Are Rules Dangerous? Part 1

Alex, that is an interesting comment about authorities, and it may well be true. Of course, Susan I think has outlined some of the authority structures in question and discussed biblical mandates (though I think this has largely gone unanswered). I guess you could be implying that the problem arises when a school thinks it is an authority in some of these areas, with a biblical mandate in all areas, simply because the parents and students have voluntarily signed on to a set of rules which the school may or may not have the actual authority to make and enforce, or at least to give them the weight that they do. I think I would tend to agree.

If it is true as you say that authorities are not overlapping, then the one that is trying to fit itself in between and over and against the ones legitimately outlined had better do some re-evaluation. We had better determine which “authority’s” authority ends where.

That kind of leads me onto another thought that has been popping up: about the “always better to do right” kind of thought. I don’t know where that question started, so I guess I better go back and look. But it keeps popping up in places as though it is a justification for heavy or specific rule-making//heavy-school-authority, and as though it is an indictment of an approach that would de-emphasize rules. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe I am missing something.

One is finding oneself being pressed to answer things like, “well, it is better to do right, isn’t it, no matter the motive”, etc. But at the moment I am wondering, “yeees, and the point is…?”

So far, all I can assume is that it is trying to imply something about the keeping of the school rules in and of themselves. That if you are indeed under the authority of your school, then simply keeping the rules is being counted as “doing the right thing” each and every time (which in one way I suppose it is, but I think it is being stretched). Hence the repeated sentiments about how acts of obedience themselves (presumably no matter how trivial the act of obedience or the rule it is displaying) furthers the walk and is always helpful in sanctification. How this works when the rule is framed in the negative, universally forbidding something not denied to Christians, I am not sure. To me it all sounds like an argument to say, let’s make even more rules to afford more opportunities for obedience that Grace may abound. Please correct me, I hope I am wrong.

Rather than tit for tat here, let me just hit some highlights and try to be done.

First, it is clear that some here are willing to be very elastic on a school’s “sphere of authority.” What started out as essentially “no rules addressing life off of school grounds” has changed. Obviously, it is wholly unworkable to say that a school can have or should have no rules beyond the school grounds, and that is becoming apparent. Susan says, “It isn’t an off-campus incident if they are engaged in interaction that directly affects school property or employees. ‘Off-campus’ is not about property lines. If a student is cussing a teacher on the telephone, in an email, or in skywriting, they are communicating with a school employee.” You see, “off campus” just got really big. What she is saying is that it is okay for a school to police the phone conversations of students even when they are using their own telephones during their own hours. So she is willing to make exceptions to her rule. (I agree with her though it seems pretty inconsistent with her earlier position.) My only point is that this is self-evident. So I don’t understand why are people here arguing against it.

Second, spheres of authority – when a parent places a child in a school, they are exercising their sphere of authority over a child and agreeing to have the child live by the expectations of the school. So there is no conflicting sphere. If a parent does not want to live under the rules of the school, they can exercise their authority over the student and withdraw. Most schools probably have a written clause to this effect. I think the spheres of authority argument is way overdone and wrongly appealed to. A parent’s authority is not absolute. Furthermore, the parent doesn’t have the authority to place their child in a school when the school says they can’t. The school, in that case, is the authority about who comes or doesn’t come. Why doesn’t a school have the right to make whatever rules it wants that it thinks will help turn out its product more effectively? Everyone here would say, “They do have that right.” So again, I don’t understand why people are arguing against it.

Third, the idea of ministering to someone. When I brought up the three examples, a common theme has been that we need to minister to the party involved. But it seems to have gone unnoticed that ministry is possible outside the school. By telling a pregnant teenager (and the father) that they cannot remain in the school, we are not telling her that we will not minister to her. Anne recommends essentially making her an example (though perhaps Anne would object to that characterization): Let the other girls see how much it affects cheerleading and college. I think that is not a good thing. I think kids are growing up fast enough without that. Susan talks about the father (who should also be held accountable). She says that if they manifest repentance that they should be back in school. But repentance doesn’t remove the consequences. We must still minister to people in this situation. But having them in the classroom is not necessary, and IMO, is probably not a good thing.

