Associated Baptist Press - 3/24/2008

Associated Baptist Press
March 24, 2008 (8-31)

IN THIS ISSUE:
Judge dismisses Klouda lawsuit against Patterson, Southwestern
CBF receives $1 million from anonymous donor
Fantasy: Should Christians use violent video games to lure teens to church?
Fantasy: Where do Hobbits and Hebrews intersect?

Judge dismisses Klouda lawsuit against Patterson, Southwestern
By Robert Marus

FORT WORTH, Texas (ABP) -- A federal judge has ruled that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s decision to fire a female Hebrew professor was akin to a church’s decision to fire its pastor -- and therefore outside the purview of the civil courts.

In a March 19 ruling, United States District Judge John McBryde dismissed all of the complaints in Sheri Klouda’s lawsuit against her alma mater and former employer.

Citing a string of precedents by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, McBryde wrote, “the courts are prohibited by the First Amendment from involving themselves in ecclesiastical matters, such as disputes concerning theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government or the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required.”

Klouda’s suit against Southwestern and its president, Paige Patterson, involved such an ecclesiastical matter, the judge determined. It should, therefore, be treated the same way the law would treat an employment dispute between a church and a minister -- by avoiding involvement.

“[T]he record establishes as a matter of law that the employment decision made by defendants [Southwestern] concerning plaintiff [Klouda] was ecclesiastical in nature,” McBryde wrote. “If the court were to allow plaintiff’s claims to go through the normal judicial processes, the procedural entanglements would be far-reaching in their impact upon [the] seminary as a religious organization.”

Klouda filed suit against Southwestern a year ago, citing gender discrimination and breach of contract, after leaving the school to take a teaching position at Taylor University in Upland, Ind. Her case was publicized by critics of Patterson, including prominent reform-minded Southern Baptist bloggers Wade Burleson and Benjamin Cole.

Klouda was hired to teach Hebrew in 2002, under a previous president’s administration. Patterson became Southwestern’s president in 2003. According to court documents, he decided that women should not teach theology to male ministers-in-training because the Southern Baptist Convention’s confession of faith says the office of pastor is reserved for men.

Nonetheless, according to Klouda, Patterson assured her that she was safe in her tenure-track position. However, in 2004, she was told that she would not be granted tenure. In 2006, according to Klouda, seminary officials told her she would be terminated at the end of that year.

Among her complaints were that the seminary had violated its promises to her, and that there was no clear justification in the Bible or the SBC confession for Patterson’s decision to bar women from Southwestern’s theology faculty.

But McBryde said that was not a decision for the court to second-guess, writing, “mere inquiry into those areas would be an unconstitutional intrusion into the affairs of the seminary as a religious organization.”

Patterson, in a statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, said McBryde’s decision “has implications for all of our institutions and churches. Americans everywhere may still rejoice in freedom of faith and the ordering of their institutions accordingly.”

In a March 22 blog post analyzing the ruling, Burleson said the implications of the ruling, if carried out to their legal conclusion, would bar women from serving as professors at any SBC seminary.

“In the long run, I believe people of the Southern Baptist Convention will realize that there are two ideologies causing tension within our convention,” he wrote. “[O]ne ideology would wish to relegate all women to a position of subordination to men, while the other seeks to acknowledge the biblical view of equality between men and women -- with the only official denominational exception to that equality being the prohibition in the [2000 revision of the SBC “Baptist Faith and Message” statement] for women to serve as ‘senior pastors.’”

Klouda did not return an Associated Baptist Press reporter’s telephone messages requesting comment for this story by press time. But, as of March 21, she reportedly had not decided whether she would appeal the decision.

The case is Klouda v. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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CBF receives $1 million from anonymous donor
By ABP staff

ATLANTA (ABP) -- The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has received an anonymous $1 million gift for funding “micro-finance” loans in poor countries and other CBF ministries.

Daniel Vestal, the moderate Baptist group’s executive coordinator, announced the gift March 20, according to a CBF news release.

“It is humbling and encouraging that a donor would entrust the Fellowship with this kind of gift,” Vestal said. “We are excited to be able to put these new resources to work in fulfilling our vision of being the presence of Christ among the most neglected. Lives will be forever changed because of this gift.”

