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Mel White and I have been friends for about 15 years, dating back to when he was apparently "straight," and then we never broke off the friendship after he came out of the closet. He had written for Billy Graham and Pat Robertson and me. Mel is wrong. He abandoned his wife, children, grandchildren, mother, and father to move in with his male lover. I've said to him repeatedly, "Forget your so-called orientation. You abandoned your family and, for whatever reason you did it, you can't justify that." And he acknowledges that. But we never fought over it. I believe homosexuality is wrong, that it's moral perversion. I believe the Bible teaches that. But with the violence of the last decade, particularly over the last two years—at Wedgwood Baptist and Columbine, where Christians were targeted; and the attacks against gays, like Billy Jack Gaither and Matthew Shepard—something has to change. Mel and I were talking about the violence on both sides. We're never going to agree on the rightness or the wrongness of the gay lifestyle. But we certainly can agree on an antiviolence theme. And so we spent three months, his staff and mine, working out the details of how we could bring together 200 people from each side and spend a weekend developing a resolution to bring down the rhetoric and the stridency on both sides. I think we did that.

What positive results have you seen so far?

A bridge was built. The 200 people from Mel's group stayed here for church after the summit. We've had a number of those persons who were here that Sunday who have been working with the Christians they met while they were here, and at least five of them have made professions of faith and repudiated the gay lifestyle. But we're not crowing about that; we don't want to put any flags up or drive people away.I hoped that this one event would send a signal across the country that evangelicals should invite gays and lesbians to worship in their churches. Not to sing in the choir, not to teach Sunday school, but to attend with no fear of being beat upon.

Have you received criticism from evangelicals who didn't like the idea of the summit?

Yes, my good friend Jim Dobson felt I went astray on that one. And some other good friends of mine did as well. I've never had a conversation with Jim about it, but on one of his broadcasts I heard him comment, "My good buddy Jerry Falwell probably stepped past prudence on this one." He wasn't unkind about it. But certainly there are many pastors out there who felt that I was compromising my position on the sinfulness of sin by participating in the summit.

Recently you've coined the phrase "compassionate conviction." What does that mean?

Well, for example, our church has always opposed any kind of sexual activity outside the marriage bond between a man and woman. Particularly, we have opposed teen pregnancy. That's our conviction. But we have also, for many years, owned and operated the Liberty Godparent Home here in Lynchburg, and have helped start 1,200 similar homes nationwide where pregnant girls, 12 to 18 years old, come and live, and receive help through our counseling outreach.Approximately 50 percent of these girls place their children for adoption. Thousands of children have been placed into Christian homes through our adoption agency. That's the compassion.We oppose the use of alcohol and drugs, but we have for 41 years owned and operated the Elim Home for alcohol- and drug-addicted men. We're against crime, but our church operates a major prison ministry.There are many other things that we preach against while reaching out in compassionate ministry.

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April 24 2000, Vol. 44, No. 5