Responding to Religious Freedom Executive Order

The NEA sent this press release yesterday – The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) commends President Trump for announcing today a policy of protecting and vigorously promoting religious freedom. Religious freedom is a gift from God to people of all faiths and none, and is an indispensable foundation for human flourishing. We are grateful for the extent to which our constitution and laws protect the freedom of all Americans.We welcome the promise, repeated today, that religious organizations will not be required to provide drugs that may act as abortifacients and services that violate their commitment to protect all human life. Now we call on the administration to promptly issue revised regulations and resolve lingering legal disputes over this issue.Most evangelical leaders do not think pastors should endorse political candidates from the pulpit, according to the February Evangelical Leaders Survey. As Leith Anderson, NAE president, said, “Evangelicals emphasize evangelism, and pastors often avoid controversies that might take priority over the gospel message. Most pastors I know don’t want to endorse politicians. They want to focus on teaching the Bible.”While the executive order is a first step, it does not permanently resolve even the issues it addresses. Anything done by executive order can be undone by a future president. Threats to religious freedom in America need to be addressed through legislative action that protects religious liberty for all Americans. We call on President Trump to work with members of Congress to pass legislation that strengthens the rights of all Americans and allows the organizations they form to operate in ways that are consistent with their beliefs.

My sister warns against texting and driving

It's been eight years since my sister's husband was killed by a distracted driver who couldn't wait to text his girlfriend. My niece and sister talked  to KATU Vancouver about parents teaching their kids not to text and drive....

My Thoughts on Gender

We Talk Different is a podcast on culture, race, ethnicity, gender, politics, and theology. Recently my friend Jurrita and I were featured on the podcast talking about gender and faith and race. You can get the scoop at iTunes.

The "Chrisitanity and Gender" Edition - 3.14.17 - Part II The WTD team wraps up their conversation with Jur… 3/13/2017 Free View in iTunes 7

The "Christianity and Gender" Edition - 3.7.16 - Part I This week the WTD Team brings in the real intelle… 3/6/2017 Free View in iTunes

Vindicating the Vixens

On March 23 at DTS, I moderated a panel discussion with Dr. Glenn Kreider, Sarah Bowler, Sharifa Stevens, Dr. Timothy Ralston, and Karla Zazueta about women in the Bible whom we have either vilified or marginalized. Vindicating the Vixens (Kregel Academic, forthcoming) is the result of a diverse team of 16 male and female theologians who’ve partnered to take a second look at vilified and marginalized women in the Bible, and we got some of the contributors in Dallas together to talk about our findings. The church has often viewed women’s stories through sexist eyes, resulting in a range of distortions. In this panel discussion, three of us DTS profs and three graduates talk about the women we explored.Order Vindicating the Vixens.

Men and Women in Ministry Together

Recently some colleagues and I were featured on The Table podcast talking about men and women in ministry together. Let us know your thoughts. It's not about pushing women forward, it's about partnering forward.... 

Hear My Story on the ReStory Podcast Today

Thanks to my friend Mary DeMuth for hosting me on her ReStory podcast. Today I'm telling my story there. Check it out.

What Luther Changed: Why Get Married?

Dr. Frank James - Women and Marriage from Christian History Institute on Vimeo.

