paul prather

ok, so this from the lexington herald leader's faith/values section...

Posted on Sat, Apr. 22, 2006


Musings on flap over gay student

By Paul Prather
HERALD-LEADER CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

The University of the Cumberlands, a Southern Baptist school, has found itself in a public relations cyclone ever since it expelled sophomore Jason Johnson, 20, because he'd disclosed information on a Web site about his gay relationship with another man.

The university's policy for student behavior bans homosexual and extramarital sex.

Johnson's expulsion drew outrage from gay activists and liberals in general. It may also have endangered accreditation for the university's proposed pharmacy school; the national accrediting board refuses to recognize pharmacy programs that discriminate against homosexuals.

Like everyone else, I've been reading about this brouhaha in the newspaper. Here are my scattered -- and perhaps self-contradictory -- thoughts:

• I believe private religious schools should have the right to make whatever rules they want (short of mandates to torture or behead heathens), in keeping with the tenets of their faith. As far as I'm concerned, Christian schools can bar gays, fornicators, smokers, Jews, cheerleaders, Druids or Martians. Similarly, Jewish schools should be free to reject Christians. Liberal schools can ban fundamentalists.

• If you can't obey a school's code of conduct, common sense dictates that you might not want to enroll there.

• On the other hand, the same principle holds true for the school itself. If the University of the Cumberlands hopes to earn accreditation from a secular agency, it must be prepared to abide by that group's secular standards. You can't have it both ways.

• I grew up on the campus of an ultra-conservative Southern Baptist college, where my dad was dean (and later vice president) for student affairs -- the administrator whose duties included enforcing a straight-laced code of conduct. In the 1970s, I returned to that same campus as a freshman and lived in a dormitory before transferring to the University of Kentucky.

Despite the Baptist college's regulations, I couldn't tell an iota's difference between the lifestyles of many students there and those of the kids I met afterward at UK.

Baptist students drank, smoked dope and fornicated about as enthusiastically as those at the state school. There was even a clique of gay students that included several guys studying for the Baptist ministry; it was the worst-kept secret on campus.

I see no reason to think human nature has changed in 30 years. If any Christian college expelled every kid who violated its code, it could assemble the remaining student body in the administration building's lobby, with room left over for the Georgia Tech marching band.

• Thus, Johnson's main mistake wasn't simply being gay. It was calling undue attention to his orientation. Christian colleges might have been the originators of the don't-ask-don't-tell philosophy.

Intentionally or not, Johnson forced school leaders to take action. Wave a banner announcing your violation of the rules, and administrators have little choice but to discipline you. If a straight student had, say, posted photos of himself and his girlfriend in flagrante delicto on the Internet, he also would have been expelled.

• Homosexual activities and extramarital heterosexual sex indeed are contrary to biblical and historical Christian standards. Yet, they're about equally as errant as pride, gluttony, stinginess, temper tantrums, disrespect for parents and lying.

But when have Baptist schools ever disciplined fat people for ignoring biblical prohibitions against gluttony? When have you seen a Baptist professor reprimanded for getting caught up in the hubris of his Ph.D.? When has a Christian student ever been expelled for pitching a conniption fit on his roommate?

It seems that whenever religious organizations decide to exorcise the sin in their midst, they invariably go for sexual impropriety. They tend to enforce their laws selectively. Very selectively.

• One question raised by the Johnson case is this: How should Christian groups react to sexual misconduct? All religious organizations are made up of human beings who, in my observation, tend to fail miserably a fair amount of the time. Sadly, Christian 20-year-olds are wont to act like idiots. But then, so are Christian 40-year-olds.

Maybe Christian administrators should consider reacting the way Jesus did. I never can think about an incident such as Johnson's without remembering the time Jesus was confronted with a woman who had been caught "in the very act" of adultery and was about to be stoned for it. (No word on what happened to the man she was involved with -- but that's another column.)

Jesus said, "Let the one who is himself without sin throw the first rock." That ended the stoning. Then he addressed the woman. "Neither do I condemn you," he said. "Go your way. From now on, sin no more."

What a beautiful response. I think Jesus said this knowing full well that the woman likely would sin again -- and that he'd end up forgiving her the next time, too.
Former Herald-Leader religion writer Paul Prather is a Mount Sterling minister and author of three books. Reach him at pratpd@yahoo.com.



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