April 25th marked the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's annual Day of Silence, described by the Network's website as a "student-led day of action when concerned students, from middle school to college, take some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to the name-calling, bullying and harassment--in effect, the silencing--experienced by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) students and their allies." Not surprisingly, the nationwide event elicited a range of responses from evangelical Christian groups at both the national and local level, and therefore offers promise as an occasion for further reflection about what form Christian witness should take in a pluralistic democratic society.

Boycott, in the form of students staying home from school that day, was advised by both Concerned Women for America and the American Family Association. This strategy was often joined to protest, as seen at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie, Washington (an eastside suburb of Seattle). According to a Seattle Times article, not only were 495 out of 1,410 students not at school for the day--"including 85 athletes whose parents had asked that they be excused for their personal beliefs"--but "about 100 people joined the Rev. Ken Hutcherson, a prominent anti-gay-rights activist, in prayer and song that questioned the dedication of a school day to what they said was a controversial political cause." The week before, Hutcherson, pastor of the local Antioch Bible Church, had called for 1,000 "prayer warriors" to join him in an ad in a local paper.

A form of protest was also displayed by Alexander Nuxholl, a sophomore at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Illinois. Nuxholl was granted the right to wear a shirt that read, "Be Happy, Not Gay" on the Day of Silence by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court also ordered the school district not to discipline him for wearing the shirt. Nuxholl's case was litigated by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian nonprofit legal alliance based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The ADF also sponsored a countermeasure or alternative to the Day of Silence, a second common strategy for Christian witness. The annual Day of Truth, which came three days after the the Day of Silence, was, according to its website, "established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective." Christian students are encouraged to wear T-shirts and pass out cards (outside of class time) that read:

I'm speaking the Truth to break the silence.
True tolerance means that people with differing--even opposing--viewpoints can freely exchange ideas and respectfully listen to each other.
It's time for an honest conversation about homosexuality.
There's freedom to change if you want to.
Let’s talk.

This year marked the fourth for the Day of Truth (roughly 7,000 participants), and the thirteenth Day of Silence (roughly 500,000 participants).

In addition to boycott, protest, and the creation of an alternative, the Day of Silence saw another response from evangelical Christians--participation. The Golden Rule Pledge is promoted by Grove City College Psychology Professor Warren Throckmorton as an option for "straight Christian and conservative students [who] are conflicted about this day. They do not affirm homosexual behavior but they also loathe disrespect, harrassment or violence toward any one, including their GLBT peers." This response urges Christian students to act in accordance with the message on the cards they are urged to give out:

This is what I’m doing:

I pledge to treat others the way I want to be treated.

Will you join me in this pledge?

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31).

The Golden Rule Pledge website features first-hand accounts from Christian students who participated in this year's Day of Silence, including Jordyne Krumroy of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, who convinced ASU's Campus Crusade and InterVarsity Fellowship ministries to support Christian students such as her who chose to duct tape their mouths shut for a day.

Evangelicals are by definition a gospel-proclaiming people. Part of our becoming a wise people is learning to match our proclamation both to the manner of the Christ we proclaim, as well as to the occasion before us. Gospel wisdom, then, means not just learning when to speak, but what part of God's good news to speak first, and how that news should be delivered. On occasion, we may even find the best way to begin to "speak" this marvelous news is to remain silent.

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Posted by Derek Keefe at May 2, 2008 | Comments (16)

Note: CleanFlicks has disputed much of the initial media reports cited here. See our update.

The co-founder of CleanFlicks, a video editing service once used by many Christians, has been arrested in Utah for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex.

Daniel Thompson, who ran CleanFlicks till the courts shut it down in 2006, had more recently operated Flix Club, a family-friendly edited-movie video business in Orem, Utah. He was arrested last Thursday on two charges of forcible sexual abuse and two charges of forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old. Thompson is out on bail.

Thompson’s business partner at Flix Club, Isaac Lifferth, was also arrested on similar charges.

Thompson reportedly told police that Flix Club, which carried videos in which objectionable content had been edited out, was only a front, and that he and Lifferth were also involved in making and distributing porn movies.

Flix Club was forced to close last year after a federal court ruled that movie-editing businesses violated U.S. copyright law when they "sanitized" films by removing nudity, sex, profanity, and other objectionable content.

According to police reports, Thompson and Lifferth allegedly paid two 14-year-old girls $20 each to perform oral sex, and Lifferth allegedly had intercourse with a 16-year-old girl multiple times, including in the offices at Flix Club.

"I would have never suspected there was other stuff going on," the father of the 16-year-old told the Daily Herald in Provo. "I guess I didn't know Daniel. He always seemed like a real decent guy."

Obviously not. USA Today blogged several news items about the story under the title, "Clean Flicks, dirty man?"

