"I think they have misappropriated the theology of the National Baptist Convention, which says that churches and individuals can hold their own theological beliefs about what they think is right and wrong," Harris asserted. "It's tragic these conservative pastors are in opposition to what education ought to be about, to expose students to critical moral thinkers and a broad education."
In an op-ed for SBC Voices, McKissick firmly contends that while the National Baptist Convention, the largest predominantly African-American Christian denomination in the United States with which the college is affiliated, does not have an official position on same-sex marriage, it has informally stood against the practice.
"The Southern Baptist Convention has gone on record many, many times, officially, by way of resolution, declaring a non-negotiable, non-compromising, emphatically clear position that marriage is between one man and one woman," McKissick said.
"President William J. Shaw and President Julius Scruggs (immediate past presidents) have gone on record declaring personal convictions in writing, that the NBC believes that marriage biblically is between a man and a woman; but there has never been an official declaration, voted on by the NBC in their annual session that specifies that the NBC believes that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman," he continued.
"I was present in Jackson, Mississippi, at the NBC Mid-Winter Board Meeting, this past January when the newly elected President (September 2014) of the NBC, Jerry Young, announced that he will appoint or already had appointed a resolutions committee to develop a resolution/position statement to be voted on by the NBC later this year, on the subject of same-sex marriage," McKissick added. "It is certainly high time that the largest organized body of Black Christians anywhere in the world take a definitive, official stand on this subject."
