A Tennessee-based Christian university says it canceled a Promise Keepers event due to a statement by the organization that “unnecessarily” fanned the culture war flames over the issue of gender and sexuality.
Nashville’s Belmont University told Baptist Press that it disinvited Promise Keepers after the men’s ministry posted a statement on its website at the end of May addressing LGBT Pride month. Promise Keepers had scheduled a “Daring Faith” event on the campus.
Belmont said in a statement last week that Promise Keepers had posted “comments that we believe unnecessarily fan the flames of culture wars and are harmful to members of our community.”
“We (are) unequivocal in our belief in the value of each human being, and we are committed to engaging in constructive conversations that demonstrate kindness and seek understanding,” Belmont said, according to Baptist News Global. “We will not knowingly provide a space for any group whose language we believe to lack that same respect.”
Belmont’s goal is to be the “leading Christ-centered university in the world,” according to the university’s website.
Daring Faith events are scheduled to be held across the country. Each Daring Faith event will teach men how to “have a clear picture of what being a true follower of Christ looks like and know how to become one,” the Promise Keepers website says.
The Promise Keepers blog at the center of the controversy discussed the “dangers of gender ideology and the harm it causes.”
“As fathers, husbands, grandfathers, and young men – we see the dangers of gender ideology and the harm it causes,” the statement said. “At Promise Keepers, we affirm that God made human beings in His image to reflect Him. He created male and female with equal worth and dignity – and there was no mistake in that design. (Genesis 1:27; Mark 10:6). In our present day, men and women are increasingly confused about their identities. Biological identity has been severed as separate from ‘gender identity,’ while children across the United States are actively indoctrinated into intense inner turmoil about who they ‘really are.’”
The statement includes four affirmations. Among them, it said Promise Keepers believes “that gender ideology is an idol of our culture and that, as sin, it is poisonous” and that “Jesus, the Son of God, will forgive our sins if we repent.”
Belmont told Baptist Press that “University leaders have had multiple conversations with senior leaders at Promise Keepers.”
Related:
Promise Keepers Gets Canceled by Christian University over Bible-Based Gender Statement
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Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.