Ironically, and perhaps prophetically, Thompson’s MySpace page includes the tagline, "Somewhere in the valley between Good and Evil." On that same page, for his "status"—where most people write something like "single" or "married"—Thompson wrote "Swinger."

Posted by Mark Moring at January 30, 2008 | Comments (11)

From David Instone-Brewer:

While I am pleased that my article has provoked so much debate (for and against), it is unfortunate that much of this has centered on a particularly weak portion where, admittedly, it is possible to misunderstand my main message - that biblically, divorce is only allowed for serious and specific grounds. Unfortunately, some people have misunderstood the mention of emotional and physical neglect, believing that this refers to any minor infraction, which is utterly opposite to the conclusions I intended to convey.

John Piper (who is familiar with my work though he disagrees with the conclusions) has helpfully pointed out that this is a misunderstanding of my article, so I have written a blog thanking him for his input, as well as interacting with his interpretation. It is posted on my blog and after the jump.

* * *
John Piper has written a gracious and well-argued response to my article in Christianity Today. He criticizes my conclusions and outlines his own, non-traditional, interpretation of the texts, which I will respond to below. He also says that the article has been misunderstood by many readers, pointing out that it is easy to jump to the wrong conclusions if you read the article, without having read my books (which he knows well).

Many readers have misunderstood the article to say that divorce is allowed for any breaking of marriage vows by emotional or physical neglect. But what my research demonstrates is that both Jesus and Paul criticized no-fault divorce and taught that we should forgive the faults of our marriage partners. Jesus did, however, allow divorce if the marriage vows were broken with ‘hardness of heart’ – an Old Testament word meaning continuing, or stubborn, unrepentance. This means, in effect, that divorce is allowed for adultery, abandonment or abuse. I am glad to have the opportunity to put this important distinction across.

John Piper’s own interpretation of the divorce passages is based on the view that porneia (Greek for ‘sexual indecency’) had a different meaning in first century Judaism, when it referred mainly to ‘fornication’ (i.e. sexual sin before marriage). This well-established theory was popularized a few decades ago by the Catholic scholar Murphy O’Connor, who found supporting evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This interpretation is important for Catholic scholars because it means that Jesus did not allow any divorce after marriage has occurred – the same teaching that Piper supports.

This evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls was based on only one passage, a particularly difficult one, in the Damascus Document, which relies on the translation of the word zenut (the Hebrew equivalent of porneia) as "sex before marriage". Since O’Connor put forward this theory, however, other scrolls have been studied (especially the Temple Scroll) and most scholars have concluded that the early interpretations of this passage were mistaken, and that it was actually forbidding polygamy.

This does not mean that John Piper’s non-traditional interpretation of porneia is wrong (it is still a possible interpretation that is waiting for more evidence), but it does mean that we do not now have much evidence that it can be translated this way. In fact, most scholars agree that porneia is a general term for sexual sin, as seen in the New Testament itself. It is used for visiting a prostitute (1 Cor.6.13-15, 18), incest (1 Cor.5.1), general sexual sin by a married person (1 Cor.7.2), use of cultic prostitutes (Rev.2.20-21) and the sin of the ‘whore of Babylon’ (Rev.17.2, 4; 18.3; 19.2) - though the most common meaning is ‘sexual sin in general’ (e.g. Acts 15.20; Eph.5.3; Col.3.5).

It is a pity that I wasn’t clearer when I summarized my book in the CT article, but that is the danger of trying to say a great deal in few words. I’d like to thank John Piper for helping to set aside some of the misconceptions which resulted.

(Discuss below or on Instone-Brewer's blog. See also our earlier blog post on criticisms of the Instone-Brewer article.)

Posted by Ted Olsen at October 22, 2007 | Comments (73)

Christianity Today has repeatedly discussed the problems generated by no-fault divorce in the United States and the problem of the church’s therapeutic accommodation to it. Readers should see for example, “The Christian Divorce Culture,” an editorial from the year 2000. We received a lot of negative mail from readers who felt we were insufficiently sensitive to the feelings of divorced Christians. Our concerns were also expressed in the 2006 interview with Elizabeth Marquardt, which examines the painful impact of divorce on children.

So we were surprised at the way a number of people interpreted David Instone-Brewer’s recent CT cover story, “What God Has Joined.” Despite what some readers thought, Instone-Brewer’s article did not contradict CT’s consistent message, nor did it give people carte blanche on divorce (though we admit, we could have made that point more strongly).

Instead, Instone-Brewer’s article was designed to help us understand Jesus’ own words in his own religious and cultural context. Jesus’ words on divorce have admittedly been problematic, and scholars have wrestled for centuries trying to understand their precise meaning. Multiple New Testament scholars that we respect have said they think Instone-Brewer’s book has the analysis right. (For CT, Instone-Brewer just sketched out the general shape of his analysis, and we pointed readers to his IVP book for the details.)

