GetReligion
Thursday, April 03, 2025

doctrinal covenants

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Podcast: Journalists should ask if faith-based schools clearly state their doctrines on sexuality

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Podcast: Journalists should ask if faith-based schools clearly state their doctrines on sexuality

I forget who originally came up with the term “Romeaphobia.”

This can be defined as the hatred or fear of all things that can be viewed as links to Roman Catholicism or the early church in general. Obviously, this affects issues linked to worship and church governance. However, in my experience (I grew up in Texas), many evangelicals (especially Baptists) have a fear of clear, authoritative doctrinal statements that, you know, might be interpreted as “Roman” creeds. All together now: We are “Bible Christians” and that’s that.

I am not saying this to take a shot at my heritage (I am very thankful for the deep faith and examples of my family and my father was a Southern Baptist pastor). The reason I mention this up is because, in my opinion, this anti-creedal Romeaphobia is playing a major role in an important news story all over America. This was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Does this USA Today headline sound familiar? It should, for readers from sea to shining sea: “Christian Florida school tells parents gay and transgender students must 'leave immediately'.”

My goal here is to offer advice to reporters who want to do accurate, fair-minded coverage of these church-state skirmishes (let’s hope there are some out there). I’m also offering press-relations advice to terrified leaders of Christian schools at all levels, from kindergartens to colleges. The Romeaphobia angle? That takes us into legal nuts-and-bolts questions about these conflicts.

Let’s start with the rather familiar USA Today overture:

A Florida-based Christian school sent out an email informing parents that LGBTQ-identifying students "will be asked to leave the school immediately."

According to the email obtained by NBC News, the top administrator of Grace Christian School in Valrico, Florida, Barry McKeen, sent the email to the families for the kindergarten-grade 12 school on June 6. He later confirmed and doubled down on the policy in an Aug. 18 video on the school's official Facebook page.

The June email read: "We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender identity/lifestyle, self-identification, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful in the sight of God and the church. Students who are found participating in these lifestyles will be asked to leave the school immediately."

For starters, private schools — liberal and conservative — have First Amendment rights, including the right to clearly state their foundational doctrines and, thus, disciplines that apply to staff, faculty and students. Tip No. 1 for reporters and church leaders: Get to know the details of the UNANIMOUS 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision commonly referred to as the Hosanna Tabor case.

But we need to figure out what actually happened in this Florida case.


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ProPublica covers horrors at Liberty University. But do all Christian colleges hide rape cases?

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ProPublica covers horrors at Liberty University. But do all Christian colleges hide rape cases?

Yes, Liberty University is back in the news — for valid reasons. Yes, the news involves accusations of sexual violence.

Let’s start with the basics. It’s never good for a Baptist institution when the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention publishes a story like this one: “Ex-Liberty spokesman says he was fired for raising concerns.”

The only thing missing from that somewhat soft headline is, well, the sex angle. However, that promptly shows up in the lede. Once again, we are talking about the overture in a story from a conservative, Baptist press office:

A former spokesperson for Liberty University is suing the evangelical school after being fired, alleging in a lawsuit filed Monday (Oct. 25) that his termination came in retaliation for voicing concerns that sexual misconduct accusations were mishandled.

Scott Lamb, a vice president-level executive at the school where he was hired in 2018, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he pushed for answers about what was being done to investigate claims raised in a lawsuit filed over the summer by 12 women, and was continually dissatisfied.

The women’s lawsuit, which is still ongoing, alleged the school had a pattern of mishandling cases of sexual assault and harassment and had fostered an unsafe campus environment. A student-led movement has since been established to advocate for systemic reforms, and the nonprofit investigative journalism outlet ProPublica published a deeply reported investigation … with findings similar to the allegations raised in the lawsuit.

Now, the key to all of this is the brutal contents of that ProPublica piece: “ ‘The Liberty Way’: How Liberty University Discourages and Dismisses Students’ Reports of Sexual Assaults.” If you want a quick summary of the accusations — in another rather conservative source — check out this report at The New York Post: “Liberty University accused of making it ‘impossible’ to report rape, lawsuit alleges.”

The ProPublica report is, of course, hostile to Liberty University in every way possible. It’s also clear that Liberty officials appear to have gone out of their way to earn that hostility — in large part by refusing, at ever twist in the plot, to speak on the record about the university’s perspective on these issues.


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What do you know? Doctrinal-covenant fights can occur on an Orthodox Jewish campus

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What do you know? Doctrinal-covenant fights can occur on an Orthodox Jewish campus

By now, GetReligion readers are probably aware that some journalists have their doubts about whether the First Amendment actually protects religious doctrines and the “free exercise thereof” by believers.

The problem is that the old-liberal defense of “religious liberty” — inside the usual “scare quotes” — now clashes with the evolving doctrines of the Sexual Revolution. This leads to fights on religious campuses in which journalists pit bad religious believers who defend ancient doctrines against good believers who want those bad doctrines to evolve to mesh with the good teachings of the New York Times and other sacred texts.

The key in most of these clashes is whether students, faculty and staff sign a “doctrinal covenant” when they choose to work or study at one of these private schools. Private schools — liberal and conservative — have a right to defend the doctrines of the religious groups that founded them. As GetReligion readers know (explore this file), journalists often ignore the content of these covenants and fail to ask progressive activists whether they read these covenants before signing them.

Most of these stories focus on disputes at evangelical and Catholic schools. If you ever wondered how an education-beat newsroom would handle one of these stories in an Orthodox Jewish context, now you know — care of an Inside Higher Education report under this double-decker headline:

Students Sue Over Denial of LGBTQ+ Club Recognition

A lawsuit accuses Yeshiva University of violating New York City human rights law in its long-standing refusal to recognize an LGBTQ+ student group

The reader who forwarded this URL was rather blunt, stating that the article is “a mess. Journalistically speaking, it's biased, lopsided, and incurious.”

As usual, there is no way to know whether the school’s admission documents include a doctrinal covenant, since the reporting is sketchy, at best, on that subject.


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New podcast: Rising tensions between religious liberty, pronoun wars, academic freedom, etc.

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New podcast: Rising tensions between religious liberty, pronoun wars, academic freedom, etc.

My name is Terry Lee Mattingly. However, when I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, I took the name of a patron saint — St. Brendan the Navigator.

Let’s pretend that I am young and attending a state university right now and that I have decided to require professors to address me as “Holy St. Brendan the Navigator.” It is, after all, my name. While we are at it, let’s say that all of the Catholic and Orthodox students take the same tack, if their saint names are different then the names they were given at birth.

Some professors would wince, but go along with this. But let’s say that one professor is very secular, a Marxist perhaps, and he refuses — stating that my request violates his personal convictions. I threaten to sue, along with other students in the same situation. Game on.

How would the leaders of this taxpayer-funded public university respond? Would this be treated as a natural request on my part, with the understanding that any refusal would attack my sense of identity? What if I requested that my university ID card state my name as “St. Brendan the Navigator”?

It’s a crazy question, of course. But it would — at a state university — raise issues about the First Amendment (free speech and religious liberty) and academic freedom. These questions were at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast discussion. Click here to tune that in. [This episode also includes a bizarre gaffe when — I’m wrestling with a painful medical condition right now — I messed up my own saint’s name, mixing St. Brendan’s title with that of St. Nicholas of Myra. Listen for it.]

At the heart of the podcast discussion is a timely question: Can the state force the professor to recognize and even affirm — with public speech — beliefs that violate his conscience?

Now, as readers probably guessed right from the get go, this podcast focuses on another matter of personal identity — the degree to which professors can be forced to cooperate with students who chose to use any of the myriad and evolving gender pronouns linked to the LGBTQ+ movement. We looked at a Washington Post story with this headline: “A professor was reprimanded for refusing to use a transgender student’s pronouns. A court says he can sue.”

Now, when these clashes take part in PRIVATE schools — left or right, religious or secular — it’s clear (pending passage of the Equality Act) that these doctrinally defined institutions have a right to create belief and lifestyle covenants that settle issues of this kind. Students can chose to affirm these beliefs, freely signing on the dotted line, or go to school somewhere else.

But what about state schools built and operated with tax dollars?


