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

Again, I’ve read HCA’s student handbook, and it’s not rigid “you do this you will get that.” So to say “if you don’t like the consequences, don’t sign the contract” really misses the point. Besides, most kids really don’t see the option of choosing anything but what their parents decide.

All I can say is you guys are incredibly judgemental about a situation you can’t actually know the details about. You weren’t in the meetings, you are basing your conclusions exclusively on the testimony of the offended party who is crying to the media. The board (and rightly so) is not talking beyond their brief comments in their published statement.

I’m with Larry - maybe they are wrong in what they decided to do.

But especially Jay and Bert and a few others are defaulting to an acceptance of clearly biased and self-serving testimony of the family. From my experience, those who carry on as they have been doing are not showing a humble, repentant Christian spirit. I tend to believe that the board/school is probably right based on the behaviour of the family. But who knows? I can’t know the actual facts anymore than you can.

It just seems to me that you are hyperventilating a good deal, making more of this than necessary and dragging this discussion out way beyond what the situation calls for. And you are making rather extreme and wild statements that have nothing to do with the actual situation. One has to wonder what is driving that line of thinking and behaviour. It’s rather strange, and it doesn’t entirely square with the picture of Christian maturity that the Bible gives us.

I’ve mostly stayed out of it until lately, I think probably I should just let it go.. it’s just like one of those accidents on the highway, it goes on and on and you have to keep looking. I think maybe I should just quit reading the thread.

Numbers is seldom a good indicator of fidelity to Biblical truth. In times of spiritual declension, those who are most faithful to the Bible will often experience declining numbers.

That might be true, but at the same time when you look around your local Bible/Baptist organization and your under 40 year olds are outnumbered 8 to 1, it might be a good idea to find out why they aren’t there or where they’ve gone…if you can get answers from them.

You know, for all the talk we do about God’s judgment on America, it’s worth remembering that judgment always begins at the house of God first. Ask OT Israel or Peter.

All I can say is you guys are incredibly judgemental about a situation you can’t actually know the details about. You weren’t in the meetings, you are basing your conclusions exclusively on the testimony of the offended party who is crying to the media. The board (and rightly so) is not talking beyond their brief comments in their published statement.

And what, pray tell, gives you such expert knowledge of the situation that you can speak with certainty about this either? Are you close personal friends with one of the HCA board members? Did they call your church in Canada and seek your input on the matter?

Seriously, Don, what gives you the right to discuss this with any more degree of certainty than Bert, GN, or I have? Yeah, we have cited news reports. We’ve also admitted to mistakes we made in the thread when they were pointed out.

You have done neither of these.

For all the remarks made about how Bert and I don’t know anything, there are more than a few people on this thread who seem to have divined Maddi’s character and thoughts better than even she has.

Give me a break.

“18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” (Matthew 1:18-19 ESV)

Joseph, believing that Mary had committed the same sin as Miss Runkles, didn’t require her to stand up before the school the town to confess her sin. No indication is given that he even considered “making an example” of her. Other than being Biblically justified in seeking a “divorce” under such circumstances, he didn’t seek to punish her. (Under the Law and the betrothal customs of the ancient near-East, he could have demanded that serious repercussions occur.) No, he instead is described as “a just man,” who was “unwilling to put her to shame.”

Is there any lesson here?

(I’m not saying there are direct parallels; I’m just asking.)

Don, the simple fact of the matter is that we do know quite a bit about what the school board did, and did not, do. We can then simply compare that with Biblical parallels where someone was caught in fornication, and even adultery, and ask whether they’re comparable. Given that I do see a strong bent towards punishment in this case, but I do not in the Scriptures, I infer that something is amiss.

(note; Jay actually understates the gravity of the situation with Mary, as being betrothed, the sin she appeared to have committed was seen as adultery, not just fornication….with far greater permission for harsh penalties there)

Now where I see strong judgmentalism is when many here are assuming that the young lady is not repentant simply because she does not accept the school board’s decisions without question. When I point out that actions don’t match Scripture, I don’t have to look into someone’s heart—to judge someone’s repentance does. It’s a much harder deal.

