About Evangeliska FriKyrkan’s (EFK in Sweden) report on same-sex relations and membership in the free church.

Don’t close your eyes to the fact that the concept of membership in the free church is based on biblical theology.

In EFK’s (Evangelical Free Church) report on same-sex relationships, they give advice that is probably perceived as controversial by many in the Free Church, namely that people living in same-sex relationships should be welcomed as members of EFK congregations. They write: “In concrete terms, this means that our second piece of advice is that, regardless of whether you live in a same-sex relationship or not, you should be allowed to be a member of an EFK congregation. To all the brave who have shared their stories with us, we advise EFK’s congregations to say: “Welcome home.”

Even some people with a traditional view of same-sex relationships – such as Stefan Swärd – do not seem to attach much importance to this. He says it is “of secondary importance” . I think that is a mistake. It is true that different churches have different structures and thus different concepts of membership. In the State Church of Sweden (Svenska Kyrkan), a member does not have any great influence on the local congregation. Certainly, you have the right to vote in the church election, but you have no opportunity to choose who will become a bishop or a priest. The Church of Sweden has also cultivated the idea of a “peoples church”, which means that everyone in Sweden should feel at home in the Church of Sweden. It should be “the folks church”. Without demands on faith in Christ, repentance, full surrender to God and being a disciple – that is not required to be a member.

The Free Church was born largely as a reaction against this. The point of the Free Church was that its members really wanted to be – and saw themselves – as disciples of Jesus. It was the true believers who were in the Free Church, those who took God, Jesus and the Bible very seriously and who strove to live accordingly. It was also based on the Bible as a norm that the Free Church’s membership concept was formed. The Bible itself speaks of those who are inside and those who are outside. In 1 Corinthians 14:23, Paul speaks of the possibility that “uninitiated or unbelieving” can come to the service. This shows both that outsiders were actually welcome to Christian gatherings, but also that there was one inside and one outside. In chapter 5 of the same letter, Paul speaks of a man who lived in an incestuous relationship, and he criticizes the Corinthians for not already excluding the man from the fellowship. Paul writes: “In my letter to you I wrote that you must not associate with fornicators. I did not mean all who are fornicators in this world, not all selfish and exploiters and idolaters; in that case you would have had to leave the world. No, what I wrote to you was that you must have nothing to do with the one who is called a brother but who falls into fornication, selfishness, idolatry, lewd speech, drunkenness, and extortion. You must not eat with him” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). Note: it does not say “if someone is called a leader…” In the discussion of same-sex relationships, more and more conservatives draw the line at leadership. But that does not seem to be where Paul draws the line. Here there is a clear inside and outside – and it is about discipleship and lifestyle. “In my letter to you, I wrote that you must not associate with immoral people. I did not mean all who are fornicators in this world, not all selfish and exploiters and idolaters; in that case you would have had to leave the world. No, what I wrote to you was that you must have nothing to do with the one who is called a brother but who falls into fornication, selfishness, idolatry, lewd speech, drunkenness, and extortion. You must not eat with him” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). Note: it does not say “if someone is called a leader…” In the discussion of same-sex relationships, more and more conservatives draw the line at leadership. But that does not seem to be where Paul draws the line. Here there is a clear inside and outside – and it is about discipleship and lifestyle. “In my letter to you, I wrote that you must not associate with immoral people. I did not mean all who are fornicators in this world, not all selfish and exploiters and idolaters; in that case you would have had to leave the world. No, what I wrote to you was that you must have nothing to do with the one who is called a brother but who falls into fornication, selfishness, idolatry, lewd speech, drunkenness, and extortion. You must not eat with him” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). Note: it does not say “if someone is called a leader…” In the discussion of same-sex relationships, more and more conservatives draw the line at leadership. But that does not seem to be where Paul draws the line. Here there is a clear inside and outside – and it is about discipleship and lifestyle. not all selfish and exploiters and idolaters; in that case you would have had to leave the world. No, what I wrote to you was that you must have nothing to do with the one who is called a brother but who falls into fornication, selfishness, idolatry, lewd speech, drunkenness, and extortion. You must not eat with him” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). Note: it does not say “if someone is called a leader…” In the discussion of same-sex relationships, more and more conservatives draw the line at leadership. But that does not seem to be where Paul draws the line. Here there is a clear inside and outside – and it is about discipleship and lifestyle. not all selfish and exploiters and idolaters; in that case you would have had to leave the world. No, what I wrote to you was that you must have nothing to do with the one who is called a brother but who falls into fornication, selfishness, idolatry, lewd speech, drunkenness, and extortion. You must not eat with him” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). Note: it does not say “if someone is called a leader…” In the discussion of same-sex relationships, more and more conservatives draw the line at leadership. But that does not seem to be where Paul draws the line. Here there is a clear inside and outside – and it is about discipleship and lifestyle. drunkenness and exploitation. You must not eat with him” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). Note: it does not say “if someone is called a leader…” In the discussion of same-sex relationships, more and more conservatives draw the line at leadership. But that does not seem to be where Paul draws the line. Here there is a clear inside and outside – and it is about discipleship and lifestyle. drunkenness and exploitation. You must not eat with him” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). Note: it does not say “if someone is called a leader…” In the discussion of same-sex relationships, more and more conservatives draw the line at leadership. But that does not seem to be where Paul draws the line. Here there is a clear inside and outside – and it is about discipleship and lifestyle.

