Page 2046 – Christianity Today (2024)

Style: Acoustic folk/country; compare to Neil Young, Steven Curtis Chapman, Dan Fogelberg

Top tracks: “Eclogue for the Church Triumphant,” “Mississippi-Louisiana Line,” “The Gadarene”

Is there anything Michael Milton can’t do? He’s written numerous books, leads the Reformed Theological Seminary, and hosts a Bible study program on DIRECTV. And he has now released three CDs of plaintive spiritual folk that are musically opulent and emotionally stirring. Milton and his collaborators—including singer/songwriter Michael Card—have crafted an uncommonly varied set of songs, ably tackling bluegrass, lite rock, and country. It skews too heavily on the side of mellow, leisurely paced material, but still pulls off some unexpected moments like the arresting strings and piano that mark the closing track, “Eclogue for the Church Triumphant,” which, heard free of Milton’s reading from Revelations 21:5, reminded me of no less than the Lou Reed/John Cale collaboration Songs for Drella.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Benefits exist from the overwhelming amount of snow dumped on Michigan over the past couple of weeks, but only if you know where to look. The seven-foot mounds on the side of my driveway represent hard labor. Not a pretty sight. The thick blanket that peacefully rests in the woods, however, represents pure pleasure. Especially if you cross-country ski.

My wife and I began cross-country skiing last year, so our skills remain at beginner levels. Our joy level, though, is a different story. Last weekend, we enjoyed our new pastime in near-perfect conditions: sunshine, no wind, and well-groomed trails.

As we glided through the quiet woods, my wife commented about the beauty of the undisturbed forest snow. From just a few yards behind her, I agreed—keeping my voice low to avoid disrupting the ambiance. She remarked about the amazing contrast between the evergreens and the white drifts. She commented about the air’s fresh taste. She stopped to enjoy the warm sun that shone between trees. And before she could say another word, I ran into her.

I don’t know how to stop yet. Or to keep my head up.

Our experience packs in plenty of parallels with ministry leadership that I thought about during the rest of our outing. (I skied in front, for obvious safety reasons.) You will likely read some familiar thoughts.

To start, I know that many times the pace I try to maintain prevents me from truly enjoying the surroundings in which I toil. I’m not talking about the snow. Rather, a job that’s a calling, work that touches hearts and changes lives, surrounded by passionate people.

Fortunately, one aspect of work has always stopped me in my tracks. The kids. In the midst of my busyness in leading ministry efforts, I still melt when I’m around the children. At my previous church assignment, I experienced pure joy from visiting the infant area and holding a baby. Even the times I came away with yack stains on my shirt. Just as I nearly fall over with excitement from hearing kids energetically sing worship songs. Or watch them pray.

In my current role at Kids Hope USA, the highlight of my week happens every Monday from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. That’s the hour I mentor a second-grade boy. He doesn’t yack on my shirt, sing, or pray, but his laugh erases many leadership issues that tend to over-occupy my mind.

As a leader, do you ever find it hard (or impossible) to stop and enjoy what you do and where you do it?

Another item I contemplated in the woods is how inferior I feel because I don’t yet know how to stop my skis. Other skiers, much more advanced and more decked out in fashionable cold-weather gear than I, seem to almost effortlessly start, stop, and everything between. Too often, I compare my abilities to theirs. So I try harder, go faster, huff and puff. But I don’t measure up. I’m still at a beginner level. Will I ever improve?

Yes, but what I need is more seasons, not more speed. Ask my wife.

Ever look around at other leaders and feel like you should be more like them? I do. So I must constantly remind myself: I am not the best. I am not the worst. I don’t know who is. I am me, and that’s who God made me to be.

Yet, I can learn plenty of good lessons from others. Only if I keep my head up, though. And that requires looking away from the ground. Do you ever look up, or are you too busy?

