The Day I Advocated for LGBTQ at Vineyard — A Peek Behind the Evangelical Closed Door

Ten years ago marks the first and last time a Vineyard USA pastor publicly advocated for gay, lesbian, and transgender inclusion at a national event. This is a behind-the-scenes account of my presentation at the Society of Vineyard Scholars (SVS) on April 19, 2013. Why tell a story I’ve never told before? Isn’t it time for “bygones.” Fair enough, except…

It’s been roughly a decade since many evangelical organizations (like Vineyard, World Vision, InterVarsity, Wheaton College) doubled-down on their anti-LGBTQ policies; an implacable resistance to change remains in force. But in systems like Vineyard, this “don’t-even-think-about-it” opposition is only visible behind closed doors.

And yet, today, a new and larger wave of evangelical pastors and church members are distressed by the harmful policies their churches must enforce to retain good standing. When I ask them, “And you’re staying because…?” they invariably reply, “I hope to be part of the change.”

My heart sinks.

It’s only natural to believe the best about the groups we’ve invested so much in. But sometimes when we ache for a change, we (understandably) latch on to false-positive signals, rather than face the brutal facts — especially when they are not readily available for inspection.

THE HARDBALL IS PLAYED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

It’s not difficult to divine that the Roman Catholic Church won’t change its official teaching on gender and sexuality, despite encouraging gestures from Pope Francis. The same goes for the Southern Baptist Convention. But the wider-tent, aspiring-to-cultural-relevance groups like Vineyard or the Evangelical Covenant Church are more difficult to exegete. The factors that rule out any reasonable hope for change are only evident away from public view where the hardball happens.

I gave my Society of Vineyard Scholars talk to a packed house on a golden Southern California afternoon at what was then the Anaheim Vineyard. I didn’t realize it at the time, but a warning-shot letter to every Vineyard pastor must have been in the works — judging by its arrival from headquarters only days later. Within twenty months, I was no longer a…