An Evangelical Changing of the Guard?
At about the same time that President Barack Obama came out in favor of gay marriage, and North Carolina amended its constitution to forbid gay marriage, a small group calling itself the Biola Queer Underground announced itself on the campus of Biola University, an evangelical university in southern California. Although it is difficult to tell how large this group is, its website claims "dozens" of members. It is understandably secretive, and no members are publicly identified.
Prior to their coming-out announcement, BQU was in discussion with members of another group related to Biola, this one made up of alumni, faculty and others, called Biola Queers. This group is not so secretive and includes self-identified LBGTQ members as well as those who are sympathetic to their cause. Quite understandably, the public emergence of an LGBTQ group at a conservative evangelical university has garnered a lot of coverage in the Christian press, among Christian bloggers, in the mainstream news media and even from a "friendly atheist" blogger.
I've written previously about the emergence of LGBT groups on evangelical university campuses, so I won't revisit those themes. But the persistence of the issue, along with changes in the larger culture regarding gay marriage and the desire of young LGBT evangelicals to remain within the fold, suggests that we may have arrived at a historical point of division within evangelicalism. This milepost will, in turn, have significance across the cultural and political spectrum.
What strikes me most about BQU and its counterparts at other evangelical colleges is that its members are not only committed to evangelical Christianity but also to the institutions that systematically marginalize them. From my perspective, it would be much easier (and perhaps much more healthy) to leave and find a more accepting place, perhaps even chuck the evangelical belief system altogether. Yet, as members of BQU suggest on the group's website, a confluence of factors works to keep them at the school: They grew up in a conservative atmosphere and it is comfortable for them; their parents would only pay for a Christian college education; they only realized through their time at college that their identity was LGBT. In short, these young people want to be evangelicals, but they also want to be accepted for who they are.
Read the full post at Trans/Missions, the USC Knight Chair in Media and Religion Blog.