The bottom line is that the school has a legitimate interest in protecting testimony and product, both on and off the school grounds. And there is nothing wrong with that. I just sense a “rules phobia” that doesn’t have a substantial basis apart from fear, and what I think is a misplaced fear. I don’t want to misrepresent anyone, and I could be wrong, but it just seems weird to me.

Makes me glad I don’t have a school and don’t have much to do with one.

One is finding oneself being pressed to answer things like, “well, it is better to do right, isn’t it, no matter the motive”, etc. But at the moment I am wondering, “yeees, and the point is…?”

Since I think I am the one you are quoting, I will respond. The point is simply that it is always better to do right. Some have demured on that or sent mixed signals.

So far, all I can assume is that it is trying to imply something about the keeping of the school rules in and of themselves.

My statement had nothign to do with school rules. It had to do with doing right.

Hence the repeated sentiments about how acts of obedience themselves (presumably no matter how trivial the act of obedience or the rule it is displaying) furthers the walk and is always helpful in sanctification.

I never saw anyone say this even once, much less repeatedly. Do you have some links for us that will show us where anyone said that acts obedience are always helpful in sanctification?

How this works when the rule is framed in the negative, universally forbidding something not denied to Christians, I am not sure. To me it all sounds like an argument to say, let’s make even more rules to afford more opportunities for obedience that Grace may abound. Please correct me, I hope I am wrong.

I can’t imagine where you got this idea from. It doesn’t sound like anything I have read here.

My point is this: Rules are necessary and useful. They are not unbiblical in and of themselves. They can help to form character in Christlikeness. They are not, however, magic. The heart must also be addressed. But addressing the heart is no substitute for rules.

[Larry] First, it is clear that some here are willing to be very elastic on a school’s “sphere of authority.” What started out as essentially “no rules addressing life off of school grounds” has changed. Obviously, it is wholly unworkable to say that a school can have or should have no rules beyond the school grounds, and that is becoming apparent. Susan says, “It isn’t an off-campus incident if they are engaged in interaction that directly affects school property or employees. ‘Off-campus’ is not about property lines. If a student is cussing a teacher on the telephone, in an email, or in skywriting, they are communicating with a school employee.” You see, “off campus” just got really big. What she is saying is that it is okay for a school to police the phone conversations of students even when they are using their own telephones during their own hours. So she is willing to make exceptions to her rule. (I agree with her though it seems pretty inconsistent with her earlier position.) My only point is that this is self-evident. So I don’t understand why are people here arguing against it.

Larry, you are misrepresenting my position. I’ve said repeatedly that school rules that apply to its purpose and function are good and necessary, so any interaction between student and teacher would fall under this, regardless of their geographic location. But the school should not attempt to govern where they family goes, who they fellowship with, and how they amuse themselves when it has no direct bearing on the school. I can’t make it any clearer than that, I’m sorry.

[Larry] Third, the idea of ministering to someone. When I brought up the three examples, a common theme has been that we need to minister to the party involved. But it seems to have gone unnoticed that ministry is possible outside the school. By telling a pregnant teenager (and the father) that they cannot remain in the school, we are not telling her that we will not minister to her. Anne recommends essentially making her an example (though perhaps Anne would object to that characterization): Let the other girls see how much it affects cheerleading and college. I think that is not a good thing. I think kids are growing up fast enough without that. Susan talks about the father (who should also be held accountable). She says that if they manifest repentance that they should be back in school. But repentance doesn’t remove the consequences. We must still minister to people in this situation. But having them in the classroom is not necessary, and IMO, is probably not a good thing.

