Earlier this week, we gave an Yglesias Award nomination to Richard Stearns, president of World Vision U.S., one of the largest evangelical aid organizations in the world. He had taken a stand that a married gay person could be employed by the organization as long as they followed the same guidelines for fidelity as heterosexuals. The decision lasted two days:
The initial decision faced heavy backlash from the evangelical community—including Al Mohler, Russell Moore, John Piper, and Franklin Graham—with few voicing open support for the decision. The day after the initial policy change was made, the Assemblies of God, one of America’s largest and fastest-growing denominations, urged its members to consider dropping their financial support from World Vision and instead “gradually shifting” it to “Pentecostal and evangelical charities that maintain biblical standards of sexual morality.”
And so Stearns reversed his position. The dispute is really about what is central to Christianity:
“They were not taking a position supporting same-sex marriage or homosexuality,” said Tim Dearborn, director of Fuller Seminary’s Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching, who previously oversaw how World Vision’s Christian commitments were implemented across its international partners. Instead, he said World Vision, which has a “deep commitment to live and serve in ways that are consistent with Scripture,” was attempting to do three things.
“First, to focus on the aspects of the biblical mandate that are non-negotiable: caring for the poor, victims of injustice, and especially children,” said Dearborn. “Second, to contribute to the unity of the church around those things, at a time when the church is fractured. And third, to contribute as a result of that to the credibility of the gospel and the church in the eyes of American society.”
It was a calm and beautiful moment. While it lasted.
The Dish 