Half of the $1 million gift will be used for a new finance initiative coordinated through the CBF Foundation. The group is currently conducting due-diligence research on creating a fund designed to give the organization and its partner churches and ministries a way to invest funds in micro-finance banks around the globe.

Micro-finance banks lend small amounts of money to people in developing countries as start-up funds for small businesses. For example, an initial loan of as little as $50 to a woman in many parts of Latin America, Africa, or Asia would enable her to open a business that, within a few months, could generate enough income to provide for her family’s basic needs, employ neighbors, repay the loan and qualify for another one.

Many non-profit groups have begun operating or investing in micro-finance programs in the last 30 years. Such loans have demonstrated significant success in lifting small entrepreneurs and entire communities out of poverty while experiencing the dignity of self-sufficiency.

Last year, CBF leaders committed to supporting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for reducing global poverty. At least six of the eight goals depend directly on helping families become economically self-sufficient so that they can address issues like education and health.

“The donor’s visionary investment will help the industrious poor lift themselves out of poverty by providing access to capital to start their own businesses and earn income to support their families and repay the loans,” said Don Durham, CBF Foundation president. “Loans to poor people are repaid with amazing reliability, and lending money to poor people has been one of the most reliable strategies globally for helping the poor lift themselves out of poverty. Thanks to this gift, CBF Foundation can provide a way for CBF and other CBF Foundation clients to invest so that their principal does as much good as the proceeds. This provides an exponential increase in the positive impact we are all able to make among the most neglected.”

The donor designated the other $500,000 of the gift for a number of Fellowship-supported ministries, including equipping CBF field personnel with computers, supporting missions opportunities for undergraduate students, and care and wellness programs for missionaries.

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Fantasy: Should Christians use violent video games to lure teens to church?
By Hannah Elliott

(ABP) -- What do warthogs, pelicans, energy swords and Spartan lasers have in common? And how do they relate to John 1:17?

They’re all part of a video game called Halo 3, the top-selling video game of 2007 that pre-sold more than 1 million copies two months before it even hit stores. In the first two weeks after its release, Halo 3 -- the third installment of Microsoft’s first-person shooter game -- made more than $300 million in sales.

The game is so popular many churches across the country are hosting Halo nights -- evenings filled with pizza, camaraderie and multiple-player games flashing across several television screens. Proponents say the nights aim to reach teenagers -- mostly boys -- on their own terms and show that churches can be relevant in a world filled with emerging technologies.

Indeed, national retail sales of video games, which includes portable and console hardware, software and accessories, generated revenues of nearly $12.5 billion last year, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm. Almost 60 percent of frequent game players play with friends, and 33 percent play with siblings, NPD reported.

But critics question the value of using shooting games to entice boys to attend church. They say games like Halo numb kids to violence and even teach them to kill. And the M-rating for Halo 3 gives young people access to something they can’t legally buy, since M-rated games must be purchased by someone 17 or older.

An October 2007 story in the New York Times brought such video games to the forefront of a dilemma youth leaders constantly face: how to be relevant to teenagers without necessarily condoning everything the world offers them. Such leaders and evangelists are trying to sort out how to be “in” the world but not “of” it.

Greg Stier, president and founder of Dare 2 Share ministries, spends his time giving teens tools to share their faith in the thick of pop culture. Among other outreach efforts, Dare 2 Share publishes guides that help teens do things like use troubled chanteuse Amy Winehouse’s latest CD or actor Owen Wilson’s recent suicide attempt to talk to their friends about Jesus.

Last October, the ministry published a tract dealing with Halo.

“Our big deal this year is that we think that on the subject [of video games and movies], sometimes it feels like youth leaders are so isolated when it comes to culture, they really don’t know what these kids are watching or playing,” Stier, who works in Arvada, Colo., said. “So we tell them you really need to understand what these kids are seeing. You need to get out there and see it and know exactly what it is they’re seeing. You need to be familiar with it.

“We’re not advocating that everybody goes out and buys [Halo], but we’re saying that you’ve got to be aware.”

Halo in particular has an intricate plot that most outsiders don’t know. Its first installment began an epic story of human soldiers trying to destroy an outer-space outpost called “Halo,” which turns out to be a weapon capable of destroying all life in the galaxy. The Halo is guarded by a mysterious alien race called the Covenant, and the aliens regard the Halo as a religious artifact. The star player is Master Chief, the last of a line of genetically enhanced Spartan warriors, who is humanity’s last hope for survival.