Protestants at 500 Years: The Best-Known Female Reformer

In this year, which marks the five-hundredth anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation, many are focusing on the male reformers. But Germany is also focused on some of the females.  Though quite influential, they are often forgotten. And we can learn much from their lives. I'm thinking of one in particular.Come back in time with me to about 1499 in what we know today as eastern Germany—then called Saxony. And picture a girl born to a noble family. When she turns five, her mother dies and her father sends her to a cloister.  There she receives a nun's education.When she is about 24, she and some of her friends—aware of the reform movement and dissatisfied with their lives in the monastery—seek to flee. Like so many others, they haven’t  taken vows of celibacy due to calling, but due to a parent’s decision (sometimes for reasons of economic and/or convenience)—something which Martin Luther condemns. So she gets in touch with Luther to beg his assistance. Escaping is a crime under canon law. As in, it has burn-in-hell consequences! But that’s what they want to do.At this time, Torgau is the political center. Torgau is a key site in Reformation history, even though you may have heard only of places like Wittenberg, Worms, or Augsburg. Torgau has a gorgeous town hall (still there today) and Hartenfels Castle, (also still standing in all its glory—including the bear pen with live bears), where the most powerful man in Saxony resides. This man has a fantastic university going in Wittenberg. And Luther is his star professor. So he wants to keep him alive. Thus, in this ruler Luther has a sponsor and political protector. All this to say, at the time when Luther receives the nun's letter, he has great connections in Torgau. So on Holy Saturday in April of 1523, Luther conspires with a city councilman and merchant of Torgau —who regularly delivers herring to the monastery—to help with the escape. And this merchant, as the story goes, tucks these virgins in among, or maybe even inside, fish barrels, and they all escape to Wittenberg.At first Luther asks their families to take them back. But they decline—probably in part because they fear the fires of hell. So it takes a while, but by the end of about two years, Luther has arranged homes, marriages, or employment for all except one of them: Katharina. Katie.At first she lodges in Wittenberg with the family of the city clerk, but later she resides in the home of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his wife, Barbara. Still known today for his great art, Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving—and did I mention he is court painter to the Electors of Saxony? Think: Hartenfels Palace. (When I was there earlier this month , they showed me some wall décor by Cranach the Elder in the castle discovered only two months ago, now being restored.)Katharina is keeping great company, and she has the respect of those who know her. But she is also considered old for marriage, at age 26. But Cranach is impressed with her, and perhaps he puts in a good word. She has a number of suitors, but she says the only one she will marry is Martin Luther himself, who is 41.Luther says he doesn’t want to marry because he thinks he will be killed for his beliefs—maybe soon. And being on the verge of martyrdom makes it tough to be a groom. But his father loves the idea, and so it happens. Martin, the former priest, and Katharina, the former nun, tie the knot. And in marrying her, the brilliant professor now has one of the only educated wives, not to mention one of the only theologically trained wives, in the world.They take up residence near the university in Wittenberg in the former dorm of a now-emptied monastery (Augusteum), given as a wedding gift by his powerful political allies back in Torgau. And in Wittenberg, Katharina apparently excels at administration. She manages the former monastery’s holdings, breeds and sells cattle, and runs a boarding house for a steady stream of students who want her husband, the prof, to mentor them. She also brews good beer, as the water isn’t so safe to drink. And these are the days of massive disease, so Katharina also ministers to the sick. On any given night, she has about thirty people at her dinner table. Remember…no dishwashers, grocery stores, washing machines, microwaves, fast food…. And if you know anything about table talk, you know most alliances and good theological discussions happen around a table and after dinner with a fire going. Profs and students and reformers, Bible-readers, gather nightly for conversation.Luther calls her the "boss of Zulsdorf," after the name of the farm they own. He also calls her the "morning star of Wittenberg" for her habit of rising at 4 a.m. to take care of her various responsibilities (“she rises while it is still night…”). Perhaps most famously, he also sometimes calls her “Herr Käthe” (Mr. Katie/Lord Katie). (Today you can eat yummy Saxon delights at the “Herr Käthe” restaurant in Torgau.) Luther is known for saying, “Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.” By all accounts, Katie is just such a partner.Katie and Martin are the ultimate power couple for about two decades. In addition to raising four orphans and her nephew, Katie conceives seven children—one of whom she miscarries.   Of those who make it to birth, one dies at eight months and another at age thirteen. So the Luthers have their share of heartbreak. Martin writes to a dear friend, “I believe the report has reached you that my dearest daughter Magdalena has been reborn into Christ’s eternal kingdom. I and my wife should joyfully give thanks … yet the force of our natural love is so great that we are unable to do this without crying and grieving in our hearts, or even without experiencing death ourselves. The features, the words and the movements of the living and dying daughter remain deeply engraved in our hearts.”Before Luther dies at age 63, he tries to arrange his will so Katie will be his inheritor. Unheard of! He has a variety of health issues, and when he is off in Mansfeld helping some bickering princes find reconciliation, he overtaxes himself. He has a heart event there and dies. But because it is winter, at least his corpse can be returned to Wittenberg "without seeing too much corruption," and there the famous prof is buried.Without her husband’s salary and income from students studying with him, Katie struggles, even though she has land. Fortunately, her youngest child is eighteen years old, so Katie does not have as many mouths to feed as in previous years. But war and disease require her to flee Wittenberg several times.When Katie is 52, Wittenberg has an outbreak of the plague—imagine half the people around you dying—and her harvest has failed. So she flees to Torgau.But near the city gates, something goes wrong and she is thrown from her carriage. She sustains a head injury, but she survives for about three months. She is reported to have said on her deathbed, "I will stick to Christ as a burr to cloth.” And she dies still in Torgau. Visitors today can tour the house there where she took her last breath. And they can visit the Katherine von Bora grave stone in Torgau's St. Mary’s Church.

Last Week

It was a fab trip. But the guy next to me on the 10-hour flight was hacking, and I think he shared his germs. Ugh. More coming after I recover.

