First Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina, has decided to follow the policy of not discriminating people based on their sexual orientation and identity.
A statement released by the church says that they have approved gay participation "in all facets of life and ministry" of the church, including membership, baptism, ordination, marriage, teaching and committee/organizational leadership.
"If a person comes into the Church as the follower of Christ on their journey, they are welcome to experience and express that journey in any way that any other person is able to express and live out the rituals of their faith," Senior Pastor Jim Dant at the First Baptist Church told the Greenville News.
The historic church was established in 1831 and was formerly associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, where the church's Pastor William Bullein Johnson served as the first president of the Convention in 1845. Furman University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary were also started by this Church.
"This Church's journey is like any other churches' journey. You think you are going to make a decision about homosexuality, or how to deal with the LGBT community, or how to live with the LGBT community, and it really ended up not being a decision about homosexuality, but about a larger decision of what it means to be a Church," said Dant.
Since last November, the Church held four "discernment" meetings every consecutive Sunday, where over 200 members sat in the circles of 8-10 to share their personal experiences, and their interpretation of the Scriptures.
After the discussions, the members reached a consensus that the issue was not about homosexuality, but about Church.
"We are a diverse people, we sit on pews every Sunday morning with people who have diverse opinions, and we are not united by our agreement on any one issue. We are united by our desire to be followers of Christ," Dant said.
Tim Moore of Sardis Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC, wrote on the Alliance of Baptist blog that churches' inflexible attitude towards homosexuals will keep away the youth who may come to view this stance as discriminatory.
"In the years to come it will be more difficult to attract young adults - not an easy task already - if they do not begin to welcome gay and lesbian Christians," Moore said. "Young adults have little tolerance for bigoted or judgmental churches, which is what they will label unwilling churches, rightly or wrongly. If there is a generational split, between older members who are "not ready" and younger members and seekers who are demanding it, the pinch will be harder."
Franklin Graham, president of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said that the new move is giving a nod to sin.
He wrote on his Facebook page: "This is disappointing and discouraging. According to God's Word, what they are embracing is sin."
He quoted a Bible verse from Isaiah 5:20, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness."
However, Dant said in an interview to The News that the decision did not reflect any moral stance on homosexuality as right or wrong, but only that the diverse opinions cannot be quashed by human decree.
Explaining how the church reached an agreement on the issue, he said, "We ended up with a consensus statement that essentially says, to put it simply, we are diverse people and hold a lot of diverse views on Scripture, but we also want to be a non-discriminatory people as it is really not up to us who the Spirit of God calls on."
