I’ve been following with some interest the news story about Gordon College’s request to be allowed to discriminate in its hiring practices against homosexual persons. According to the Boston Globe, “The president of a small Christian college north of Boston was among 14 religious leaders who sent a letter to the White House this week requesting a religious exemption to a planned order barring federal contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation.”

I don’t know enough about the specific facts involved in the Gordon request to be able to comment with any kind of wisdom. Generally speaking, I’m against discrimination of any kind and this smells like injustice to me – a rule created out of ignorance, not faithfulness. In fact it reminds me of when I was a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological School and a close friend was dating a Gordon College girl. The college in those days had a curfew policy designed, I suppose, to protect female students from being out late at night when all sorts of bad behavior goes on in the back seats of cars and other unregulated places. So the rule was to be in the dorms by 11 pm (as I recall the magical hour) or else.

The “else” was that the doors would be locked and you couldn’t get in.

Hmmm….

My friend and his girl got back to the dorm late one night. The doors were locked.

So they drove back to his apartment and had a sleepover (if you know what I mean). After that experience, they always made sure to arrive back at the dorm…a few minutes late.

Sometimes rules have unintended consequences. And sometimes rules are just a way of trying to keep reality out.  A friend of mine, expressing his support for Gordon’s desire to discriminate against gays in its hiring practices said “Gordon’s position is historic Christianity.”

“Historic Christianity?”

Slavery was ‘historic Christianity” too.

There are lots of things in “historic Christianity” that Christians don’t practice or support any longer. Why? Because times change and God helps us see things we never saw before. Before his death, Jesus himself told his followers about this unfolding revelation, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Holy Spirit comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:12-13)

Being a faithful Christian does not mean holding on to the past. It means living in the full reality of the present and reaching for the future following one rule: love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Every new generation of Christ-followers inherits the daunting task of applying the Great Commandment to the world and time in which they live. The early Jewish Christians faced the seemingly impossible challenge of learning to love and accept Gentiles as members of the family of Faith. This was an incredibly controversial challenge in that day because it defied all the “historic” understandings of the scriptures.

But…by the power of the Holy Spirit, they did it! They found a way to include Gentiles. And because THEY disavowed “history”, they helped shape a future in which I – and maybe YOU – found Christ too!

So my friend’s idea of holding onto the past doesn’t really reflect what it means to be faithful. And Gordon College is making the same mistake. Both would do well to reflect upon the apostle Paul’s  statement about not thinking we’ve got it all figured out with nothing more to learn:

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)

Our goal is not the past.

It is the future.