Crossroads Podcast: Bethany Christian Services Drops Its Pro-Gay Marriage Stance
There is a sobering reality that Christian institutions — churches, denominations, schools and parachurch groups — will need to learn about ministry after the Sexual Revolution, a liberal Baptist scholar noted in 2017.
“It turns out that you are either for full and unequivocal social and legal equality for LGBT people, or you are against it,” wrote ethicist David Gushee of Mercer University. “Neutrality is not an option. Neither is polite half-acceptance. Nor is avoiding the subject. Hide as you might, the issue will come and find you.”
Some Christian leaders have tried a via media approach on gay marriage, arguing that this is yet another issue — like divorce, remarriage, baptism, female pastors — on which most Christians can agree to disagree.
That didn’t work for World Vision leaders in 2014, forcing them to quickly reverse their decision to employ Christians living in gay marriages. And, in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, host Todd Wilken and I discussed early media coverage of a similar, but slower, reversal by the adoption and foster care agency Bethany Christian Services.
A Religion News Service report offered this headline: “The country’s largest Protestant adoption agency is dropping LGBTQ couples — again.” The overture is rather complex, with good cause:
Bethany Christian Services, long described as the country’s largest Protestant adoption and foster care agency, will no longer allow LGBTQ couples to foster or adopt, according to a statement to RNS.
In a press release … the Michigan-based agency announced that its board voted to “clarify and reinforce” its Christian faith commitments. Those changes require staff and board members to “personally agree and adhere to” a belief statement that includes the Apostle’s Creed, recognizes the authority of the Christian Bible and affirms the image of God in every person. The belief statement also defines God’s design for marriage as “a covenant between one man and one woman.”
In an email to RNS, a spokesperson confirmed that these changes will also impact the selection of foster and adoptive parents.
A Fox News report bluntly focused on the precise wording in the newly revised, clarified, doctrinal statement that will now define the agency’s work in across the nation, in 25 states:
The “God’s design for marriage” section in the statement of faith and belief dated June 2027 says, “We believe God designed the family as the primary structure for love, care, and human flourishing. We work to strengthen families and preserve them whenever possible. We affirm the biblical design of marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman, established by God to reflect His love and faithfulness. This covenant reflects Christ’s love and provides a stable, nurturing environment for children.”
Why did this happen? That’s the question that dominated this week’s podcast. At this stage, the few mainstream reporters who are covering this story are being forced to settle for careful statements from public-relations professionals.
So, will newsrooms big and small rush to cover this story, as they did in 2021 when Bethany leaders attempted to chart a middle course that might please activists on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue?
In 2021, the New York Times offered this magisterial double-decker headline:
Major Evangelical Adoption Agency Will Now Serve Gay Parents Nationwide
The decision comes as more cities and states require organizations to accept applications from L.G.B.T.Q. couples or risk losing government contracts.
Note the reference, at that time, to threats to cut government contracts to religious nonprofit groups that uphold doctrines that do not match those approved by state officials. Now, hold that thought.
Returning to the Fox News report:
Fox News offered Bethany Christian Services response to questions about why the doctrinal statement was strengthened, leading to the flip in the agency’s policy:
“This work is about reinforcing the Christian foundation that has guided our organization for more than 80 years,” a spokesperson for Bethany Christian Services told Fox News Digital in a statement Friday.
“These actions flow from our conviction that faithfulness to God’s word must remain central to our mission of demonstrating the love and compassion of Jesus through quality social services. Beginning June 2027, Bethany will only license and re-license foster families whose Christian faith and beliefs align with our Statement of Faith and Belief.
“We will communicate directly with families to help them understand expectations and next steps. Families who are not aligned with Bethany Christian Services’ statement of faith and belief and Christian mission will be supported through a thoughtful transition process.”
The RNS report added this:
When asked if these changes were due to concerns about funding or based on input from donors, a spokesperson said the decisions were not due to external pressure but “reflect a decision to reinforce our Christian identity by our Board and Executive Leadership following prayer and discernment.”
What about staff members hired during the pro-gay-marriage years? “Senior leaders” and those with “significant responsibility and oversight” were required to sign the revised doctrinal statement at the beginning of June. Other staffers will be required to sign by June 1, 2027.
Will any same-sex couples affected by the revised policy choose to sue? Will progressive evangelicals on the Bethany Christian Services staff choose to sue, especially if they lose their jobs? Either of these actions would guarantee a wave of mainstream-media coverage of this sexy conflict.
During the podcast, I noted that this is an extremely complicated story, one that will require hard work by religion-beat professionals. Truth is, the current reversal by Bethany Christian Services is three stories in one.
First, reporting this story will require discussing church-state disputes from the past, such as ongoing efforts by the legal and political left to force traditional Christian nonprofits to make doctrinal changes in their work to fit evolving policies at the federal level.
In the best-known recent case, a traditional Catholic order — the Little Sisters of the Poor — fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court while defending its health-insurance policies that did not cover contraceptives. This resulted in a defeat for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) on a 7-2 vote. Many newsrooms struggled (click for GetReligion coverage) to understand that the First Amendment requires government officials to cooperate with conservative religious nonprofit groups, as well as liberal religious nonprofits — or to decline to work with both.
Second, the Bethany controversy is not the first case in which a group linked to evangelical Protestantism has searched, with little or no success, for ways to compromise on LGBTQ+ issues. Note the earlier World Vision reference. Also, consider the following Inside Higher Ed headline from some tense times at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (where I was a faculty member for a decade-plus): “To Avoid Split on Gay Marriage, 2 Colleges Quit Christian Group.”
Finally, it helps to know that the history of Bethany Christian Services includes many ties to life in the Christian Reformed Church, a Calvinist flock that has been rocked by LGBTQ+ battles in recent years. The splits are connected, one way or another, to doctrinal divisions at Calvin University, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan — only five miles from the Bethany Christian Services headquarters. Read between the lines, a bit, in this 2024 Christianity Today story: “CRC Tells LGBTQ-Affirming Congregations to Retract and Repent.”
Reporters seeking CRC voices to discuss this new doctrinal flip, or clarification, at Bethany Christian Services can visit Grand Rapids, rent a car and visit several crucial addresses. How many progressive staffers at the adoption agency have ties to Calvin University or some of these local progressive congregations?
Oh, and journalists at the New York Times or other elite newsrooms may want to give Gushee a call and ask if he would like to update his prophetic 2017 statements in an interview, an op-ed or both. What does he think just happened at Bethany Christian Services?
Then, reporters can call some of the traditional Christian activists and academics who have debated Gushee on these issues during the past decade.
That would be a good start.
Will elite journalists talk to qualified, informed voices both sides when digging into all three important angles of this hot-button story? Let’s hope so. One thing is clear, these disputes will continue.