A Look at Bethel’s Stance on Sex­u­al­ity

MISHAWAKA, IN—In the past, we have had speak­ers in chapel dis­cuss the topic of sex­u­al­ity and the LGBTQ com­mu­nity and what is bib­li­cal and ac­cept­able, but what is Bethel’s stance on sex­u­al­ity? Many stu­dents have asked this ques­tion, es­pe­cially af­ter a chapel mes­sage like this past Mon­day. The an­swer can be found in the stu­dent hand­book un­der sex­u­al­ity and re­la­tion­ships. 

“Sex­u­al­ity and Re­la­tion­ships”  

Bethel Uni­ver­sity rec­og­nizes that God de­signed sex­u­al­ity as a unique ex­pres­sion of love and unity be­tween a man and a woman who have com­mit­ted them­selves to a life­long mar­riage. This is the con­text in which child­bear­ing is to take place. There­fore the Bible ex­plic­itly for­bids both sex­ual be­hav­ior out­side of mar­riage for het­ero­sex­u­als, and all ho­mo­sex­ual be­hav­ior. Ad­di­tion­ally, the uni­ver­sity un­der­stands gen­der to be a mat­ter of chro­mo­so­mal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pri­mary, overt sex­ual anatomy at birth, ex­cept in the rare cases in which both chro­mo­so­mal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and phys­i­cal anatomy are both in­de­ter­minable. All stu­dents should ab­stain from sex­ual co­hab­i­ta­tion, any in­volve­ment in pre­mar­i­tal or ex­tra­mar­i­tal sex­ual ac­tiv­ity, and ho­mo­sex­ual ac­tiv­ity (in­clud­ing same-sex dat­ing be­hav­iors). 

We be­lieve this is a Bib­li­cal in­struc­tion, il­lu­mi­nated by the Holy Spirit and val­i­dated by the larger Body of Christ. While some Chris­tians or Chris­t­ian in­sti­tu­tions may dis­agree, Bethel holds to this doc­tri­nal po­si­tion as or­tho­dox and faith­ful to both the Bible and his­toric Chris­tian­ity. More­over, the col­lege shares this con­vic­tion with our de­nom­i­na­tion, the Mis­sion­ary Church. 

Nei­ther same-sex at­trac­tion nor gen­der dys­pho­ria is sin. Peo­ple who ex­pe­ri­ence these feel­ings are to be loved and val­ued. All peo­ple de­serve dig­nity and re­spect, and we con­demn any mal­ice di­rected to­ward those who ex­pe­ri­ence same-sex at­trac­tion or gen­der dys­pho­ria. We en­cour­age all mem­bers of our com­mu­nity to en­gage oth­ers with ci­vil­ity and re­spect re­gard­less of their con­vic­tions. 

Oc­ca­sion­ally, mem­bers of our com­mu­nity nav­i­gate same-sex at­trac­tion or gen­der dys­pho­ria, but when their feel­ings lead to im­proper be­hav­iors, it can dis­rupt our de­sire to main­tain a com­mu­nity that is com­mit­ted to a Bib­li­cal sex­ual iden­tity and per­sonal ho­li­ness. For this rea­son, the uni­ver­sity will not per­mit cross-dress­ing or other ex­pres­sions or ac­tions that are de­lib­er­ately dis­cor­dant with birth gen­der and will re­spond to such mat­ters within the ap­pro­pri­ate spir­i­tual and ac­count­abil­ity processes of the uni­ver­sity. 

More specif­i­cally, stu­dents whose be­hav­iors vi­o­late our com­mu­nity stan­dards re­gard­ing sex­ual ex­pres­sion will meet with a mem­ber of the Stu­dent Life Staff and will be treated in a lov­ing, re­demp­tive man­ner through­out the process. The uni­ver­sity may dis­miss a stu­dent who, af­ter coun­sel, con­tin­ues to show dis­re­spect for poli­cies re­lated to sex­u­al­ity by pro­mot­ing, ad­vo­cat­ing, or be­hav­ing in a man­ner con­trary to this com­mu­nity com­mit­ment. 

Bethel ac­knowl­edges the need to ex­am­ine each sit­u­a­tion on an in­di­vid­ual ba­sis, in­ter­pret­ing this pol­icy ac­cord­ing to the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics of a per­son or con­text. Ul­ti­mately, we be­lieve a com­mu­nity ded­i­cated to hon­or­ing God can act lov­ingly, gra­ciously, and re­demp­tively on such mat­ters.” 

The stu­dent hand­book can be found on the Bethel Uni­ver­sity web­site, or by click­ing this link. https://​my.bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu/​ICS/​Stu­dent/​Stu­den­t_Hand­book/​Col­lege_Poli­cies.jnz  

These are some stu­dent re­sponses to the ques­tion “Are you aware of Bethel’s stance on sex­u­al­ity and do you agree with it?” 

Austin Stump, Fresh­man, Busi­ness Man­age­ment Ma­jor. “I am aware of Bethel’s stance on sex­u­al­ity and I do sup­port it be­cause at a Chris­t­ian col­lege, our stance on sex­u­al­ity should rep­re­sent Christ’s view of mar­riage and re­la­tion­ships.” 

Anony­mous. “I dis­agree with Bethel’s view of sex­u­al­ity be­cause I don’t think it’s con­sti­tu­tional to re­strict ac­tions that are le­gal, whether they’re sup­ported by Bethel or not.” 

Anony­mous. “I am aware of Bethel’s stance on sex­u­al­ity, and I be­lieve it is ap­pro­pri­ate given the body of Chris­tian­ity should be un­der­stand­ing, but not nec­es­sar­ily con­don­ing acts it dis­agrees with.” 

As stated in chapel, there is a sup­port group here on cam­pus, specif­i­cally de­signed for those who do strug­gle with sex­ual iden­tity. the group is there to en­cour­age each other in their daily lives and in their walks with God. Bethel bases their view of sex­u­al­ity and other top­ics of im­por­tance on what the Bible states. They also be­lieve in lov­ing and em­brac­ing those who do strug­gle with their sex­ual iden­tity just as Chris­tians are called to love every­one. A good ex­am­ple of this com­mand is 1 Pe­ter 4:8, “Most im­por­tant of all, con­tinue to show deep love for each other, for love cov­ers over a mul­ti­tude of sins.”