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

GN and KD, you are misunderstanding Bert’s point. He is not saying the penalty of preventing her from walking in the graduation ceremony is worse than stoning, because the penalty for an equivalent situation in the OT was not stoning.

[Jay]

“Maddi is being disciplined, not because she’s pregnant, but because she was immoral. The Student Pledge which every student from 5th through 12th grade signs states…”

And that’s why we penalized her three or four months after she found out she was pregnant. After we suspended her for two days while we figured out what to do, and also removed her from the Student Council leadership and whatever else she was involved in and made her apologize to the entire student body at some point.

Sorry, I’m not buying that. At some point, she’s been punished enough by the school. This is excessive. Even unbelievers aren’t this hard on people.

That would be my take. It sounds like they took a little time and came up with an appropriate set of things for punishment/steps of repentance. Then later, someone said, Wait, are we gonna have a girl with a bump walking? My fear (and let’s face it, I don’t really know) is that the not-walking decision was based in embarrassment - “people will see” and “what will they think?” Which I think would be sad if it were that. Jesus bore our shame. Shame should not keep a school from embracing what perhaps could be a not an embarrassing girl, but a finest moment for the Gospel and its forgiveness and restoration.

Christian leaders who are responsible to deal with sin have a responsibility to guide the offender to Biblical repentance. King David provides a helpful example. For nearly a year after his grievous sin, there was no repentance. God sent Nathan to confront David, a necessary step in David’s repentance. When he finally repented, he owned his sin, grieved over it, felt shame and remorse that he had dishonored God in such a public way. Psalm 51 is a record of David’s repentance. There is not the slightest minimizing of sin in that Psalm. God’s judgments upon David were severe, so severe that the punishments imposed upon Maddi are almost a birthday party by comparison. The consequences were both immediate (death of the child), and long-ranging, to be experienced throughout David’s lifetime and even after. What we do not see is David protesting his punishments and complaining that they were too severe. (Nor do we find others lobbying for less severe punishments on his behalf.) David accepted his punishments as just. He seemed to recognize the punishments were less severe than deserved. He demonstrated the fruit of repentance, namely that his sin was greater than the punishments imposed. His repentance resulted in restoration.

In Maddi’s case, we hear a sinner minimizing her sin and protesting her punishments. She is charging the school with sinning against her while softening her sin against the school. (“All I did was…”) This is not the fruit of Biblical repentance. This is resenting the consequences, like Esau, who chaffed at losing his birthright and sought it’s restoration with tears. (But seemed to have no tears for his sin, only it’s consequences.)

Did the school make the right choice by denying Maddi the privilege of marching? I don’t know, and its not for me to say. Nor for anyone else who was not part of the process, and has firsthand knowledge of all that was said and done, both publicly, and behind closed doors. But I know that the state of Maddi’s soul should be of major consideration, and when words and actions display defiance, not repentance, the most loving thing to do is to help her recognize the full nature of her sin, and urge her to seek genuine repentance from God. It appears to me that this is what the school is trying to accomplish. I fear that those who are encouraging Maddi to resent her punishment are contributing to a hardening of her heart before God.

Larry, I’ll concede that it was the family, not the school, that is implementing relevant passages like Exodus 22 by deciding that the boy will pay the bride price, but not get the bride right now. It is the family that is helping her to flee from fornication per 1 Cor. 6, and it is also the family that understands, whether they’d cite these passages or not, that Jesus’ approach to women caught in far worse situations is one of mercy.

OK, if you want to know why I’m picking on the school board, read that again. To put it mildly, I seriously doubt that the girl’s interview would have gone the way it did if the school board had followed the Bible’s example. Instead, it’s sanction after sanction after sanction….and we wonder why this girl is tired of it? Seriously?

And what would suffice to ban a kid from graduation? Really it would be a threat to the safety of the event, or a spoken threat to the propriety of it. Really, the notion of doing this kind of thing is to say “we’re here to help families not only educate their children in the three Rs, but also in godliness, but when the godliness part doesn’t take, we’re going to make sure you’re no longer among us for the fellowship that makes godliness happen.”

