Hope College isn’t backing away from its policy condemning same-sex sexual conduct, reports the Holland Sentinel newspaper.  At least for now.

Hope is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, which continues to believe that same-sex sexual intimacy violates God’s standards.  (It is, however, engaged in a “dialogue on homosexuality.”)

According to the press account, Hope distinguishes between same-sex sexual conduct and same-sex attraction.  Persons who experience the latter are to afforded “fair and kind treatment”; persons who engage in the former (and in other forms of extramarital sexual conduct) are urged to repent.

This is quite similar to the position taken by Christian Legal Society, which has been involved in litigation across the country on this issue — including a case now pending in the Supreme Court.  CLS’s distinction between “orientation” and conduct has often been mocked, labeled as an idiosyncratic dodge.  This charge is untrue and unfair.  That Hope College maintains essentially the same position as CLS confirms that this understanding of and approach to human sexuality is widespread within Christianity.

In rejecting calls to change its policy, the Hope board of trustees stated as follows:

The college’s current position on homosexuality is based on its interpretation of scripture. It is recognized that well-intentioned Christians may disagree on scriptural interpretation. Still, humbly and respectfully, the college aligns itself in its interpretation with its founding denomination, the Reformed Church in America, the orthodox Christian Church throughout the ages, and other Christian colleges and universities.

The board simultaneously created a trustee committee to “expand the college’s 1995 position statement in the larger context of all human sexuality.”  The statement’s use of the words “current” and “still” suggests that changes might be on the horizon.

As far as I know, the government is not involved in any way in this internal dispute at Hope College.  And that’s the way it should be.  That is not to say I am personally agnostic about what Hope does — that I don’t care as long as the government is not exerting pressure on the college.  Instead, I pray that Hope stays true to its Reformed heritage and to traditional Christian sexual ethics.  Theological considerations should be dispositive, and, in my view, they dictate maintaining the standards.  But it is worth noting that the capitulation of some religious institutions to the “ways of the world” inevitably affects the fortunes of those that do no so capitulate.  The smaller the number of the “traditional” institutions, the easier it is for proponents of the new orthodoxy to target them, and the harder it is for them to resist.