Halo 2 continues the story (multiple Halo installations are found to exist throughout the galaxy) as the aliens deploy to fight the soldiers. In Halo 3, the aliens try to activate the space weapons and later unleash monster-like creatures that may annihilate the entire galaxy. Although the end-game to the Halo story remains unclear, players find out in Halo’s third installment that Master Chief’s true name is John-117.

A crucial selling point is that players can play the game over the Internet with anyone worldwide. Using online handles like BlueFlappers or x2k1dynastyx, they ride around on warthogs or pelicans and shoot each other and alien zombies with all manner of firearms.

Game mode options include capture-the-flag challenges, traditional shoot-out battles and full-fledged strategic campaigns. Characters in the game sometimes use mild profanity, and player names sometimes border on vulgarity.

The game has some religious thematic elements, namely the good-versus-evil plot and the role of Master Chief. That’s why some say it can be a valuable tool in relating to non-Christians.

“The person in that role in Halo 3 is kind of a messianic figure.… That is an opportunity to talk about” Christianity, Stier said. “Personally, I don’t think that was an accident. I think that was some programmer who was trying to make a point.”

Some, however, don’t see redeemable religious overtones in Halo 3 any more than they do in shoot-’em-up Western movies. It was the potential for vulgarity and isolation of gamers that led Mike Matlock and Kedrick Kenerly to create Christian Gamers Online, a nonprofit ministry that runs servers supporting Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty, both of which are first-person shooter games. The site also hosts weekly Bible studies that attract as many as 40 people simultaneously online.

Matlock, 45, said Christian Gamers Online is first and foremost a ministry that attracts non-Christian gamers and helps protect impressionable young minds. It was a deliberate decision to label the group as “Christian” first and “gamers” second, he said.

Now the senior administrator for the group, Matlock said video games reach an overlooked segment of the population, and hosting such games in church is a legitimate way to reach kids for Christ.

“Really, people can get legalistic -- you can take complete objections to everything,” Matlock said. “We try to be very careful and be true to the gospel when we’re using gaming as an outreach tool. We try not to compromise that. We just use it as an outreach tool just as you would if you had some live music … or if you were having some kind of athletic event.”

Lyle Dorsett, an evangelism professor at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School, similarly compared some video games to sports. The competition and strategy in both have great appeal, and that can be an effective evangelism tactic, depending on the situation, he said.

What’s more, churches historically have used popular games or activities to reach young people, he said.

“To use things that young people do and are enthused about so you can bring them in and witness isn’t a bad thing per se,” said Dorsett, who lives in Birmingham, Ala. But he reiterated that the overwhelming message to teens must point to Christ, not culture.

“We can use all kinds of clever tricks to bring young people in or adults in. We can entertain them, we can give them better coffee, we can give them more comfortable seats,” he said. “They may love it, and they may stay for a year. But they will never become true disciples of Jesus Christ and be born again unless the Spirit changes their heart and somebody gives them Christ.”

Of course, it’s one thing to bring teens in to play basketball and something quite different to bring them in to play violent video games, Dorsett and others say.

Al Menconi is a leading expert on the influence of pop entertainment on the Christian family. Menconi says that while he doesn’t presume to judge anyone else’s youth ministry, he disagrees with those who permit violent video games in church.

“I wouldn’t do it because I think the games are constant killing,” said Menconi, who used to lead college classes at Scott Memorial Baptist Church near San Diego. “There is no redeeming factor. It’s just the adrenaline rush of killing. I really believe that I can validate scripturally that that’s not right.”

And when it comes to comparing sports and video games, Menconi doesn’t buy it for a second. First-person shooter video games are much different than something like paintball, where there are live consequences to getting hit, he said.

In paintball, “if you screw up, you get hit, you get hurt. It stings, and you’re out there and you’re in reality,” he said. But Halo is suitable even for military training, because it teaches recruits how to kill without hesitating -- and without real-world consequences.

Many experts agree that outreach using games with violence-based M-rating places undue pressure on parents, who may not allow M-rated games at home but have trouble explaining to their child why the games are allowed in church. Stier recommends youth ministers talk with parents and pastors before allowing any M-rated games at youth functions.