Instone-Brewer’s argument does not give us an infinitely elastic set of reasons for divorce, but it does recognize that marriage is constituted by more than sex, so that marriage can be irreparably harmed by something other than adultery. If, for example, a husband consistently fails to provide material support to his wife, then surely the marriage is as broken as if the husband has committed adultery.

* * *

I suspect that most of my divorced friends are not divorced because a spouse failed to provide the biblical basics of marriage that Instone-Brewer identified. They divorced because they had trouble getting along or they had “fallen out of love” or they had “outgrown the relationship.” None of those divorces are justified by Instone-Brewer’s understanding of the text. Curiously, one blogger claimed that Instone-Brewer had said that if we are insufficiently “honored” by our spouses, we can legitimately divorce. I don’t think so. As I carefully re-read Instone-Brewer’s article, he said that our formal vows of “love, honor, and keep” reflect the Mosaic requirements of “food, clothing, and marital rights.” (Instone-Brewer used the euphemistic “love” where most English translations of Exodus 21:10 use “marital rights” or "conjugal rights.") That is not creating an elastic “dishonoring” grounds for divorce, but it is defining “honor” in terms of its biblical roots. (Think of the old Prayer Book wedding service: “With my body I thee worship.”)

But then I do know a few people who have been divorced following physical abuse or failure to provide. Those divorces, after one partner persisted in abuse or neglect after repeated attempts to restore the marriage, are indeed covered by Instone-Brewer. People who say they have been hurt by such a divorce should probably not blame the divorce, but the party who failed to live up to his promises.

* * *

Some have also complained that Instone-Brewer’s reasoning involves using extra-biblical material to silence the plain meaning of Scripture. Extra-biblical material must be handled carefully, and yet it is something that pastors and Bible scholars do every day. In my own generation, we used Moulton and Milligan’s The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament to get a sense for how the words the New Testament writers used would have been understood by their contemporaries. Without comparing the biblical books with similar extra-biblical material, we just cannot know what words or phrases would mean to their original readers.

Similarly, my generation of seminary students was urged to use Strack and Billerbeck’s Commentary on the New Testament from Talmud and Midrash to tune in to the way in which rabbinic writers discussed issues similar to those tackled by Jesus and Paul. Indeed, without following the particular forms of those rabbinic arguments, we cannot appreciate the shape of Jesus' and Paul’s arguments.

Scholarly investigation of the relationship between rabbinical discussion and the way the New Testament writers dealt with issue has moved way beyond Strack and Billerbeck. And David Instone-Brewer is one of those who has advanced it.

Curiously, the 16th-century Reformers were much closer to Instone-Brewer’s conclusions than to many of our more conservative contemporary expositors. They didn’t have Instone-Brewer’s knowledge of rabbinic writing, but like him they came out with more grounds for divorce than many of our churches do. Zwingli and Bucer had the longest lists of grounds for divorce, but even they had clear reasons that could not be stretched to cover just any situation. Many of them were dealing with divorce in a social framework that was no longer dominated by the Roman church. At Trent, Rome stuck by its narrow allowances for divorce and condemned these “liberal” Protestants. If Instone-Brewer is in line with these Reformers, his conclusions are hardly radical.

I am sorry that this particular cover story in CT struck many readers the way it did. We are seriously concerned about the effects of no-fault divorce in our society and the devastating impact it has on the economic and emotional lives of children. We urge churches not to succumb to the therapeutic society’s tendency to indulge divorce. Instead, the church must reconnect with a strong marital ideal taught by the Bible and the church. We can teach that ideal to our young people. But we need not punish those whose spouses persistently fail to live up to their vows.

Posted by David Neff at October 18, 2007 | Comments (70)

National [insert your own cause] awareness days are popping up all over the country, and the Church is no exception.
One Indianapolis-area church Sunday sermon sparked interest from local media. “You heard him correctly: It's Porn Sunday” headlined the Indianapolis Star’s article. The Crux Church joined hundreds of churches across the nation who observed National Porn Sunday yesterday, sponsored by Xxx.church.com, an online ministry aimed at Christians who are addicted to porn.

“I mean, how many times have you heard your pastor say ‘porn’ from the pulpit?” Crux's lead pastor, Daron Earlewin, tells the Star.

The Daily News in Florida reports that a 15-foot tall inflatable, blue elephant is mailed to participating churches across the country as mascot for National Porn Sunday.

"We are basically going to confront the big elephant in the pew," Robert Pooley, senior pastor of Coast Community Church told the newspaper.

But is the pulpit the place for the big blue elephant, or should it be addressed within individual counseling? What Bible verses do these preachers use?

