c. 1999 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Four churches that have welcomed gays and lesbians are no longer welcome in the American Baptist Churches USA, but a fifth has been allowed to remain in the mainline Protestant denomination.

In a two-day meeting in Des Moines that began Sunday (June 20), the denomination’s General Board voted on appeals of four churches from California and one from Ohio that had been dismissed from regional bodies because of their policies on gays. Despite the regional decisions, the churches wished to remain as members of the 1.5-million-member national denomination.

With votes indicating a sharp division among board members on how best to handle the controversial issue, the denomination’s highest decision-making body made a final determination that four San Francisco Bay-area congregations are no longer American Baptist.

The First Baptist Church of Berkeley lost its appeal by the closest vote _ 77 opposed and 76 in favor. Three other churches _ Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, New Community of Faith Church in San Jose, and San Leandro Community Church in San Leandro _ lost their appeals by slightly wider margins.

First Baptist Church of Granville, Ohio, was the only congregation to succeed in its appeal, with 79 voting in favor of allowing it to remain part of the denomination, 73 opposed and one abstaining.”I’m stunned,”said the Rev. Brenda Moulton, national coordinator of the Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists, of the decisions.”The majority opinion has now determined who can be an American Baptist church and that’s what I’m stunned about because, to me, that’s not what it is to be Baptist.” All five of the churches are members of the welcoming association, which includes 37 of the denomination’s 5,800 churches. A majority of the congregations affiliated with the association support the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of clergy who are homosexuals.

In 1992 and 1993, respectively, the General Board adopted resolutions affirming that”the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching”while acknowledging”there exists a variety of understandings throughout our denomination on issues of human sexuality such as homosexuality.” Those resolutions have not been binding on local churches or regional bodies, but do affect the work of the national staff.

The Rev. Daniel Weiss, the denomination’s general secretary, reacted to the votes with sadness.”There’s nothing to celebrate here _ no matter how you voted,”Weiss told the board in an address reported by the church’s news service.”I have a deeper concern and a sadder heart than I have ever felt before.” Weiss emphasized that”people have been hurt on both sides”and urged that church members pray and work on reconciliation.

A member of Lake Shore Avenue Baptist Church expressed shock at the vote to oust his Oakland, Calif., congregation.”Our church had felt like moderation would prevail at the denominational level,”said Daniel Pryfogle, who serves on an American Baptist older adult ministries working group.”We never, ever thought this would happen at the national level. … I think it’s a terrible day for American Baptists.” Disagreements over human sexuality, and homosexuality in particular, have long disrupted this denomination, along with many others.

The churches dismissed from the denomination had been expelled from the American Baptist Churches of the West in 1996. The Ohio church, the first to be expelled by a regional body, lost its affiliation the previous year.

But verdicts on their membership status on a national level were delayed by a moratorium on such decisions during a two-year study by a Commission on Denominational Unity that focused on areas of disagreement, including homosexuality.

In 1998, the General Board adopted amended recommendations of the commission upholding the affirmation that homosexuality is”incompatible”with Christian teaching as”reflective of the prevailing understanding of American Baptists”and urged continuing dialogue.

Richard Schramm, the denomination’s deputy general secretary for communications, could not explain why the Ohio church was retained and the others were not, other than to say”the general board assessed the appeals differently.” The Rev. Dave Ball, who wrote the appeal for the Granville, Ohio, church, said the process by which his church was ousted from Ohio Baptist groups involved one vote where there were 17 more ballots cast than voters registered.”We certainly argued that the process in our case … had some severe deficiencies, including most notably, the voting irregularity,”said Ball, a member of the church and a chaplain at Denison University in Granville.

Critics charged the tone of the General Board’s decision-making process changed after the Ohio church’s appeal was granted, with discussion shifting from church polity to the denomination’s stance on homosexuality.

But Schramm said questions of polity, autonomy and Scripture arose as each of the separate appeals were considered.”All throughout these, they were talking (about) a wide spectrum of issues _ from interpretation of Scripture to autonomy of the local church to American Baptist polity,”he said.”I didn’t notice any particular bias in that way.” Moulton, who believes the long Baptist tradition of affirming autonomy and tolerance has been broken by the board’s actions, said her group will continue to support the California churches. With the exception of New Community of Faith, which was dually aligned with the United Church of Christ, the congregations have no other denominational affiliation.

For some Baptists, Moulton predicted, the decisions will prompt questions about identity.”This is an unraveling of that tie that holds us together,”said Moulton, a lesbian pastor of an Exeter, R.I., church.”So the question now is, `Well, who are we if we’re not people who tolerate a minority opinion on matters of theology?'”DEA END BANKS