The general consensus among experts is that parenting makes a big difference in how such games affect kids.

Good parenting in general provides a barrier of reality for young gamers, some authorities pointed out. And it can make the difference between a child who uses a game to isolate themselves from the real world or who uses it to befriend others. That vital difference is something youth pastors must note, Dorsett said.

“The vast majority of teens today feel alienated.… These young people are hungry for love. They’re hungry to be listened to,” Dorsett said. “They need someone to get to know them and really listen to them. If you just bring a crowd of kids in and give them a show and entertain them and then give them a talk, you haven’t listened to them. You haven’t really listened to them to know what they like and care about.”

It’s a tough line to walk, Stier granted: “You’re torn. Youth leaders are torn. You want to reach kids, but you don’t want to compromise biblically.”

Of course, the Bible was no walk in the park either. Stier noted, “If the Old Testament were a video game, it would make Halo 3 blush.”

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Fantasy: Where do Hobbits and Hebrews intersect?
By Jay Smith

(ABP) -- Evangelical Christians have long struggled with literature and films espousing a view of reality that confronts the values of their Christian lives.

In general, if a book or movie challenges what are generally perceived as Christian values or morals (for example: the existence of God, sexual propriety, general human dignity or a gratuitous emphasis on the supernatural), then we tend to be wary of it.

Evangelicals often have assessed such literature and films in two different ways. On the one hand, Christians have enjoyed and promoted the imaginative literature and films produced by professed believers, such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and even Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

On the other hand, books and films such as J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter installments or Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, which raise serious theological questions, force Christians to take a harder look at the fantasy genre and the role that it plays in their Christian spiritual formation.

When we, as Christians, investigate the role of fantasy and its effect on our discipleship, we must be aware of the powerful influence it has on our imaginations.

As one of the three primary mental faculties, the imagination creates our functional reality by focusing what the senses perceive through the filter of reason and memory. In this sense, we literally live through our imaginations.

As a secondary function, the imagination can daydream or fantasize. In other words, when allowed to “idle”, our imaginations can use our memories or experiences to envision a different version of reality than the one playing out before us.

When the Bible speaks of imagination, it is usually in a negative fashion. For example, the Old Testament writers located the imagination in the heart. As the seat of the affections, such authors believed, the heart was subject to corruption. Indeed, both Jeremiah and Ezekiel affirmed the need for God’s people to have “new hearts” in order to see, hear and obey as God’s people and given only at God’s initiative.

The New Testament does not directly reference the imagination as such, but several passages help us to understand its role in the life of faith. When Paul, in Ephesians 1:18 references “the eyes of your heart” or when in Hebrews 11, we are asked to understand how in faith we can envision the unseen, or throughout the gospels, where Jesus speaks in parables, we begin to understand how critical the imagination is to the life lived in faith.

Ultimately, we affirm that the gospel itself -- with the life, death and resurrection of Christ at its center -- is the reality for which the imagination was created to grasp.

Our imaginations enable us to learn, to perform, to solve and to envision. In a child with few cumulative memories, the imagination is especially impressionable.

Though the fantasy genre is appealing to people of all ages, it is especially so to children, for it allows their imaginations unlimited room to run. This is the effect attained in The Chronicles of Narnia as well as in The Lord of the Rings. When we find ourselves walking the woods of Narnia or the roads of Hobbiton in the Shire, we find ourselves imagining a new, different -- and hopefully better -- world.

Indeed, the imagination helps us to draw correlations from these tales with “the greatest story ever told” -- the gospel.

Yet, it is this world-inhabiting ability of the imagination that also makes the fantasy genre problematic. Caught up in our fantastic nature, we tend to disregard the fact that ideologies -- both positive and negative -- are embedded in every story.

For parents, this means that there is a responsibility either to monitor what their children are reading and viewing or to help them understand what they are experiencing according to their beliefs.

As adults, we have an opportunity to continue to grow in Christ as we experience different worldviews through the various perspectives of the fantasy genre. The key is Christ, who must be Lord of the imagination, if he is to be Lord at all. As C. S. Lewis suggested, if Christ is Lord in our life, then we posses a “baptized imagination.”

Consequently, fantasy can have a role to play in our lives and should not be rejected outright, especially if our imaginations are first lashed firmly to the Cross.

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-- Jay Smith is a professor of Christian studies at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas.