Christianity on campus, much the same as Christianity throughout the world, is split into groups based on doctrinal differences. 

Iowa State is home to more than a dozen student religious organizations that associate themselves with some form of Christianity. There are different stances taken by groups concerning the reconciliation of the LGBT community with traditional Christian values.

Students for Progressive Christianity, one of the smallest religious organizations on campus with six full time members, said their name explains the values they promote as an organization.  

Jonathan Page, a minister at the Ames United Church of Christ and a member of the Religious Leaders Association at Iowa State, serves as an adviser to the group.

“We have a more liberal or progressive take on Christianity,” Page said. “Unlike the Salt Company, which is loosely affiliated with the Southern Baptist convention which would not ordain women or not really welcome people who are gay and lesbian, Progressive Christianity welcomes everyone to the table …”

Alex Tuckness, professor of political science, serves as the adviser to the Salt Company Student Fellowship, the campus branch of the Salt Company ministry of Cornerstone Church.

Tuckness said the idea that LGBT students are unwelcome as part of the Student Fellowship or as part of the weekly ministry at Cornerstone Church is a misconception.

“We welcome anyone, irrespective of their positions or practices, to come Thursday night or to participate in any of our meetings,” Tuckness said. 

Tuckness did qualify his comments, noting that the Salt Company is affiliated with traditional interpretations of sexuality.

“Our position is to affirm what we believe is the traditional Christian position, that sexual activity is to be confined to marriage, and that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Tuckness said. “We are also telling students who aren’t married not to have sex and not to look at pornography. There are a lot of different aspects to it.”

These traditional sexual values have no bearing on membership within the Salt Company, but do dictate, in part, the roughly 300 student leadership positions within the actual Salt Company ministry at Cornerstone.

“I think within any group if you want to be a leader you need to support it’s mission and values. To become a leader in something that’s a ministry of our church, [LGBT students] would have to come to a point where they were in agreement with our beliefs,” Tuckness said.

While there has been LGBT attendance at past meetings, which occasionally draw up to 1,500 students, Tuckness said he was not aware of any current LGBT members comprising the 118 students serving as part of the campus organization.

Lutheran Campus Ministries is another campus based religious group comprised of 25 to 30 full time members, and is associated with the Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Ames.

Johnathon Rolf, senior in management information systems, functions as the President of Lutheran Campus Ministries and described Lutheran Campus Ministry’s position on the LGBT community with regards to the church.

“I don’t know if we have an official stance,” Rolf said. “I know our pastor here has married homosexuals before. For the most part, it’s left up to the individual to decide whether they believe homosexuality is a sin or not.”

Rolf pointed out that Lutheran Campus Ministry’s affiliation with Reconciling in Christ, is a good indication of the organization’s leanings on LGBT issues.

“The symbol we hang on our banner is the symbol of the RIC,” Rolf said. “It’s an organization within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and other churches that is basically a way of saying we are open to the LGBT community.”

Rolf said that any student, LGBT or otherwise, struggling for religious acceptance has a place within the walls of the Lutheran Campus Ministry.

“We strive to be open to just about anyone who comes seeking Christ,” Rolf said. “We get a lot of people who have been scorned by traditional religion.”