Pregnant at 18. Hailed by Abortion Foes. Punished by Christian School

As I’ve demonstrated here, she has arguably satisfied the Biblical requirements plus some already, and again speaking Biblically, the school does not have the right to arbitrarily set discipline standards.

How can you judge repentance from NY Times article?

It saddens me that the unsaved world is getting a bad taste concerning Christianity from this situation. The world does not understand Christianity because their eyes are darkened. Saved Christians are seeing Heritage Academy as a right wing crazy fundamentalist school and they are not seeing Christian love, compassion, forgiveness shown by not letting her march.

Bob Jones University for many years had a policy that blacks could not date whites, reds could not date greens…you get the idea and though at the time they thought they were right a few years ago they dropped their policy because it was creating a bad reputation for the school.

I still believe in this situation that though there are a few reasons why they are not letting her march that they should allow her to march. There not standing on pre-approved punishment and she is not the only one that is having pre-maritial sex; she is just the one that was caught through her pregnancy. One graduate has already stated that during her senior year many of the seniors went skinny dipping on their senior trip and yet they marched at their graduation. Is their really any difference in the two situations?

Heritage has an opportunity to show the world through the message at graduation, and their treatment of the girl letting her march that Christians are serious about rescuing the fallen and restoring them to the fold. WE don’t shoot our wounded which is many peoples concept of Christianity. We are to be a spiritual hospital for sinners unsaved and saved.

Heritage could up having a lawsuit over this situation. Is it really worth it for the supportive cause of Christ? Here is a quote from one organization..”.Right now, our team is working with students in California and Pennsylvania on three different school lawsuits, all addressing discrimination they have faced on their campuses because they were pro-life. Plus, Maddi’s story has gone viral. Yesterday, our team spoke to ABC, CBS, and NBC. I’ve even had to hire additional help to just help us keep up with all of the media requests! “

I am all for standing on “Thus saith the Lord” but this situation does not fall under that criteria.

Yet you have had no trouble passing judgment. Why?

Because this is discussion board, and we’re discussing it?

My only point there is that it’s at least slightly hypocritical to tell everyone to hold off on making judgments and then turn around and say she’s got a heart issue / sin problem / rebellious attitude, which is what the poster I cited did. I’ve been very clear from the beginning of this thread that this is my opinion based on what I’ve seen. I’ve never said people shouldn’t form opinions.

In most Christian schools. premarital sex is an expulsion offense because of the nature of the sin.

And if we only catch the sinners that get pregnant, instead of the boys that are sleeping around with the girls (yes, I know the father isn’t a student at HCA) then the rule is unjust and wrong. It may also be illegal. Unless HCA is going to investigate all possible instances of fornication in their student body, they’re singling out only young women.

For instance, you say, “the board decided on a punishment is untimely, arguably arbitrary, and calloused to someone else that’s really messed up her life.” That’s clearly a judgement in violation of your own claim. Furthermore, you provide no supporting evidence for it. How it is untimely? Or arbitrary? Or calloused?

• Untimely because she conceived in Dec/Jan and the penalty for not walking was not handed out until much later - after the other punishments were rendered as I noted above
• Arbitrary because I’m positive that HCA has had other students walk when they were immoral. I’m positive because I doubt HCA caught all of them.
• Calloused because she’s already been penalized/punished in several different ways over several months. I don’t know when they told her she couldn’t graduate, but it wasn’t back when they suspended her, removed her from office or made her apologize to the student body.

I stand by all of those claims as being based in fact.

You realize, of course, that she didn’t sin just like the rest of us do. There are a great many people who sinned like she did, but not all have. And all of us are sinners, but not all sins have equal temporal consequences.

I don’t draw a line between ‘big sins’ (premarital sex) and ‘little sins’. My point was that the offense isn’t really against the school itself; it’s against herself and her partner/future family. That’s why I referred to assualting a teacher or setting fire to the school.

I suppose part of my quandary is the idea that seems implicit that the only way a church can help a young lady like this is by letting her walk in the grad line.

Nobody is saying that the only way to help her is to let her walk. We’re saying that it would be a demonstration of grace towards a sinner to allow her to walk anyway, and I’ve explicitly tied that back to Scripture several times. Anyone else here citing Scripture? If so, I’ve missed it.

