Meet the Baptist church in Georgia that opened its doors to same-sex marriage
By David Von Drehle Columnist October 31 at 8:03 PM
MACON, Ga.
The First Baptist Church of Christ , founded in 1826, is one of the oldest congregations in this central Georgia city. Its towering red-brick sanctuary, dedicated in 1887, occupies a hilltop between downtown and nearby Mercer University — a physical prominence that evokes the stature of the church in local history.
So it was front-page news in the Telegraph, Macon’s daily newspaper, when First Baptist called an Aug. 27 meeting of its membership to decide whether its stated policy of welcome and inclusion should extend to the celebration of same-sex marriages.
I’ll admit that my first reaction, on coming across the story, was surprise that a Baptist church in the Bible Belt reached this crossroads so soon after the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling on equality in civil marriage. Even in the digital age, church time tends to run slowly. After paying a visit, I think there’s something more to learn from this story: how to foster respect and civility even amid disagreement.
The news that hit driveways in Macon that Sunday morning had, in fact, been brewing a long time inside the church. First Baptist is one of about 2,000 congregations that have chosen to leave the conservative Southern Baptist Convention over the past 25 years. For the roughly 47,000 churches that remain in the SBC, same-sex marriage is a nonstarter; no church that condones such unions can participate.
But freedom to weigh the subject did not make the weighing easy. When I met with Pastor Scott Dickison and the chair of the church deacons, Bonnie Chappell, two months after the decision, they still spoke gingerly of an “exhausting” years-long “journey” that could yet split their membership.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-the-baptist-church-in-georgia-that-opened-its-doors-to-same-sex-marriage/2017/10/31/23ed65f8-be70-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html
