City Soul Force at SPU
I’m at Seattle Pacific University this morning, listening in as the gay rights group Soul Force lectures the students of this Christian university on the many ways in which accepting gay people is not incompatible with their faith. Above is one of the Soul Force “Equality riders.” Her group has been traveling the country doing these types of lectures at Christian universities, and sometimes getting arrested.
SPU has taken a different approach, welcoming the Soul Force people onto their campus as a way of showing that this university is “grace-filled.” Does that mean that SPU thinks being gay is compatible with Christianity? No, it does not.
The forum I’m sitting in will involve a presentation by Soul Force, a counter-presentation by an SPU professor, and then a question and answer period. I’m pretty skeptical about all of this. I admire the effort the Soul Force people put into these events, but personally, I don’t understand why a gay person would waste his or her time trying to argue against Biblical literalism.
Biblical literalism is not rational, therefore it doesn’t respond to rational argument. End of story.
In addition, the rubric of the “Equality Ride” is of course intended to echo the anti-segregation Freedom Rides of the 1960s, but there’s a big problem in this comparison: Gay people who willingly attend anti-gay Christian universities today are not in the same situation as blacks in the South in the 1960s. The difference is very obvious: If gays and lesbians don’t like the inequality they experience at Christian universities, all they have to do is leave them.
Here’s a picture of an SPU student who asked one of the questions at this event:
Soulforce is more punk rock than Johnny Rotten and Chuck D fucking the Thermals in the CBGB bathroom.