Finally, I appreciate the priceless gift of traveling with someone who can laugh with me. That’s right, my wife and I laughed about our collision. Unfortunately, some folks approach ministry with pole-like stiffness. Think about the people you work closest with. Do they ever see you laugh? Do they ever see you enjoy life? If not, break the ice and show people that you like to chuckle.

Even when you wipe out. Because you will.

David Staal, senior editor of Today’s Children’s Ministry and a mentor to a second-grade boy, serves as the president of Kids Hope USA, a national non-profit organization that partners local churches with elementary schools to provide mentors for at-risk students. Prior to this assignment, David led Promiseland, the children’s ministry at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. David is the author of Words Kids Need to Hear (2008) and lives in Grand Haven, Michigan, with his wife Becky, son Scott, and daughter Erin. Interested in David speaking at your event? Click here)

©2011, David Staal

Style: Modern/alternative worship; compare to Hillsong United, Abandon, Evanescence

Top tracks: “Love Riot,” “You’re Alive,” “Never Look Back,” “Take Me Away”

After two years touring behind its self-titled debut, Worth Dying For returns with an even more ambitious dose of experimentation than the first time around. Taking the adrenaline up a notch while bursting through all the worship clichés—all while remaining reverent—makes for an assertive and musically alluring album. Even with the vertical lyrics, the band would easily fit modern rock radio, switching between synth-spiked pop, power ballads and screamo. Harder-edged listeners who wouldn’t typically buy a praise project might appreciate this one.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Style: Worship rock; compare to Hillsong London, Desperation Band, Jesus Culture

Top tracks: “Take Heart,” “Search My Heart,” “Go”

More textured than previous releases, the new Hillsong United is also more experimental. The best song, “Bones,” floats along with a euro-synth back-beat and programmed drums. Yet, like Desperation Band, it stops midway and includes rich spoken-word segments. None of the songs make you say “immediate worship hit,” but that concept is getting old anyway. Singer and chief songwriter Joel Huston produced, matching spiritual themes to the music (see “Rhythms of Grace”). The musicianship has also improved—listen for the droning guitar on “Nova” and the frantic, unpredictable drums.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Where do you exercise? Your basement? Your backyard? Your gym? Your church?

Browsing the list of weekly programs offered at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, fitness classes and weight-loss support groups are now listed alongside baptism and leadership training classes.

Warren made headlines last month when he announced his New Year’s resolution: to lose a whopping 90 pounds in 2011. Warren is certainly not alone in his goal: Every January, millions of people pledge to lose weight, get in shape, and eat healthier, and evangelical Christians have long used Christ-based fitness programs, like Gwen Shamblin’s The Weigh Down Diet and Jordan Rubin’s The Maker’s Diet, in their personal routines.

What make Warren’s announcement headline-worthy was the significant commitment of his church’s time and resources to pursuing health and fitness, in the form of what he calls “the Daniel Plan: God’s Prescription for Your Health.” Developed specifically for Saddleback by Dr. Daniel Amen, Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dr. Mehmet Oz (Oprah’s health guru), the Daniel Plan, Warren says, is a “healthy lifestyle program including a six-week small group study, an online profile you will create on this Website that will help you track your progress, monthly Webcasts with me interviewing leading health experts, an optional healthy choice menu, and new outdoor fitness equipment set-up on the Lake Forest campus.”

When Rick Warren decides to do something public, it becomes a big deal. Over 6,000 people attended the kick-off event, which featured speakers Amen, Hyman, and Oz (all of which are advisers to the program), and thousands more watched at the church’s satellite campuses and online. The church has evangelistic hopes in mind. “This is God’s prescription for your health,” Warren told The Orange County Register. “This is the greatest opportunity for you to introduce friends to Saddleback Church through a non-threatening event.”

As Saddleback focuses its energies on physical fitness, I have as well—and have come to believe that a focused diet and fitness plan can drastically reshape our spiritual lives.

