Good Morning! I’m Sandy Ellinger, from the First Baptist Church of Granville.
I get to talk with you today because it was my destiny to be the moderator of FBC from January 1992 to January 1995—three pivotal years of our 5-plus-year journey of commitment to the GLBT movement.
During my term and the two years that preceded it, our ministry became more focused and more a part of our identity, and increasingly distinguished us from the Christian community of Licking County, then the Ohio Baptist Convention, and finally the American Baptist Churches of the U.S.A.
We started getting serious about this in 1991. Then, in 1994, after a year during which we argued, agonized, debated and studied; after another six months of intensive self-examination and discussion, we voted and celebrated in May, by a 2-to-1 margin, to join the Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists.
The following fall, members of the CBA began to call for action against us. And, on January 8, 1995, the CBA officially—and it must be said, fraudulently—voted to “condemn the action of the First Baptist Church of Granville in joining the Organization of ‘Welcoming & Affirming” Churches.”
We knew it was coming, knew the deck was stacked against us. And still…it hurt. It hurt a lot, to be the object of this vigilante version of [finger-quotes] justice.
The best antidote was this Book of Letters—nearly a hundred letters to us from individuals and churches, heartbreakingly grateful that, at great risk and loss, we stood with them…that a Baptist church stood with them.
That crisis—that intersection of justice and promise—was 14 years ago. Over that time, we who have a hard time even saying the word “evangelism,” have witnessed it happening in our ever-evolving congregation. People alienated from the Gospel, lost to hope and authentic living, have found with their whole being that they are loved by God, loved by Jesus, just as they are, without one plea.
I was proud of us then, and I’m still proud: proud that we know how productive it is to believe and question at the same time; proud that our faith in God leads us to have faith in each other; proud that we bravely take risks few are willing to take; and especially proud that we consider “suffering the consequences” of our actions not to be suffering at all.
It’s equally important to remember the people who preceded us, who championed gay rights when it was downright dangerous to do so. We know they will be there for us even if everyone near us turns away. Our courage is no less remarkable because it sprang from the courage of others. We added the power of our light to an ever-growing beacon. And we know it is our turn to be there for the next church who risks. And the next. And the next.
And now, the promise of what might be has at last brought us to you¸ asking for a radically different judgment, as prelude to promises yet to be revealed. It’s taken a lot of courage for us to get here, but we have faith that this will be a very different intersection from the one we faced in 1995.
Thank you.
