RYAN HAGEN
News Assistant
Soulforce will add Pepperdine to its Equality Ride next week, bringing the message that Christianity can co-exist with homosexuality on Christian campuses.
The group is visiting 32 campuses that it says discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender students.
“We want to get dialogue started about LGBT issues,” said Brian Murphy, one of two Soulforce members who organized the stop at Pepperdine. “People on these campuses should be able to talk, should be able to be comfortable with each other.”
Soulforce contacted Dean of Students Mark Davis with this goal, and he agreed last semester to coordinate the visit.
“I imagine we’ll find points where we agree to disagree,” Davis wrote in an e-mail, “but I hope at the end of the visit we’ll be able to say that we listened to one another’s hearts and treated each other with dignity and respect.”
Both parties say they’ve been working closely and respectfully together and look forward to Soulforce’s events Monday, March 26th and Tuesday, March 27th.
That hasn’t been the case at several other universities, where Soulforce members have been arrested for trespassing or had their bus smeared with profane messages. Some of these schools reserve the right to expel students for being openly homosexual or promoting homosexuality.
Murphy said Pepperdine was among the most open of the 200 campuses he considers discriminatory, but said Pepperdine students told him they were afraid to speak out on campus about their orientation.
Senior Jamaal Crowley, an openly gay Christian, organized the Malibu chapter of Gays, Lesbians and Everyone else (GLEE). He said he was “extremely surprised” and pleased that Soulforce is visiting.
“I feel like Pepperdine has a long way to go, but just the fact that they’re letting [Soulforce] come is very good,” Crowley said. “I’d like to see what will come from this. I’d like to see people change their opinions and perceptions.”
Many Christians firmly believe that homosexual sex is immoral, pointing to Biblical passages that seem to condemn it.
That is not the only interpretation of these passages, Murphy said.
“That’s one of many issues we’ll be addressing,” he said. “We’re going to Pepperdine to say ‘bring us your concerns’ and challenge some long-held assumptions of what the Bible does and doesn’t say.”
After presentations, he said, some students tell him their perception has completely changed.
Davis said the administration continues to support a more traditional view of homosexuality.
“We affirm that sexual relations are designed to be expressed solely within a marriage between a husband and wife,” he wrote. “This view of sexuality and marriage is rooted in the Genesis account of creation and maintained consistently throughout Scripture.”
He said students agree to this view, expressed in the Student Handbook, when they agree to attend Pepperdine.
Crowley disagreed.
“I know it’s a private Christian university, but I don’t think [the statement] should be there,” he said.
The page on Wavenet announcing Soulforce’s arrival contains links to three sites, all of which express a conservative opinion of homosexuality.
One site presents a response to “What the Bible Says— and Doesn’t Say— About Homoxexuality,” a booklet written by Mel White and published by Soulforce.
“This Study Guide and Response has been written to help those swayed by White’s arguments to understand more clearly the strategies White employs and the misunderstandings he creates or exploits in advancing his arguments,” it says. “You will find in White’s document very little in the way of a deep reading of the message of the Bible.”
The other sites say homosexuality is a sin, but that homosexuals should be shown God’s love as they work to overcome that sin.
“I would hope that would be a basic human response [to treat homosexuals lovingly],” Murphy said.
With his visit, he said he hopes to convince students and administrators that homosexuality is not a sin.
03-22-2007