Open Circle Challenged by Churches in District

Six churches in the Northern Plains District have sent letters to the District Board, which is meeting this weekend, challenging the beliefs and practices of Open Circle Church. They have focused on three issues: we don't read the bible as the authoratative word of God; we don't hold that Jesus is the only way to salvation; we accept gays and lesbians in our congregation without telling them they are living lives of sin. It is too early to tell what will come of it all. We have some good support in the district. But there is a somewhat organized attempt across the denomination among some evangelicals to force the districts to take a stand against "heresy." We are not the first target but we are the current target. Our leadership team sent the district the following letter:

To our friends in Christ at District Board,

Over the past several weeks the District Board Chair has made us aware of statements and correspondence coming to the District Board concerning the beliefs and practices of Open Circle Church. In anticipation that this will be on the Board agenda this weekend we would like to take this opportunity to respond.

It appears from what we have seen that there are three primary issues that have caused concern among some in the district: the way we understand scripture, the way we understand Jesus, and our acceptance of gays and lesbians in our congregation. As some in the district have discovered by visiting our church's website, we are and have always been quite open about our stance on these issues. Having said that, it is worth noting that within our own congregation there is a diversity of beliefs about scripture and Jesus. There is no one position on these issues that everyone adheres to. I think it is fair to say that we are united in our full acceptance of gays and lesbians in our congregation.

It is also worth noting that even in our small denomination there is a wide diversity of beliefs about all of these issues. We do not all read the scripture the same; we do not all talk about Jesus the same; we do not all understand the issue of homosexuality in the same way. Just focusing on the way we read scripture in the Church of the Brethren, the 1979 Annual Conference statement on Biblical Inspiration noted that in a 1978 survey of AC attenders there was a wide variety of understandings of scripture from "Brethren who believe the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God, completely without error in the King James Version" to Brethren who "hold the Bible has great value when understood as a 'human concept of God,' open to error." This diversity of belief and practice is a fact of life in our denomination today and we believe it can be a real source of strength for the denomination.

Despite the fact that we do not talk about Jesus the same as some of our brothers and sisters in the district, Open Circle is very much a Christian Church. Jesus is the spiritual center of our church life. We hold up his teachings and life as the way to a life of fuller relationship with God and meaningful life on earth. The vast majority of Open Circle members choose to center their lives around Jesus. But not everyone. Since the beginning of our congregational life some of come in to our community who are not Christian. We have welcomed them as part of our community. We have learned from them about different faith traditions like Judaism. We have been enriched as a community by having a diversity of beliefs. And while for most of us at Open Circle Jesus is the way, we do not teach that Jesus is the only way.

Regarding our understanding of the authority of scripture, the reading and interpretation of scripture plays a central role in the life of our congregation. Like every other Christian church around the world, we celebrated Palm Sunday and Easter by reading the scripture stories. Like every Christian congregation the scriptures are read in our worship service. Our children learn the scripture stories in Sunday School.

But we teach our members to read the scriptures using the tools of biblical criticism that have been developed over the last 200 years or more. We read them in their historical context and understand that the writers of scripture, though very much inspired by God, were also fully human. As such, they were influenced by the biases of their own culture and historical setting. We believe it is possible to read the scriptures with reverence and to take them seriously and still believe that there were some things the scripture writers were simply wrong about.

We believe that scriptural writings about homosexuality are a case in point. The writers of scripture simply had no way of knowing what we know today about genetics. They spoke about homosexuality in the context of an era before knowledge of science, and out of their understandable disdain for some of the cultural practices they encountered in the wider world, like man-boy sexual relationships. They had no way of conceiving that someone could grow up naturally with a sexual attraction for another person of the same sex and choose to enter into a same-sex loving relationship.

We can. Since its beginning, Open Circle has been blessed by having gays and lesbians in our congregation. Some of them are single; some have been in life-long adult relationships, some are the parents of children. Many of them over the years have been actively involved as leaders of our church.

In fact, it seems very strange to us to be singling them out in this way. We don't see them as homosexuals. We see them as children of God and full-fledged participants in our spiritual community. We have no doubt that God sees them in the same way. It pains us to think that others in our denomination would wish to deny them an essential part of their humanity and refuse to allow them to participate fully in the life of our district and denomination. We fully believe there will come a day when this is not so. We believe this is where God's love is leading us and what God's justice challenges us to embrace.

We realize that our position on these issues is causing pain among some in our district. We are sorry for their pain; we recognize that it is difficult to be put in a position where cherished beliefs are being challenged. But we are unapologetic for being who we are. We believe God is calling us to be the kind of Christian community we are. We also believe that we very much represent core Brethren values of peace, justice, service, centrality of personal spiritual practice, and caring community gathered around the scriptures trying to discern God's will for our lives. It is our hope and prayer that our district and denomination will embrace of vision of God's community where all of us in our diversity have a full place at the table.