Hermenuetics

Stanton Jones, CedarvilleOUT Come to Campus

Last spring, John* asked if we could meet at the Hive, our college campus snack shop. After a bit of small talk, he confided, “My friends said that you’re someone I’d feel safe talking to. And this is what I wanted to tell you: Since junior high, I’ve known that I am gay. I don’t think I’ll ever change. If you lined up one hundred of the most beautiful women you could find, I’d maybe be somewhat attracted to one.”

“Have you told your parents?” I asked. “Yeah. I came out right before I returned to school this year. I’m not looking forward to going home.”

Last year, Hope* told me that she struggled with homosexuality. Hope grew up in a legalistic Christian home where an older sibling had sexually abused her. Her parents have no clue about her struggles, and based on past experience, Hope believes her mom would turn suicidal should she discover her daughter’s same-sex attraction.

This semester, as we sat and talked in my apartment, her eyes beamed. “I actually had a crush on a guy who I worked with at Christian summer camp! I don’t feel so gay anymore.” But she also related how her ex-girlfriend recently ridiculed her faith in Christ, and how a female co-worker had confessed to having a crush on her. “The thing is, I have never told anyone I was gay. I don’t even know how she knew. Please pray that I would be protected from temptation.”

As a resident director and spiritual mentor at Cedarville University, a Baptist evangelical school in the Midwest, I interact with students in almost every facet of college life, and delight in encouraging them to follow Jesus closely in the midst of their struggles. I live with my husband and 2-year-old daughter in an apartment attached to a women’s dorm at Cedarville. In the past few years, the Residence Life Department has seen an increase in the number of students confiding their struggles with same-sex attraction. And because we believe the Bible expressly forbids homosexual behavior, yet desire help in being Christ to students who struggle with their sexuality, we invited Stanton Jones, provost and psychology professor at Wheaton College, to discuss the research published in his 2007 book, Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation, for Cedarville’s Critical Concern Series.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 10:04 AM | Comments (75)

The Day We Let Our Son Live

When it comes to the chance for those with genetic defects to live, the news has not been good on either side of the Atlantic. Last week’s Telegraph reported that of all women in the U.K. who find out through prenatal testing that their baby will have Down syndrome, about 90 percent choose to have an abortion. And yesterday, ABC News reported a near-identical rate among women in the U.S.: 92 percent of those who find out their child will have the chromosomal defect decide to abort. One geneticist at Children’s Hospital Boston found that, without prenatal testing, the number of Down syndrome births would have increased by 34 percent between 1989 and 2005. Instead, the number of Down syndrome births has dropped by 15 percent over that time.

Upon hearing such news, I remembered Ellen and Al Hsu (pronounced shee), a Christian couple who works at InterVarsity Press in Downers Grove, Illinois, and who faced the same situation as the women above. This is Ellen’s story of Elijah, their 4-year-old with Down syndrome, as originally told on their family blog, Team Hsu.

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I gazed in wonder at the blurry form on the screen. “Hi, Baby,” I whispered. The image of our baby was much clearer on the level-two ultrasound. The technician rolled the ultrasound wand over my growing abdomen, and I marveled as I watched our son squirm and suck his thumb. A new life forming within me.

Our OB/GYN had referred us for a level-two ultrasound after he noticed choroid plexus cysts on our baby’s brain during the standard 20-week ultrasound. I was anxious about what the maternal health specialist might find. We knew a couple whose ultrasound also had showed choroids plexus cysts, but whose baby was perfectly fine when he was born. We had spent the past week praying for our baby and hoping for the best.

Al walked into the exam room as the technician was finishing up. She hadn’t said much and explained that the doctor would be in to take a look for himself and to explain what he found. Al and I chatted quietly while we waited. I was relieved that he had made it before the doctor came in. Little did I know how much I would need him.

The doctor came in and began his exam. I was delighted at the chance to see more images of our baby. But my world was shaken when the doctor finally began explaining what he saw. “Something is very wrong with this baby.”

He continued to roll the wand over my tummy as he pointed to various spots on the screen and began listing all the “abnormalities”: larger than usual nuchal folds; clenched fists; possible club feet; something wrong with the liver; enlarged ventricles in the brain; possibly no stomach. My tears flowed as his list grew longer. My delight at the new life within me turned to icy fear, and I clutched Al’s hand tightly.