If you’re anything like me, you think about food a lot during the day: whether or not you’re hungry, what you’re going to eat for dinner, what you need to buy at the grocery store. My thoughts are dominated by food, but I had never really thought of this as a spiritual issue. Out of physical necessity, food is part of our daily routines. Because of this, to think of food as a “neutral” human activity, one that God doesn’t care about one way or another, is to create a dangerous divide that removes God from a significant portion of our lives. And his presence makes this part of our lives fuller and gives us purpose, connecting us to his purpose and creativity in coming to more fully understand the unique ways God created us to enjoy every kind of food.

Though not all of us may “feel God’s pleasure” when we run or spend time on the elliptical, the act of exercise can strengthen our understanding of our bodies as God’s creations. I’ve never been an exerciser—much less a runner—but when I feel my muscles burn, I am reminded that God has created me with the ability to do more than I can right now, and that to strive toward that goal is a way to more fully pursue all that God has intended for me. The same is true with food. For all the complex rules and plans marketed in the multibillion-dollar diet industry, weight loss can really be broken down to one rule: eat less calories. You could lose weight eating nothing but potato chips, as long as you consumed fewer calories than you burned.

But this is not what a Christian vision of health looks like. As I’ve begun learning more about health and nutrition (with the help of two recent Christianity Today cover stories) I do my best to fill my body with nutritious, natural foods that help my body function better. This is a new way of thinking for me. Before, food was all about pleasure. As long as it tasted good, I had little concern for how it might affect my body. This seems like such an obvious idea, but I have to believe I’m not the only one who has allowed myself to settle for this low view of food and my body. And this is not how God has called us to live! By eating foods that allow our bodies to best perform the functions for which God created them, we glorify him as best we can (1 Cor. 10:31). For me, this attitude spills over into every area of my spiritual life. Once I let go of the idea that life is about pursuing tangible pleasures, I learned to focus on the great intentions God has for my life rather than the realities I often settle for.

By bringing this whole process into the context of the local church, Saddleback has enriched these experiences by encouraging their community to expand the meaning of living life together. Too often the Christians who do decide to pursue healthy living and eating do so independently, either because they don’t want to admit their issues with food (and so many of us have them) or don’t want others to feel judged for their own choices. But as a result, it’s not getting talked about, and we’re closing off a large part of our lives that does, in fact, have spiritual implications from the people God has placed in our lives to offer support. Any effort to more fully live life together is one worth pursuing.

This doesn’t mean every Christian should embark on a rigorous diet or an ambitious exercise program. But to pursue more fully what it means to be God’s physical creations, to submit our daily choices to his will, and to share together in these pursuits—surely this is something closer to a healthy understanding of health and fitness as they could be and should be in the life of the church.

The saga of Barbie and Ken isn’t exactly the Song of Solomon. For one thing, the Mattel match is made of plastic. For another, Mattel probably doesn’t mean for the couple to teach us a lesson about God’s prevailing love. Yet Barbie and Ken remain the power couple of toys, ranking right up there with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, thanks to Toy Story 3.

Barbie and Ken publicly “broke up” in 2004, when Mattel, faced with competition from dolls such as Bratz, was looking for media attention. Barbie sales have improved since then. Now, Mattel has launched a campaign to put Ken and Barbie back in the spotlight through social media, and on Valentine’s Day, the couple got back together, and their love “is red-hot once again.”

“Barbie and I are destined to be together, don’t you think?” Ken tweeted earlier this month. He signed up on Match.com (see video) and dedicated a cupcake to Barbie in New York City. Mattel plastered Ken’s message to Barbie (“Barbie, I know we’re plastic but our love is real”) on billboards in major cities. Aside from expressing confusion on her ownTwitter feed, Barbie so far has been passive in the campaign. You can vote on how Barbie should respond at BarbieandKen.com or on Facebook.

Ken has remained a part of Barbie’s story for 50 years, almost as long as Barbie has held a place in pop culture. Barbie has been just fine without him, navigating a career as a politician, doctor, teacher, coach, chef, astronaut, singer, race car driver, and dancer (and all without aging). She also dated an Australian surfer named Blaine. So the question has been raised: Does Barbie really need Ken back?

