If you haven’t seen it yet, California recently abandoned a bill that would require religious institutions to comply with Title IX protections, or else lose federal and state funding. The bill, SB 1146, is an example of a national movement to change the face of Christian universities and how they treat LGBTQ students and faculty. Opposition to the previous version of SB 1146 has been predicated on the logic of religious liberty.

Now, SB 1146 has been amended to allow religious exemptions but would require religious institutions with such exemptions to disclose this to their patrons. I think this is a fair compromise. However, I’m stuck between the progressive movement for change and the conservative movement for protection of religious liberty. I’ve found myself dissatisfied with both positions on their own.

This is perhaps one of the most polarizing issues in our day. Especially when it comes to LGBTQ politics. In fact, I’ve hardly seen anyone on either “side” of the issue genuinely converse with each other in order to understand their rationale. This isolationist reality is dangerous and we should guard against it. Moreover, the strict polarizing on this issue will probably cause both “sides” to particularly dislike my position for whatever reason.

On one hand, I deeply sympathize with the urge to advocate for extra protections for LGBTQ students and faculty. As some know, I fought my own alma mater for the right to be housed with other women and to have professors who have similar experiences to me. A few times, I even threatened legal action against the school. Part of me feels I was mistaken in doing so, but it was also very clearly a hard time for me.

Often I felt hopeless and that legal action would be the only opportunity for change. Early on, I felt that those who ran my university did not care about LGBTQ students and faculty, did not care to hear us, did not care to hear our pain. I’ve loosened on this feeling with regard to Eastern Univeristy, but I know there are others at Christian schools far more conservative than Eastern that feel this same thing without any omen of change even on the horizon. In a very real way, Christians need to change how we treat and relate to LGBTQ people.

On the other hand, I don’t believe this change will come by brute force. Forcing, through legal action, religious institutions to not discriminate against LGBTQ people will yield a temporary, inauthentic change at best. Universities will reluctantly “change” policies, but they will still manage to find ways to mistreat LGBTQ students and faculty. It forces an inauthentic change which, by virtue of its inauthenticity, cannot be grounded in the love of God, no matter how much progressives insist at the front lines that God’s love is “all-inclusive.”

Even if religious people magically manage to experience authentic change by means of such ideologies, the progressive cause nonetheless represents an overreach of government authority. Here, progressives are the ones capitalizing on the authoritarian propensities crawling beneath our government’s skin. This is done in such a way that the government acts as a catalyst for religious doctrinal change. Or, in other words, the government prescribes which religious expressions are okay and which are not. It is a violation of the separation of church and state, wherein progressive Christian theology is the de facto state religion.

All this said, I still think the Church ought to change how it treats LGBTQ people, especially LGBTQ Christians. But this is a social and theological task, not a legal one. Of course, progressives will gladly echo the Combahee River Collective, saying “The personal is political” (p. 5). I agree, but “political” needn’t be exactly synonymous with “legal.” And personal rights need not be limited to LGBTQ people. Religious people have rights too. In fact, the Combahee River Collective, a group of black feminist lesbians, explicitly denounced lesbian separatism, writing that “it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us” (p. 6). In a similar vein, it seems appropriate to denounce progressive Christian separatism and conservative Christian separatism equally.

If we want to be part of real, diverse religious communities, we can be part of them. We are part of them. But that cannot come at the cost of isolating ourselves from others. This goes for progressive Christians as much as it goes for conservative Christians. I think I’m inclined to say that a community would be hard-pressed to call itself “Christian” if it excludes either. Progressive Christians are making a separatist political mistake while conservatives have been making a separatist theological mistake. Both are politically and theologically untenable.

Thus, we should engage each other in community, regarding theology, ethics, humanity, and grace. If one will not hear one another, we can blame no one else but ourselves for our ignorance of the other. Dissent and discussion is central to a democracy as much as they are in education. The thwarting of perspectives that conflict with ours or our institution’s is directly contrary to the goal of education.

Real change comes through dialogue, relationships, and humanity. Repentance is an embodied act. So let us weep on the university president’s doorstep. May we pray in the campus chapel. May we hold ecumenical Bible studies. May we treat each other with at least an ounce of the grace shown to us by Christ.

Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. – Romans 14:19-20a