October 2, 2000
Both sides question Wake Forest union
___WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. --Despite extensive criticism and a threatened severing of ties with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, Wake Forest University allowed its Wait Chapel to be used for a same-sex commitment ceremony Sept. 9.
___One of the women in the lesbian couple is a student at the university's divinity school, although neither the university nor the divinity school endorsed the ceremony.
___University trustees had asked Wake Forest Baptist Church not to perform the ceremony in the chapel, but they did not prohibit it because the chapel is routinely used by the church for worship. To instruct the church in what it may or may not do in worship would violate the doctrine of local church autonomy, they said.
___The ceremony affirming the relationship between Wendy Scott and Susan Parker was officiated by Richard Groves, senior pastor of Wake Forest Baptist, and five others.
___"We don't believe as human beings we can bless anything," Groves said. "Only God blesses, and that's what happens at heterosexual marriages. We also respect the individual rights of believers as their own priests before God, and we respect the right of individuals to participate as they feel led."
___Both conservative and moderate Baptists denounced the church's action and wondered why the ceremony was allowed in the university's chapel.
___"For anybody who even remotely cares about the word of God and the will of God, this event serves to differentiate between what Bible-believing Baptists believe and do and what all of our critics among Baptists believe and do," said Paige Patterson, president of nearby Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "I do not suggest that everyone who disagrees with the Southern Baptist Convention promotes homosexual unions. But I do mean that we have come to a day when the word conservative needs to be defined, not just by affirmation, but on the basis of what one will tolerate."
___David Currie, director of Texas Baptists Committed, has been accused by SBC leaders of endorsing homosexuality, a charge he has vehemently denied. Asked about his reaction to the same-sex union ceremony, Currie replied: "That's a crazy thing to do. I wouldn't support it."
___And although Wake Forest Baptist Church is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal also has spoken strongly against homosexuality.
___"I believe homosexuality is wrong and contrary to Scripture," Vestal said in statement issued this spring. "I believe marriage is holy before God, and I'm not going to do anything that will undermine the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman."
___Although the Wake Forest church broke its ties with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and the Southern Baptist Convention several years ago, the university itself retains loose ties with the state convention.
___But even that loose connection could be endangered now, said Bill Boatwright, a spokesman for the state convention. "It's certainly not going to help the relationship."
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