Evangelical seminary ‘wishy washy’ claim

Fuller Seminary, one of the largest evangelical seminaries in the US, is making waves in the evangelical Christian community after reaffirming the school’s historic position on marriage while leaving room for Christians to have other beliefs.

“After several years of consultation, feedback and dialogue, the Board of Trustees reconfirmed the institution’s commitment to its historic theological understanding of marriage and human sexuality – a union between a man and a woman and sexual intimacy within the context of that union,” said Presidential Chair David Emmanuel Goatley in a statement on Fuller’s website. “At the same time, we acknowledge that faithful Christians – through prayerful study, spiritual discernment, and lived experience – have come to affirm other covenantal forms of relationship.”

“How wishy washy can Fuller Seminary get!” responded Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, on X.

Matt Kennedy, pastor of Church of the Good Shepherd in New York, wrote: “This has been coming for decades now, but Fuller has ceased to be a Christian seminary.”

The decision follows years of discussion over Fuller’s stance on LGBTQ issues with a task force specifically created to consider a “third way” to handle the wide range of opposing views on the topic.

Fuller, which is nondenominational, currently requires its faculty and staff to sign a statement of faith and uphold community standards, one of which states that sex is only for marriage between a man and a woman. It also states: “The seminary believes premarital, extramarital and homosexual forms of explicit sexual conduct to be inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture.”

Ed Stetzer, dean of Talbot School of Theology at Biola University and pastor of Mariners Church in California, wrote an article in response to Fuller’s approach, calling it “a compromise that will lead to more compromise.”

“In Fuller’s case, some want to create a new path – but ‘agree to disagree’ simply does not work when Biblical authority has to be denied to adopt such a position. And it does,” he said. “Moves that require accommodation of errant views that contradict both Scripture and Christian tradition don’t need to be accommodated. They need to be resisted.”

Pastor and author Gavin Ortlund, a Fuller alumnus along with household names like John Piper, said he wants the best for Fuller in a video response to the Fuller decision. “We’re in the realm here of confusion where I think we need clarity,” he said. “We need to be clear where God has been clear … part of how we love people is being clear about what Jesus requires.”