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The Council on Biblical Manhood expresses its deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Catherine Clark Kroeger, who died Feb. 14 after a brief illness. While CBMW may have come to different conclusions than Dr. Kroeger on issues of gender roles in the home and church, we appreciated Dr. Kroeger’s thoughtful scholarly work. Her work in the academy and local church  displays a life dedicated to the things of the Lord:

·         She served lecturer in the Department of Religion at Hamilton College and was a ranked adjunct professor of classical and ministry studies at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary from 1990 until her death.

·         She authored, co-authored or edited thirteen books, including The IVP Women's Bible Commentary.

·         She served as president of Peace and Safety in the Christian Home and served in leadership roles in many other organizations. She was a member of the board of trustees at Trinity Christian Academy and the Latham Center on Cape Cod, and at Whitworth College in Spokane, WA.

·         She held membership of the American Academy of Religion, The Society of Biblical Literature, and the Evangelical Theological Society.

·         She was an active layperson in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA).

Perhaps above all, Dr. Kroeger was a faithful wife and mother. Dr. Kroeger and husband Richard were married for 60 years and raised five children. They also had 10 grandchildren. Dr. Kroeger returned to school after raising her children to receive a Ph.D. in Classical Studies in 1987 from the University of Minnesota. We especially appreciate Dr. Kroeger’s labors in the area of spousal abuse in which sought to shine light on the sinful blight of spousal violence in the home.

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The state of Iowa takes high school wrestling seriously. Iowans take wrestling so seriously, in fact, that the state wrestling champion among high school boys in Iowa is like “Mr. Basketball” in Indiana — a celebrity for life. Joel Northrup is only a sophomore, but the home-schooled student who wrestles for Linn-Mar High School went into the state wrestling tournament with a 35-4 record and high hopes.

 

Nevertheless, in his first match, he defaulted. Why? Because he could not by conviction wrestle against a girl.

In a statement released to the media, young Northrup said: “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other high school sports in Iowa.”

For the first time in history, girls competed in this year’s Iowa state wrestling tournament. Cassy Herkelman and Megan Black became the first two girls to compete in the big event. Joel Northrup drew Cassy Herkelman as his first-round opponent. As the Associated Press reported, Joel “refused to compete against a girl at the state tournament . . . relinquishing any chance of becoming a champion because he says wrestling with a girl would conflict with his religious beliefs.”

The debate erupted immediately. Cassy’s father, Bill Herkelman spoke of his respect for Joel and the Northrup family. “I sincerely respect the decision of the Northrup family especially since it was made on the biggest stage in wrestling. I have heard nothing but good things about the Northrup family and hope Joel does very well the remainder of the tourney.”

As it turned out, Joel did not fare well in the consolation rounds, and Cassy lost a subsequent round, as well. There was apparently more talk about the match that didn’t happen than about the many matches that were completed. The national media attention quickly focused on Joel’s decision not to wrestle a girl.

Writing at ESPN.com, columnist Sarah Spain offered her assessment:

If he felt some sort of need to protect Herkelman from the violence of the sport, he’s sorely misguided. She chose to compete, and she competed well enough to qualify for the state meet. The physical nature of sport is, by definition, what makes it sport, so no one would have complained had he beaten her fair and square in an athletic competition. The best way to show respect for Herkelman and her accomplishments would have been to compete against her.

Well, it may well be true that “no one would have complained” had Joel defeated Cassy on the mat, but that does not mean that it would have been right for him to do so. Indeed, the idea of high school boys wrestling against high school girls is, to say the very least, a rather modern invention. Girls are demanding to wrestle, but a wrestling program for girls would require far more girls wanting to participate in the sport than have yet indicated such a willingness. So, state officials decided that girls could compete with the boys.

In defaulting the match, Joel Northrup cited his concern that wrestling is a physical sport that often turns violent. When he said, “I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner,” he was only expressing what would have been taken as common sense and common decency just a few years ago.

In response to Joel’s statement, Sarah Spain wondered aloud what many others were thinking: “It’s tough to tell whether Northrup is actually concerned about harming Herkelman or if he’s just worried about accidentally touching parts of her that he might never have touched on a girl before. If he or his parents were uncomfortable with the prolonged physical contact and the very high possibility that he might grab, for lack of a better term, a ‘lady part,’ then I suppose it’s tough to reprimand him for defaulting.”

