c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-Four San Francisco Bay-area American Baptist churches have been expelled from their regional jurisdiction because of their outreach to homosexuals.

Delegates at a special meeting of American Baptist Churches of the West, one of 34 regional jurisdictions of the 1.5 million-member mainline Protestant American Baptist Churches in the USA, voted overwhelmingly to sever their ties with the four congregations at a meeting in Sacramento last Saturday (Jan. 6).

About 80 percent of the nearly 600 delegates representing the region’s 221 congregations in northern California and northern Nevada voted first to give themselves the authority to expel the four churches and then voted to do so.

The four congregations were expelled for”contravening the American Baptist official position that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,”said the Rev. Robert Rasmussen, American Baptist Churches of the West’s executive minister.

The four congregations are Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church of Oakland, First Baptist Church of Berkeley, San Leandro Community Church of San Leandro and New Community of Faith Church in San Jose.

All belong to the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, a group of several dozen American Baptist congregations that has reached out to gays and lesbians. Overall, there are about 5,800 American Baptist congregations.”We, unfortunately, have been caught up in the larger trend in society and religion today that’s more comfortable with clearly defined authority than open-ended relationships and questions,”said the Rev. Jim Hopkins, pastor of the 300-member Lakeshore Avenue congregation.

However, Rasmussen said the vote to expel”was not a vote against something, but a vote for the covenant of marriage as it is biblically understood. This was an affirmation, not a negation.” A national American Baptist spokesman said denominational officials were studying whether the expulsions of the congregations from the regional body would also negate their membership in the national body.

The expulsions are the latest manifestation of the intense debate within the church world over the issue of homosexuality. The issue has played itself out most prominently within mainline denominations, which often find themselves trying to reconcile a desire for inclusiveness with the conservativism of some congregants.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is a heresy trial pitting the Episcopal Church against a retired bishop in New Jersey who is alleged to have violated denomination law by knowingly ordaining a non-celibate gay man as a deacon, a step below Episcopal priesthood. The trial is scheduled for Feb. 27-29 in Wilmington, Del.

In another example, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America officially expelled two San Francisco congregations Dec. 31 for hiring gay and lesbian ministers who refused to agree to abstain from homosexual sex as the denomination requires.

United Methodists have been grappling with the case of a lesbian minister who publicly stated her sexual orientation, risking violation of the denomination’s rule against church funds being used to”promote”homosexuality.

Nor is this the first time that American Baptists have dealt with the issue. Last year, the First Baptist Church of Granville, Ohio, was expelled from its regional jurisdiction because of its outreach to homosexuals.

Despite the decisions of the regional church officials in Ohio and California, national American Baptist spokesman Richard W. Schramm said questions remain concerning the status of the expelled congregations.

Schramm said the national church, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pa., is looking into whether the congregations can remain within the denomination without the approval of their regional jurisdiction.”There is some question whether regions can take action to disfellowship unilaterally because of the covenantal agreements that exist between the regions and the national body,”he said.

Schramm also said the expulsions have upset some American Baptists who hold dear the traditional Baptist belief in congregational and individual autonomy in matters of faith.”Many Baptists are caught in the middle on this issue,”he said in an interview.”They would disagree with the acceptance of homosexuality, but would defend to the death the right of these churches to express their belief in the rightness of their path.” The Rev. Kay Wellington of the San Leandro congregation cited that position in arguing that American Baptist Churches of the West had overstepped its authority by expelling her congregation and the three others.”They have totally disregarded the Baptist emphasis on church and soul autonomy. If two people of the same sex want to have sex, it’s none of my business if they are committed to each other and follow the same standards the church has set for heterosexual couples,”she said.

But Rasmussen said Baptists have always retained the right to expell congregations and individuals who contradict church policy.”In the debate between intense individualism and what benefits the larger corporate body, the latter has always taken priority,”he said.

MJP END RIFKIN