[Jay]

All I can say is you guys are incredibly judgemental about a situation you can’t actually know the details about. You weren’t in the meetings, you are basing your conclusions exclusively on the testimony of the offended party who is crying to the media. The board (and rightly so) is not talking beyond their brief comments in their published statement.

And what, pray tell, gives you such expert knowledge of the situation that you can speak with certainty about this either? Are you close personal friends with one of the HCA board members? Did they call your church in Canada and seek your input on the matter?

Jay, I’m not claiming expert knowledge.

THAT IS MY POINT. I don’t have it, and neither do you. I don’t think the punishment is egregious, they could have been more severe. I probably would have been, given what I know about the situation. But I don’t know all the facts. Perhaps I would have been more lenient if I knew them.

What I am objecting to is your judgementalism and persistence in accepting one side of the story as absolute truth without the benefit of actual insight into the situation. You just don’t know if Maddi and her family are telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

[Jay]

Seriously, Don, what gives you the right to discuss this with any more degree of certainty than Bert, GN, or I have? Yeah, we have cited news reports. We’ve also admitted to mistakes we made in the thread when they were pointed out.

You have been admitting mistakes lately. It has been a long time coming. But it hasn’t changed your judgementalism.

[Don Johnson]

All I can say is you guys are incredibly judgemental about a situation you can’t actually know the details about. You weren’t in the meetings, you are basing your conclusions exclusively on the testimony of the offended party who is crying to the media. The board (and rightly so) is not talking beyond their brief comments in their published statement.

I’m with Larry - maybe they are wrong in what they decided to do.

But especially Jay and Bert and a few others are defaulting to an acceptance of clearly biased and self-serving testimony of the family. From my experience, those who carry on as they have been doing are not showing a humble, repentant Christian spirit. I tend to believe that the board/school is probably right based on the behaviour of the family. But who knows? I can’t know the actual facts anymore than you can.

It just seems to me that you are hyperventilating a good deal, making more of this than necessary and dragging this discussion out way beyond what the situation calls for. And you are making rather extreme and wild statements that have nothing to do with the actual situation. One has to wonder what is driving that line of thinking and behaviour. It’s rather strange, and it doesn’t entirely square with the picture of Christian maturity that the Bible gives us.

I’ve mostly stayed out of it until lately, I think probably I should just let it go.. it’s just like one of those accidents on the highway, it goes on and on and you have to keep looking. I think maybe I should just quit reading the thread.

Examples of judgmentalism highlighted in bold. In these cases, we’re not just talking about a controversy over the existence or meaning of some empirical fact, such as that Maddi apologized to the whole school. We are talking about assuming things about a person’s heart condition, which is far more difficult, far more dangerous business. Those who assume heart conditions ought, in my opinion, to be rather reticent about accusing others of not knowing enough to draw any conclusions, since the task they undertake is simply far more difficult.

[Bert Perry]

Don, the simple fact of the matter is that we do know quite a bit about what the school board did, and did not, do. We can then simply compare that with Biblical parallels where someone was caught in fornication, and even adultery, and ask whether they’re comparable. Given that I do see a strong bent towards punishment in this case, but I do not in the Scriptures, I infer that something is amiss.

(note; Jay actually understates the gravity of the situation with Mary, as being betrothed, the sin she appeared to have committed was seen as adultery, not just fornication….with far greater permission for harsh penalties there)

Now where I see strong judgmentalism is when many here are assuming that the young lady is not repentant simply because she does not accept the school board’s decisions without question. When I point out that actions don’t match Scripture, I don’t have to look into someone’s heart—to judge someone’s repentance does. It’s a much harder deal.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

This discussion is very interesting, because it highlights a very basic fact: Christian leaders often have the same goals, the same heart, and the same motivations. But, they make different decisions. Why? Personality, temperament, how God made them, and training.

I am quite sure the school administrators wanted to do the right thing; the Christian thing. They acted differently than others would have. Let’s acknowledge there were a variety of options available, and there would have been naysayers no matter what course of action they took. The fascinating thing for me is to see the basic dichotomy of opinions in this thread; some tending towards grace, others towards punishment. Of course, sin is never without consequences - the trick is to find an appropriate balance between the two as you respond.

