c. 1999 Religion News Service

(David P. Gushee is director of the Center for Christian Leadership and associate professor of Christian Studies at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.)

UNDATED _ A most remarkable encounter occurred recently on the campus of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va.

The Oct. 23 meeting was sponsored by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Thomas Road pastor and founder of the now-defunct Moral Majority, and the Rev. Mel White, his former friend and ghostwriter who”came out of the closet”several years ago and is now a high-profile homosexual activist.

Both Falwell and White invited 200 people. Falwell’s group consisted primarily of people associated with his church and university. White’s”side”was drawn from Soulforce, an interfaith group committed to the nonviolent advancement of homosexual causes. The 400 met together for 90 minutes at”integrated”tables of seven to nine people. Some of the homosexual participants stayed over for Falwell’s Sunday morning worship service the next day.

At a press conference following the roundtable discussions, White, Falwell and others were optimistic about the meeting’s accomplishments and the prospect of reducing hatred and violence directed against both evangelical Christians and homosexuals.

Falwell’s comments were particularly striking. The man once known for his strident attacks on homosexuals and other”enemies”of conservative evangelical Christianity promised to”weigh every word carefully”and to”reach out lovingly”to homosexuals from now on. He expressed a strong desire to”build a bridge”to the homosexual community in the name of Jesus Christ.

Both Falwell and White spoke of apologizing to one another for past sins and of the measure of reconciliation that they personally achieved during the meeting.

Falwell and White agreed to disagree on the critical question of whether homosexual conduct is sinful according to the Bible. Falwell’s rapprochement with White, and the meeting itself, do not signal any weakening of his conviction that biblical faith rules out homosexual conduct. Likewise, White will continue to argue that homosexual behavior is not necessarily counter to God’s will.

The issue is how to learn to deal with this convictional difference without sliding into hatred and even violence, as has increasingly been the case in recent years.

Recognizing that the fund-raising materials of activist groups all too often contain exaggerations and efforts to prey on people’s fears, White and Falwell acknowledged that rhetoric from both groups had at times been unnecessarily strident. Falwell agreed to order some changes in one of his ministry’s statements after White pointed out its inaccuracies. White, in turn, promised that from now on he would first send his fund-raising letters to Falwell.

Every so often news is so good that I simply want to leap for joy. This is one of those times.

An encounter like this is Kingdom of God stuff. When truth is spoken in love; when people encounter each other as human beings and not as stereotyped caricatures; when apologizing and forgiving happens; when demonization ends and humanization begins; when hate gives way to Christian love, that is a Kingdom of God kind of moment.

We have enjoyed all too few of them across the barricades of the culture wars in recent years.

It is not coincidental, but nonetheless horribly sad, that outside of the church where the meeting took place were 40 protesters, from both sides of the fence. Most were hard-line Christians who were angry that Falwell had even met with White and his group. But a homosexual activist group also protested, going after White for meeting with Falwell.

When extremists on both sides are angry at you, you’re probably doing something right. When Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed their peace accord, those on both sides who preferred a continued state of war were outraged. When Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights movement, he was met with outrage both by white racists and black separatists.

Now Jerry Falwell and Mel White are enduring the rage of their own extremists.

Press on, gentlemen. Thank you for your courage.

IR END GUSHEE