The doctor suspected a chromosomal problem, possibly Trisomy 13 or 18, birth defects caused by an extra 13th or 18th chromosome. He explained that both of these conditions are generally “incompatible with life.” We were told that if our baby was born alive, he was likely to die within a day. If we were lucky, he might survive for 6 to 12 months. We wondered if we should begin preparing for death instead of life.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 4:28 PM | Comments (23)

Redeeming Roman Polanski

Film director Roman Polanski was recently arrested on a 32-year-old charge of statutory rape, which he pled guilty to in 1977 before fleeing the country. Now, while Polanski fights extradition, Hollywood rallies for his freedom, and news sources turn it into a story about a celebrity instead of about our justice system, others are asking, “What if Polanski were a Catholic priest who had abused children?”

Meanwhile, many Americans are scratching their heads. Unfortunately, it seems many of the people quick to give their opinion on this issue got their facts from Wikipedia and assume it wasn’t as appalling as it sounds. Well, they are wrong. (Warning: Reading the facts may make you sick.)

Hollywood hasn’t forgotten, however, because apparently Hollywood never blamed Polanski for raping a 13-year-old girl in the first place. (To be fair, there are exceptions.) People protesting the “Polanski persecution” include Harvey Weinstein, Peter Fonda, and Whoopi Goldberg, among others, who are all old enough to know better. No, it’s probably not fair that the only reason the L.A. Police Department knew Polanski would be in Switzerland was because he’s famous. It’s not fair that Polanski has been celebrated — and publicly awarded, including an Oscar in 2003 —for the 32 years since he fled the country, either. His arrest in Switzerland, in fact, came about because he had a Lifetime Achievement Award to accept.

But as Jeri Thompson, wife of Law & Order mainstay Fred Thompson, and no stranger to celebrity culture, wrote, it’s “one more piece of compelling evidence of just how out of touch the ‘artistic’ community is with the rest of America.” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said yesterday that such an explanation is a little too easy, just as it would be to say that Catholics are out of touch with the rest of the denominations.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:46 AM | Comments (18)

The President's Speech and Parental Rights

Children in many U.S. schools yesterday heard President Obama exhort the values of hard work and personal responsibility in his back-to-school address. Reformed pastor John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church praised the speech as “a wonderful gift of common grace from God to the students of our land.” Before the speech, many parents had protested the way it was framed — the Department of Education had given schools a “menu of classroom activities” that suggested students write about “how they could help the President” — rather than its content. Many parents demanded that their school districts provide alternatives to watching the speech or that they not show it at all. School districts were forced to respond with less than two weeks’ notice to the Education Department’s announcement.

Meanwhile, in Quebec, a court struggle recently broke out over a new, mandatory “Ethics and Religious Culture” course that will replace three separate religion courses for all students. Some Christian parents protested it as a violation of their right to choose their children’s religious education, but Quebec’s Superior Court ruled August 31 that the class does not violate the right to “freedom of conscience and religion” in the Canadian Charter of Rights. Here's how one law professor at the Université de Sherbrooke defended the ruling:

What parents were demanding was the right to ignorance, the right to protect their children from being exposed to the existence of other religions. . . . This right to ignorance is certainly not protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Freedom of religion does not protect the right not to know what is going on in our universe.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:10 AM | Comments (26)

What the TNIV Means for Evangelical Women

As a blog centered on women, it seems only right for Her.meneutics to respond to Zondervan and Biblica’s major announcement that their gender-inclusive language Bible, NIVi (released only in Britain) was a mistake, and that they would no longer publish the controversial Today's New International Version (TNIV).

“Quite frankly, some of the criticism [of the NIVi] was justified, and we need to be brutally honest about the mistakes that were made,” said Keith Danby, CEO of Biblica, which owns the copyright to the NIV. “We fell short of the trust that was placed in us. We failed to make the case for revisions and we made some important errors in the way we brought the translation to publication. . . .”

Zondervan president Moe (Maureen) Girkins lamented that the TNIV “divided the evangelical Christian community,” and said the Michigan-based publishing house would begin phasing out TNIV-related products. “We’re trying to do this right and be as transparent as possible.”

