Gay rights group vis­its Bethel

A group that claims it’s com­mit­ted to the non­vi­o­lent de­fense of sex­ual and gen­der mi­nori­ties vis­ited Bethel on April 16. Soul­force be­lieves re­li­gion is the main rea­son for mis­in­for­ma­tion about les­bian, gay, bi­sex­ual, trans­gen­der, queer and ques­tion­ing peo­ple. (LGBTQ) The Equal­ity Ride is an ef­fort by Soul­force to en­gage stu­dents and fac­ulty about these is­sues on col­lege cam­puses across the coun­try. This year’s Equal­ity Ride in­cluded a stop at Bethel.

Be­fore the visit Dr. Den­nis En­g­brecht, se­nior vice-pres­i­dent of Bethel, sent a let­ter to stu­dents.

“We be­lieve that this visit al­lows Bethel Col­lege to openly share the love of Christ through a clear un­der­stand­ing of Scrip­tural ho­li­ness and sex­ual pu­rity," he stated in the let­ter. “ Fur­ther, we are con­vinced that our stu­dents need to be pre­pared to ad­dress the is­sue of ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity while liv­ing within a com­mu­nity of be­liev­ers”

A group of stu­dents and fac­ulty hosted the Equal­ity Rid­ers dur­ing their visit. The group’s time on cam­pus in­cluded a visit to chapel, a lunchtime fo­rum and at­ten­dance in se­lect classes. There was also a dis­cus­sion hosted by Dr. Chad Meis­ter and Dr. Cris­t­ian Mi­hut. The fo­rum was held in AC 433 at 1 p.m. and lasted un­til just be­fore 3 p.m. About forty stu­dents and seven Equal­ity Rid­ers at­tended.

Mi­hut be­gan the time by wel­com­ing the Equal­ity Rid­ers and pray­ing that God would “speak through the walls that di­vide us.” He pro­ceeded to es­tab­lish ba­sic rules, in­clud­ing: do not in­ter­rupt, re­frain from us­ing deroga­tory lan­guage, and in­tro­duce your­self.

Mi­hut con­tin­ued by read­ing Soul­force’s mis­sion state­ment, which says, “Guided by the spirit of truth and em­pow­ered by the prin­ci­ples of re­lent­less non­vi­o­lent re­sis­tance, Soul­force works to end the re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal op­pres­sion of les­bian, gay, bi­sex­ual, trans­gen­der, queer, and ques­tion­ing peo­ple.” He then es­tab­lished that all in at­ten­dance were “com­mit­ted to re­sist­ing op­pres­sion and vi­o­lence.” How­ever, “at the same time, many Chris­tians dis­agree with ho­mo­sex­ual prac­tice,” he added.

To launch the dis­cus­sion, Mi­hut be­gan by pos­ing a sce­nario.

“Imag­ine some­one who might be puz­zled about how Chris­t­ian dis­ci­ple­ship fits with ho­mo­sex­ual prac­tice”, he said. He went on to say that he sees an es­sen­tial di­chotomy be­tween ho­mo­sex­ual ten­dency and ho­mo­sex­ual prac­tice.

The con­ver­sa­tion among the stu­dents and the Rid­ers played out largely as a ques­tion and an­swer ses­sion. To be­gin, Mi­hut asked the Equal­ity Rid­ers, “What does your faith jour­ney look like?”

One Equal­ity Rider, Brian Ad­kins, said he grew up in a Pen­te­costal church. In fact, his fa­ther was a Pen­te­costal evan­ge­list.

“I was taught first and fore­most about a God who loves us un­con­di­tion­ally,” Ad­kins told stu­dents. “I dis­cov­ered, as I grew older, that I am also a gay man. I felt a lot of con­dem­na­tion and ha­tred from the church. When we hear, ‘love the sin­ner; hate the sin,’ we only hear the hate.”

Stu­dents fur­ther ques­tioned whether or not Ad­kins took his re­al­iza­tions to God.  

