Let me recap as best as I can with the information I have. Baylor’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work was given a grant.
A grant, mind you, they had already received in the past to do similar work they have been doing for years before. They then rejected the grant they had previously accepted.
Why was it rescinded when it had previously been reviewed and approved? External pressure.
While the grantees had operated with a degree of anonymity before—anonymity they may not even have known they needed—this latest grant renewal in the amount of $643,401 was newsworthy. This good news caught the attention of influencers who viewed it as bad news.
I’m speculating that these interpreters made phone calls, which I assume included conversations about money that could be withheld if Baylor did not rescind the grant.
Balance Sheets
How much money are we talking about? Tough to say.
However, with the $2.5 million gift establishing a relationship with Baylor’s Truett Seminary and the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) announced around the same time, one wonders. The Lampsato Endowed Chair of Baptist World Missional Engagement and the Lampsato Endowed Fund at Truett were generously given by Susan and Lee Bush of Athens, Texas.
It’s worth noting that one of the signatures on the good-job-Baylor-you-made-the-right-decision letter was Kyle Henderson, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Athens. Henderson now works for the BWA.
My point is not to pick on Pastor Henderson. He’s a talented pastor, but we disagree about what inclusion means.
However, I do mean to draw your attention to the money that’s at stake. This is to say nothing of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (Texas Baptists), which, in any given year, may hand out around $2.5 million for scholarships and other projects. Or of the high-dollar individual donors who give to Baylor, but prefer the university to remain a bastion of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.
So, let’s assume there’s approximately $6 million at stake in rescinding the grant. This has to leave Baylor’s president, Linda Livingstone, with a miserable choice. She can either move forward with the moral fortitude that we in the peanut gallery are hoping for, or she can preserve student scholarships and program endowments worth ten times what was rescinded.
One social media commenter on my timeline has noted, “We’ve communicated that we are interested in discussing a significant gift to Baylor, but the discussion won’t proceed as long as the anti-LGBTQ policy is in place.”
Perhaps there is more of this lurking in the shadows of Baylor’s future, but I’m cynical enough to believe that’s not the case. If church attendance in Waco is indicative of Baylor’s current moral ethos, the money from LGBTQ+ affirming donors is just not going to be there to compete with conservative dollars.
Will Baylor Change?
This leads to the fundamental question underlying all these conversations: Will Baylor ever evolve in its approach to queer inclusion?
Brigham Young and Notre Dame universities appear to be R1 universities that have successfully navigated the line between conservative sexual ethics and cultural cachet, but Baylor’s position is more complex. Those two institutions enjoy the univocal support of the corresponding religious institution. Baylor is Baptist, which by ecclesiological definition means it is the flagship university of a diverse denominational identity.
If Baylor changes, it will only be the result of ecclesiological practice, which will have to come through a movement of the Spirit. This prompts another question: How will we know if the Spirit is moving?
That answer only ever seems clear retrospectively, but Baptists have done this before. Think of women in ministry and chattel slavery.
An evolving Baylor position on sexual ethics will have to overcome a historical interpretation of seminal biblical texts on sexuality, notably the first chapter of Romans. How does that happen?
For me, it came through compassion that was eventually haunted by history. In his book Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions, J. Albert Harrill catalogues the 19th-century opinions of both abolitionists and Christian pro-slavery advocates.
In a particularly painful quote, Harrill shares a passage from a letter written by John Henry Hopkins, Episcopal bishop of Vermont:
“With entire correctness, therefore, your letter refers the question to the only infallible criterion–the Word of God. If it were a matter to be determined by personal sympathies, tastes, or feelings, I should be as ready as any man to condemn the institution of slavery, for all my prejudices of education, habit, and social position stand entirely opposed to it. But as a Christian, I am solemnly warned not to be ‘wise in my own conceit’ [Rom 12:16], and not to ‘lean to my own understanding’ [Prov. 2:5]. As a Christian, I am compelled to submit my weak and erring intellect to the authority of the Almighty. For then only can I be safe in my conclusions, when I know that they are in accordance with the will of Him, before whose tribunal I must render a strict account in the last day.”
You can hear the complicated pain in Bishop Hopkins’ voice. He wants to abolish slavery, but he can’t because of what he believes the scripture says.
While one might rebut, as William Webb does, that human sexuality and slavery follow different hermeneutical trajectories within the Bible itself, one must acknowledge that history shows they share seemingly identical journeys in overcoming the scriptures’ objections.
What reading of scripture could have freed Bishop Hopkins? What hermeneutical key could have unlocked his choice to join the abolitionists?
How does one, like Huck Finn, decide to accept hell for doing what one thinks is right, even if someone claims that scripture says it’s wrong? Only the Spirit can do that, and only the Spirit can change Baylor.
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Josh Carney was a pastor for 15 years before transitioning to the world of philanthropy. He and his wife Lindsay have four kids. Josh enjoys reading, writing, and ultimate frisbee.