In my opinion, it’s the wrong question.

In Barbie’s world, everything is about Barbie. She’s a woman defined by her accessories. Her costumes and job titles are all an extension of the roles she can play, and Ken becomes one of those accessories. That didn’t change when Barbie became a career woman. Ken remains the amorphous male role model that few girls even try to personify. (I certainly didn’t; Ken mostly sat around in his suit or swimming trunks while Barbie hustled around him with her friends. He was around when she needed him but conveniently tucked away when she didn’t.)

Ken seems to have fallen out of favor at the same time the idea of a committed relationship did. Now, Barbie can trade in the same old Ken for a younger, hipper version of himself, which Mattel is calling “Sweet Talking Ken.” (According to Mattel, “He’s the ultimate boyfriend for every occasion … [b]ecause this handsome Ken doll says whatever you want him to say!”) It’s eternal love without the trade-offs that come with long-term commitment.

Turning Barbie into an independent, career-driven woman instead of one whose existence revolved around romantic love was not a bad idea. But it’s not the solution to concerns about Barbie’s influence on girls’ self-image. The influence of Barbie on girls’ play has been criticized for many reasons, mostly related to body image issues, but Barbie is not the only girls’ toy guilty of promoting a culture of selfish play.

Which came first: Barbie and Ken, or the cultural revolution that teaches young women they are fine on their own, and can discard a man like last season’s accessory if he doesn’t make her “feel good enough”? This sentiment translates now across age and situation, from homeroom to the bar scene to online dating websites.

As girls get older and their emotions become more linked by pop culture to sexuality, we are bombarded by advertising insisting that if these man-shaped accessories don’t make us feel like the ideal woman, it’s their fault not ours. The idea is dangerous because it contributes to the self-absorption that can take over the lives of even well-intentioned Christian women.

I don’t think it’s fair to blame a piece of plastic, but perhaps the culture of play that surrounds Barbie and Ken is the real culprit. There must be small, everyday ways to counter the cultural trend without turning off imaginative play or opportunities for little girls to play grown-up. What are your ideas?

Chris Pochiba / Lightstock

Read part 1 of "Are We Afraid of Single Pastors?"

Prejudice is like a cockroach: it is able to get into the smallest of places, and it never seems to die. What's worse is that everyone carries the cockroach of prejudice somewhere inside of them. Prejudice is a pre-conceived notion, an irrational assumption, a judgment against another without any evidence. We believers are called to rise above showing "personal favoritism" (James 2:1), because there is "no partiality with God" (Romans 2:11). Even so, prejudice against single pastors abounds.

Prejudice against single pastors

When I press people on why they think single pastors are treated with suspicion, 99 percent of the time I get a list of fears rather than actual evidence:

"What if he's gay?"

"What if he flirts with all the single women at church?"

"What if he tries to steal a married woman for himself?"

"There must be something wrong with him because he's single."

"Aren't single pastors more likely to molest our children?"

Fear. That's what binds these comments together. Especially the fear of human sexuality/desire. As if human desire is a monster that can only be tamed by marriage. This fear certainly doesn't come from being bombarded by national sex scandals involving protestant single pastors! So where does it come from? It is the cockroach of prejudice creeping around in the dark corners of our mind. It's an irrational assumption that singles lack self-control, while married people do not.

For example: a church I know has a new rule. There must now be two Sunday school teachers in each classroom. It's a good rule to be sure. But the reason for the change was due to a single man who replaced a married man as the Sunday school teacher. The parents were "terrified" that the single man couldn't be trusted. It's hard enough to get men to volunteer at church. Here's a guy that loves Jesus and wants to serve but is treated like a potential child molester because he's single. This prejudice needs to be lovingly corrected and talked about if we want to overcome it in our churches.