Anybody who has had to deal with church discipline situations understands exactly the difficulty with this situation. For example,

• I once turned in a 50-yr old woman to the police for allegedly beating her elderly mother. The mom told me she was contemplating suicide. The daughter told me, “she always says crazy stuff like that! You can’t believe her!” Both were members of my church. The daughter was mentally unstable, and I could see the mother’s complaint being true. The fallout was not good. There were whispers that I should have solved the matter “in the church.” Others clucked, and said, “he’s too young - our previous pastor wouldn’t have done iot this way!” Naysayers. They’ll always be there - and they didn’t know all the facts. They only knew what the daughter told them.
• There was another situation where, once again, I took the harder route because I felt it was absolutely necessary. Things had reached the tipping point. That was not a good time. People cried out for “grace.” They failed to realize that, according to 1 Cor 5, I was actually showing grace by attempting to impose church discipline.

Give two guys the same scenario, and they’ll produce two different responses - each of which may be perfectly biblical. This is a tricky situation. I think we should acknowledge that, just because an institution does something you disagree with, doesn’t necessarily mean it is being “un-Biblical.” Institutional temperament is an unquantifiable, but critical, point here.

Here is a quick litmus test. It is imprecise, but I think it is generally correct: What attribute of God is the most dominant, the most determinative, the most definitional for all the others?

• If you say “holiness,” you will likely be willing to support the school’s decision - even if you don’t know all the facts
• If you say “love,” you will likely fault the school’s decision and see this as an issue of “denying grace” to the girl.

Addendum:

But, just to make things even more complicated, each approach may be “right” in this situation! It depends what you decide needs to be emphasized for your own context. For example,

• Peter tells Christians to live with fearful reverence during the time of our stay here (1 Pet 1:17). What is his justification for this command? He could have told them, “live holy or die!” There is precedent for this kind of motivation (e.g. Ananias & Sapphira, the Lord’s Supper, etc.).
• But, for reasons known only to himself and God, Peter chose to emphasize gratitude at that particular point (vv.18-20); he told them to remember how Christ had redeemed them and why God had raised Him from the dead and given Him glory.
• Both options (“be holy or die” or “remember what Christ did for you”) would have been theologically correct, if properly framed. But, for that context, Peter chose the latter option.

Context always makes the difference in application, because every situation is a bit different. We don’t have the context here. Therefore, we’re really not in a position to intellligently comment on this particular decision. We can learn something about the basic principle of the matter.

I have also sat in on church discipline situations in the past. While some of them have been simple - ‘you can’t date a married man’ comes to mind - the biggest takeaway for me was always:

1. How hard and ugly the situations can get

AND

2. how difficult it is to really ascertain the thought process that drives the actions are.

After a few of these instances, I have settled on leaning more towards grace and mercy for two reasons:

1. I don’t want to shove a person out of the church without absolute certainty that they are willfully rejecting Biblical teaching.

2. It’s a lot easier to ‘ramp up’ than it is to ‘spin down’ consequences. For example, if I were to be in a place where I announced that someone was pregnant out of wedlock and then found out she got pregnant as the result of a rape, it could potentially disqualify me from future ministry because I would not be ‘blameless’.

3. As I mentioned before - my extension of grace is a direct reflection of the grace and mercy the Lord has shown to us. I cited some Scripture for that a while ago.

So I try to extend grace and mercy to the Nth degree. Others may feel differently…we are all, as Tyler said, products of our training and circumstance.

I’m profoundly uneasy with the dichotomy that Tyler draws for two reasons. First of all, if we draw such a dichotomy, I’m more or less saying the two concepts are opposed. Are they, really? Second, the point I’ve been trying to draw here is not that we ought to balance love and holiness at all, but rather that when a requirement imposed upon a sinning brother/sister is not plausibly Biblical, it has nothing whatsoever to do with holiness or love.

To draw a picture, when I’m considering a case like an abused mother or a young girl who might have been raped, I have solid Biblical support for reporting this to the police in Romans 13 and elsewhere. Moreover, I cannot love the victims in such cases without reporting the evidence to the police—I’d be like the watchman in Ezekiel who doesn’t warn when the enemy is coming towards the city gates, no?