The bottom line is that the school has a legitimate interest in protecting testimony and product, both on and off the school grounds. And there is nothing wrong with that. I just sense a “rules phobia” that doesn’t have a substantial basis apart from fear, and what I think is a misplaced fear. I don’t want to misrepresent anyone, and I could be wrong, but it just seems weird to me.

On what Biblical basis would someone be ostracized after repentance? Would one apply this idea of removal from school for any offense repented of other than fornication that resulted in pregnancy? Do all violations of school rules result in permanent expulsion, or just those that are visible to the naked eye or ones we find personally repugnant?

There isn’t a ‘rules phobia’ going on as far as I’m concerned. I grew up in a Fundamentalism obsessed with rules, and kept them all. Yippee Skipppee ooh aah. I saw all the Christian celebrities who were held up as The Anointed Ones and used their ‘authority’ to keep people under their thumbs, and any questioning of their own inconsistencies and false teachings was met with insinuations such as “If you were really right with God you wouldn’t have any questions” which doesn’t really answer the question, does it?

Authority has just as much responsibility to be Biblical as those who are asked to submit to it. When authority can’t answer the questions straight up with Scriptural support, then I’ll shake the dust off my bunny slippers and find authority that doesn’t just have convictions, but has the courage and humility to be as accountable as those whom they wish to govern.

[Alex Guggenheim] I have read this statement a few times (not just in this discussion but in past discussions):

“Sometimes authorities overlap”

I submit this is in fact, quite untrue. Where one authority ends the other begins and where one begins the other ends. It is only when people are unable to determine where they begin and end that they imagine there is an overlapping.

I see authorities as overlapping in the sense that they affect each other. I’m personally accountable to God alone, but I’m also under the authority of my husband… then at church, we’re both under the authority of church leadership. We’re always under the authority of our gov’t- federal, state, and local- while on American soil…but we also measure those with God’s Word and are not obligated to obey gov’t when it crosses the line into behaviors forbidden by God.

So maybe it isn’t the best term to use in your opinion, but that’s how I see it. However, I’m looking through my bifocals and not a microscope. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php] http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-cool02.gif

Larry, I agree with much of what you’re saying here. If nothing else we’ve come to see that it’s not as easy as “rules = legalism.”

I agree with Susan and Anne that a pregnant girl who repents should not automatically be excluded from school. What a wonderful opportunity to teach God’s grace and forgiveness to the other students and to allow them to see the consequences of sin.

One more thing…

[Larry] Makes me glad I don’t have a school and don’t have much to do with one.

Our church has a school, my children attend it, and I’m very thankful to God for it. It’s a great school.

[Larry] Third, the idea of ministering to someone. When I brought up the three examples, a common theme has been that we need to minister to the party involved. But it seems to have gone unnoticed that ministry is possible outside the school. By telling a pregnant teenager (and the father) that they cannot remain in the school, we are not telling her that we will not minister to her. Anne recommends essentially making her an example (though perhaps Anne would object to that characterization): Let the other girls see how much it affects cheerleading and college. I think that is not a good thing. I think kids are growing up fast enough without that. Susan talks about the father (who should also be held accountable). She says that if they manifest repentance that they should be back in school. But repentance doesn’t remove the consequences. We must still minister to people in this situation. But having them in the classroom is not necessary, and IMO, is probably not a good thing… . The bottom line is that the school has a legitimate interest in protecting testimony and product, both on and off the school grounds. And there is nothing wrong with that.

see, i look at the pg girl situation in this way: if the school stops letting her attend b/c she got prg, they are, by example, for whatever reason, treating her in the way Christians should not treat someone in real life. They may say, oh, but this is a school context, we have kids to protect, we have a repuation, she broke the rule, etc etc. But the effect is the same; they essentially are modeling, as an organization, what a Christian individual should not Biblically do.

Are rules to help us grow in Christlikeness as aaron says? Then our responses to their being broken should ALSO reflect Christlikeness, and that is where more spiritual power is. It’s a two way street.

Larry, you are misrepresenting my position.