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New podcast: Tensions with NCAA and Christian schools? That issue will not go away

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New podcast: Tensions with NCAA and Christian schools? That issue will not go away

A decade or so ago, I had a chance to speak to journalism students at Oral Roberts University. My strongest memories — other than visions of the shiny modernist architecture — center on an unusual moment during a campus chapel service.

There’s nothing unusual about a Christian university having a full-house chapel service. There’s nothing unusual about a student-led praise-rock band blasting out Contemporary Christian Music songs that inspired lots of people to do their share of swaying and dancing.

But here’s the memory. My visit to the campus took place during a meeting of ORU’s board of trustees, who sat together near the front of the auditorium during chapel. Looking down from the balcony, I was surprised to see that (a) many of the trustees were rather young, (b) a much higher than normal number of them were Black or Latino and (c) several were enthusiastically dancing with the students, including at least one in an aisle (the current board doesn’t look quite as young).

All of this was a reminder that much of the racial and cultural diversity at ORU — a major factor in campus life — was and is linked to the school’s roots in charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity, a movement that as been highly multiracial since its birth. Founder Oral Roberts was a famous, and often controversial, leader among charismatic Christians, even though, as an adult, he aligned with the United Methodist Church (which is more conservative in Oklahoma than, let’s say, parts of Illinois and other blue zip codes).

I bring this up because of a recent USA Today “For the Win” column that served as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Here’s the headline for that piece, which was written by the “race and inclusion editor” at USA Today sports: “Oral Roberts University isn't the feel good March Madness story we need.” Here is a crucial passage:

… As the spotlight grows on Oral Roberts and it reaps the good will, publicity and revenue of a national title run, the university’s deeply bigoted anti-LGBTQ+ polices can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

Founded by televangelist Oral Roberts in 1963, the Christian school upholds the values and beliefs of its fundamentalist namesake, making it not just a relic of the past, but wholly incompatible with the NCAA’s own stated values of equality and inclusion.


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Embracing LGBTQ adoptive parents: Was Bethany's change of heart (and doctrine) a surprise?

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Embracing LGBTQ adoptive parents: Was Bethany's change of heart (and doctrine) a surprise?

Ever since she joined the New York Times last summer, Ruth Graham has been breaking stories left and right. Yesterday’s revelation of a revered Christian adoption agency agreeing to allow in gay parents is the latest of many.

Judging by her piece — and those of several other outlets — the decision must have been known for several days but was embargoed until that all-important email went out to the ministry’s staff.

Ever since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015, it was only a matter of time before these newly legalized couples wanted to adopt kids.

This time around, state officials could be supporting them and any agency not complying would stand to lose financially big time. The story begins:

One of the country’s largest adoption and foster care agencies, Bethany Christian Services, announced on Monday that it would begin providing services to L.G.B.T.Q. parents nationwide effective immediately, a major inflection point in the fraught battle over many faith-based agencies’ longstanding opposition to working with same-sex couples.

Bethany, a Michigan-based evangelical organization, announced the change in an email to about 1,500 staff members that was signed by Chris Palusky, the organization’s president and chief executive. “We will now offer services with the love and compassion of Jesus to the many types of families who exist in our world today,” Mr. Palusky wrote. “We’re taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach where all are welcome.”

What that means is that the amount of orphans is so great and the number of available parents are so few, that anyone available –- even if gay, single, older, etc. –- is needed to adopt these kids.

The announcement is a significant departure for the 77-year-old organization, which is the largest Protestant adoption and foster agency in the United States. Bethany facilitated 3,406 foster placements and 1,123 adoptions in 2019, and has offices in 32 states. (The organization also works in refugee placement, and offers other services related to child and family welfare.) Previously, openly gay prospective foster and adoptive parents in most states were referred to other agencies.

The decision comes amid a high-stakes cultural and legal battle that features questions about sexuality, religious freedom, parenthood, family structure and theology.


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Celebrations and confusion: Reporters should ask obvious BYU questions about sex and doctrine

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I have been reading some of the news coverage of Brigham Young University’s changes in Honor Code language affecting LGBTQ students. The coverage is — #SURPRISE — both celebratory and confusing.