Another common fear I often hear is, "A single pastor can't give counsel to married people." Yet it is on two single men that we base virtually all of our marriage advice—Jesus and Paul. Do you think Jesus and Paul gave inferior marriage advice because they were single? Family and marriage therapists give counsel all the time on things they have not experienced themselves (loss of a parent, divorce, drug addiction, etc). Experience is not our only teacher; formal training and learning from the experience of others are also good teachers.

Must pastors be married?

First Timothy 3.2 says, "Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife" (NIV). Does this verse imply that pastors must be married? The phrase is one of the most ambiguous in the New Testament. The Greek phrase reads "of one woman a man." The NRSV translates the phrase, "married only once." That was also the major interpretation of the early church. Another reasonable interpretation is that an overseer should not be involved in a polygamous marriage, but instead should be "the husband of one wife" (NASB).

Paul, a single pastor, is setting the general standards for overseers in the church. Surely he wouldn't disqualify himself, especially in light of his words in 1 Corinthians 7 affirming that it is good to be a single pastor (vs. 8).

The bottom line is that the phrase is unclear, and to build a theology around such an unclear statement is unwise. Barry Danylak, author of the excellent new book Redeeming Singleness: How the storyline of scripture affirms the single life (foreword by John Piper), sums up what we should glean from this phrase: "Being a ‘man of one woman' means keeping your sexual activity within the confines of a single woman/wife as is in keeping with a high view of sexuality."

Where do we go from here?

Our married pastors need to preach the goodness of singleness in accord with 1 Corinthians 7 (consider emailing this post to your senior pastor). Denominations should write position papers affirming singleness as equally biblical as marriage. And pastoral search committees need to stop listing marriage as a requirement in their job applications.

Finally, prominent Evangelicals concerned about the importance of marriage need to avoid obscuring the importance of singleness. Albert Mohler (President of the Southern Baptist Seminary) recently wrote: "From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible assumes that marriage is normative for human beings."1 The Bible makes no such assumption. In 1 Corinthians 7, for instance, Paul argues that both marriage and singleness are normative for Christians.

The early church thankfully overcame their prejudice against Gentiles. Evangelicals can overcome their prejudice against single pastors. But the process will require candid and ongoing dialogue. Now is the time to start speaking out truthfully and graciously about this important but seldom talked about issue.

Participants in Egypt’s recent protests stunned observers in many ways. One major surprise came when the world witnessed protesters of different faiths cooperating with one another in a way Egypt has rarely seen before.

“When Muslims prayed in Tahrir Square, the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Evangelicals protected them from anyone who would want to interfere,” said Len Rodgers, executive director of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding. “And then, during a Coptic Orthodox Mass in Tahrir, the Muslims protected the Coptic Orthodox. This is, I would say, unprecedented. It’s a very unusual and, I would say, optimistic possibility for the future.”

It is unique enough for Muslims and Christians to guarantee one another the chance to pray and worship unmolested, but for many years evangelical Christians and Coptic Orthodox believers also have had a hard time coming together on much of anything.

The first major Protestant presence in Egypt arrived with a group of Presbyterian missionaries in the 1850s, according to Kenneth Bailey, a lecturer in Middle Eastern New Testament Studies who lived in the Middle East for 40 years. It wasn’t long, Bailey says, before Coptic leaders grew to regard them as rivals.

“The Coptic Orthodox claim the Apostle Mark was the founder of the Coptic Orthodox Church,” says Rodgers. “The Coptic Evangelicals … appeared to be competition to the ancient church.”

There’s also a cultural aspect: “The Coptic people feel they are the original Egyptians,” Rodgers says, and the Orthodox Church feels themselves protectors of the Coptic heritage—”and [are] not all that willing to share it with the newcomers.”

“There was a great deal of persecution of Protestants in that period,” Bailey says, comparing evangelical-Orthodox relations of that time with the atmosphere between Protestants and Catholics in the 1600s. But evangelical success, he says, had its impact on the way the Orthodox went about their faith.