These pastors desire to preach on issues that may have been overlooked in the past, but how do pastors make sure that they are not overlooking more traditional themes (pride, love, evangelism) that may not be as “sexy”?

“I think it may be one of the biggest problems that no one wants to talk about,” the Crux pastor says.

These pastors aim bring the issue out into the open, but could normalizing pornography make it an issue for those who had never found it to be a problem in the first place?

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at October 8, 2007 | Comments (10)

An intriguing news item in this morning’s New York Times reports on a University of Texas at Austin study of why people have sex. The researchers asked subjects why they had sex (or if they were inexperienced, why they would have sex if they could). They boiled down a longer list of 715 responses into a shorter list of 237 reasons, then analyzed and categorized them.

There are few surprises in the list of top responses. The researchers write: “An astonishing 123 items, or 52% of the items, showed significant gender differences.” Duh!

Women tended toward more relational answers (‘‘I wanted to express my love for the person’’; ‘‘I realized that I was in love.’’). Men were more libidinous, more status oriented, and more utilitarian. Fortunately, relational factors still ranked high for men. Both “I wanted to please the person” and “I wanted to express my love for the person,” were in the top ten reasons for men.

What was missing from the top 50 reasons for both sexes? Jon Tierney, writer of the Times article, noted wryly: “[The researchers] even found a few people who claimed to have been motivated by the desire to have a child.” Shockingly, this item showed up in the bottom 50 for men. Maybe that’s just the sample bias that comes from relying largely on university students as subjects.

Nevertheless, the rarity of procreation as a conscious reason for sex poses a challenge for Christian believers. One of the key reasons that God invented sex is procreation. And while I can relate to many of the other reasons given in the study (“I was horny”; “I desired emotional closeness”), I have clear memories of having intercourse with my wife at various times precisely because we wanted a child (or another child).

My wife and I came of age just about the time the Pill was widely introduced to American society. We still thought in terms of the nexus between sex and children. In our contraceptive society, however, that intuitive connection has been culturally severed. I believe in using birth control to plan our families, but this cultural disconnect is one of the unforeseen side effects of the Pill. It sometimes seems that only among countercultural minority groups (such as conservative Protestants and Catholics, the Mormons, and Orthodox Jews) do the blessings of family and the acts of sex retain their fundamental connection.

So, to my countercultural fellows, I say, go make babies; go make families.

Posted by David Neff at July 31, 2007 | Comments (3)

Michael Glatze, former head of Young Gay America, says he's no longer interested in a "gay identity" and has been healed from homosexual desires. He also says he was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) earlier this year.

The Christian Post, a website affiliated with the World Evangelical Alliance, this week published an editorial saying that its rejoicing over the former outweighs its concern over the latter.

"The story of change should be used by believers to open the eyes of others like him and to lead them out of the homosexual lifestyle into a more godly one. And doing so is not an endorsement of the Mormon church," the publication said. "Glatze should be accepted for who he is -- not the result of Mormon conversion, but one of the latest and most prominent examples of former homosexuals who came to acknowledge homosexuality as sin and made the decision to turn away from the sinful lifestyle. And because Glatze's conversion is more likely to pull people away from homosexuality than draw people towards the Mormon church, believers should be more concerned about Glatze returning to homosexuality than him joining the Mormon church."

Ex-Gay Watch's Eugene Wagner says the Christian Post is essentially telling its readers the ends justify the means. "One wonders if ex-gay Scientologists would receive a similarly warm welcome," he writes.

Posted by Ted Olsen at July 19, 2007 | Comments (51)

Hanna Rosin writes in Slate,

Teenagers who identify as "evangelical" or "born again" are highly likely to sound like the girl at the bar; 80 percent think sex should be saved for marriage. But thinking is not the same as doing. Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7 for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had three or more sexual partners by age 17.

In her review of Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers , Rosin writes about how evangelicals are more sexually active than any other religious group. But--surprise--it turns out that highly committed evangelicals are serious prudes. "Among the mass of typically promiscuous teenagers in the book, one group stands out: the 16 percent of American teens who describe religion as "extremely important" in their lives. When these guys pledge, they mean it."

So much for this stereotype overturning book.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 31, 2007 | Comments (23)

Homosexuality. Polygamy. Nigeria. Islam. Church and state. Street violence. All this in a 430-word story. Here's how it begins:

Kano State government has ordered police to arrest five women, Aunty Maiduguri and her four women spouses whom she married with full celebration over the weekend, contrary to the Shari’a legal system being operated in the state.
Government has also ordered demolition of three theatres in farm centre, Kano including the theatre where the marriage ceremony took place. The theatre was host to the celerity marriage where an estimated 2,000 people attended.

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 26, 2007 | Comments (0)