Four days ago, I published my eighteenth book: The Wideness of the Sea: How to be Evangelical and Gay Affirming. I started working on this book in about 2018 when I was still a seminary professor. In the ensuing months, I ended up writing more than one hundred pages, but the book just didn’t “gel” and I realized it wasn’t the right time, so I shelved it.
Earlier this year, I had a sense that it was time to return to this book so I started a new project. By April, I had the confidence to know that this book would be completed: it was just a matter of time. Now, after about eight months of chipping away, it is done, a concise and original argument which (in my humble opinion) is elegantly and winsomely written.
In retrospect, it is probably best that I waited. If I had published this book when I was still a seminary professor, the lynch mob would probably have tarred and feathered me years ago. That is a sorry reality of contemporary North American evangelicalism: nothing raises the ire of (many) evangelicals like being gay affirming.
Indeed, I begin the book with the story of Eugene Peterson who made the mistake of affirming gay marriage in passing during an interview in 2017. Within hours, evangelicals had cast Peterson into exile. For example, Lifeway Christian Bookstores, a formidable chain run by the Southern Baptists, issued a stern promise to withdraw all Peterson’s books (including the Message Bible translation) from sales. Unsure what hit him, Peterson withdrew his endorsement the next day.
Affirming Evangelicals who see what happened to Eugene Peterson learn an important lesson: if you dare to affirm gay marriage, be prepared to face the wrath of evangelical indignation. Alas, that response is not conducive to an open and honest discussion on this important theological and ethical issue. There is no cancel culture that is fiercer and more uncompromising than conservative evangelicalism. (Consequently, there is nothing more ironic than an evangelical complaining about cancel culture.)
To be sure, many evangelicals affirm there is no “honest discussion” to be had. Rather, they have the stance of “the Bible said it. I believe it. That settles it.”
Except, that doesn’t settle it. Not by a long shot.
“The Bible said it” is actually an interpretation of what the Bible said. And that interpretation is likely deeply informed by a reading tradition in which you have placed your trust. For example, most conservative evangelicals begin with a list of texts that are given to them (the so-called “clobber passages”) which allegedly settle the question. Thus, when they appeal to the Bible, they are in fact, appealing to the authority of a traditional interpretation of how to read and apply the Bible.
Tradition is not the only factor that influences how we interpret the Bible (and identify doctrine). In The Wideness of the Sea, I bring the reader through the main elements that inform theological reflection: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.
If we are to arrive, finally, at a more nuanced and welcoming approach to the controverted question of whether to be gay affirming, it will begin by setting the fear of stigma aside along with the naive and individualistic biblicism that supposes each individual settles the question just by reading the Bible on their own. Instead, people read the Bible, informed by a reading tradition, and complemented by various arguments and experiences. Together, these four factors result in different (affirming and non-affirming) views toward gay marriage. And the sooner evangelicalism recognizes this diversity exists, the healthier it will be.
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