So as much as I’ve heard, and read, about the need to balance love and holiness, it’s simply a rhetorical tool I can’t work with. Holiness is perfected in love, and love is proven in holiness. The trick is to figure out, Biblically speaking, how each is defined.

TylerR wrote:

Here is a quick litmus test. It is imprecise, but I think it is generally correct: What attribute of God is the most dominant, the most determinative, the most definitional for all the others?

• If you say “holiness,” you will likely be willing to support the school’s decision - even if you don’t know all the facts
• If you say “love,” you will likely fault the school’s decision and see this as an issue of “denying grace” to the girl.

I believe the theology that leads to asking the question that TylerR posed above is incorrect. We cannot say that God is “X” above “Y” since all of these attributes are infinitely and fully expressed and manifested in Him. One attribute does not compete with another and one does not supersede the others.

Therefore, I believe what we observe in God’s actions reflect the singularity of these attributes, not a hierarchy of them. This is highly confusing to us, since we cannot at all sympathize with this reality of character.

JBL:

The issue of which attribute is definitional for the others is a standard one, found in systematic theologies. For example, you can’t properly understand what God’s “love” is without an appreciation for His holiness. Same for His righteousness, mercy, grace, etc. All these things are, I would argue, informed by the controlling attribute of holiness. I don’t want to defend the approach here; I just want to point out that it’s hardly a novel question.

My point wasn’t really about the validity of the question, but about the practical impact of how you think about God. Put it this way - sum up God in one or two words. Think about how you answer. Some people will say, “God is love.” I would say, “God is holy and righteous.” Each answer is perfectly correct. But, how you choose to answer reveals what, in effect, you believe the controlling attribute of God really is. That will likely inform how you approach difficult pastoral issues, like this one. So, this isn’t an academic, ivory-tower question. Where the rubber meets the road, it has an impact on how you address these real-life situations.

Bert:

I’m not proposing a distinction between “love” and “holiness,” as though they’re opposed to each other. But, the fact is that you can choose to emphasize one more than the other, depending on the situation and the context. Consider my example (above) from 1 Peter 1:17-21. Peter could have re-emphasized holiness as a motivation for fearful, reverent living; he’d done this once in vv.13-16. He would have been right to do so. He did mention judgment, but quickly moved on and focused on gratitude, instead. He chose to emphasize one more than the other, and he did it for some reason - even if we can’t figure out what it was.

You wrote:

So as much as I’ve heard, and read, about the need to balance love and holiness, it’s simply a rhetorical tool I can’t work with. Holiness is perfected in love, and love is proven in holiness.

Now, that sounds like a rhetorical flourish to me! What does that actually mean in real life? It sounds good, but what do you mean by that?

The practical impact is this:

• If your theological picture of God trends more or less to the “mushy” side, I think you’d tend to let the girl walk.
• If your theological picture of God tends more or less to the “holiness” side, I think you’d tend to be less sympathetic to her protests of unfairness.

We all know people on each side, so lets not pretend these are unfair generalizations - we see it in action on this very thread!

The issue of how we view God is interesting. I recently read Stephen Nichols’ book Jesus Made in America, which charts how different generations in America have understood and molded Jesus to fit their own ideas. It is extraordinarily revealing, and it makes you think about how you’ve done the very same thing. The book is worth reading. I think, today, we have a definite crisis where people conceive of God as an indulgent grandfather. Perhaps this is an overcorrective from a previous era of legalism?

P.S. Once, during Sunday School, I asked the congregation, “how would you sum up God in one ot two words?” One person said, “God is light … just, pure … light!” I almost said, “Great. Gnosticism lives!” but I managed to contain myself …

I might check out the book, but an interesting thought is that both over-indulgence and legalism (or rulesism; not too many admit they think their works save them outside of Rome, no?) seem to take a decided leap away from Scripture, IMO. So the love/holiness tool seems to fail even there, as I fail in both whether I start trusting in rules, or hoping for a cosmic indulgent grandfather.