The idea that several have suggested that this make abortion seem like an easier route is frankly so absurd I can’t imagine it was made.

But it is noted in the NYT article, and it does happen - it happened to one of the staff members at HCA! - so I brought it up. Please don’t act like I just made that up to throw out there as a silly objection.

I have to run, but I’ll be back later. Yes, I read the letter on the school’s website, for those who want to know.

It’s worth noting that the “three compromises” can be interpreted two ways. First, it could be the family being demanding, or alternatively, it could be that the original demand for punishment was completely out of line, Biblically speaking. (e.g. 2. Cor. 2:3-11, again) In light of Exodus 22 and 1 Corinthians 6, along with how Christ treats the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery, I’ve got to go with the latter. It’s not even close.

In that light, what those three compromises represent is at least three tense meetings where a young lady— losing sleep over her future while dealing with morning sickness without the comfort and encouragement of a husband—is trying to deal with un-Biblical requirements on her.

Is it any surprise, then, that she speaks of “what the school believes” instead of an acknowledgement of sin? The Bible does not appear to have materially impacted the school board’s behavior; why should it impact hers?

And that is where Planned Parenthood comes in; where people are given an example saying Scripture doesn’t matter. So unless the school board has Biblical precedent for what they’re doing, yes, they are indeed feeding babies to Molech. Sorry, but this is a fact.

This paragraph has been bugging me, but I wasn’t sure why until a minute or two ago.

Much has been said about grace. I believe that there are two kinds of grace: saving grace and living grace. One is concerning spiritual birth “once and for all” (Hebrews 9:12, 10:10) which demanded no effort on my part, because my Savior Jesus, finished this on His cross and from His empty tomb. The other kind of grace is spiritual growth that does demand my effort (2 Peter 3:18). It also includes discipline (Hebrews 12:5-11). A wise man told me that discipline is not the absence of love, but the application of love.

That’s - NOT - what grace is. That’s fruit of the spirit that should come as a response to the grace God shows to us (and that we then turn around and show to others, cf. Matthew 18:21-35).

Grace, as defined by Easton’s Bible Dictionary, is:

GRACE—

(1.) Of form or person (Prov. 1:9; 3:22; Ps. 45:2).
(2.) Favour, kindness, friendship (Gen. 6:8; 18:3; 19:19; 2 Tim. 1:9).
(3.) God’s forgiving mercy (Rom. 11:6; Eph. 2:5).
(4.) The gospel as distinguished from the law (John 1:17; Rom. 6:14; 1 Pet. 5:12).
(5.) Gifts freely bestowed by God; as miracles, prophecy, tongues (Rom. 15:15; 1 Cor. 15:10; Eph. 3:8). (6.) Christian virtues (2 Cor. 8:7; 2 Pet. 3:18).
(7.) The glory hereafter to be revealed (1 Pet. 1:13).

Grace is a gift - ‘not of works, lest any man should boast’ (Eph. 2:9). Conflating grace with the necessity of growth is to grossly misunderstand what grace is.

One watching of the TV interview above lets us know that this girl doesn’t understand how serious her sin of immorality is.

She calls her action a “mistake” (not a sin). She says, “All I did was to have sex before marriage.” Then, she states that her and the father have no plans to get married. She may be another Bristol Palin in the making!

By her own words, she is a bad testimony for Heritage Academy. The school, and our fundamental institutions, need to hold firm on this issue. The world and bleeding-heart evangelicals are getting ready to come after us.

So Jim, you think the world has a bad view of Christianity because a pregnant senior isn’t allowed to march at high school graduation? I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the world’s view of Christianity has nothing to do with this. There are a lot bigger issues than this. If the hope of Christianity depends on letting pregnant teens march at graduation then we are in serious trouble.

Having attended a Christian high school and Christian college, there is, in my experience, a tendency to target young women who have gotten pregnant, or been caught in fornication. Wow, have things not changed in 2000 years. However—cheating, driving recklessly, breaking curfew repeatedly, gossip and trouble-making—none of these sinful habits were treated as quickly and harshly as one incident involving fornication, and only once did I see the guy get expelled at the same time as the girl. Everything else was punished with demerits and reduced privileges—only premarital-sex-that-resulted-in-pregnancy was treated as cause for immediate expulsion.