Eisenach and Erfurt plus Warburg Castle

So far I've had a whirlwind trip in frigid temps. In seventeen-degree temps yesterday, we walked more than nine miles. But I'm getting ahead of myself.I flew to Frankfurt and caught a train to Eisenach, where friends met me at the train station. On Epiphany, my friend Robin and I toured Eisenach, a picturesque town where Bach was born and baptized, and 200 years earlier Martin Luther sang in the same church as a choirboy. (Elizabeth of Hungary was also married here at age 14.) The Luther house and the Bach museum both had fantastic exhibits that we had pretty much all to ourselves.In the afternoon, we toured Warburg Castle, where Luther hid out as Squire George and translated the entire New Testament in ten months. He had sparked quite a controversy with his writings.In the evening, we took a train to Erfurt, where we're staying in the now Augustinian monastery that was once the Catholic monastery where Luther lived. A river runs through the town that is largely preserved from the Middle Ages, as WWII destroyed only about 10 percent of this place (quite unique). Snow covered the ground and the lights of the Christmas markets and smells of mulled wine created a magical scene.Today we rewound back in time to tour the dorm where Luther stayed as an undergrad student, the monastery cell where he was a monk deeply into asceticism (we're lodging in this monastery), the corner where he probably begged as part of the mendicant order, the church where he was ordained, and the place where he prostrated himself all night before officiating at his first communion as a priest.Tomorrow morning we put our Reformation Tour on hold to tour an old synagogue, the largest in Central Europe.

Departing for Germany

The past month has been a flurry of activity. I visited my mom and sister and her family in Oregon for our third annual Christmas Ships on the Columbia parade. I wrapped up the semester and graded about ten pounds worth of papers. And I hosted a bunch of family for Christmas, which included a day in Waco visiting Magnolia Markets and the Dr Pepper museum. The new year brought more family and packing...for Germany. I depart today on a nine-day press junket in Luther country as a guest of the German National Tourist office. (Please pray for me!) This year will mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, commencing on October 31, the day Martin Luther is said to have nailed his 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg.I'll update you here as I'm able. Snow covers the ground where I'm going. I also have a travel companion, a friend who lives in Munich.Here is what I posted about that yesterday on the Engage blog:MARTIN LUTHER AND MLK AND THE REFORMATION AT 500 YEARSNot long ago, I was getting my hair cut, and I mentioned to my stylist—someone I love who has faithfully attended good Bible studies for two decades—that I was embarking on a press junket to Germany this month. My reason: to visit some of the “Martin Luther” sites, with a view to writing some religious-travel articles. Why now? Because in 2017, we'll mark the five hundredth anniversary of Luther’s nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenberg (“Vittenberg”) Door.In the time that followed with my stylist, she asked some good but basic questions that made me realize how little church history we teach. So here’s a tutorial to read and pass along in this momentous year.

Who was Martin Luther?Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a sixteenth-century German professor of moral theology—as well as being a monk, a priest, and a composer (“A Mighty Fortress” is one of his hymns). Ordained as a Roman Catholic, he was the key figure in what we now refer to as the Protestant Reformation. At the time when Luther lived, the Church had power without much accountability, especially when it came to raising money by selling indulgences—certificates that would, for the purchasers or their loved ones, reduce temporal punishment in purgatory.As the story goes, on All Hallows Eve (October 31) In the year AD 1517, Luther nailed his ninety-five points of contention, “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” (later called “The Ninety-Five Theses”), to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenburg, Germany. People announced disputes on the doors of the Castle Church, so that explains why he might attach something to a door.Luther was seeking to resolve a misunderstanding, so one wonders why he would take such public action. Some note that his writing in Latin meant only the religious scholars would have understood his words. Others insist that he never nailed anything, but he did send a letter to his superiors on that date that included his theses, which were to be the basis for discussion.Regardless of the details, Luther was seeking reform within the church rather than desiring to be excluded from it. But he was eventually excommunicated for ideas deemed heretical. And those who joined with him were called protestors. Hence, Protestants.The Reformation, then, was a schism from the Roman Catholic Church. Although “the nailing of the 95 theses” is usually considered the start of the Reformation, many reformers preceded Luther. And he was followed by John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and others in sixteenth-century Europe.The protestors objected to more than the selling of indulgences, however. Scripture alone (vs. scripture + tradition) and faith alone (vs. faith + works) were battle cries that point to theological differences that also played a part. It was way more complicated than this, of course. But this is The Reformation 101 . . . .You’ll hear a lot this year about the five-hundredth anniversary. So why not read up about it? Check out Here I Stand, by Roland H. Bainton—or Reg Grant’s novel, Storm, if you prefer to learn history via story. I heard both on Audible. There’s also the 2003 film, “Luther,” an epic movie that follows Martin Luther’s life, with Joseph Fiennes cast in the starring role.

How is Martin Luther connected to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr?About 400 years after the monk nailed his theses, a young man named Michael was born the son of a Baptist preacher. When the boy was five, his father went to the Holy Land and Europe with some ministers. The trip ended in Berlin, during which time the elder King visited sites associated with the original Martin Luther. Inspired by what he saw, the minister changed his own and his son’s names to “Martin Luther” in honor of the Protestant reformer.