I sincerely do not mean to do that. My only point is that as situations have been brought up, you seem to have enlarged your definition. How is a school’s “function and purpose” affected by a student on the telephone talking to someone else about a teacher? Or standing across the street? I think you are coming more in line with what I am saying, or at least expressing more what I have been saying …. that a school’s function and purpose is broader then merely what goes on in the classroom/school grounds. They do have a legitimate interest in stuff that goes on outside the school.

You have now argued (and I agree) that private phone conversations by students off the school grounds are legitimate concerns of a school administration.

On what Biblical basis would someone be ostracized after repentance?

None. I never argued for ostracizing anyone. I don’t think we should. And this highlights my point: You think that in order to not ostracize someone, they must be included in the school. I don’t see that in the Bible. We all recognize that repentance does include restoration, but not always to the former position. A pastor who molests children can be restored and should not be ostracized. That doesn’t mean he should be a pastor. An usher who steals money from the offering when counting it should be restored and not ostracized. That doesn’t mean he gets to count the offering again.

I think the mistake is that you are considering the school as co-extensive with the church … that anything a church member can do, a school student can do. I see the school as a particular ministry in a church that has some requirements that are higher than simply being a member of the church.

Would one apply this idea of removal from school for any offense repented of other than fornication that resulted in pregnancy? Do all violations of school rules result in permanent expulsion, or just those that are visible to the naked eye or ones we find personally repugnant?

No, no one has suggested that. The OT Law shows ample precedent that not all sins are equal in terms of the effect in the covenant community, and there is no reason to think that the present day is any different. No on thinks that chewing gum in the hallway is a legitimate cause for expulsion. And no one thinks that chewing gum in the hallway is an offense similar to sexual immorality.

Thanks again, Susan.

Our church has a school, my children attend it, and I’m very thankful to God for it. It’s a great school.

Please don’t take my comment as anti-Christian school. It wasn’t intended that way at all. I was referring to my interest in this kind of stuff … parsing out the rules …

see, i look at the pg girl situation in this way: if the school stops letting her attend b/c she got prg, they are, by example, for whatever reason, treating her in the way Christians should not treat someone in real life. They may say, oh, but this is a school context, we have kids to protect, we have a repuation, she broke the rule, etc etc. But the effect is the same; they essentially are modeling, as an organization, what a Christian individual should not Biblically do.

But a school is not a Christian individual. If Christian individual shun the girl, and refuse to minister to her, that is wrong. But again, consider my above points. If a pastor molests children and repents, should the church allow him to continue as a pastor? Obviously not. Are they treating him unbiblically? Obviuosly not. What about an usher who steals money while counting the offering and then repents. Should they allow him to continue counting? Obviously not.

I think this is self-evident. I think your position only works if we think the school is co-extensive with the church, and that being a member of the church brings all those benefits into the school. I don’t think it does.

Are rules to help us grow in Christlikeness as aaron says? Then our responses to their being broken should ALSO reflect Christlikeness, and that is where more spiritual power is. It’s a two way street.

On this we absolutely agree.

[Larry]

see, i look at the pg girl situation in this way: if the school stops letting her attend b/c she got prg, they are, by example, for whatever reason, treating her in the way Christians should not treat someone in real life. They may say, oh, but this is a school context, we have kids to protect, we have a repuation, she broke the rule, etc etc. But the effect is the same; they essentially are modeling, as an organization, what a Christian individual should not Biblically do.

But a school is not a Christian individual. If Christian individual shun the girl, and refuse to minister to her, that is wrong. But again, consider my above points. If a pastor molests children and repents, should the church allow him to continue as a pastor? Obviously not. Are they treating him unbiblically? Obviuosly not. What about an usher who steals money while counting the offering and then repents. Should they allow him to continue counting? Obviously not.

but this doesn’t make sense. either 1) her attendance at school is in some way a temptation to continue fornicating? or 2) she is no longer qualified to be a christian school student?

that is what your examples logic is stating?

what’s wrong with the school still accepting her?

christian school scenarios:

1. girl comes to principal’s office—confesses she’s pg, is repentant, wants counseling, boyfriend is in public school.

