And the big lesson from this week is make sure you are committed to your decision before going public with it…

Sadly the folks at World Vision have egg on their face and a major mess to clean up after their announcement that they would now hire people in gay relationships, only to retract the statement and revert to their original position just 48 hours later.

The problem is that the damage is done now. They have smashed a heap of trust and its going to be hard to rebuild it. Whatever you think of World Vision the issue here is the flip flop.

Now rather than just having alienated one group of constituents they have angered two. The first decision clearly made the right wing mad, while the left were happy WV had ‘seen the light’, but clearly the right have many more $$ because the reversion was for their benefit. Now the right won’t be sure if WV have genuinely recanted and the left will hate them for their back down. Lose – lose

I didn’t know WV were still an overtly Christian organisation and I figured they hired staff who had no faith affiliation. So the original decision surprised me as I thought that was the lie of the land anyway. While the original decision obviously was a political hand grenade, it would be interesting to know what genuinely motivated both decisions. It would seem the first may have been a response to culture (and I think many theological shifts are a result of cultural change, moreso than new ‘learning ‘) but the reversal is confusing – it presents as theological but I wonder to what extent it is driven by the need for the organisation to keep running, for people’s jobs, leader’s reputations etc. Yeah – I’m a bit cynical there.

Maybe it was motivated by the fact that the decision will hurt the poor – the reason for WVs existence , but my guess is that it’s a combination of all of the above to a greater or lesser degree depending on who you ask.

And which decision was the correct one?… I’m not sure at the moment.

If we are arguing that sexual orientation is central to the gospel then you’ve lost me there. If WV are as keen to take a hardline on other sin then perhaps that would seem fair. But we all know that nothing riles a conservative more than being kind or fair to gay people. For some reason they belong in a different category of ‘nasty’ to adulterers, pornographers and hetero-sexual-sinners.

Unfortunately what presents as a decision based on theological conviction seems to be more likely driven by bottom lines, people’s jobs and maybe even the folks at the end of the line who end up suffering because people won’t allow their funds to channel through a ‘sinful’ organisation.

I wonder if those same folks who boycotted WV are willing to allow WV to take money from gay folks? Or are they allowed to give money to sponsor kids who are gay. If you are gay should you starve?

Complex?…

Yeah I think it can be…

Or maybe its not complex and we’re just bloody stupid sometimes.