Meanwhile, the Committee on Bible Translation has begun working on NIV 2011, which chairman Doug Moo said will reflect scholarly developments from the last quarter-century. He said the committee is undecided on how much gender-inclusive language the new NIV will include, and that it welcomes input at NIVBible2011.com.

As someone admittedly new to the debate surrounding TNIV — which some evangelical leaders believe abandons Scripture’s integrity in favor of political correctness — I had trouble finding much controversy in Tuesday’s announcement. The publishers focused not on the inherent errors of gender-inclusive translations but on the way they had introduced such a translation to the public. And they seem aimed more at producing a Bible that’s both accurate and accessible than condemning Bible readers who appreciate the TNIV’s use of humankind, men and women, et al. where the text is not gender-specific.

No matter, said Eugene Cho, a Seattle pastor writing for Sojourners' blog. Cho linked the disappearance of the TNIV to the “schizophrenic” landscape of evangelicalism, saying the TNIV was “immensely refreshing and encouraging” given “the increasing rise of the macho, masculine, and ultimate fighting Jesus presentation.” (My gratitude, though, for Cho’s link to Christianity Today’s April 2008 article “A Jesus for Real Men.”)

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 11:17 AM | Comments (28)

Girl Dumps God

I wanted to love Not That Kind of Girl, a new memoir from “recovering evangelical” Carlene Bauer. On the surface, Bauer and I have a lot in common. We’re women who love the Bible, literature, and pop culture. We are aspiring writers who landed in publishing. She even grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs like me, entrenched in the evangelical subculture. And from early reviews, it was unclear just what, exactly, “recovering evangelical” meant. In the first chapter, Bauer describes her first encounter with the End Times, via a church basement screening of A Thief in the Night with her Christian classmates. At 8, her biggest fears suddenly included the government installing a bar code on her forehead or the back of her hand under a blood-red moon. She goes to bed at night earnestly whispering to God, “Could I live until I fell in love?”

This girl is me, I thought. I vividly remember telling my mom, myself at 8 years old, that I wanted to be excited for Jesus to come back, but if he could, it would be great if he could wait until I went to college, got married, and had a career and kids.

What critics are heralding as a “good-girl memoir” is actually a tragic story of faith, slowly and painfully lost. Bauer writes for a generation raised in the church of Dare to Discipline: “I sometimes wondered, sitting in church listening to ancient tales of obstinacy, if I had been born with original sin, because stealing and lying and saying mean things had never held an appeal.” For Bauer, faith comes easily at first, and even as she grows up and enters public school, she finds it easy to resist sex and alcohol.

But as her faith lingers during her college years at a Catholic university, belief in God feels like something she would shake off if she could only find the proper motive. Faith is a convenient foil to her introverted tendencies and dislike of the drunken parties and casual sex that consume her classmates. She secretly envies her friend Jane, who came to Christ in college, because it offers her a “platform for radical self-invention.”

Megan Hustad’s review for the Daily Beast identifies the conceit that makes Bauer's memoir one of interest for evangelicals:

[Bauer] aspires not only to be truly hip, she also wants to be taken seriously in New York’s snobbish literary scene. And she seeks to accomplish both of these goals while hanging on to her fervent faith in Jesus Christ. If life maneuvers received scores for technical difficulty, Bauer would be competing for gold.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 10:58 AM | Comments (14)

Half the Sky: A Must-Read Book

This past weekend, The New York Times Sunday Magazine devoted its entire issue to "Why Women's Rights Are the Cause of Our Time." Some very sober and powerful reading there — and not what you might think upon encountering a magazine with a title like that. In fact, these are real, global, and serious issues that should have the attention and ministry of Christians everywhere. More on that in a moment.

The lead feature was an excerpt from the forthcoming book by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn,a former Times correspondent who now works in finance and philanthropy. Here's a summary of the book, titled Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide — one that includes an honest fact about abortion that I was stunned to read in a mainstream publication. This is a good indicator of the journalistic veracity of this book's research:

Traditionally, the status of women was seen as a “soft” issue — worthy but marginal. We initially reflected that view ourselves in our work as journalists. We preferred to focus instead on the “serious” international issues, like trade disputes or arms proliferation. Our awakening came in China.

After we married in 1988, we moved to Beijing to be correspondents for The New York Times. Seven months later we found ourselves standing on the edge of Tiananmen Square watching troops fire their automatic weapons at pro-democracy protesters. The massacre claimed between 400 and 800 lives and transfixed the world; wrenching images of the killings appeared constantly on the front page and on television screens.

