Big Tent, Tiny Ideas

Perhaps aware of the limits of the Holy Spirit, Larson has seemed ill at ease discussing homosexuality with those outside the church. He told Dyer he's merely preaching what the Bible says. "I teach the same thing on heterosexuality: 'We're all immoral, let's just not practice it.'" Speaking to a Beacon reporter on another occasion, he said homosexuality is "no bigger a sin than others." Yet the Chapel does not appear to offer a support group for bacon lovers (Leviticus 11:7) or women who adorn their hair and put on fine apparel (I Peter 3:3).

Of course, transgressions like swine-eating and gold-wearing fail to resonate with today's evangelical Christian. In wanting to gratify his base without seeming radical, Larson resembles President Clinton with his approach to the don't-ask, don't-tell policy for gays in the military. "He realizes it's a real flash point," Dyer says. "Obviously, you don't get that big without trying to cater to a lot of different segments of society, so I think he is a wee bit uncomfortable with that stand. On the other hand, in his mind, it's pretty clear. He's not going to pull back from it, but he's not going to stand on the soapbox and beat it to death."

The course on Islam similarly exposed the publicly mainstream, privately fundamentalist Chapel. Ihsan Ul Haque, a cardiologist who serves as spokesman for the Islamic Community Center in Cuyahoga Falls, says he doesn't have a problem with the Chapel offering such a course. The language of spiritual warfare, however, he found "inflammatory." Haque says: "By implication, it was that one side was the force of good and the other side was the force of evil. To me, that was bothersome."

Haque wrote Larson a letter expressing his concerns. In a response, Larson retreated from the suggestion that Christianity is at war with Islam. "We certainly do believe there is a battle for the hearts and minds of people, and I know you agree with that," Larson wrote, according to an account in the Beacon Journal. "It is a battle to get to the truth. But we are not battling you, and we hope to remain friends."

In his letter, Larson invited Haque to have coffee. He did not, however, invite Haque to address the class. The 10-week course, Larson told the Beacon, is taught with love, understanding, and tolerance. The input of actual Muslims seems to be another matter. David Loar, the pastor at Fairlawn-West United Church of Christ, questions the intent of a religion course that by all appearances excludes the religion's practitioners from the discussion. "Is the purpose of the class to understand Islam, or is it to seek to evangelize people, to get converts? If it's the latter, well, then it's not going to be something you're necessarily going to approach the Muslim community about," Loar says.

It may be that the course proposes neither to understand nor to evangelize, but to pander. Surely, the Chapel's Islam course-takers -- 99 percent Christian, according to what Larson told the Beacon -- leave believing they chose the superior religion. With the church as an institution in decline, the Chapel and other congregations seem to have reached for a script perfected by talk radio. As Loar explains: "Folks trying to save the church figure, to keep the church going, they've got to be more condemning of those they don't see as with it."

And no condemnation plays like the denunciation of homosexuality.

Sam Dittmar, a systems analyst who lives in West Park, repressed his feelings for the same sex for 30 years before deciding that Christianity and homosexuality needn't be exclusive. Dittmar considers himself evangelical. He appreciates "genuine Christian teaching," the kind he might receive at the Chapel. But would the Chapel let a gay man usher or teach a Sunday-school class?

Dittmar is dubious about conversion therapy. He suspects that the "recovered" ex-gays are abuse victims who have been able to change destructive behavior. Dittmar worries for the rest, the ones who feel they must choose between their spirituality and their sexual orientation. "I would hope people in the ex-gay ministries would open their eyes a little and keep watch over people who leave the program, as well as the quote-unquote success stories," he says.

Dittmar met once with two Genesis leaders and offered to minister to the men and women who fall away from the group. After all, isn't homosexuality and a walk with Christ superior to homosexuality and no Christ at all?

But since the meeting, Dittmar has not heard from anyone at the Chapel. "There was no contact after that," he says. "No referrals."