President Richard Stearns says hiring change is a symbol of Christian ‘unity’ not ‘compromise.’By Celeste Gracey and Jeremy Weber/ MARCH 24, 2014
World Vision’s American branch will no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman.
Abstinence outside of marriage remains a rule. But a policy change announced Monday [March 24] will now permit gay Christians in legal same-sex marriages to be employed at one of America’s largest Christian charities.
In an exclusive interview, World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns explained to Christianity Today the rationale behind changing this “condition of employment,” whether financial or legal pressures were involved, and whether other Christian organizations with faith-based hiring rules should follow World Vision’s lead.
Stearns asserts that the “very narrow policy change” should be viewed by others as “symbolic not of compromise but of [Christian] unity.” He even hopes it will inspire unity elsewhere among Christians.
[Editor’s note: All subsequent references to “World Vision” refer to its U.S. branch only, not its international umbrella organization.]In short, World Vision hopes to dodge the division currently “tearing churches apart” over same-sex relationships by solidifying its long-held philosophy as a parachurch organization: to defer to churches on theological issues, so that it can focus on uniting Christians around serving the poor.
Given that more churches and states are now permitting same-sex marriages (including World Vision’s home state of Washington), the issue will join divorce/remarriage, baptism, and female pastors among the theological issues that the massive relief and development organization sits out on the sidelines.
World Vision’s board was not unanimous, acknowledged Stearns, but was “overwhelmingly in favor” of the change.
“Changing the employee conduct policy to allow someone in a same-sex marriage who is a professed believer in Jesus Christ to work for us makes our policy more consistent with our practice on other divisive issues,” he said. “It also allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage.”
Stearns took pains to emphasize what World Vision is not communicating by the policy change.
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6 Comments. Leave new
For a number of years, I have appreciated the ministry of World Vision. Yet, despite Richard Stearns’ disclaimer, it is hard to read World Vision’s decision as anything but a compromise and an endorsement of same-gender marriage. This saddens me more than words can say.
Clay,
I join you with a saddened heart.
I have been a World Vision supporter for over ten years. I am deeply saddened by this decision. I cannot support an organization that caves to secular pressures. God’s Word never changes. He is the author and creator of marriage. I will seek out and support other organizations that stand firmly on Scripture.
“This is not an endorsement of same-sex marriage. We have decided we are not going to get into that debate. Nor is this a rejection of traditional marriage, which we affirm and support.”
Yes, it is an endorsement of same-sex “marriage”. Scripture clearly and unequivocally condemns all same-gender sexual intercourse without exception (Gen. 19.4-9 [cf. Jude 7], Lev. 18.22, 20.13, Dt. 23.17, Judg. 19.22-25, Rom. 1.24-27, I Cor. 6.9-11, I Tim. 1.9-10). This is not a rejection of “traditional marriage” per se but a rejection of marriage as the Bible defines it: “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Mt. 19.4-6) Given that the Bible very clearly and unequivocally defines marriage as between one man and one woman, and given its explicit condemnation of same-gender sexual intercourse, it does not therefore follow that it is even possible that the Lord might view same-sex “marriage” as legitimate. And when one considers that Scripture frequently uses the analogy that marriage points to the union of God and His people (Is. 54.5-8, Hos. 2.14-20, 3) or of Christ and His Church (II Cor. 11.2, Eph. 5.22-33, Rev. 19.7-9, 21.9-11, 22.17), where the husband, not the wife, represents God or Christ, and the wife, not the husband, represents the Church or the People of God, same-sex “marriage” is shown to possess an odious and perverse message, as if Christ should forsake the Church and marry Himself, or the Church should forsake Christ and marry herself.
“We’re not caving to some kind of pressure. We’re not on some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening us. There is no employee group lobbying us. This is not us compromising. It is us deferring to the authority of churches and denominations on theological issues. We’re an operational arm of the global church, we’re not a theological arm of the church. This is simply a decision about whether or not you are eligible for employment at World Vision U.S. based on this single issue, and nothing more. …
“This is also not about compromising the authority of Scripture. People can say, ‘Scripture is very clear on this issue,’ and my answer is, ‘Well ask all the theologians and denominations that disagree with that statement.’ The church is divided on this issue. And we are not the local church. We are an operational organization uniting Christians around a common mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ.”
Regardless of whether or not legal pressure is being applied through a lawsuit or an employee lobby, there is enormous cultural pressure being brought against the Church today to conform to the world’s norms, especially as it regards the moral acceptance of same-gender sexual behavior. It is willful self-blindness to presume that there aren’t any denominations that have caved into this pressure, compromising themselves to the world, just as it is self-delusion to pretend that changing a parachurch organization’s employment policy to permit practicing homosexuals to be employed under the provision that they are in a same-sex “marriage” is not a tacit endorsement of same-sex “marriage”.
Moreover, to simply identify the moral acceptability of same-sex “marriage” as a “theological issue” along the same lines as “divorce and remarriage, modes of baptism, women in leadership roles in the church, beliefs on evolution, etc.,” does not absolve the governing board of a parachurch organization that purports to render service in the name of Jesus Christ of its moral responsibility before God for having made the moral judgment that a “marriage” in which same-gender sexual intercourse is condoned is acceptable under the pretext that some of the denominations and churches that support World Vision have already made similar decisions by their ecclesiastical governments. That “theologians and denominations disagree” with the clarity of Scripture on the matter of the moral justification of same-sex “marriage” does not mean that those theologians and denominations that condone it are correct. Indeed, such have already caved in to the cultural pressure previously alluded to. And this still does not absolve the board of World Vision for its moral responsibility before God for having made this decision.
“I know the Evil One would like nothing better than for World Vision to be hobbled and divided on this issue, so that we lose our focus on the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.”
To have made this decision will “hobble and divide” World Vision, for many churches and denominations will withdraw their support from World Vision for having made it. The Evil One has been working for over half a century to delude the Church of Jesus Christ to compromise the Bible’s teachings on sexual morality to the world’s standards. Now, it seems that he has succeeded in deluding the board of World Vision as well.
time for them to add “LY” behind the “World” because that’s what they are, worldly. i expect their donations to take a big “hit” because of this policy change.
I am heartened by today’s letter from World Vision President Richard Stearns and U.S. Board Chairman Jim Beré (published at Juicy Ecumenism) that confesses that the Board made a mistake in changing its employment policy and has repented by reverting to its previous “longstanding conduct policy requiring sexual abstinence for all single employees and faithfulness within the Biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman”.