“About a quarter of a million people became Protestants,” Bailey says. “Very gradually, the Orthodox Church began to incorporate into their life various aspects of Protestant life. For example, there was no preaching in the Mass. Finally, under pressure, the [Orthodox] started preaching. Sunday schools start across the street, they have to start Sunday schools.”

The Coptic Church also began to place greater emphasis on Scripture. Rodgers describes the current Coptic Pope, Shenouda III, as a Bible scholar who leads weekly Bible studies to a full house at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo.

Everyone agrees relations have improved in recent years. Rodgers suggests that intermarriage between believers of different groups has played a major part in thawing some of the tension. Also, he says, a lot of the points of contention revolved around “fine points of theology” that “as they are studied and dialogued [about] in a peaceful venue, I guess they find that they’re not as thorny as they thought.”

“I think as time goes by there’s more understanding that the two parties have a lot more in common than they have differences,” Rodgers said.

These days, evangelical and Coptic leaders visit and bless one another’s major events, Rodgers says. Pope Shenouda has relationships with the leaders of various evangelical groups.

“The will to exclusivity is dying, and things are gradually getting better,” Bailey said. He compares the status of Coptic Evangelicals to the place of Protestants in a Catholic nation. “The Protestant Church in Italy … they’re very small, they know that they are definitely about third-class citizenship in the Christian arenas of life. The Roman Catholics dominate everything. Some priests accept them, and many do not. It’s a very mixed bag. Exactly the same thing could be said about evangelicals in Egypt.”

Some, like Bishop Mouneer Anis, who oversees Egypt’s small Anglican diocese, are critical of the evangelical movement. Except at the highest levels of leadership, evangelicals make “no real effort to build bridges with the Coptic Orthodox Church,” Anis says. “And there is no realization that the Coptic Orthodox is the biggest church in the Middle East.”

“We know very well, a revival in the Coptic Orthodox Church will revive the whole Middle East,” Anis says. “And there are, in fact, signs of revival.”

Observers of the Egyptian church in this century agree that the younger generation has little interest in renewing the debates of the past. Bailey sees a definite push, if not toward unity among Christians, toward greater acceptance: “granting, ‘you’re different, but you are as authentically Christian as I am.'”

And Bailey sees God at work in every sector of Egypt’s church.

“The church is alive,” Bailey said. “It’s vital, it’s thriving, it’s vibrant. The Spirit is moving profoundly in the church in Egypt, and it’s a thrill to be involved in aspects of the life of the church, whether it be Coptic Orthodox, or Coptic Catholic, or Coptic Evangelical.”

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Christianity Today reported earlier on Egypt’s Christians after President Mubarak resigned, Egypt’s historical moment, and how Egyptian Christians were joining calls for reform. Bob Kubinec argues that Egypt’s Christians will be safer if the Muslim Brotherhood were a part of the ruling government.

CT also has a special section on Egypt.

In December, Congress and President Obama ended the era of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) in the United States military. Today, American political culture is far more open to gay members of the armed forces than it was in 1993, when President Clinton created his famous compromise.

In civilian life, Don't Ask, Don't Tell attitudes are also fading. Once, this quiet accommodation to the presence of gays in our midst afforded the luxury of ambiguity, allowing heterosexuals to be friendly and supportive of gay coworkers, friends, and family without having to deal head-on with their sexuality. In order to be good neighbors, evangelical Christians have often chosen not to deal with the subject, making mental distinctions between their personal beliefs and their family and community relationships.

But Christian institutions—colleges, campus ministries, publishers, and aid organizations among them—can no longer enjoy the ambiguity that DADT attitudes traditionally afforded. This was highlighted this past December, when Nashville's Belmont University became embroiled in a controversy over the resignation (or dismissal, as some claimed) of a lesbian soccer coach with a winning record after students learned that her partner was expecting a baby.

