KEEPING OUR NEIGHBORS IN LAKEWOOD SMILING FOR OVER 70 YEARS

Of the more than 250 members who left Wilshire, Patton is the only one we found willing to allow his name to be used in this story. No one else is willing to be identified, he says, because “everybody wants to be politically correct and have 8,000 friends on Facebook, and I don’t do Facebook.”

After leaving Wilshire, Patton and his wife visited a few churches and landed at Park Cities Baptist Church, along with more than 100 other former Wilshire members, according to Wilshire’s accounting. One older adult Sunday school class moved to Park Cities almost en masse, Wilshire says. (Park Cities Baptist officials did not respond to an interview request for this story.)

The people who left tended to be older, wealthier and more conservative, Wilshire officials say. Of the roughly 250 active members lost, right around 200 of them were over the age of 50, and more than 100 of them were over the age of 70.

The stark generational divide on LGBT issues is not unique to Wilshire. According to a Pew Research Center study released in late 2015, “roughly half (51 percent) of evangelical Protestants in the Millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996), say homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with a third of evangelical Baby Boomers and a fifth of evangelicals in the Silent [or Greatest] Generation.”

The study also showed, however, that “acceptance of homosexuality is rising across the broad spectrum of American Christianity, including among members of churches that strongly oppose homosexual relationships as sinful.” Attitudes and perceptions have “shifted absolutely remarkably in the last five years,” Campbell says, which he attributes to the simple reality of “gay people’s willingness to publicly say that they are gay.”

“Basically, gay and lesbian sex has been a concealed subject in the past that couldn’t be talked about or admitted to,” Campbell says. But now, “people have the opportunity to get to know them and realize these are not frightening monsters — these are people just like us who have different sexual orientation than we have. Getting to know people has always been the key.”

Yet Campbell believes polarization will trump consensus for the foreseeable future because “that’s the historical pattern.” The church’s last flashpoint issue in American history was slavery, he says. From the 1820s through the 1860s, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and other denominations “were all divided regionally and absolutely could not compromise until after the Civil War,” he says.

But even after slavery became illegal in the United States, churches had to decide whether to retain segregation in their churches or allow the new law of the land to inform their congregational polity. Some integrated, and some embraced Jim Crow. It could be argued that “the regional divisions still exist,” Campbell says.

He expects that church compromise on LGBT inclusion will have a similar timeline.

“Really, after one generation kind of dies off and fades away from leadership, you can move toward some sort of consensus,” Campbell says, “but we’re not there yet.”

How can a pastor change his mind?

The timing of Wilshire’s vote coincided with the tensions surrounding our country’s divisive 2016 election; Wilshire’s members cast their ballots on LGBT issues in church the same week they voted for president.

The Sunday after Wilshire announced the results, protesters showed up on its sanctuary doorsteps greeting worshippers with a bullhorn and signs declaring, “Sin Destroys Nations” and “Cleanse Your Hands You Sinners.” The following week, some neighbors responded with a counter-protest, holding signs referencing 1 Corinthians 6:14, “Do Everything in Love,” and “Thank You Wilshire for Loving All.”

Many Christians believe the historical definition of biblical marriage rules out gay marriage, and any change shows the church is caving to the culture on