The focus on “walking vs. not walking” is frankly not the heart-level issue. It’s become the issue….sadly. My take is that technically she could have been dismissed and was not … showing some level of grace on the part of the school. The letter of the law would fall on not walking …. or frankly not graduating. Knowing how leadership of Christian educational ministries like this often think I’m sure someone said, “well….this is hard but it’s a good object lesson for the other kids.” I’m groaning in the corner disagreeing. Fruit of failure goes way beyond walking or not walking. My concern is that by saying she can’t walk….wraps up the lesson kids learn. “Don’t get caught - they won’t let you walk!” This hardly needs to be the issue! Sexual lifestyle outside of Scripture brings consequences far beyond putting on a special robe….and walking to be given a piece of paper. Of course my “main” issue here is this whole approach to discipline in Christian education…especially one that claims to be local church based. In the local church when repentance has taken place there is no further punitive action. It’s over…unless for legal reasons (child sex offense). It’s hardly Biblical discipline to throw the repentant sinner on his ear because he repented. Sure you might be limited on a level of public leadership but you’re hardly disband them from graduating…. or even serving at some level. We don’t treat any other failure in the body of Christ like that! So… before you go away from my post, please know I’m sympathetic to the ministry in question. This actually is a hard call….and I do see they were actually showing some form of grace. However, the sanctification model this comes from….. is in my view …. not as Biblical as it could be. Please know some dear ones very close to me (even in my family) would disagree with my view so I’m respectful of the other side here.

Hopefully our majority concern are for these young people…. and their walk with God, peace with themselves and rightly placing this failure as a grace mosaic where we march on in grace …. not defiance…. which is easy to do when you feel you’ve been wronged.

Straight Ahead!

jt

…Did the school make the right choice by denying Maddi the privilege of marching? I don’t know, and its not for me to say…

…But I know that the state of Maddi’s soul should be of major consideration, and when words and actions display defiance, not repentance, the most loving thing to do is to help her recognize the full nature of her sin, and urge her to seek genuine repentance from God.

So to recap this post - he don’t know if the school’s decision was right, but he knows Maddi’s heart and thoughts - she doesn’t understand her sin and needs to repent.

Well, okay then. I guess that settles that.

I ask again: Is there anything a student could do that would legitimately exclude them from walking?

Sure. No one is disputing that. What we are disputing:

• Whether or not the punishment applied have been commensurate with the sin (Bert and I say it’s too much, CD and GN say it’s right)
• Whether or not the punishment is being applied fairly between women and men (since only women bear visible signs of their sexual sin)
• Whether or not it’s being applied fairly between all the students (Would HCA apply the same punishment to another student, esp. a male)
• Whether or not Maddi has manifested a ‘rebellious’ or ‘hard-hearted’ attitude
• Why the New York Times found this story worth reporting on
• What the role of grace vs. law is in a person’s life
• What the proper role of a Christian school is, and whether or not they should seek to fulfill responsibilities assigned to a church
• Whether or not it’s fair to decide we know what a person is thinking or how they are acting based on the little bit of info we know
• Etc.

“Public Shaming Isn’t the Way to Deal With Teen Pregnancy”:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/448012/public-shaming-isnt-way-deal-teen-pregnancy

Bert, I will end this with this.

I don’t know that the family is requiring the bride price. How did you find that out? Since we are not under the Law it doesn’t matter. They don’t have to. But my point is that you aren’t asking for it to be enforced while blaming the school for not holding to the Bible. You weren’t even holding to the Bible on this passage. You can’t have it both ways. Likewise the family and the school can both help to flee fornication, but that doesn’t give instruction on how to handle the corporate matters of school. The school can also show mercy and give help as Jesus did (and as the school board apparently did), but neither in John 4 nor in John 8 was Jesus dealing with a corporate setting like this one. So again, the passages you cite just don’t help instruct us on how a school handles matters like this. There is no clear revelation on this, as you have admitted. So to condemn a group of Christians for being in sin based on your very disputable interpretation of passages is troubling.

Let me use an example: Let’s say an employee goes out on social media and slams his employer and drags the name through the mud. The employer finds out and fires him. The now ex-employee comes and asks for forgiveness. The employer can grant forgiveness and grace to him and still not give him his job back. Why? Because forgiveness doesn’t always mean you get the old life back. Choices have consequences and sometimes for the good of an organization, choices have to be made differently at a corporate (as in bigger than the individual) level.

As for the school board, what is your “serious doubt” based in? Do you have any legitimate reason for that? If so, what is it? Again, we are back at the point that the Bible doesn’t given an example of how a school board should handle this (or anything else). The school didn’t expel her or force her to homeschool. Wasn’t that an act of mercy? There is no indication that the school board members didn’t forgive her. That is mercy. They are allowing her to graduate. That is mercy. It’s not “sanction after sanction after sanction.” There appear to be three things: Two-day suspension; removal from leadership; and not allowed to walk. That is hardly draconian by any measure. It’s rather merciful in its lenience it seems to me. The fact is that the girl is the one who caused this and the girl (and her family) is the one who made an issue of it, not the school board. It’s not their fault.

Given your last paragraph, a kid can be an alcoholic who cusses the school administrators out on social media and still be allowed to march? On what basis would you say no?

