LA MIRADA, Calif. — As a young, openly gay Christian activist, Matthew Vines considered it a victory just to get into a room at a conservative Christian university here with four influential evangelicals who disagreed with him over what the Bible says about homosexuality.  He ended up in a polite, heartfelt three-hour debate last month over Scripture passages about topics like celibacy, eunuchs, slavery — and the connections between sex and marriage.  “Every single system you have within your body — whether it’s your respiratory system, your excretory system, your muscular system — can be completed as an individual,” said Sean McDowell, a professor here at Biola University and a well-known Christian author and speaker. “But there’s only one system in which male and female have half and become a united whole, and that’s in reproduction.”  But God intended marriage to be about more than “plumbing,” Mr. Vines argued: “Marriage ideally should be about permanent, mutual, self-giving, self-sacrificing love.”  Two evangelical authors offer conflicting interpretations about the Bible’s well-known passages about homosexuality.  As acceptance of same-sex marriage has swept the country and as the Supreme Court prepares to release a landmark decision on the issue, a wide variety of evangelical churches, colleges and ministries are having the kinds of frank discussions about homosexuality that many of them say they had never had before.  Youth ministers and chaplains are studying how to respond to students struggling with their sexual identities. Governing boards are re-examining their policies on allowing openly gay people in Bible studies. And pastors are preaching and writing about, rather than ignoring, the recent books arguing that the Bible can be read to support same-sex marriage.  Few are dropping their opposition. But aware that they are seen by many as bigots, some evangelical leaders are trying to figure out how to stand firm without alienating the increasing share of Americans — especially younger ones — who know gay people and support gay rights, or who may themselves come out as gay.  “Because this is such a relatively new thing, pastors and church people want to know, ‘How do we navigate this, and how do we navigate this well, without doubling down or capitulating?’ ” Glenn T. Stanton, the director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family, said in a telephone interview from the organization’s headquarters in Colorado Springs. Focus on the Family is a large ministry that helps set the social and political agenda for evangelicals, who make up about one-fourth of the nation’s population, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in 2014.  Mr. Vines says he has held about three dozen meetings all over the country in the last year with evangelical leaders who oppose his ideas. Some of the gatherings have been public and high profile. He spoke at the Q Conference, a prominent showcase for evangelical thinkers, in Boston in April — an appearance denounced by some conservatives.  But most of his meetings have been private. He has talked with small groups of pastors in Phoenix and Nashville and shared his story over coffee or lunch, often one on one, in places like Atlanta; Chicago; Orlando, Fla.; Portland, Ore.; and Greenville, S.C.  He also visited the campus of Focus on the Family in February, at the invitation of Mr. Stanton, and talked with more than 20 staff members about the psychic and spiritual damage inflicted on young gay Christians by ministries like Focus. The organization kept the encounter quiet until now because it did not want to be perceived as wavering in its stance.  Mr. Vines, 25, is hardly the first or the most scholarly evangelical to make these arguments, but when his book, “God and the Gay Christian,” was published last year, it received a lot of attention and proved to be both calling card and lightning rod.  He wrote it after he dropped out of Harvard; went home to Wichita, Kan.; came out to his parents; and studied Scripture and biblical exegesis on homosexuality. The book prompted a nearly instant rebuttal from the Rev. R.Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.  “If we accept his argument,” Mr. Mohler wrote, “we cannot do that without counting the cost, and that cost includes the loss of all confidence in the Bible.”  The encounter at Biola was arranged by the Rev. Caleb Kaltenbach, lead pastor at Discovery Church in Simi Valley, who is part of a younger generation of evangelical leaders and pastors pushing the church to de-escalate the fight over homosexuality. “Not everything has to be a culture war,” he said.  Mr. Kaltenbach, 37, has his own singular story about coming to grips with the issue of homosexuality. His parents divorced when he was 2, and he was raised in Missouri in the 1980s and ’90s in two homes: that of his lesbian mother and her partner, and that of his father — who, he later learned, is also gay.  How the number of states authorizing same-sex marriage expanded rapidly.  As a child, Mr. Kaltenbach attended a gay rights march with his mother, and he recalls protesters yelling that God condemned the marchers and throwing urine on them. (His book, “Messy Grace,” part memoir and part advice for pastors on ministering to gays, will be published this year.) He says evangelicals should welcome gay people with “acceptance, but not approval.” Openly gay couples attend his church, he said, but are not allowed to serve on the leadership board.  At Biola, Mr. Kaltenbach sat in a club chair directly across from Mr. Vines. To Mr. Vines’s right was Frank Sontag, a Christian radio host wearing jeans and cowboy boots, who said he would not pass judgment on gay people because he, too, was a sinner.  They all agreed that, in the Bible, God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of sodomy, but because the residents were guilty of arrogance and greed. But other passages were not so easily dismissed.  “In Romans 1,” Mr. Kaltenbach said, “I cannot get past where Paul says that the actual act of having sex with someone of the same gender is a sin. I can’t get past that. And believe me, with two parents who are gay, you’ve got to know I tried, even exegetically through the Greek.”  Mr. Vines, bearded and wearing a sport jacket and dress shoes, said the apostle Paul spoke in an era when there was no model of mutually loving, monogamous same-sex relationships.  He asked, “Do you see any moral distinction between a lust-filled encounter and a long-term relationship, when you approach the text?”  Mr. Vines did not really expect to change minds at Biola. The night before, at a packed meeting in Culver City for supporters of his organization, the Reformation Project, he explained that the first step in changing churches would be to identify the “silent sympathizers” and encourage them to speak up.  So in the meeting at Biola, Mr. Vines was on the lookout for just one silent sympathizer. He quickly homed in on a pastor with gelled hair and an unconventional past. The Rev. Ian DiOrio, the lead pastor of Yucaipa Christian Church, told the group that he had spent years as a deejay and worked weekly in a gay club called the Lion’s Den. He said he was close with his gay brother, who just got married.  The conversation returned to whether human reproduction was proof that God intended marriage to be between only a man and a woman. Mr. DiOrio confided that he was infertile and that he and his wife had adopted three children.  “That’s why I know the only reason for marriage can’t be procreation,” he said. “I would think there’s a depth of our relationship that transcends sexuality.”  During the closing prayer, Mr. Sontag laid his hand on Mr. Vines’s back. Mr. Kaltenbach called Mr. Vines a “brother in Christ.”  Mr. Vines and Mr. DiOrio decided to go to lunch at an Italian restaurant. They talked for two and a half hours, and Mr. Vines later deemed Mr. DiOrio “definitely movable.”  Mr. Kaltenbach later said the meeting had not changed his position. But with the Supreme Court decision nearing, he said, “it showed me all the more that evangelical Christians need to do more listening than talking right now.”
Encouraged by younger Christians and cultural shifts, some church leaders are having what they describe as unprecedented discussions about homosexuality.