Clearly. But the great unfairness is that this boy was put in such a position in the first place. His failure to cite the sexual nature of his concerns reflects a basic sense of decency and propriety. It would have embarrassed both Joel and the girls in the tournament for such a concern, though obvious, to be articulated. But, given the nature of the sport, there is no way that a boy and a girl wrestling as opponents in a competitive match would not have contact where boys and girls should not have contact. In fact, we are talking about contact of a nature that the boy would be in great and proper trouble if the contact happened anywhere else.

Rick Reilly, author of ESPN’s influential “Life of Reilly” column, offered no respect for Joel’s decision:

Remember, Northrup didn’t default on sexual grounds. Didn’t say anything about it being wrong to put his hands in awkward places. Both he and his father, Jamie, a minister in an independent Pentecostal faith called Believers in Grace Fellowship, cited the physical pounding of it.

“We believe in the elevation and respect of woman,” the father told the Des Moines Register, “and we don’t think that wrestling a woman is the right thing to do. Body slamming and takedowns — full contact sport is not how to do that.”

That’s where the Northrups are so wrong. Body slams and takedowns and gouges in the eye and elbows in the ribs are exactly how to respect Cassy Herkelman. This is what she lives for. She can elevate herself, thanks.

This is insanity masquerading as athletic competition. The controversy over the Iowa state wrestling tournament reveals the fact that this debate represents a clash of worlds and worldviews. In one world — the world that increasingly demands the total erasure of distinctions between men and women — Joel Northrup is considered to be a religious nut. In this world, it makes sense that girls wrestle against boys and that society should celebrate this new development as a milestone in the struggle to free ourselves from the limitations of all gender roles. As if to make this point impossible to miss, Bill Herkelman, Cassy’s father, said: “She’s my son. She’s always been my son.”

In the other world, Joel Northrup is seen as a young man of brave and noble conscience — a boy who defaulted a match rather than violate his conscience. The statements offered by Joel and his father are seen as moments of temporary sanity in a world going increasingly mad. The chivalry demonstrated at great personal cost by this boy athlete is to be celebrated, affirmed, and acknowledged as being deeply rooted in his Christian convictions — convictions about gender, modesty, the treatment of girls and women, propriety, decorum, and sexual purity.

In Rick Reilly’s world, and in accord with his worldview, it makes sense to say, “Body slams and takedowns and gouges in the eye and elbows in the ribs are exactly how to respect Cassy Herkelman.”

In Joel Northrup’s world, and in accord with his worldview, that statement is nothing less than insanity.

I, for one, am proud to know of a boy and a family who refuse to consider girls and women as proper opponents on a wrestling mat — opponents to be bloodied, gouged, and slammed. Joel Northrup may have defaulted a match, but he refused to sacrifice his Christian conscience for a moment of earthly glory.

The general direction of the culture is clear: we are moving out of Joel Northrup’s world into Rick Reilly’s world. Along the way, something immeasurably more important than a wrestling match is about to be defaulted.

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Rachel Held Evans describes herself as a “writer, skeptic, and person of faith.”  She’s a “thoroughly liberated beneficiary of the feminist movement, complete with a blossoming career, an egalitarian marriage, and a messy house.”

Rachel’s an up-and-coming figure in the emergent church world and has already published “Evolving in Monkey Town,“ about her spiritual journey of questions and a promotion for evolution versus creationism, which caught the attention of Al Mohler.  Now she’s dedicated to living out “biblical womanhood” over the next year.

“In addition to sharing my own experiences, I’ll be interviewing modern-day women incorporating ancient practices into their own lives—a polygamist, a conservative Mennonite, an Orthodox Jew, a Quiverfull mom, a “stay-at-home daughter,” and more.”

This unique project began because Rachel wanted to have “better, more constructive, more authentic and creative conversations about the Bible.” I applaud her for coming up with something so creative, out of her comfort zone, and definitely out of her personal belief zone, but as I’ve read her blog and listened to her speak at Baylor’s Truett Seminary, there are some things that raise concern.

View of Scripture

During her lecture at Truett, Rachel said, “I can kinda see the appeal” in thinking that the Bible is a blueprint for how women are to live their lives. It would do away with tension and controversy but “we would all look the same.” She has “not found in the Bible a blueprint for how to be woman, how to be a wife, or how to be a person of faith.”

