Black Pastors Chastise American Baptist College For Inviting Lesbian Speaker

A same-sex marriage debate among black Baptists is playing out on a college campus in North Nashville. A group of ministers wants American Baptist College to cancel an event with a lesbian bishop scheduled for next week.

Bishop Yvette Flunder isn’t even slated to talk about gay marriage. Her topic is AIDS. But her mere presence spurred pastors to write an open letter. The National Baptist Convention, which is headquartered next to the campus, historically has rejected gay marriage.

“For a Baptist college president to invite a lesbian bishop legally married to a woman, to be a guest speaker and worship leader on a Baptist college campus is irresponsible, scandalous, non-biblical, and certainly displeasing to God,” the letter states.

The pastors accuse president Forrest Harris, who also teaches at Vanderbilt School of Divinity, of “bringing the theological liberal views of Vanderbilt” to American Baptist.

The letter requests that the school at least move the event off campus. If not, Harris should send a letter to the families of all 175 students explaining why a lesbian bishop was invited to share her ideas.

In response, Harris says he’s trying to expose students to a diversity of ideas, not necessarily affirm gay marriage. However, gay-affirming Baptists have started a petition in support of Harris.

“It’s not about support of any one lifestyle,” he says. “Same-gender loving people are not injuring and not exploiting other people’s lives. It is their right to choose who they love and how they love.”

Harris accuses fellow pastors within the denomination of using the same tactics employed by segregationists in the 1960s.

“They don’t have the right to discriminate and use religion as the scapegoat for that discrimination,” he says.

But that’s an unfair comparison, says pastor Dwight McKissic of the Cornerstone Church in Arlington, Texas. He penned the protest letter.

“When gays have been in slavery for 200 years, they can bring me that argument,” McKissic says. “When they’ve been denied the right to vote based on them being gay, they can bring me that argument.”

To McKissic, same-sex marriage does not equate to civil rights for African Americans.

“You cannot change how God defined marriage,” he says.