美国国家公共电台 NPR Christian Colleges Are Tangled In Their Own LGBT Policies

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

We have reported here before on a conflict between Christian¹ conservatives and supporters of LGBT rights. Religious colleges can be a battleground in that struggle. Many of those schools hold to a belief that marriage is only for one man and one woman, and that gender² means the sex at birth. But LGBT students attend those colleges, and the staff who work with them can feel torn by their responsibilities. Here's NPR's Tom Gjelten.

TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE³: The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities recently brought staff from its member schools to a meeting in Texas to mull over the challenges they're facing. Near the top - how long their strict positions on sexual ethics⁴ can hold up, given changing cultural attitudes.

MARY HULST: You've got those two values.

GJELTEN: Mary Hulst is the campus chaplain at Calvin College in Michigan.

HULST: We love our LGBT people. And we love our church of Jesus Christ. We love Scripture⁵. And so those of us who are doing this work are right in the middle of that space.

GJELTEN: Time was, there wasn't so much tension in that space. Brad Harper says when he started teaching theology almost 20 years ago at Multnomah University in Oregon, students largely went along with the us-against-them mentality⁶ of the evangelical right. But he says his students today are uncomfortable with that mentality.

BRAD HARPER: And part of it is because they've become very much a part of the fabric⁷ of culture.

GJELTEN: At Multnomah, the Bible is said to be the foundation of its educational program. Harper says his students still consider themselves Christian but don't have strong feelings about things like same-sex marriage.

HARPER: More and more, they are moving to this place of saying, OK, we know the Bible talks about this, but we just don't see this as an essential of the faith, so we're really not going to worry about it.

GJELTEN: That's certainly true at Calvin College in Michigan. The school is affiliated⁸ with the Christian Reformed Church, which rejects same-sex relationships as inconsistent with biblical teaching. But Sam Koster, who identifies as queer, feels entirely⁹ comfortable there.

SAM KOSTER: Even just, like, my dorms, there've been people who are like, oh, you're queer? OK, cool; do you want to go get pizza?

GJELTEN: Koster is a regular at campus Bible study classes, where students consider the verses that refer to same-sex activity.

KOSTER: Clobber¹⁰ passages used to sort of clobber queer kids back into being straight.

GJELTEN: Koster was troubled by those passages at first but eventually came to feel comfortable with being Christian and joined the Gay Christian Network.

KOSTER: When I realized that my faith wasn't necessarily about the church and it wasn't even necessarily about the Bible, but it was about my relationship with God and that, you know, God is all-encompassing and loving, I felt very free.

GJELTEN: Koster credits Pastor¹¹ Mary Hulst, the Calvin chaplain, for that faith journey. But Hulst herself is still torn between her love for her LGBT students and her own understanding that the Bible does not really allow them to act on their sexual orientation¹².

HULST: I want to honor both of these things. I want to honor Scripture, and I want to honor my brothers and sisters.

GJELTEN: It's not always easy.

HULST: Some in our LGBT community will say, well, if you won't honor the choices I make with my life - if I choose to find a partner and be married - then you're not actually honoring me, which I understand. I can see how they would come to that conclusion.

GJELTEN: This question of how to reconcile conservative views of sexual ethics with the real-life needs of LGBT students came up again and again at the Christian Colleges meeting in Texas. As a student counselor¹³ at Azusa Pacific University in California, Christine Guzman signed a statement endorsing¹⁴ the school's conservative position on marriage, but she won't pass judgment¹⁵ on her LGBT students.

CHRISTINE GUZMAN: Who am I to play God, or who are we to say, you know, you have to identify this way? You know, everybody has their relationship with God, and it's personal. It's Holy Spirit-inspired.

GJELTEN: Guzman is the Title IX coordinator¹⁶ at Azusa Pacific, meaning under federal law, she's the contact person for students who say they face discrimination because of their sex. Schools that engage in such discrimination can lose federal funding. Does that mean Christian colleges should worry that sticking to conservative positions on sexuality might get them in trouble with the government? That story later today on All Things Considered. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF BING AND RUTH'S "WARBLE")

1 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 ethics   

n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准

参考例句：

• The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
• Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。

5 scripture   

n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段

参考例句：

• The scripture states that God did not want us to be alone.圣经指出上帝并不是想让我们独身一人生活。
• They invoked Hindu scripture to justify their position.他们援引印度教的经文为他们的立场辩护。

6 mentality   

n.心理，思想，脑力

参考例句：

• He has many years'experience of the criminal mentality.他研究犯罪心理有多年经验。
• Running a business requires a very different mentality from being a salaried employee.经营企业所要求具备的心态和上班族的心态截然不同。

7 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

8 affiliated   

adj. 附属的, 有关连的

参考例句：

• The hospital is affiliated with the local university. 这家医院附属于当地大学。
• All affiliated members can vote. 所有隶属成员都有投票权。

9 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

10 clobber   

v.打垮

参考例句：

• The paper got clobbered with libel damages of half a million pounds.这家报纸被罚以五十万英镑的诽谤损害赔偿金。
• We got clobbered in the game on Saturday.我们在星期六的比赛中一败涂地。

11 pastor   

n.牧师，牧人

参考例句：

• He was the son of a poor pastor.他是一个穷牧师的儿子。
• We have no pastor at present:the church is run by five deacons.我们目前没有牧师：教会的事是由五位执事管理的。

12 orientation   

n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍

参考例句：

• Children need some orientation when they go to school.小孩子上学时需要适应。
• The traveller found his orientation with the aid of a good map.旅行者借助一幅好地图得知自己的方向。

13 counselor   

n.顾问，法律顾问

参考例句：

• The counselor gave us some disinterested advice.顾问给了我们一些无私的忠告。
• Chinese commercial counselor's office in foreign countries.中国驻国外商务参赞处。

14 endorsing   

v.赞同( endorse的现在分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品

参考例句：

• Yet Communist leaders are also publicly endorsing religion in an unprecedented way. 不过，共产党领导层对宗教信仰的公开认可也是以前不曾有过的。 来自互联网
• Connecticut Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman is endorsing Republican Senator John McCain. 康涅狄格州独立派参议员约瑟夫。列波曼将会票选共和议员约翰。麦凯恩。 来自互联网

15 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

16 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？