A blueprint shows what a building’s structure should look like but it doesn’t always give the details of things like interior design or landscaping. There are some things all Christians should do like, love one another, not lie or cheat, love the Lord and obey him,etc. But things like career choice, music preference, favorite hobby, and sense of humor are different for each person. God’s made us all unique and special, but our structure should be the same and it should come from God’s Word alone. It doesn’t come from man’s questions or experiences. It comes from God’s perfect words to us in Scripture. Rachel sees it a little differently. She says,

“The Bible always has to be interpreted, and my interpretation is only as inerrant as I am.”

“If the Bible was a list of do’s and don’ts then there would be no reason for us to communicate with the architect (God) or communicate with each other.”

“God wants us to struggle with the Bible because He wants us to be drawn in to community with one another and with Him. Faith isn’t about being right; it’s about being a part of a community.”

We must be careful to examine these statements in accordance with the Word (1 Jn. 4:1; 1 Tim. 6:3-5). What does the Bible say about faith? Faith is shown as: Us believing in Christ, the Word, and obeying His commands even we don’t understand them fully (1Cor.2:4-6; 15:1-4;1 Tim.6:20-21).

If the Bible doesn’t show us how we’re to live our lives, if it isn’t God’s way of talking with us, teaching us, training us in righteousness (2 Tim.3:16-17), then what is it for? If we’re only going to interpret it incorrectly because we’re flawed humans, then why love it or follow it? Thankfully, the Lord knew we were errant when He inspired the Scriptures that’s why He gave Christians the Holy Spirit, who is able to help us tackle the tough issues and give us discernment (Jn. 14:26, 16:13; Rom. 8:26; 1 Cor. 2:12-14).

There’s times of doubt and dislike,  but if we truly believe in God, if we’re truly followers of Christ, we need to be careful of our attitude towards God’s Holy Words.  He will reveal His truths to us through His Word (Ps. 25:14). It will never help us to trivialize or make a joke of Scripture, to try and prove it doesn’t work, or show that we’ve evolved past its old-fashioned practices. We must instead approach it with the utmost humility. When struggles arise with the Bible, go to God first. He’s got all the answers (2 Sam. 22:31, Ps. 18:30) and He’s there to help you through the problems (Ps. 19).  

The Biblical Womahood Project

My other concern is the project for ”biblical womanhood.” Some of her endeavors include calling her husband Master for a week because “there’s a passage in 1 Peter that says she called him Master.” 1 Peter 3:5, which is referring to Sarah’s submissive heart and her model as a holy woman to all Christian women. It does NOT say we should call our husbands lord or master. We’re to be submissive but not subordinate to our husbands.

To display “biblical modesty,” Rachel will dress in long skirts, grow her hair out, and wear no makeup or jewelry for what she calls “frump month.” This, however, is not biblical womanhood. We shouldn’t dress in a way that might encourage a guy’s eye to check us out (Matt. 5:28) but God doesn’t say we have to be covered from head to toe, wear no makeup, and be “frumpy.”  He does say that we shouldn’t make our main adornment to be things of material worth but of a gentle, quiet spirit and a submissive heart to the Lord (1 Pet. 3).

She took an interesting viewpoint on Prov. 21:9 and 25:24, which says what it’s like for a man to live with a quarrelsome wife. Rachel decided to act this out for a month by having a “jar of contention.” Every snarky comment meant time spent on her roof in penance.  However, the verse says nothing about the wife having to pay for her quarrelsome attitude by sitting on the roof, nor does God want Christians to pay penance for their sins. We can repent of our sins but we’ll never be able to pay for them. Our works are as filthy rags which is why Christ had to pay for our sins by dying on the Cross (Isa. 64:6)!

There’s also a to-do list for Rachel’s Proverbs 31 month. While I appreciate the cleverness, the interpretations completely miss the metaphors and can sometimes come off as mocking. Proverbs 31 isn’t meant to be a to-do list. It’s meant to show the heart and righteous attitude of a woman who’s seeking God’s glory and the good of those around her. It’s part of God’s desire for women’s lives. It’s God showing how much women are capable of when He’s at the forefront of our lives.

When we continually question the validity of His Word, we’ll continually doubt His plan for us. God cares for and values women. He’s even talked to women specifically through verses and passages about how to glorify Him. When we see God’s Word as His best for us, then we’ll see that biblical womanhood isn’t stifling, exhausting, or keeps us in bondage to men. True biblical womanhood, which follows all of God’s mandates, is freeing, beautiful, makes us stronger, and helps us become closer in communion with the Lord!

There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Prov. 16:25

The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. Ps. 19:7.