In this case, the girl had already been penalized, so adding on an additional consequence four months later is uncalled for, IMO. The other circumstances don’t change this one fact. If there were other issues that made the school believe they needed to take an additional step—what were they?

As far as ‘true’ repentance goes, and how people describe their sinful behavior—conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit. Once consequences have been meted out, trying to wring ‘real’ repentance out of someone is crossing a line. Been there, done that, doesn’t have the intended effect, no matter which side of that equation you are on. Some people are just not going to show the emotional response you hope to see in order to measure their sincerity (that would be me—I seldom look sad, even when I am sad, and I almost never cry).

If you have to pursue someone to try to make them repent, and they do repent, the assumption then becomes that the repentance was insincere because it was forced. Well, to put a fine point on it—duh!

On the reputation of public institutions—I would love it if we could get away from the idea that individuals are responsible for the testimony of an institution. Not because individuals shouldn’t want to uphold the reputation of their school or church, but because in this case it wasn’t the school that had sex, it was a student. Her actions reflect on her, not on the school. Schools can’t force students not to sin, even if their rule book looked like the tax code. You seldom see the most responsible and hard working students held up as the pillar of a school’s reputation, but the kid who messes up somehow has power to ruin the school’s testimony. I really hate that dynamic.

So—obviously we don’t have all the facts. And another thing—should the family have ‘gone public’ with this? IMO, no. But I’m pretty much stuck on the issue that seems to have started it all, which was adding another punishment months later— a punishment that was also another public humiliation.

[Larry]

So Jim, you think the world has a bad view of Christianity because a pregnant senior isn’t allowed to march at high school graduation? I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the world’s view of Christianity has nothing to do with this. There are a lot bigger issues than this. If the hope of Christianity depends on letting pregnant teens march at graduation then we are in serious trouble.

Why add another coal to the fire for the unsaved when the decision is not based on Scripture but shooting from the hip four months after the initial punishment. I ask again is a lawsuit over their opinion or belief not based on Scripture worth going through for the cause of Christ? It seems to me that all this would do is make the school look bad, ruin their reputation, and make Christianity look like dictator legalistic ultra right wing nuts.

Much is being said about the girl’s repentance and the parents. I have a friend that has known the family for years and said they are a solid family sold out for serving God. The mother in an interview spoke about her daughters character. I know she got pregnant and sinned but that doesn’t mean she has no character. Many teens have compromised their beliefs and sinned. Let’s not forget that the one Christian mentioned in Scripture as a man after God’s own heart in two instances committed adultery and murder. Immorality is not just a problem for teens it has now completely entered the church. There usually isn’t a week where we hear about another preacher who committed adultery. The girl has suffered enough; why keep her from marching and continue stamping the scarlet letter A on her chest.

O and by the way I am a member of a Baptist church that stands 100 percent on the authority of God’s Word. Our pastor is a graduate of Piedmont International University and is a board member at the University. He preaches with a heart of love and compassion yet still preaches hard against sin. He is one of the best expository preachers in this day and time. God has gifted him in this area. So don’t start attacking saying I have gone liberal and wishy washy concerning Christianity.

Jim, I didn’t say you had gone liberal or wishy washy concerning Christianity. I don’t know anything about you so I would have no basis to say that. I said you made a bad assertion. Not letting a pregnant teen march is not the problem that Christianity has before the world.

You talk about an unbiblical opinion about punishment of this girl. It makes me curious: what is the biblical basis for a 2 day suspension? Or removing her from a student council position?

I have no dog in this fight. I don’t care what they do. I don’t know what I would do. We had a pregnant teen in our youth group and discussed what to do about it because of the younger girls and the disruption of it. When you make adult choices you get to start living an adult life.

What I am concerned about is the politicization of this by the father and this pro-life group who are abusing Maddi by taking her very difficult circumstances and turning her into a [public crusade. Maybe she’s fine with that. I am not. What I am also concerned about is the judgment of those sitting outside the situation who want to pontificate about it with no knowledge, no experience, and seemingly no biblical basis.

