Home Pastors Articles for Pastors World Vision, Gay Marriage and a Different Way Through

World Vision, Gay Marriage and a Different Way Through

Hi, good readers. Here we are again, stumbling through another ancillary brawl regarding gay marriage. If you missed it, Rich Stearns, CEO of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization “dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice,” announced a policy change to allow employees in same-sex marriages to be eligible for employment.

To Christianity Today, Stearns said, “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. It also allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage.”

Regarding sexual conduct, World Vision has always held an abstinence requirement for single employees and fidelity for the marrieds. But with employees from over 50 denominations, some of which sanction same-sex marriages (United Church of Christ, The Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), as well as staff in the 17 states plus the District of Columbia where same-sex marriages are legal and binding, World Vision has chosen not to make this issue a condition of employment. Rather, they are leaving the theological sorting to the local church of which WV considers their organization an “operational arm,” not a “theological arm.”

As Stearns explained: “I think you have to be neutral on hundreds of doctrinal issues that could divide an organization like World Vision. One example: divorce and remarriage. Churches have different opinions on this. We’ve chosen not to make that a condition of employment at World Vision. If we were not deferring to local churches, we would have a long litmus test [for employees]. What do you believe about evolution? Have you been divorced and remarried? What is your opinion on women in leadership? Were you dunked or sprinkled? And at the end of the interview, how many candidates would still be standing?”

He went on: “It’s easy to read a lot more into this decision than is really there … 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.”

As you can imagine if you are a thinking person, the outcry was swift and furious.
 
I spent last night and today readings dozens of rebuttals, rebuttals to rebuttals, emotionally manipulative analysis and hundreds of comments. I hashed it out (again) ad nauseam with my husband Brandon. I jumped on the phone with my friend and partner in global community development, Chris Marlow, CEO of Help One Now, of which I gratefully serve on the board. I prayed and breathed and slept on it all. I will attempt a measured response that might help us through yet another damaging fallout surrounding the single most polarizing issue in our generation. I aim to be a peacemaker, because someone has to be.