Even Jesus himself speaks of an “inside and an outside”: “If your brother has sinned, go and hold him accountable individually, between you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he will not listen, then take with you one or two others, that every matter may be decided by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he doesn’t listen to them, tell the congregation. And if he does not listen to the congregation either, then he will be to you as a heathen and tax collector.” (Matthew 18:15-17). Here is the contrast “brother” and “heathen/publican”. We know that Jesus was not unloving to “heathens” and “tax collectors”. He socialized with them. But he also likened them to those who are “sick” and need a doctor (Matthew 9:12). There was a clear difference between belonging to Jesus’ discipleship versus not.

An important and relevant distinction in this discussion concerns, on the one hand, falling into sin (which one recognizes as sin and continues to fight against) or making sin a part of one’s lifestyle and conscious choice. In the latter case, the sin is no longer regarded as sin, but as something natural and acceptable. So it is not about “we all sin and we must show mercy to all and all kinds of sins”. Instead, the discussion is about a same-sex sexual lifestyle no longer being considered a sin at all, and therefore no longer in need of God’s grace.

So it is not about that each of us can fall into sin. (If we did not make such a distinction, no one would be saved because we all fall into sin in different ways.) One difficulty is that this boundary is not watertight. How many times can one fall for a temptation without it becoming a part of one’s lifestyle? Here I think the rule of thumb should be that as long as someone recognizes their sin as sin and asks God for forgiveness, that person is still fighting the battle of faith. If Jesus has commanded us to forgive an erring brother or sister 7 x 70 times (ie an unlimited number of times), then God is of course the same in his attitude. God wants to forgive those who confess and repent of their sin. It is when sin is accepted and normalized that discipleship and faith begin to die.

But in all boundary-drawing questions there are almost always clear-cut cases on both sides of the boundary, and a few such cases are enough to justify the boundary in question. Choosing to live in a same-sex relationship is precisely choosing a lifestyle of same-sex sex. It is not something you are tempted into, but something you consciously choose to live in. That is why EFK’s advice is so problematic and a departure from both the Bible and the essence of the Free Church. Membership has a biblical basis. To be saved means that in the biblical sense one becomes a member of the body of Christ. And as such, one is inside, in Christ, in the congregation, in contact with the kingdom of God and has given oneself over to living a biblical life of discipleship. God has said yes to that person because that person, trusting in Jesus’ atoning death, turned from his sin, died to himself, put on Christ and now wants to live the new life and grow into the likeness of Christ. Here there is a clear and relevant biblical content for the concept of membership – and it is this content that the Free Church has filled the association membership with. Although this practice is relaxed in various ways, it is still not without a biblical basis. Organizational membership still communicates that “now you’re in” and “now you’re a member of this community.”

EFK’s new membership view also creates a series of follow-up questions – especially as the EKF report does not approve of same-sex sex per se, but sees it as a “natural brokenness”, i.e. something that falls outside God’s will with man (and thus something unacceptable according to biblical ethics ). There is a lot of “natural brokenness” when it comes to sexuality. Does that mean we should accept cohabiting couples as members (which many already do)? What about prostitutes (or registered sex workers as they are called in Germany)? Jesus hung out with prostitutes, so why not accept these sisters (and brothers) into our congregations as full members? Or how do we view married men with mistresses? And all the men who regularly go to prostitutes? Shouldn’t these also be welcomed as members of our congregations? All these phenomena undoubtedly fall within the concept of “natural fracture”. Maybe someone will object and say that “it’s not the same thing”. But according to the EFK report, it is morally and biblically the same because all this (including same-sex sex) is described as sin in the Bible.

Perhaps someone will object and ask “so homosexuals should not be welcomed into the church at all then?” But then you forget the difference between going to church on the one hand and being approved as a member on the other. People who live in these ways should be welcome at our services. We saw that the uninitiated and unbelievers were welcome in services in Corinth. No, the question concerns whether people who have these sins as part of their lifestyle – and who do not define these phenomena as sin, and therefore do not consider themselves in need of God’s forgiveness and help to live cleanly – should be confirmed as members and become part of the discipleship community. So this is what the question is about. And then we must – if we mean ourselves to be biblical – stick to the Bible’s own limits for discipleship and what lifestyle is compatible and incompatible with discipleship. Then we cannot have a membership that clashes with the Bible’s words about disciples as (co)members in the body of Christ. That is why Paul reacts so strongly against Christian men who went to prostitutes in Corinth, when he says: “Know ye not that your bodies are members of the body of Christ? Shall I take parts of the body of Christ and make them one with the body of a prostitute? Really not!” (1 Corinthians 6:15). In our analysis of the concept of membership, we must not lose sight of the biblical and theological aspect. The concept may be a 19th-century creation, but the Free Church has already filled it with biblical content from the beginning. And no matter how you twist and turn, a “member” is someone who shares the group’s values and life. But the Bible is clear. Anyone who affirms living in fornication – be it heterosexual fornication or homosexual acts – has placed himself outside of biblical discipleship and thus outside of biblical membership in the body of Christ. EFK’s advice therefore speaks against Biblical discipleship and membership in the body of Christ. It is unfortunate to say the least. By Mats Selander