What, you’ve never sinned and called it a mistake when talking about it to someone else? I don’t understand why you continue to assume the worst about this person.

Would it be better to have Maddi marry an unbeliever and violate clear Biblical teaching that way than it would be to not marry an unbeliever and raise her son with the support of her parents, and potentially meet and marry a godly man down the line?

I continue to be amazed at the people that are treating this story as though the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter is a ‘how to’ manual for dealing with fornication.

I don’t want to continue going back and forth because (1) I don’t have time and (2) I don’t see why this is problematic. The graduation ceremony belongs to the school, not the student. She violated the school rules in a significant and obvious way. I honestly have no strong opinion on what they should do or should not do. In the not too distant past,. this would not even have been controversial in a public school. In fact, I coach at a public school where, if you don’t turn your sports uniform in, you don’t get to march. The problem is that there are a lot of uninformed people with really strong opinions that appear to have no biblical foundation. It appears that we have lost the biblical doctrine of shame. These are things that should not be named among you and yet are paraded about like they are normal. Teenage pregnancy isn’t new, not even for Christians. Turning young ladies in political footballs does seem to be new. And it’s not a good idea, IMO.

Having said that, let me address a few of your comments because I think you are highly inconsistent and uninformed by your own admission. Which makes me wonder why you can be so dogmatic.

My only point there is that it’s at least slightly hypocritical to tell everyone to hold off on making judgments and then turn around and say she’s got a heart issue / sin problem / rebellious attitude, which is what the poster I cited did.

Why isn’t that an opinion like yours? Can that person not form an opinion like you did? You say the school admins have a heart issue/sin problem but you object when someone else says it. Isn’t it at least slightly hypocritical to tell everyone not to judge while judging that the school admins did it wrongly? Can you not see the problem Jay? It looks an awful lot like it’s okay when you do it but bad when others do it. I can’t see any substantive difference between what you have done and what they did. But you only complain about one while continuing to do the other.

And if we only catch the sinners that get pregnant, instead of the boys that are sleeping around with the girls (yes, I know the father isn’t a student at HCA) then the rule is unjust and wrong. It may also be illegal. Unless HCA is going to investigate all possible instances of fornication in their student body, they’re singling out only young women.

In most Christian schools, it doesn’t matter if you get pregnant, I imagine. And it’s boys and girls both. But pregnancy makes a private issue public and I can understand dealing with it in a different way.

Untimely because she conceived in Dec/Jan and the penalty for not walking was not handed out until much later - after the other punishments were rendered as I noted above

When was the “not walking” punishment given? Do you know? You appear not to know based on your statement two line below. And what is the biblical basis for having no delayed consequences? It seems to me that in the Bible a great many consequences of sin are delayed. God himself delays the consequences.

Arbitrary because I’m positive that HCA has had other students walk when they were immoral. I’m positive because I doubt HCA caught all of them.

So how would they punish people they don’t catch? And who did they catch that they didn’t punish? (Not to mention being positive based on a doubt is problematic).

Calloused because she’s already been penalized/punished in several different ways over several months. I don’t know when they told her she couldn’t graduate, but it wasn’t back when they suspended her, removed her from office or made her apologize to the student body.

First, they didn’t tell her she couldn’t graduate. She is graduating. Second, you just proved yourself wrong because you said it was untimely but you don’t even know when it was. So how do you know it was untimely?

I stand by all of those claims as being based in fact.

How can you? You just admitted you don’t know the facts about numbers 1 and 3, and I am not sure how you would know about number 2.

I don’t draw a line between ‘big sins’ (premarital sex) and ‘little sins’. My point was that the offense isn’t really against the school itself; it’s against herself and her partner/future family. That’s why I referred to assualting a teacher or setting fire to the school.

So grace is appropriate only when the sin is against someone else? That’s cheap grace … when you can pass it out for someone else. Why isn’t grace good enough for sins against the school? Again, what is the line and how do we know?

We’re saying that it would be a demonstration of grace towards a sinner to allow her to walk anyway, and I’ve explicitly tied that back to Scripture several times. Anyone else here citing Scripture? If so, I’ve missed it.

I didn’t see you tie it back to Scripture. And I didn’t see any argument for why walking is a matter of grace.