I think there’s a pretty logical reason for the confusion: The school’s officials are being rather vague about the changes and what they mean, in terms of day-to-day campus life and their attempts to defend the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This leads to a blunt question reporters need to ask: Since the Latter-day Saints believe they are led by a “Prophet, Seer and Revelator,” and a few church doctrines have evolved following new revelations, is anyone saying that the faith’s teachings on marriage and sexual behavior have changed?

Along with that, it really would help if reporters clearly stated whether (here we go again) students who attend BYU campuses sign — when they enroll or even at the start of each school year — a copy of a covenant in which they vow to follow (or at least not oppose) the current teachings of the LDS church? The word “vows” is highly relevant, in the history of this faith.

To sense the celebratory nature of the press coverage, read the overture of the original Salt Lake Tribune report (“BYU students celebrate as school removes ‘Homosexual Behavior’ section from its online Honor Code”).

Standing in the shadow of the iconic campus statue of Brigham Young, Franchesca Lopez leaned forward, grabbed her friend, Kate Foster, and kissed her.

The seconds-long embrace was meant to be a celebration. To them, though, it was also historic.

The two women, students at Brigham Young University, ran to that special spot on campus Wednesday as soon as they heard that the conservative Utah school had quietly removed from its Honor Code the section titled “Homosexual Behavior.” That part of the strict campus rules had long banned students from “all forms of physical intimacy” between members of the same sex.


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Concerning a Christian-school student and her rainbow birthday cake (and online pics)

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If GetReligion readers search the nearly 17 years of material on our site for this term — “doctrinal covenant” — they will find five or six screens (depending on browser settings) worth of posts. Click here and explore that if you wish.

What we have here is story after story about disputes between private religious schools (or similar institutions) and students, parents, faculty members or staffers. The vast majority of the reports are about LGBTQ-related clashes rooted in centuries of Christian and Jewish doctrines about sexuality and marriage. There may be cases involving Muslim doctrine, but they don’t seem to make it into the news.

Private religious schools — whether on the doctrinal left or right — are voluntary associations, and the word “voluntary” is crucial. No one has to attend one of these religious schools or work for them. However, it’s important (from a legal point of view) that students, parents, etc., clearly acknowledge that they are consenting to follow — or at least not openly attack — the doctrines and traditions that define the life of a religious private institution.

Thus, most of these religious schools require students, parents, faculty, etc., to SIGN a “doctrinal covenant” that states these teachings and the school rules that are linked to them.

Readers who glance through those GetReligion posts about news coverage of these cases will notice that these media reports rarely mention the existence of these covenants (they are often referred to as mere “rules,” thus failing to note their doctrinal content) and, if they are mentioned, the stories usually fail to note that people involved in disputes with these schools voluntarily signed them. In other words, who needs to know that First Amendment issues are involved?

This brings us to the “rainbow cake girl” story, as covered by The Louisville Courier Journal, The Washington Post and other newsrooms. The headline in the Courier Journal shows how this story is being framed: “Louisville Christian school expelled student over a rainbow cake, family says.”


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Podcast: Why does GetReligion want to keep doing that journalism thing that we do?

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I have never really enjoyed listening to infomercials, to tell you the truth. But, like it or not, creating one of those was a small part of the agenda in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Yes, host Todd Wilken and I talked about GetReligion’s upcoming move to the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi, where I will also be a senior fellow linked to events focusing on religion, news and politics. I announced that in a post the other day with this headline: “Religion news, the First Amendment and BBQ: GetReligion will soon have a new home base.” And, yes, we talked about the fact that GetReligion needs to raise some money in order to do what we do in the future.

However, I think it’s significant how we got to that topic. We started off talking about the doctrinal wars over LGBTQ rights at George Fox University, which was addressed in this post: “Here we go again (again): RNS/AP offers doctrine-free take on George Fox LGBTQ battles.”

Readers can tell, just from that headline, that this story linked into many familiar GetReligion themes, including the crucial role that doctrine — whether academics call it “doctrine” or not — plays in defining life on private-school campuses, both on the left and the right. All to often (think “Kellerism”), journalists report and edit these stories as if journalists are in charge of determining what is “good” doctrine and what is “bad” doctrine.

There’s no need for an accurate, fair-minded debate when you already know who is right and who is wrong. Here’s a bit of that George Fox post:


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