Yet the following year we came across an obscure but meticulous demographic study that outlined a human rights violation that had claimed tens of thousands more lives. This study found that 39,000 baby girls died annually in China because parents didn’t give them the same medical care and attention that boys received — and that was just in the first year of life. A result is that as many infant girls died unnecessarily every week in China as protesters died at Tiananmen Square. Those Chinese girls never received a column inch of news coverage, and we began to wonder if our journalistic priorities were skewed.

A similar pattern emerged in other countries. In India, a “bride burning” takes place approximately once every two hours, to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry — but these rarely constitute news. When a prominent dissident was arrested in China, we would write a front-page article; when 100,000 girls were kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn’t even consider it news.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:35 AM | Comments (6)

The Lutherans and Twister Theology

When is a warning from God not a warning from God? Or a "we can't tell whether or not it's a warning from God"?

This question came up last week while I was covering the church-wide assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Minneapolis. Members of America's largest Lutheran denomination voted to allow non-celibate gays to become clergy and paved the way for same-sex blessing ceremonies. Conservatives I talked to were devastated by the convention, but even they admitted that before the meeting began August 17, they knew they did not have enough votes to prevent the juggernaut.

Then the tornado came.

It was just before 2 p.m. on Wednesday, August 19, right before one of the first significant votes of the assembly. The Lutherans were slated to vote on a sexuality statement that, for the first time I know of, gave the gay-friendly view a place at the table as one of four theological positions Lutherans could have. If the statement passed, it indicated where the convention would go from that point on.

Then someone rushed into the press room and told us to vacate the place fast. A tornado had touched down close by, we were told. The police wanted us in a safe place away from the glass windows that encase the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Everyone rushed into the main hall to join some 1,045 voting members who were listening to a Bible study being led by a female preacher. (A few blogs say the debate on the statement had already begun, but that is not true. I was there). A palpable blanket of fear descended on the entire group as the doors to the outside hallways were shut, enclosing us in the giant hall, which was apparently was the safest place to be. We could hear the winds howling outside. I thought of my rental car parked nearby and hoped it would stay in one piece. After the Bible study, ELCA President Mark Hanson read the 121st Psalm to calm everyone down.

"We trust the weather is not a commentary on our work," said the Rev. Steven Loy, chairman of the ad hoc committee on the sexuality statement.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:39 AM | Comments (26)

The Persecuted Rifqa Bary?

Fathima Rifqa Bary's story is quickly circulating on blogs and Christian media as proof of Islam's violent roots and the cost of following Christ. While the latter is true no matter who's doing the following, the former is disputable in the case of the Ohio teen who fled her home two weeks ago to meet up with Blake and Beverly Lorenz, Florida pastors she had met on Facebook.

"They [my parents] threatened to kill me," Bary says tearfully in a YouTube video (above) posted Tuesday. She goes on to explain the logic of honor killings: "They have to kill me. My blood is now hallal, which means that because I am now a Christian, I am from a Muslim background. It's an honor, they love God more than me. They have to do this."

Bary says she hitchhiked and rode a bus July 19 from New Albany, a Columbus suburb, to Orlando, calling the Lorenzes upon arriving. She stayed with the pastors of the nondenominational Global Revolution Church until Monday, when she was placed into emergency custody with the Dept. of Children and Families.

"We are doing everything we can to protect her," Blake Lorenz told The Orlando Sentinel. Beverly Lorenz told The Columbus Dispatch they hardly knew Bary but took her in and called an abuse hotline last Friday, which prompted a visit from state police. Blake Lorenz said that he's "very concerned that the system will let her down."

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:15 AM | Comments (42)

The Charismatic Alberto Cutie

It's been about three months now since we heard of Alberto Cutie, the former Roman Catholic priest who was caught kissing his girlfriend on a Miami beach. No sooner was he removed from his post than he left the Catholic Church altogether for the local Episcopal diocese, which welcomed him with much fanfare and sent him to pastor a local church.

As I looked at photos of Cutie, I realized there was something very familiar about the background: I used to attend that church.

That was when I was a reporter for the Hollywood Sun-Tattler, a daily of about 35,000 circulation when I moved there in 1983 as a general assignment reporter. Hollywood is a few suburbs to the north of Biscayne Park, where sits the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, Father Cutie's digs.

Back then, the church is not the smallish place it is today. Many of us drove 20 or more miles to attend Resurrection because it was the only openly charismatic church in the diocese. Two others were somewhat into the charismatic renewal, but Resurrection was huge on the prophecies, healings, and speaking in tongues the renewal movement is known for. It also had a healthy emphasis on the Bible and weeknight home groups.

It also helped that the rector, Cliff Horvath, and his wife, Nedda, had been committed to the place for years and held to rock-solid evangelical theology. Cliff was a risk taker when it came to things charismatic, and he drew many like-minded people to sit under him. The parish flourished with involvements in everything from Cursillo to Life in the Spirit seminars, and what was a quiet Anglican worship style when I first arrived became a full-blown swinging-on-the-chandeliers (I exaggerate a tad) church by the time I left in 1986 for a job at The Houston Chronicle.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:44 AM | Comments (11)

Corrupt Clergy and Forgiveness

In New Jersey this week, the news is corruption. Forty-four people, including three mayors, a state assemblyman, and five rabbis, have been arrested on various charges, including bribery and organ brokering. Shocking, even for New Jersey, many say. Ho hum, others sigh. For victims, the news is as fresh as an unexpected slap in the face. Imagine being the guy or girl who finds out that a rabbi was going to pocket $150,000 on the sale of your kidney. Imagine being one of those who learns he already has.

As Christians, we're fond of moral equivalence statements designed to inspire us to forgiveness. "There by the grace of God go I" is one. "The ground is level at the foot of the Cross" is another. I hate moral equivalence arguments. They impede the ability of victims to truly forgive. In this case, it is not the same thing for an impoverished father to sell a kidney to feed his family as it is for a member of the clergy to buy it for $10,000 while charging a desperate patient's family $160,000. One behavior, unchecked, may lead to another, but we empathize with the desperation and rightly deride the exploitation.

Still, corruption threatens its victims' souls nearly as much as its perpetrators'. The path of least resistance is to give in to bitterness and self-absorption, especially when expressions of anger at the injury or injustice draw condemnation from friend and foe alike. When our fellow believers hold up as models the Amish who immediately "forgave" the deranged Nickel Mines killer, for example, victims struggling with anger feel doubly violated. As one journalist discovered, even for the Amish, forgiveness is a complicated process.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:51 AM | Comments (6)

Building Up Without Walls

Popular Pentecostal teacher Paula White announced two weeks ago that she is taking the helm of the megachurch that she and ex-husband Randy White founded 18 years ago.

Paula's willingness to become senior pastor of Without Walls International Church - a Tampa, Florida, nondenominational congregation that once boasted 20,000+ members - shows immense optimism on her part, because the question remains if Without Walls has a future, or if it should.

Without Walls' leaders have been accused of preaching a prosperity gospel that says God will bless believers by making them succeed in all things, including in finances. One article reports that Without Walls used to have over 23,000 members (including celebrities and world leaders) and received up to $40 million in donations annually. All the while, the Whites were allegedly purchasing expensive homes and buying or leasing costly cars and private jets. Last fall the church faced foreclosure by the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, and is rumored to be in serious debt.

In August 2007, the Whites announced they were divorcing after 18 years of marriage. Since then, church membership has dwindled: three services have been cut to two, and hits to Without Walls' website and Paula's personal site have dropped dramatically.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 10:59 AM | Comments (8)

Breast Cancer and the Bible

Gone are the days when personalizing your Bible meant choosing between a leather or patterned Bible cover.

The wide variety of Bibles currently on the market allows for customization based on age, sex, and interest. There are Bibles for teenage girls (with "a unique design that fits her lifestyle") and college students, Bibles for men and Bibles for women, picture-book Bibles (even Manga Bibles), and Bibles for occasions, like the American Patriot's Bible, released by Thomas Nelson this summer to celebrate the Fourth of July.

Now you can also customize the Bible to a particular cause. Last year, HarperOne released The Green Bible, to "help you see that caring for the earth is not only a calling, but a lifestyle"; now Tyndale House has a Hungry Planet Bible (part of a project "raising awareness of the plight of the homeless and hungry") and a Pray for a Cure Bible aimed at breast cancer support, released in 2007. This September, HarperOne will release the Pink Ribbon Bible. One dollar of every purchase will go to the Pink Ribbon Girls, a nonprofit organization providing support, education, and awareness of breast cancer. Although Pink Ribbon Girls is not a Christian nonprofit, founder Tracie Metzger says the Bible was an encouragement in her own battle with breast cancer.

These specialty Bibles allow their owners to identify themselves by a cause they feel passionate about, not just their stage of life or color preference. But are we shaping the Bible to our lifestyle more than molding our lifestyle to the Bible?

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:15 AM | Comments (8)

Nancy Guthrie: Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow

Nancy Guthrie is no stranger to suffering. After her second child, Hope, died within a year of birth from Zellweger syndrome, a rare, fatal genetic abnormality, Guthrie began writing Holding On to Hope, a book about coping with loss and grief. She was in the final stages of writing when she became pregnant with a third child, Gabriel, who was also diagnosed with Zellweger. Gabriel lived for six months.

Since Gabriel's death, Guthrie has written many books and articles, and has traveled around the country speaking at conferences about the Christian response to suffering. Her latest work, Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow (Tyndale), which came out last month, is an expansion of themes introduced in her previous books, adding, as Nancy writes in the introduction, "the perspective of years and further understanding of the Scriptures." Her.meneutics contributor Ruth Moon talked to Guthrie about the health-and-wealth gospel and how to comfort friends who are grieving.

What place do you want Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow to have on the bookshelf of Christian books about suffering? What niche does it fill?

I hope this book is not a "grief" book. It speaks to people who are grieving, but I hope people see it as a theological book. I hope that the book would be that theological thinking through of suffering, but also an invitation to those of us who say that Jesus means everything to us and that we want to follow him, to live that out in the hardest, lowest places of life, that when we enter into unimaginable suffering, it's obvious that Jesus is still everything to us, that he is still the solid ground beneath our feet, and that he is who we're grabbing hold of and depending on and whom we love and treasure and trust.

You organize this book around 11 statements from Jesus on suffering, such as, "I, Too, Have Heard God Tell Me No," and "I Am Giving Life to Those Who Believe in Me." Do you feel you learned anything while writing those statements?

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:48 AM | Comments (4)

Women's Ordination: A Crack in the Cathedral?

After the Anglican Church in North America's (ACNA) momentous inaugural gathering, the verdict is out on whether the issue of women's ordination will inhibit the budding alliance from moving forward.

Last week more than 800 men and women gathered in Bedford, Texas, to elect an archbishop and ratify a constitution for the ACNA, a new alliance for churches that have left the Episcopal Church. Led by Robert Duncan, bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, the ACNA comprises more than 700 theologically conservative churches with about 70,000 parishioners.

There were many central theological beliefs that last week's attendees could agree on in their constitution and canon laws, including the full inspiration of the Bible, the centrality of baptism and Communion to church life, and the authority of the historic church creeds. But for the time being, ACNA leaders have not reached full agreement on female priests. At this time, each jurisdiction is free to decide whether or not to ordain women, but jurisdictions cannot force others to either accept women's ordination or to stop practicing it. Women bishops are forbidden.

"For those who believe the ordination of women to be a grave error, and for those who believe it scripturally justifiable . . . we should be in mission together until God sorts us out," said Duncan in last week's opening address. "It is not perfect, but it is enough."

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 12:15 PM | Comments (14)

Media Lukewarm on Laodicean's Meaning

Last night Indian American girl Kavya Shivashankar, 13, won the televised Scripps National Spelling Bee and its $40,000 prize after rattling off the letters in Laodicean (pronounced lā-ˌä-də-ˈsē-ən). Like most spelling-bee words, the adjective doesn't get much use in everyday conversation, so news sources today have defined the word using American Heritage and Merriam-Webster Dictionary's entries.

American Heritage, 4th ed., second entry: "Indifferent or lukewarm especially in matters of religion."

Merriam-Webster's first entry is a little more helpful, but not one news source used it: "from the reproach to the church of the Laodiceans in Rev 3:15–16." Its second entry got the most play: "lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics."

Bible readers, of course, will recognize the Greek term from the Book of Revelation and from Paul's letters to the Colossians. Laodicea was a city along the river Lycus in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) founded by King Antiochus II Theos and named for his wife, Laodice, in the 3rd century B.C. Church historians believe that Epaphras, one of Paul's helpers, preached the gospel to the Laodiceans, as he did to the inhabitants in nearby Colossae about 10 miles away.

Paul mentions the Laodicean church in passing five times in his epistle to the Colossians, encouraging them to "see that [this letter] is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea" (4:16).

Laodicea isn't associated with an attitude of lukewarmness until the third chapter of John's Revelation, which lists the church in Laodicea among the seven named churches in Asia Minor.

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!" John warns on behalf of Christ. "So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (3:15-16). The Laodiceans, who were apparently too focused on material riches, were rebuked for their wishy-washiness about the gospel.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 11:12 AM | Comments (5)

Jon and Kate Plus a Lot of Bitterness

I admit that for a while I was hooked on certain reality TV shows, but I've pulled the plug on several as of late, keeping my viewing list a lot shorter. (However, I've kept Deadliest Catch on the list because I can't get enough of men battling the Bering Sea - it's quite thrilling!) Reality TV has destroyed its share of relationships, so I have been hesitant to spend time becoming emotionally involved with the real-life people who inhabit it.

Sadly, its most recent casualty seems to be Jon and Kate Gosselin. The once-happy couple that has endured the challenges of multiple births have now turned on one another, and Monday night's episode, the fifth-season premiere, revealed the pain that pride, anger, blame-shifting, and resentment bring to a marriage.

Watching as a counselor, I was squirming in my seat. The problems they were describing (in separate interviews) were actually quite common and normal in most marriages. I've heard many people express their anger and sadness about feeling underappreciated, having to put dreams on hold, and enduring their spouse saying and doing hurtful things. The biggest test will be how the Gosselins, who are professing Christians, choose to deal with these universal marital issues. If Monday's episode was any evidence of how they are proceeding, things do not look good.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:53 AM | Comments (75)

A Weighty Issue

Years of women being taught to develop a positive body image may actually be hurting them. A recent study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology surveyed 81 Philadelphia-area women who fell along all points on the body mass index scale. Conducted by Marisa Rose at the Temple University School of Medicine, the study found that, as the women's body mass index increased, two-thirds of them said they still believed they were at an ideal body size. When asked to pick out an ideal body shape from a series of silhouettes, 20 percent of the women categorized as obese chose an overweight or obese model.

This study points to the body-image confusion that has surfaced over and against Western culture's unhealthy emphasis on thinness as the ultimate feminine asset (e.g., the recent gossip about Jessica Simpson's pants size). The debate pits those who advocate health against those who preach unwavering self-acceptance, isolating the two as mutually exclusive. And Christian women often face an added, more complicated dimension as thinness becomes associated with moral purity.

As any woman who struggles with weight issues can well attest, finding a balance between loving yourself and changing bad habits can be psychological turmoil. I grew up bombarded by images of impossible thinness in ads and on TV, but at every turn - at school, at home, and at church - these standards were countered by messages of self-acceptance, even celebration. "We should be happy and proud to be who we are," I was told. "Don't let anyone make you feel bad about the way you look!" I internalized the messages all too well; for me, as I suspect it is for many others, the cycle of food addiction is deeply emotional and linked to my most essential understanding of self. Many of us have so successfully developed a sense of self-acceptance that we cannot find the motivation to break bad and potentially dangerous habits; to gain one would be to lose the other.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 11:35 AM | Comments (19)

Never Been Kissed

It turns out that Susan Boyle has been kissed. But her earlier claim that she hadn't was met with disbelief. So, too, are pre-20th century European mores, when premarital kissing was forbidden. Can you think of a recent historical movie where the hero and heroine didn't kiss before their wedding? Is it even possible?

Well, yes. It's more than possible. Some people have never been kissed without ever having decided against kissing. Others, like the Virgin Lips Movement, which The Tennessean recently profiled, are saying that premarital kissing is a morality issue for Christians.

The article starts off with Katy Kruger's wedding day, where she kisses for the first time in front of 200 guests. "I wasn't sure what to do . . . I thought I would mess up," she told The Tennessean. It turned out just fine.

The University of Missouri?Columbia's student newspaper also published an essay on the movement, which emphasized that the idea isn't that weird.

