Can We Talk?

It happens every time we publish something about Women in Leadership (WIL). It happened after we ran a profile of Roberta Hestenes, president of Eastern College. It happened after we printed a two-page advertisement from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. It happened after we ran a competing message from another group, Christians for Biblical Equality. And as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, it will happen in response to articles in this issue: Mary Van Leeuwen’s essay on the meaning of Pentecost for gender issues; and a report on a CT survey of readers’ attitudes.

What happens is that we get lots of (predictable) letters. If an article endorses women in leadership roles, many letters object and a few congratulate. If the article endorses a male hierarchy, many object and a few congratulate. Letters come from men and women alike, though we have not studied trends to see how either sex tends to respond to the issues.

Usually, our letters to the editor include a certain percentage from axe-grinders. But the letters on WIL are from serious-minded evangelicals who have strong beliefs on this subject and want to share them. Many are filled with solid exegesis. Others passionately marshal theological, philosophical, sociological, and psychological data. These are not harsh, unknown critics, but friends of CT.

Perhaps the mail response is so passionate because CT readers are still trying to work out gender issues in their own lives. Our survey data show that while CT readers’ beliefs are consistently more conservative than those of the general populace, in actual practice, the gender aspects of their lives are very similar. This clash between lifestyle and values suggests a serious tension in CT readers’ families.

But our readers are not the only ones divided on this issue. Members of our in-house editorial staff also line up on opposite sides of the question. As do our senior editors and our board members.

We have not made a hard-and-fast position on WIL a crusade. But there are certain elements of the issue we are willing to crusade for: We believe women should be treated as well as men; we believe God has gifted each of us, male and female, and expects us to help all believers exercise their gifts; we believe sexism is real and should be eradicated.

But that does not exhaust all the elements of the question: Should women be ordained? What is the full meaning of Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 14:35 and 1 Timothy 2:12? What role does culture (both Paul’s and ours) play in how we decide WIL issues?

What is the role of a magazine like CT when it confronts an issue on which its core audience is divided? Although we have taken editorial positions on aspects of WIL in the past, our tone has not been dogmatic because we realize that this question needs continuing work from the best theological minds. We would like CT’s pages to be a platform where divisive issues can be debated with logical yet loving force. As you read Mary Van Leeuwen’s essay in this issue, senior editor J. I. Packer is writing out his reasons (to be published early in 1991) for not making women presbyters. Although Drs. Packer and Van Leeuwen disagree on such issues, they provide excellent models for carrying on the WIL discussion.

We believe that WIL should not divide us. Resolution can be achieved without radical surgery, without cutting off any limb from the body of Christ. Indeed, it must be if the conclusions are to carry any weight. We pledge our pages to work toward that end.

By Terry C. Muck.

Our Golden Megaphone Award for Freedom of Speech goes to the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor and the seven Supreme Court justices who joined her in upholding the constitutionality of the Equal Access Act. The act was Congress’s 1984 attempt to guarantee to high-school students interested in religious and political issues the same freedom of speech accorded to their chess-playing and SCUBA-diving classmates.

The court recognized that high-school administrators create a “limited open forum” by allowing extracurricular clubs to meet after school. O’Connor showed well-placed confidence in our teenagers when she wrote: “There is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion … and private speech endorsing religion. We think that secondary school students are mature enough … to understand that a school does not endorse or support student speech that it merely permits on a non-discriminatory basis.”

We rejoice that student-formed Bible clubs are now free to meet (as long as administrators allow any co-curricular clubs). We also recognize that the door is open to other competing clubs. At the Nebraska high school around which this test case revolved, students have already filed a petition to form an atheists’ club. Perhaps that is not all bad. Bible club meetings can easily become times for chorus singing and warm fuzzies. But students who know they exist in a marketplace of ideas are more likely to study the reasons for the faith.

Civics Lesson

We have a different award—the Alfred E. Neuman School of Justice Medallion—for other members of the judiciary who seem bent on stifling the free-speech rights of an unpopular movement. It seems that Lady Justice has been peeking around her blindfold, for in recent months grossly excessive fines have been levied against antiabortion activists, even as protesters with more trendy causes have received only a mild slap. Peaceful prolife “rescuers” were slapped with a $450,000 fine—a marked contrast to the paltry $100 assessed against the rowdy homosexual activists who interrupted a mass where New York’s Cardinal O’Connor was officiating.

Some of those closely watching the antiabortion movement are concerned not only that the fines have grown out of proportion, but that police handling of protesters and jail sentences have grown increasingly harsh and unreasonable. While some disparity is inevitable, even expected, the evidence is mounting that political motivations and pure cussedness are behind these judicial actions. That is not good news for those of us committed to free speech.

The liberal Charlotte Observer woke up to that fact in May when the Supreme Court upheld a Georgia judge’s injunction forbidding Operation Rescue protesters from going within 50 feet of any Atlanta abortion facility. As wary journalists, the Observer’s editorial writers recognized that restraint on the protesters’ “protected exercise of free expression” as every journalist’s nightmare: “If that is not the same as prior censorship,” they wrote, “it comes dangerously close.”

Operation Rescue’s leadership emphasizes that what they do is not protest (and therefore not protected speech). They are involved in the rescue of human life. Nevertheless, the courts have persistently viewed OR’s activity as protest, and any injunctions or inordinately large penalties assessed against them have a chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment freedoms.

By David Neff.

Take four men, known for their bloody, gun-toting Ku Klux Klan activities. Put them in a room with five black civil-rights leaders. Order the four to sit through two hours of lectures on loving their neighbor, whatever his or her skin color. And tell them to shut up and listen, because a U.S. District Court says they have no choice.

Sound like a recipe for a nasty confrontation? Or an exercise in futility?

It turned out to be neither. Last fall, we commented on the unusual sentence handed down from the U.S. District Court in Huntsville, Alabama (“The Klan Goes to School,” Oct. 6, 1989, p. 15). In question was a lawsuit stemming from a KKK attack on a civil-rights march in 1979. The court ordered several of the Klansmen to sit through the two-hour session led by Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and organizer of the 1979 march.

We supported the creative approach but wondered if it would help much.

Now the jury is in. “All of us,” said Lowery as he emerged from the session held some weeks ago, “had a feeling that a great deal of repentance took place today.” He said the meeting began and ended with prayer, with all but one of the participants joining hands at the end.

While some commentators called the plan naïve when it was first publicized last year, the meeting showed that sitting down to talk and listen can change attitudes. Indeed, sociologists find that when people increase their interaction with one another, a corresponding increase in regard and appreciation follows. When it comes to distrust and distance, small steps toward understanding can lead to impressive strides.

Small steps the church might take include encouraging “sister-church” partnerships among congregations representing different racial and ethnic groups—at the least, swapping youth groups or adult choirs for special events, for example. Or, with a bit of effort, regional conferences on urban ministry, prayer, or abortion can be even greater chances for Christians of every color to come together on issues that unite.

The possibilities abound. When it comes to improving race relations, the next step may be simpler—and more productive—than we thought.

By Timothy K. Jones.

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