This all starts from me having read this article. I have no idea who this person Vicki Beeching is (some Christian musician). I don't agree with her theological opinion about same-sex marriage either.
But the idea that Christians would stop singing her songs, and stop letting her come to their churches and events based on a theological opinion seems very wrong. I don't know how many of this woman's songs were pro-gay marriage. I'm guessing none though. If they had been, I reckon people would have noticed and stopped singing them earlier. Given it's Christian music, it's probably all about Jesus' love and hallelujah and the cross. They might even be good. I believe in miracles.
I'll clarify at this point. This isn't about this singer person doing sinful acts. It can't be, because if it was we couldn't sing anything written by humans. We couldn't listen to any sermons either. The Bible would be useless. So I'm assuming it's about her theological position on those acts. It's not that she sins, it's that she's not repentant. She has a theological position saying "this is not sin". So what's happening here is people are taking someone's considered theological position, and not just disagreeing with it, but saying, "If you hold a theological position I don't agree with, I can't sing your songs or let you into my church to lead music."
To forever intertwine someone's creations with their theology, and not to use the products of their labours because of it, is an untenable position. I'll make three long-winded points.
First of all, it states that an idea, concept, or creative piece is somehow tainted and unclean by that person's beliefs. I hope you don't drive a car that was made in Japan, or designed in Australia, because you'd be pretty lucky if the entire designing and manufacturing process was performed by Christians. Don't eat food either - unless you grow it yourself, I guess. If you have questions about your own theological opinions, you might just have to starve.
But okay, it's not about just any old product. It's about a creative product. So don't read the newspaper. Don't listen to non-Christian music. Don't watch TV.
Wait wait, let's be reasonable here. It's about creative products used in church. Okay. Don't use photographs in your sermon's Powerpoint slides unless you know that the creative mind behind them not only was Christian, but had the exact same theological beliefs as you. Don't use toilet paper with a fancy artistic print on it in the church loos. I look forward to your arguments about why artistic toilet paper in a church bathroom does not fall under the same category as Christian music sung in church.
I don't know about you, but my theological perspective on the question of gay marriage (or many other topics) does not pervade everything I do. I'm not a creative person like a song writer. But I've written plenty of essays in my time, plenty of sermons, plenty of public prayers, plenty of public speeches, and plenty of roleplaying games. Hell, I've even written bad poetry. Most of them no doubt have reflected my theological opinion. But not my entire theological opinion. The dragons in my D&D games don't ask you your sexual preference and marital status before they attack (not yet). My sermon on the need for a life of faith in God from James 5 had nothing to do with gay marriage. My written submissions on the multiple publication rule of defamation are not about gay marriage.
To treat those things as if they were unclean because of my beliefs is akin to not eating meat sacrificed to idols. The meat is fine. Paul says so. 1 Corinthians 8. You don't have to eat it, but recognise you're in the weak spiritual position if you don't. I should point out at this juncture that if you start saying to me, "You can't do that in front of me, it makes me struggle, and Paul says you can't!" then fine, I won't. What I will do instead is sit you down and teach you that you are wrong until you grow stronger in your faith and will eat this bacon. Because you shouldn't trumpet your weak faith around like it's a good thing to be weak in your faith. That's stupid.
No, I'm not saying you're in a weak position of faith if you disagree with gay marriage, or you're not gay yourself. I'm saying if you can't use toilet paper in church without first knowing that a Christian who disagrees with gay marriage designed the seahorses on it, you're in trouble. This is the logical conclusion of the argument.
Second of all, if we are going to stop letting people preach, or sing, or lead, or pray, or basically get up the front and do stuff because they have a different theological opinion to us, then we might as well pack up church and go home.
Following this logic, I guarantee if we started running a fine-tooth comb over the theological opinion of every single musician and preacher and leader and pray-er in our churches, I reckon we could make it so that none of them could talk or sing or lead or pray, because we would find something that we didn't agree with.
I've never hired a full-time church leadership staffer like a minister, but I'm guessing we probably don't pore over their past theology papers from Bible college. We don't ask for a history of their sermons and read through them all. It's not as if we're seeking to appoint the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. We're just hiring the person who is going to set the gauge of theological opinion in our church for the next X years.
For singers, unless they write a song called "I think abortion is a legitimate avenue for women in certain situations" (sounds like a country song), they're probably in the clear. Until they open their mouths on it, we're in the dark.
I can guarantee that I hold theological differences of opinion with the leaders of every single church I've preached in. I've pointed them out more than once to many of them. I've never been asked to stop my preaching ministry based on my theological opinion about women preaching, abortion, eschatology, Dungeons & Dragons, inerrancy and infallability, miracles, Bible translation, predestination, sin, assurance, social justice, or other things. However, I have been asked not to preach on those specific subjects before due to my theology. They usually just asked me to preach the next week, or in a month's time, when the verses I could 'misuse' were passed. Give me some nice, safe passage in a gospel or something.
And that's fine by me. You don't want women to preach in your church? Then we disagree. But I'm preaching on Galatians 1 not Galatians 3, so we're probably in the clear. Those church leaders - some of them were really, really conservative church leaders too, I might add - separated my theological opinion on one topic from my overall faith as a Christian, and my ability to preach, and asked me to preach on something we agreed on. Their house, their rules. That's fine. Usually I'd be good. Sometimes I'd stir.
We can't expect every preacher, singer, song-writer, or whatever to be perfect. They're not Jesus. But Jesus does live within them. And that's where an attitude of not letting them exercise their spiritual gifts in your church becomes pretty darn dangerous.