(Diane Montgomery is a regular contributor to the Unlocking Femininity blog, where this post originally appeared. Please visit Unlocking Femininity at http://unlockingfemininity.com/)

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The young paratrooper stood at the open door of the C-47 transport plane. Wave after wave of angry wind battered his army fatigues with the ferocity of a category five hurricane.  He paused momentarily, double-checked his static line and leaped into the darkness below. Instantly, the darkness wasn’t so dark any more. As he plummeted toward the earth, shells from anti-aircraft whizzed near him, visible like thousands of falling stars slithering across the night sky, sent skyward by German soldiers with deadly intent. Explosions illumined the terrain below. Drifting intentionally toward the hostilities below defied common sense, but the young soldier was on a mission far greater than even he understood in the moment. The young soldier was my father. It was 2 a.m., June 6, 1944. The hedge-infested landscape of northern France, largely flooded with water by Hitler, waited as my father and his colleagues in the 101^st Airborne descended to join the cataclysmic battle known to posterity simply as “D-Day.”

My father, who died in 1991 when a leaky blood vessel burst in his chest, would tell you that God’s mercy alone carried him through D-Day alive. Grace saw him through the Allies’ Operation Market Garden (which didn’t turn out to be the Allies’ proudest moment). It preserved him through the Battle of the Bulge, where American troops won despite being grossly outnumbered, completely surrounded (it is the Airborne’s job to be surrounded, my father told me) and deep-frozen in one of the coldest European winters on record. Divine mercy, dad always said, kept him alive to V-J Day and spirited him back to Georgia to marry my mom.

My dad’s story is common among the American men who populated “The Greatest Generation.” You know this if you’ve seen HBO’s wonderful mini-series based on the equally engrossing book, “Band of Brothers.” Thanks to the herculean efforts of these men, Westerners like us remain free to worship Christ in spirit and in truth every Lord’s Day; we are free to publish and read newspapers, magazines, blogs, theology books, history books, novels and above all, the Word of the living God. We are free to raise our families according to the dictates of conscience, free to work, free to play, free to seek education, free to live as those who have been created in the image of God. But it all came at a staggering cost (more than 60 million killed in all) and required a level of courage that surely was not of this world.

Selfless sacrifice and uncommon valor won this freedom.  And these efforts provide us with a glorious illustration of a true hero. Why? Because they paint for us, on the canvas of history, a clear depiction of the blood sacrifice 2000 years ago that won a cosmic conflict, one whose first volleys were fired long ago in Eden. The sacrifice of my father and his colleagues puts in bold relief the courage it took to walk the Via Dolorosa and it displays the blood-stained realities that typify a radical others-centeredness of the sort which defined God’s rescue mission in Christ Jesus. Just as dad and thousands of other men leaped toward certain death at Normandy, so Christ set his face like flint toward Jerusalem with full knowledge that a kangaroo court and a sentence of death awaited in that city. This is the stuff of true heroism. Genuine biblical manhood requires radical selflessness and profound courage. It is why my sons, who were born many years after my father’s death, know the story of their grandfather well. I tell them that this is what true manhood looks like, because it looks like Christ.

Part I of this series is available here: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Of-Fatherhood-and-Heroes-Part-I

Part II: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Orf-Fatherhood-and-Heroes-Part-II-A-Hero-is-Marked-by-the-Grace-of-God

Part III: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Orf-Fatherhood-and-Heroes-Part-II-A-Hero-is-Marked-by-the-Grace-of-God

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Has the church misunderstood the Bible’s teachings on sexuality for over two thousand years? The current issue of Newsweek magazine reports on “new scholarship on the Good Book’s naughty bits” that is supposed to turn our understanding of the Bible’s teachings on sex upside down.

 

Lisa Miller, Newsweek’s religion editor, wrote the article entitled “What the Bible Really Says About Sex.” Well, the one thing you need to know up front is that the article falls far short of its title.

Miller bases her report on two recent books — Michael Coogan’s God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says and Jennifer Wright Knust’s Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire. Neither of these books breaks new ground. Instead, the books distill arguments that have become common among liberal and revisionist Bible scholars and homosexual activist groups.

Coogan, trained as a Jesuit priest, has served as editor of The Oxford Annotated Bible, a favorite study Bible among theological liberals. He currently serves as director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum. In God and Sex, Coogan argues that the biblical condemnations of various sexual behaviors and relationships should not be considered normative for today. In his words, the biblical texts on sexuality “reflect the presuppositions and prejudices, the ideas and ideals of their authors.” He argues that we should not be bound by those same prejudices.