2. girl comes to principal’s office—confesses she’s been sexually active for four months, not preg b/c she’s usuing an IUD (abortifacient), is repentant, wants counseling, boyfriend is in public school

3. same as 1, but boyfriend is also in christian school

4. same as 2, but boyfriend is also in christian school.

What should the rule book state for fornication? expulsion for all? only for pg girl? only if non-repentant?

what would your rule book state and why? what is your goal for your students?

if your goal is Christlikeness, i really don’t see that it is necessary to expel automatically. Christlikeness can still be achieved. If consistent punishment is your goal, then the school probalby would expel them all.

[rrobinson] I guess you could be implying that the problem arises when a school thinks it is an authority in some of these areas, with a biblical mandate in all areas, simply because the parents and students have voluntarily signed on to a set of rules which the school may or may not have the actual authority to make and enforce, or at least to give them the weight that they do. I think I would tend to agree.

If it is true as you say that authorities are not overlapping, then the one that is trying to fit itself in between and over and against the ones legitimately outlined had better do some re-evaluation. We had better determine which “authority’s” authority ends where.

You are accurate in your understanding of what I was saying. Thanks. And as I said earlier, which is in agreement with your latter statement, when we properly define where the authority’s of divine institutions begin and end we will properly know where the rules are to begin and end.

[Susan R]

I see authorities as overlapping in the sense that they affect each other. I’m personally accountable to God alone, but I’m also under the authority of my husband… then at church, we’re both under the authority of church leadership. We’re always under the authority of our gov’t- federal, state, and local- while on American soil…but we also measure those with God’s Word and are not obligated to obey gov’t when it crosses the line into behaviors forbidden by God.

So maybe it isn’t the best term to use in your opinion, but that’s how I see it. However, I’m looking through my bifocals and not a microscope. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php] http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-cool02.gif

Your post is is the pleasant hope of the provocative intent of the declaration I made (and that hope being that further consideration would be given to the principle). And your brief but quite concise layout of the types of authorities we are bound to obey and their relationship and impact to all parties is just what must be considered.

The reason I finding the concept of overlapping to be a less favorable tool in describing their relationship and rather prefer the forceful presence of the idea that “where one begins the other ends and where one ends the other begins” is that overlapping can for too many imply two authorities in command or suggest a stage of conflict between the two (which is clear you don’t subscribe to either) which is never true since the nature of authority and by God’s design itself, only allows for one source of authority.

As to impact itself, this is true, one does impact the other and should, if the one is properly being executed. For example, if the church decides to change its constitution and accept women as Pastors then it has impacted me and my family. However, what it hasn’t done is violate or attempt to usurp the authority of my self, marriage, family or government. Its decision does impact me because now our family will have to find another teacher under whom we can learn but the impact was valid (albeit their decisions was stupid but this is a “what-if” scenario). So impact, for impact’s sake I do not see as something that places an “integration” or “overlapping” of authorities and you probably are not making that case but I thought I would address the issue of “impact” generically here.

But if one institution does make a decision that does interfere with the authority of another, then such “impact” is an issue because it is not merely an impact, rather it is an attack, whether intentional or unintentional, on the divine authority structure of another institution.

The most outstanding exception to this, of course is what others have pointed out being that, if we join ourselves to a body that already has established certain rules that require us to forfeit divinely given authority (which at times we are at liberty to do in good conscience toward God) and we do so, we have no grounds for charging them with creating a conflict if later we reject such reaches. Rather we can only depart from such a body with a lesson learned but we cannot hold that body guilty of the conflict (and it might be that body has some bad rules that are a result of their own poor understanding of the boundaries of authority and before God will answer for such ineptness but as to the ensuing conflict with a person that joins them with the rules already established, they are not guilty of creating the conflict).

So to me, your bifocals are working quite well. :)