The argument might be made that this Vicki person has a different attitude to sin, and so that's not just a theological opinion, it's at the heart of the gospel (or something). You might notice 'sin' is in my list above. Ask me about my opinion of Christians breaking copyright laws some time. Then never let me preach in your church again.
Also under this second point, it should be clear that people's theology changes. Especially for those of us who actually think about theology. If I hold a position that you don't agree with, but then change my mind, does that mean that everything I've done before I agreed with you is wrong, but everything afterwards is okay? What if I change my mind, but change it back again, like John Stott and annihilationism? Does that mean everything John Stott said, did and wrote during his crazy years as an annihilationist is invalid? If he gave an evangelistic sermon on the gospel from John 3:16, didn't mention annihilation at all, did he suddenly forget the rest of the gospel and so that talk is out-of-bounds? When exactly do we measure Vicki Whatshername's songs as being unsingable? Is it from when she publicly declared she was gay? Is it when she spoke out for same sex marriage? Is it when she first felt in her heart that it's okay?
Thirdly and finally, I think we all know the real reason why people stopped singing this person's songs, why she's not allowed at Christian festivals, and why they're writing her hateful letters. It's got nothing to do with theology. There are plenty of other theological disputes and differences of opinion that we can stomach. It's because the church hates gay people. Okay, hate's a strong word. Let's use "fears" instead. That lets us use the term "homophobic".
I've never been particularly fond of the term myself, because I've always been like, "I'm not afraid of gay people. I just don't agree with their theology." I'm not afraid of people who aren't gay but think that homosexuality isn't a sin either - again, we have a theological disagreement. But apparently lots of people really are afraid of them. So afraid, that they can't even let someone with a different theological perspective about homosexuality sing a song that's not about being gay. That's not cool. It's not showing love. It's being afraid.
In fairness, it's probably not just about homosexuality. It's about sex generally. The western church sucks with dealing with sex. A minister cheats on his wife and loses his job, regardless of whether he's repentant or not. I don't know what happens if a minister's wife cheats on him - does he lose his job then too? Does she get kicked out of the church? Even if they decide not to get divorced, and to work it out? I'll bet even if the church didn't kick them out, they'd leave because it would be so damn uncomfortable. But if the minister was greedy, and kept stealing Tim Tams from the church fridge, they'd probably just get away with it. Or if they hoarded their wealth and kicked their dog when they got angry. Some sins we're okay with. Others we put our fingers into little crosses and we scream, "Get behind me Satan!"
Conclusion: I have no problem with people who believe that homosexuality is not a sin coming to church. I have no problem with the Christian ones singing songs, or with me singing the songs they wrote (apart from the problems I have with singing most Christian songs, being that they are pants). I would listen to them preach too. If I were in church leadership, I might ask them not to preach on homosexuality, because "our church holds to a different interpretation". But if they've got the gift of preaching, I'd let them preach on other stuff.
But if, as Christians, we have to separate ourselves from people who hold different theological opinions which, at their root, stem from arguments that share a lot of similarity with other opinions we do believe; if we have to quarantine everything they've ever done as if it's infectious, and never touch it again; if we have to prevent those people from utilising their gifts and being involved in big congregations of Christian people at festivals; then I think we all need to be a lot more open and honest about what we believe on a whole number of important issues.
Let me lay it all out for you here. Here's my list of things I believe that you probably don't agree with, and which should probably ban me from ever being involved in your church again. It's not complete, but it's a start:
* I think women should preach and be involved in leadership positions in church.
* I don't think breaching copyright is always wrong.
* I think women are allowed to get abortions sometimes.
* I think the state is allowed to make laws that are not in line with Christian moral principles.
* I don't particularly care about the environment.
* I take a pretty Barthian view of scriptural inerrancy.
* My views on eschatology are complicated. I'm not strictly premillenial and I'm not dispensational either, but I believe in a rapture type thing.
* I'm not a TULIP Calvinist.
* I think it's okay for Christians to play Dungeons & Dragons.
* I think it's okay to hit children to discipline them.
* I think there will be animals in heaven. I don't think individual animals will be there.
* I think swearing is okay sometimes.
* I think God is ultimately responsible for all sin and suffering.
* I think God is above logic.
* I prefer some models of church governance over others.
* I think people can stop being Christians.
* I don't think every Christian married couple should have children.
* I have some pretty interesting views regarding the age of consent and what constitutes a 'child' generally.
* I think it's okay to pray for bad things to happen to bad people.
* I think capitalism, on the whole, is wrong and Christians shouldn't support it.
* I'm kind of fond of lots of stuff about Catholicism.
* I don't like the KJV.
I could go on, but I need to hit publish eventually. My points, in summary (bet you're wishing I put these at the top):
1) Creative works are not sinfully tainted by someone's theological opinion.
2) Barring people from church involvement that has nothing to do with their theological opinion due to their theological opinion is unreasonable.
3) The church seems to be too afraid of homosexuality, and sex in general.
Oh, and just to take on one or two straw men arguments that might arise:
* I'm not saying anyone should be allowed to preach in church, and that theological opinion doesn't matter at all. I still wouldn't let a Hindu get up in church and preach every Sunday. I'm saying that Christianity is bigger than the sum of its parts, and we all have theological differences, and excluding people who call themselves Christian and who affirm statements of faith because they interpret a passage of Scripture differently (that doesn't involve saying Christ never died or he wasn't God or wasn't human or that there's no heaven or no resurrection) is a touch much.
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