Lastly, I think you are missing that the purpose of a school and the purpose of individual relationships are different. I think you (and others) are conflating those and pretending that whatever happens in the individual realm must also happen in the corporate realm. A church can forgive an sexually immoral repentant staff member without giving them their seat on the platform back. A school can forgive a teacher who embezzles money without giving them their job back. I don’t think there is any basis at all to say that temporal consequences get erased simply because one repents. They might. They might not.

Sin always messes things up. There are no easy answers, and pretending they are easy doesn’t make it so. Whether or not the school should allow her to march is of debate. But it is not clear cut that they are doing the wrong thing. And there is certainly no biblical basis to declare them to be in sin.

[Larry]

The school leadership is not willing to forgive her, or they would have finished this business 4 months ago

How did you conclude this? Do you think forgiveness makes all the consequences go away? You have been very active in the survivor boards, correct? And I have never seen you argue that forgiveness makes consequences disappear. In fact, don’t you argue that even the appearance or the mere accusation of wrong doing should bring irreversible consequences? Did I miss something?

Interesting. I have had the unenviable position of having very close friends involved in moral incidences that, upon disclosure and as per their repentant request I freely and truly forgave them, but then immediately drove them to the authorities and made sure they were charged to the full extent of the law.

I was robbed recently. The responding police officer, though a degenerate himself, has known me and my ministry since being a young boy, recognized my likelihood to “forgive and forget” in his own words. His point, and I have to believe him, was that not prosecuting to the extent of the law was doing no favors for the perpetrators or for the community, so we prosecuted.

Point being, forgiveness and consequences are practically mutually exclusive. Mercy is mercy when it is truly unearned and unexpected. “You owe me the opportunity to march because I asked your forgiveness” is hardly either.

Lee, well said. Asd I wrote earlier (somewhere above), I am troubled by the family’s response to the school’s decision. It is disturbing.

Mercy is mercy when it is truly unearned and unexpected. “You owe me the opportunity to march because I asked your forgiveness” is hardly either.

What evidence do we have that this is what she is actually thinking? Several people on this thread are characterizing her and her family this way, but I haven’t gotten that sense at all. I don’t think that Bert has either, and someone on this thread said that they know the family personally and that is not at all what is going on.

People keep saying this, and I’d like to see proof for it.

Take a look at the father’s statement that Jim Racke copied here. It says clearly that the “father is stepping up to the challenge”, and from elsewhere we know they will not be marrying. We don’t know what the precise terms of the agreement are, but the boy is clearly coming up with something that can be regarded as a modern day bride price.

Regarding the school’s part, I think you’re being too clever by half in noting that it’s a corporation outside the clear authority of the local church, and therefore…we can’t apply these things that were applicable to the church. For starters, again, a “Christian” school ought to be, whether the link is official or not, acting as an extension of the ministries of the churches the students attend. If they are not, the pastors and deacons ought to rebuke the school, and if that does not work, they need to warn parents at their churches that the school is in fact working against the ministry of the Gospel.

So any school administrator simply ought to try to apply the same passages the church would, which would include the list I’ve provided and presumably others. How does the great leaders of the Bible treat women who have been seduced?

Regarding the supposed “mercy” of the school board by not expelling her, abstaining from imposing an un-Biblical penalty isn’t mercy, but simple common sense. Really, expelling pregnant students derives from the Victorian habit of hiding the consequences of sin, which in turn makes it difficult for people to process that in their lives. If it’s gone, good riddance.

Moreover, the school board freely admits three concessions, and they do not contest the fact that the “not walking” penalty was imposed late. Sorry, but this is precisely the “sanction after sanction” that Jay and I, among others, have been writing about.

You finally ask what would suffice for the school board to do something like this, and really, the main thing that comes to mind is whether a student really poses a risk to the physical safety or learning environment that cannot easily be overcome. If behavior on school grounds is bad, or if consequences of acts off school grounds indicate the student is likely to cause problems on school grounds, then sure, get involved.

Pregnancy? Only if you fire teachers who become pregnant, which I’d be surprised to see. Again, I think we fundamentalists especially, and our society in general, try too hard to push the results of sin out of view. No, let them be there; let us understand and experience why we don’t want to go there. Let the pregnant girl come to class. Let the boy who was maimed in a drunken driving accident come to class. Let them come to graduation, and end the Victorian silliness.

I am troubled by the family’s response to the school’s decision.

You know, there’s a lot at stake here for Maddi since she’s not going to be able to go through many of the usual rites of passage as a result of her sin. So while I understand that some would see this as complaining/grumbling, the ‘value’ of participating in her HS graduation has also risen in value. Her odds of graduating from college (much less BJU!) are not very good.