He rejects outright the belief that the Bible is in any objective sense the Word of God. The guild of academic biblical scholars has adopted a liberal approach to the Bible, he affirms, and the real problem is that the great multitude of church-goers have not joined the scholars in this liberal approach. Coogan laments the fact that “we have not succeeded in changing the way most nonspecialists and even many in the clergy think about the Bible.” Instead, “people still maintain that the Bible is God’s word, plain and simple: that God is the author of scripture.”

Yes, Dr. Coogan, people do still maintain that belief.

To his credit, Coogan does not argue dishonestly. He is straightforward in presenting his rendering of the key biblical texts, for his main point is that the church is not bound by the “presuppositions and prejudices” of those texts.

Jennifer Wright Knust follows a very different game plan in Unprotected Texts, though she shares Coogan’s rejection of biblical inspiration. Knust, who teaches religion at Boston University, bases her revisionism on the claim that the Bible simply lacks any consistent sexual ethic. “The Bible is not only contradictory but complex,” she insists. Some parts of the Bible “promote points of view that, from a modern perspective anyway, are patently immoral.”

An ordained American Baptist pastor, Knust argues that the Bible is so contradictory when it comes to sexual matters that we cannot gain any consistent sexual ethic from its pages. Her agenda is clear from the start — she wants to overthrow the normative authority of the Bible on matters of sexual morality.

Lisa Miller summarizes the arguments of Coogan and Knust by explaining that they are each attempting “to steal the conversation about sex and the Bible back from the religious right.” Putting the two books together, Miller explains that they argue along these lines: first, that “the Bible is an ancient text, inapplicable in its particulars to the modern world.” Second, that “sex in the Bible is sometimes hidden.” Third, that “that which is forbidden is also allowed.” And fourth, that “accepted interpretations are sometimes wrong.”

Well, one immediate problem with this set of arguments is that they are themselves contradictory. Is the Bible itself wrong, or just its interpretations? If the Bible is just an ancient text, which is not relevant in its particulars for the modern world, why argue over its interpretation? They need to get their story straight.

Knust and Coogan cannot even agree when it comes to the particulars. Knust claims that King David “enjoyed sexual satisfaction” with Jonathan, and that this thus serves as evidence of an authorized homosexual relationship within Scripture. Again, to his credit, Coogan is too careful a scholar to go with that kind of argument. David and Jonathan were covenant partners, he argues — “but despite the claims of some gay activists, they were not sexual partners.”

Lisa Miller notes that “Coogan and Knust are hardly the first scholars to offer alternative readings of the Bible’s teachings on sex.” As a matter of fact, almost all of the arguments made in these books have been around for the past thirty years. Miller argues that it is the populism of these books that sets them apart. “With provocative titles and mainstream publishing houses, they obviously hope to sell books,” she explains. “But their greater cause is a fight against ‘official’ interpretations.”

In response to that, Lisa Miller quotes me: “That’s why Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that citadel of Christian conservatism, concludes that one’s Bible reading must be overseen by the proper authorities.” I enjoyed my conversation with Ms. Miller, but my point was not that the church needs “proper authorities,” but that just any interpretation of the Bible will not do. The authority in this issue is that of the Bible itself. Those who read it as bearing the very authority of God will read the Bible quite differently than those who see it as a human book conditioned and warped by human frailty and fallibility.

The most important point I made to Lisa Miller is that revisionist interpreters of the Bible are playing a dishonest game. Consider the audacity of their claim: they claim that no one has rightly understood the Bible for over two thousand years. No Jewish or Christian interpreter of the Bible had ever suggested that the relationship between David and Jonathan was homosexual — at least not until recent decades. The revisionist case is equally ludicrous across the board. We are only now able to understand what Paul was talking about in Romans 1? The church was wrong for two millennia?

I have far greater respect for the intellectual integrity of the scholar who reads the Bible and interprets it honestly, but then rejects it with candor. This is far superior to evasive and clever attempts to make the Bible say what it plainly does not say. The Bible is brutally honest about human sinfulness in all its forms, including sexuality. Nevertheless, the Bible presents a consistent and clear sexual ethic. The issue is not a lack of clarity.

The real problem here is not that the Bible is misunderstood and in need of revision. To the contrary, the real problem is that the ethic revealed in the Bible is both rejected and reviled.

(R. Albert Mohler Jr., is a member of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. This article originally appeared on his blog at www.albertmohler.com)