But it is noted in the NYT article, and it does happen - it happened to one of the staff members at HCA! - so I brought it up. Please don’t act like I just made that up to throw out there as a silly objection.

I didn’t act like you made it up. I said it was a bad argument no matter who made it up. And it is. Think about the foundation of this argument: If a parent insists on respect and obedience at home, it might cause the child to run away. Should they therefore not insist on respect and obedience to make sure the child doesn’t run away?

As for grace, Titus 3 is clear that the grace that saves is the grace that teaches us to live a certain way. So the letter is certainly on track. That won’t happen automatically. We are to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, to discipline our bodies, to practice self-control, to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Those things are not contrary to grace. They are what grace teaches us to do.

In the end, I think we have lost the biblical doctrine of sins and consequences. We have also lost the biblical doctrine of shame. Recently I sat with a grown man in tears. His first words to me where “Shame. I am so ashamed.” And it was something only five or six people knew about. But the shame was real. And it was appropriate. We have lost something that God intended us to understand to live by. And I think that is what will cause the church not just to look bad, but actually to abandon her mission to the world.

Thank you, Larry, for an excellent analysis. I am concerned that so many who commented on this thread rush to blame the school and defend Maddi. It seems that even Bible professing Christians have lost their understanding of sin and repentance. The customary reference to “even David sinned” fails to recognize the nature of David’s repentance. Read Psalm 51 thoughtfully, and then tell us is you see any indication of this in the words and actions of Maddi? Is no one concerned to see Maddi come to true Biblical repentance? Does no one recognize the school’s responsibility to minister to the needs of her soul? Do few accept the reality of the school’s authority and responsibility?

The pendulum has swung. Previously, there was too much emphasis upon unquestioned authority in Christian churches and schools, and too many examples of abuse of authority. Now, it seems, the church has joined the world in automatically assuming that nearly any exercise of authority is abusive. I fear that his is a dangerous trend.

[C. D. Cauthorne Jr.]

One watching of the TV interview above lets us know that this girl doesn’t understand how serious her sin of immorality is.

She calls her action a “mistake” (not a sin). She says, “All I did was to have sex before marriage.” Then, she states that her and the father have no plans to get married. She may be another Bristol Palin in the making!

By her own words, she is a bad testimony for Heritage Academy. The school, and our fundamental institutions, need to hold firm on this issue. The world and bleeding-heart evangelicals are getting ready to come after us.

I’d flip that one around, CD. Both sides agree that there were multiple modifications of the punishment, which implies that there were multiple meetings between the school board, this girl, and her family. Everybody’s been through the wringer on this one, and that brings up a fact that this girl’s detractors aren’t really discussing; the school’s punishment appears to be quite in excess of what Moses and Paul prescribed, and what Jesus practiced. Nobody is really contesting this except to claim (wrongly IMO) that the school has some “right” to be harsher than Old Testament law on this girl.

OK, first of all, can we please, please, PLEASE think about the optics of this; what does the world think if “we” are demonstrably harsher than Old Testament law. You know, the one that prescribes stoning for a number of offenses? You want to talk about a lousy testimony, think about that one a few times, OK? Let’s make sure the world thinks we’re about the same as ISIS—that’ll bring people to Christ, I’m sure!

Moreover, if the school board is arguably not following Scripture in their approach to this girl’s sin, why on earth are we first blaming the GIRL? Come on, she’s only following the example she’s been given. Again, you want a bad testimony, it’s the school board for not following the lead of Moses, Paul, and Christ.

Finally, if a school is not going to follow Scripture’s lead in addressing the sins of her students, it would be really, really, really refreshing if they’d take the name “Christian” out of their name. If they’re really going to follow Victorian and Edwardian culture, call it “Corset Academy” or something. If it’s going to be 1950s culture, call it “Poodle Skirt and Flattop Academy”. But if they’re not going to heed Jesus’ treatment of the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery, I’ll thank them NOT to use the name Christian. Don’t drag Jesus into this if you’re not going to listen to His Word.

the school’s punishment appears to be quite in excess of what Moses and Paul prescribed, and what Jesus practiced.

Refresh my memory here, Bert. Where does Scripture address the protocol for a pregnant teen marching or not marching in a graduation ceremony?