InterVarsity Purge

Check out News Item here first.

Having gone to a Christian college, I've never had the opportunity to participate in an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IV) but Wheaton College does host an annual theology conference, an InterVarsity Press is always there selling books.  For me, IVP is a hit-and-miss.  Every now and then, a really good book shows up.  But then, every now and then, how on God's green earth they publish some book on 1960s debates that refuse to die.  (Such as worship wars - please stop discussing this... it's really annoying.  Or predestination.  For crying out loud, the point of predestination is that you're not supposed to know who's predestined, so just keep going on being faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ and live on God's grace!  It ain't that hard.  Or don't be Reformed!)  Recent news about IV requiring its employees to personally ascribe to marriage as one between a man and a woman does not surprise me any more than Trump's lurid sexual assault remarks that were caught on tape.

There are, however, questions that have arisen.  First, is IV entitled to this?  Legally, yes.  They are a nonprofit religious organization, and as such, the government is not allowed to infringe on its right to police morality, theology, or whatever.  Many religious organizations do just that; they hire employees and discriminate via certain criteria.

The issue on hand that I wish to discuss is twofold.  First, is this move morally justifiable?  This is where it's difficult.  The morality is quite clear if employees, from the very beginning, in their contract, were required to declare that they personally ascribe to a definition of marriage only to be between a man and woman.  An employee that signs that, but personally holds to a more flexible definition of marriage, can be terminated on the basis of breaching that contract.  Nothing to see, nothing to see, so far as contractual ethics is concerned.

But, so far as I'm aware, IV employees would be required to agree to their core values and doctrinal bases.  If so, those two do not mention anything regarding marriage.  One can point to their position regarding Scripture, but the "trustworthiness" and "authority" of Scripture are two very difficult descriptors of Scripture.  First, trustworthy in what sense?  I can trust that Scripture can injure someone if I throw a physical copy at the poor victim.  My guess is that InterVarsity understands, as I do, that Scripture is trustworthy insofar as it contains the message of God's salvation in Jesus Christ.  Fine.  But the question, then, is where does sexual orientation fit into this gospel?  And, more troublingly, is marriage salvific?  Rightly, Jesus never brought it up.  Whether it's right or not is not my concern here.  The fact is, Jesus never brought it up, and for a good reason.  The gospel is not about marriage.  In fact, what makes Jesus's gospel and his discipleship quite radical is that marriage is not required for fealty to God.  That is why heterodox theories of Jesus's marriage came up - there were people who could not imagine an un-married Jesus.  Marriage made people whole in the ancient times.  Singleness is just plain weird!  So we need to be clear that if the gospel really is radical in anything, it is that marriage is not in the discussion at all!

But back to IV.  For me, the moral basis for suddenly putting a requirement regarding personal marriage theologies is legally justifiable (i.e. they have not done anything criminal), but civically and morally dubious.  I believe people who were wronged by this can bring up a civil suit against IV for changing the contract, even though that may not succeed.  But morally, this is quite unfair.  Of course, if I were GLBT, my question would be why one would work for InterVarsity in the first place.  But that tidbit aside, the argument could be made that one could be supportive of homosexuality and still sign on to the core values and doctrinal bases of IV.  That they've made a moral requirement after the contract has been awarded is a morally dubious move on IV's part.

What perhaps disturbs me more about IV was that in a way, they were creating their own magisterial tradition without the spiritual authority to do so.  This is a complicated argument, but let me give you a barebones version of it. Christian faith is ultimately rooted in the Triune God.  God the Pater Noster who created the world, saved humanity through the Son, and sustains and continually works in the world through the Holy Spirit.  But the grace of God towards God's creation is not done through any random part of the world.  The Church is the means through which God primarily displays God's grace and mercy.  Church, here, does not mean the building.  The church is the people of God, elect from every nation and were grafted into the household of God.  It is from the church that the gospel is proclaimed - one cannot proclaim the gospel outside the church.

IV is a para-church organization.  And as such, it operates under the aegis of the church.  But Evangelicals do not have an Evangelical Church in the sense that the Roman Catholic Church does. The Roman Catholic Church has their Newman Institutes (the Catholic IV, if you will), and it's clear that GLBT employees are not tolerated.  But they are so because the Roman Catholic Church as a magisterial tradition, a teaching authority, that supersedes any authority local churches or para-church organizations have.  They take their identity, not from their own ministry in their local universities, but from the Church in Rome.  Evangelicals do not have a Rome.  They don't even have a central authority that defines an Evangelical magisterial tradition.  Part of the problem is that Evangelicals until rather recently (and then again, only largely in Anglican or academic circles) have not appreciated magisterial teaching authorities.

So for IV to impose its own magisterial tradition is quite strange, as if it's trying to be a church but yet not really a church.  If it is a para-church organization, as it claims to be, then it needs to root their change in policies in the policies that come from the churches that it partners with.  That is to say, Evangelical churches who sponsor IV must be issuing the policy.  Why?  Because outside the church, there is no salvation (Cyprian of Carthage).  IV's participation in discipleship and the proclamation of salvation does not come from itself, but from its partnership with churches.  And so it must operate, if it wishes to be faithful to the gospel, under the aegis of a church.

In my view, theologically and morally speaking, the case for IV's change in policy is questionable.  I will say that it also is grossly unfair to employees because it exercises some form of magisterial, pope-like power over hapless employees who could remain faithful to the core values of IV while differing on marriage definitions.  Hence, I do consider this a very unfortunate turn of events for an Evangelical organization that has a history of inspiring many young people to discipleship.  This ability to inspire young people to radical discipleship is something more progressive churches can learn from.

One final note.  A post is going around virally about "apologizing for the church" in light of IV's policy.  If IV's policy change is theologically and morally shifty at best, the notion of an individual "apologizing for the church" is even more so.  The church does not belong to any individual.  If I had a child, and my child has hurt someone, I have the moral obligation to apologize on behalf of my child, for I am responsible for him/her.  To apologize for the church is to presume ownership of the church.  This is heresy at worst, or at best, it is the infantilizing of Jesus Christ.  The church is owned by Jesus Christ alone.  In the Protestant tradition, of which I am part, Jesus has no Vicar, no Spokesman on earth (the Roman Catholics, lucky for them, have the pope).  Hence, we cannot apologize on behalf of the church.  We can only apologize for our own actions.  I understand that people may wish to apologize on the basis of witness, to publicly demonstrate that the church is not full of homophobes.  But if so, why not just state it outright that the church is not in agreement regarding the inclusion of GLBT people in the church?  Why wrest ownership of the church from Christ and break the 2nd commandment in the process?  Just state it outright that IV does not represent the church!