“I spent a lot of time talk­ing with God and look­ing for my iden­tity-- for who I am,” said Ad­kins. “I came out first as a gay per­son to my Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity. It made a lot of re­la­tion­ships closer. It was ac­tu­ally harder to come out as a Chris­t­ian to the LGBTQ com­mu­nity. Liv­ing as a queer per­son, as I be­lieve God cre­ated me to be, my faith has never been stronger. I took a lot of in­ter­nal­ized ha­tred to God. God’s re­sponse was to love and af­firm me.”

Mi­hut re­sponded to Ad­kins with a ques­tion. “If you were forced to choose be­tween the com­mu­nity of the church and the LGBTQ com­mu­nity, which would you choose?”

Ad­kins was the rider who first re­sponded. “I pray God would never ask me to choose,” he said.

The next ques­tion posed to the Rid­ers was, “Do you think that the ho­mo­sex­ual part of you is what it means to be the im­age bearer of God?”

“Yes, this is part of the im­age of God,” re­sponded Equal­ity Rider Isa­iah Win­ter­son. “I think to say that God can only make het­ero­sex­ual peo­ple is re­ally lim­it­ing God. I truly be­lieve with all my soul that this is who God made me to be—that I am a Les­bian woman and this is how I best em­u­late love.”

The idea of iden­tity was very preva­lent through­out the dis­cus­sion.

“How do you de­fine iden­tity?” asked Bethel sopho­more Nick Strick­land.

“Iden­tity to me is some­thing that is per­sonal,” stated Con­ner. “I am a Child of God.” Fur­ther­more, “I would view it as an un­change­able part of one­self,” com­mented Asher Kolieboi. “How you view the world means every­thing.”

Stu­dents also felt com­pelled to ex­press un­der­stand­ing to­ward the Equal­ity Rid­ers. “I was think­ing about flip­ping the coin,” stated Bethel ju­nior Dave Pepin. “I would be hard to have every­one in so­ci­ety con­demn­ing me for be­ing at­tracted to women. I want to af­firm your strug­gle.”

Ques­tions arose about whether the Rid­ers han­dle this ten­dency as they would other ten­den­cies in be­ing hu­man.

“It’s not a ten­dency for me,” re­sponded Kolieboi. “It’s who I am. It’s how I view the world. As for per­sonal strug­gles, I strug­gle with be­ing pride­ful. I feel like this is dam­ag­ing. Be­ing LGBTQ is­n’t dam­ag­ing any­one. I think about: what am I do­ing that’s hurt­ing any­body?”

At this point in the dis­cus­sion, Dr. Mi­hut again en­tered the con­ver­sa­tion. “If we place our lives un­der Christ, we have to say that even sex­u­al­ity is sub­sumed. So then, is there some­thing that keeps sex­ual prac­tices on track?”

This elicited many re­sponses. “My lifestyle is liv­ing Chris­t­ian val­ues,” said Con­ner. “I can be gay. They’re not mu­tu­ally ex­clu­sive.”

Meis­ter probed the is­sue fur­ther with an­other ques­tion. “How do you de­ter­mine what is right and wrong? How to you de­ter­mine what your Chris­t­ian val­ues are?”

While “read­ing the Bible and pray­ing a lot,” was the re­sponse Win­ter­son of­fered, other Rid­ers re­sponded dif­fer­ently.

“Who am I harm­ing?” ques­tioned Ad­kins. “What sys­tems of op­pres­sion am I fight­ing? We have to rec­og­nize that an ob­ject held in one po­si­tion is a tool and in an­other is a weapon. I am not go­ing to pre­scribe what is right for me to be right for every­one. I bring all that I am to God. I am open to God still speak­ing.”

De­spite dis­agree­ments, stu­dents strove to end the con­fer­ence on a lov­ing note.

“You guys have re­ally brought some chal­leng­ing things to us,” said se­nior Derek Moser. “I re­ally ap­pre­ci­ate that. I hope that you guys in turn, ap­pre­ci­ate our ef­forts, too. I hope you’ve had a pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ence.”