A university in Waco, Texas, has been given a grant of over $643,000, in order to “foster inclusion and belonging in the church,” and especially to understand “the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals and women within congregations to nurture institutional courage and foster change.”
As reported by Good Faith Media, the grant was given by the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation to the Center for Church and Community Impact, a research centre which forms part of Baylor University’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work.
“Congregations have the potential to be spaces of healing and belonging, yet too often they become sources of exclusion and harm,” said Dr. Jon Singletary, dean of Baylor’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work. “This grant equips us to listen deeply, study carefully and partner faithfully with churches seeking to become more just and welcoming communities.”
Baylor University was founded by and is still associated with Christian Baptists, and until 2015 prohibited “homosexual acts” by students. The same year Gay marriage was federally recognised by the US Supreme Court, the language was finally changed, by still emphasised “marital fidelity”, with this defined as being between a man and woman. Marking a positive move in the right direction, in 2022, the university chartered its first LGBTQ+ student organisation, named Prism. However, as of 2025, Baylor’s ‘human sexuality’ statement still states: “Christian churches across the ages and around the world have affirmed purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm.”
The new grant will be spent on interviews, focus groups and surveys of university students, the findings of which will be used to develop trauma-sensitive training materials for churches.