Al Mohler writes that not kissing before wedding is an admirable decision, given our culture:

In the space of little more than a single generation, we have seen the breaking down of virtually every social and cultural support for sexual abstinence. Arousal and intimacy come with the romantic longing that marks the deepening relationship between a man and a woman. Young couples no longer court on the porch swing with the girl's parents sitting inside and very close at hand. Now, most young couples face the temptation of romantic contexts in which intimacy - and this means sexual intimacy - is a likely outcome.

The Virgin Lips Movement represents a serious effort to push back against this expectation and to create boundaries that will protect virtue and honor marriage.

The Tennessean's article mentions the usual objections to purity pledges: if you haven't, you won't know whether you and your fianc? have chemistry; if you try and fail, you'll feel terrible; purity shouldn't be a goal the way earning a bachelor's degree should. Idealists are unlikely to base their decisions on arguments like that.

Instead, they are likely to respond to I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. The Tennessean calls it "the Virgin Lips Movement bible."

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Posted by Susan Wunderink at 9:23 AM | Comments (31)

Humans in Creation: Another View

Earth Day came and went last week, represented on Her.meneutics with a flurry of commenters responding to Kay Warren's piece, "Puppies Aren't People." On the same day, DisneyNature released Earth, a film blending spectacular beauty, heart-warming scenes of animal families, the realities of life and death, and the impact of change. According to Variety, Earth is the highest-grossing documentary for an opening weekend. As my husband, Mark, and I stood in line to buy our tickets, we learned that Disney is planting a tree for every ticket purchased in the first week of the film's release. So far over 500,000 trees will be planted in the fragile Atlantic Rainforest of northern Brazil.

Embedded in Earth's beauty and narration are reminders that ecosystems have been altered in ways that make flourishing difficult. We witness a polar bear struggling to survive, and while we don't see him die, it appears that he does. As the summer ice melts, he loses his platform for hunting and his ability to feed after hibernating all winter. But on the upside, we see mama polar bear introducing her cubs to the world, a bird teaching her young to fly, a whale migrating with her calf, and elephants with their cadre of babies trekking across deserts in search of water. Earth shows mamas at every turn - nurturing, teaching, chastising, carrying, and nudging. (Watch the trailer and get a two-minute sample.)

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:41 AM | Comments (4)

Kay Warren: Puppies Aren't People

Recently, Rick was trimming a vine around our patio cover and accidentally dislodged a bird's nest with two blue speckled eggs. He brought it to me to see if I thought our grandkids would like to have it. Instead of experiencing pleasure at seeing a beautifully crafted nest, I was distressed. "Oh, that poor mama bird!," I immediately cried. "She's probably frantically searching for her babies!"

Later that week I babysat my grandkids, who are on a strict gluten- and dairy-free diet, and it's hard to find anything decent to eat. I rummaged through the cupboard for lunch fixings and came across a cereal box featuring a cute gorilla. The back of the box featured the story of endangered East African mountain gorillas, and ended with a plea for "sponsorship of a gorilla."

It reminded me of an experience I had at Christmas. Late one night, I was channel surfing while wrapping presents. I normally skip commercials, but on one station, the lovely sounds of Silent Night began playing, and pictures of abandoned dogs and cats filled the screen. A famous singer, her voice thick with emotion, pleaded with viewers to "sponsor" these helpless, abandoned animals with a monthly donation. I felt tears forming as my emotions reacted to the seeming pleas for help in the big, beautiful eyes of these animals. Our family dog had died not too long ago, and I saw her reflected in the faces of the puppies. They had me.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:42 AM | Comments (123)

Priest Who Professed Islam Defrocked by Episcopal Church

An Episcopal priest who professed two years ago that she was also a practicing Muslim has been defrocked by the Episcopal Church.

Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf informed Ann Holmes Redding, who lives in Seattle, of the decision on Wednesday. Although she lives outside the diocese, Redding was ordained in Rhode Island and remained under Wolf's authority.

"Bishop Wolf found Dr. Redding to be a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two yeas have been open, honest and respectful," the diocese said in a statement. "However Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim."

The diocese learned in June 2007 about Redding's Muslim profession. It removed her from ministry temporarily and told her to spend a year on "discernment of her faith commitment."

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Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at 4:23 PM | Comments (10)