Until 2007, Belmont was affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Publicly, the school trumpets its identity as a Christian university and its commitment to "learning in a context of Christian community and service." But it has chosen a broad interpretation of its Christian mission, which has been accompanied by strong numerical growth.

Former soccer coach Lisa Howe and the university are saying that her departure was not linked with her homosexual relationship, but many are unconvinced. Whatever the situation at Belmont University, the incident should prompt Christian institutions to reflect on how to respond to homosexual behavior they discover in their midst.

First, Christian institutions should be clear about the behavioral standards they expect from employees, students, and members, and then enforce them—consistently, but judiciously. There are legal reasons for this. If Christian institutions expect society to let them make religious belief and practice a factor in their employment practices, they need to provide clear and consistent accounts of their standards. But there are also pastoral reasons. Churches and other Christian organizations have been inconsistent in dealing with departures from God's ideal for human sexuality, such as divorce, adultery, and sexual harassment. When pastors are caught in adultery or sexual harassment, churches too often punish the whistleblower and find ways to quietly transfer clergy to new parishes.

Consistency and clarity are essential. Consistency means not singling out those with same-sex orientation. The same standard should apply to all. Wheaton College's Community Covenant is a good model. It says, "[F]ollowers of Jesus Christ will … uphold chastity among the unmarried (1 Cor. 6:18) and the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman (Heb. 13:4) … Scripture condemns … all … sexual relations outside the bounds of marriage between a man and woman." Those standards do not make a special case of homosexuality. To deviate from God's ideal is to deviate from God's ideal.

Consistency means not singling out those with same-sex orientation. The same standard should apply to all.

But among Christians, consistent enforcement constantly butts heads with grace. How do we apply grace to pastors, teachers, and others whose calling involves modeling the Christian life for those younger and still very much in formation? Often when institutions exercise discipline, someone cries, "I thought Christianity was all about grace!" Grace does not always, everywhere, and immediately mean wiping the slate clean. Communities need to take into account the impact that leaders' misbehavior has on others. To express the comprehensiveness of God's grace, institutional forgiveness of an offender must also focus pastoral support on the wounded and betrayed.

We apply grace differently to students and others whose lives are, by definition, still in development. We rightly expect Christian faculty and clergy to model the Christian life. We assume that those who are spiritually younger will make some missteps and that with guidance they can learn from those mistakes. Educational institutions seem particularly equipped to help transform moral missteps into learning experiences.

Paul, the apostle of grace, set a paradoxical example by excluding someone from the community who practiced a shocking kind of sexual immorality. He delivered him over "to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord" (1 Cor. 5:5). Grace can be tough, but it always aims at the redemption of the offender.

Editor's note: On January 26, Belmont University president Bob Fisher announced that sexual orientation had been added to the university's non-discrimination policy. When asked at a press conference whether that covered merely orientation or whether it also covered sexually active gays, Fisher called the question “hypothetical,” leaving the issue unresolved.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous Christianity Today articles on college community standards relating to same-sex behavior include:

GLBT Issues Surface on Gordon's Campus | Student govt. says no to GLBT support club, other college offices consider hosting it. (May 23, 2008)

Religious Freedom: Justices Affirm Ban on Homosexual Conduct at Christian University | British Columbia College of Teachers must accredit Trinity Western University, says Canada's Supreme Court. (July 9, 2001)

Canada: Teachers Group Contests School's 'Sexual Sin' Policy | But according to the British Columbia College of Teachers, school standards referring to "homosexual behavior" as a "sexual sin" discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. (May 19, 1997)

Previous Christianity Today editorials include:

Cracks in the Crystal Cathedral | Why we are better off letting God make the gospel relevant. (January 10, 2011)

God's Quiet Signature | Why the rescue of the Chilean miners was a "great miracle," and what it tells us about Hanukkah. (December 13, 2010)

Burned by the Qur'an Burning | Our media culture values outrage over truth. We can do better. (October 25, 2010)

Now in a print edition as well as on the web.