Christianity Today has a long interview with the embattled president of evangelical Gordon College, who has spent several months dealing with the fallout from his signature on a letter to the White House asking for faith-based federal contractors to have faith-based leeway in their hiring decisions – namely, around sexual orientation and practice.
The surprise is that Gordon isn’t even a federal contractor, Michael Lindsay says – his signature was intended as solidarity with those who are, and who may lose contracts because they won’t hire applicants who don’t agree with their doctrines on sexuality.
Gordon has, however, lost municipal contracts in the school’s liberal New England region because of Lindsay’s stance.
While Gordon has convened a working group on “homosexual behavior” to open a dialogue with its critics, including students and alumni, Lindsay makes clear that it’s focused on being “as pastorally sensitive as possible”:
Gordon has never been a place that has a master list of dos and don’ts. The wider question being asked is, Does Gordon theologically treat same-sex sexual union as sin? The answer is yes. …
It’s my hope that we can learn from each other. The theological positions of a Christian college are not determined by popular vote or advocacy.
Lindsay says Christian colleges can teach the broader culture about “principled pluralism”:
We start with core convictions, but we’re genuinely trying to learn from folks who vehemently disagree with them. Why? I think it will help us to be truer to whom Christ has called us to be.
It will also help us to offer a more compelling, credible witness. I’m not a fan of the idea that pluralism will diminish our core distinctives. Christian colleges could very well set the example for our culture around the issues of principled pluralism. This might be the way we are able to bear witness to our faith in a very divided society.
He’s pretty irritated that Gordon, which sits on the liberal side of the Christian college spectrum, is being portrayed as hostile to gay students:
You would be hard-pressed to find a Christian institution that has more intentionally sought to take stock of how they care for gay students and has taken proactive steps to minister to them. I put Gordon’s track record up against that of any other institution in the country. …
We believe celibacy is the right approach for students who identify as gay. We try to help students struggling with same-sex attraction in one way or another. We have a confidential support group in our counseling center where students can, with support and encouragement from a trained psychologist, think about what this means for their life.
A number of our gay students would prefer not to have that orientation; they’ve told me that this was not what they wanted. It was not their choice. It was not something they walked into. But in their words, “It is who I am.” They are processing that. But sexual identity is not the sum total of our identity. That’s an important message for young people.
Lindsay still has plenty of time to salvage his reputation – he’s in his early 40s and was an accomplished sociologist at Rice University, focused on leadership and evangelicalism, before moving to the executive suite.
The question is: Can he convince other Christian college leaders and an increasingly intolerant society that “principled pluralism” is preferable to win-at-all-costs culture warfare?
Greg Piper is an assistant editor at The College Fix. (@GregPiper)
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IMAGE: Gordon College
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