Category Archives: news

2014-olympics

Sochi Olympic terror scare overblown, not new

The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, are just over a week away, and I, for one, could not be more excited. Unfortunately, unrest and threats of terrorism in the area of the Games are distracting many from celebrating the core principles that have guided the Olympics for over a century.

The Olympics are one of my favorite events of all-time, and I love the Games for a lot of different reasons. I have a great respect for all the athletes involved in the competitions. The sheer dedication it takes to become an Olympic athlete is something I wish I could replicate in my everyday life.

In fact, in a meager attempt to emulate the athletes’ focus and commitment, I challenge myself during each Olympics to put many hours into completing a difficult knitting project. Two years ago, I completed an entire sweater in the first week of the Games, which should have earned me at least a bronze medal.

But most of all, I love the Olympics because the Games symbolize unity, peace, and multiculturalism. I understand that the threat of a terrorist attack at the Games is real, and that threat must be reported and investigated. However, I worry that misplaced media coverage is creating irrational fears and distorting our perspective on the risks and consequences of acts of terror.

First, some historical context: Targeting the Olympics to make a statement is certainly not a new idea. In 1936, Hitler used the Summer Games as a platform for his propaganda of racial supremacy. In 1972, Germany had hopes of erasing this image from the world’s mind when they hosted the Summer Games in Munich; unfortunately, the long-time unrest between Israel and the Palestinians spilled into the Olympic spotlight when the Palestinian group Black September kidnapped and ultimately killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team.

Then, in 1996, Eric Robert Rudolph bombed the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta to protest the government’s stance on abortion. To this day, I fail to see the correlation between the Olympics and women’s reproductive rights, but I digress.

A terrorist attack at the 2014 Games would be a tragedy. But as history shows, it would not be the first such attack. And while the loss of a single human life, anywhere in the world, is to be avoided if possible and mourned if not, the scope of a potential attack must be viewed in proportion.

What we have, though, is a 24-hour news cycle generating a never-ending stream of worry. Instead of a single, front-page article reporting the threat on the Games, we are bombarded with media outlets showing coverage of burning buildings and giving us geography lessons on the location of the Caucasuses (they’re here). Most, if not all, of the American mainstream media have written headlines and stories that give off the vibe that a terrorist attack is imminent.

The sensationalist coverage is having tangible effects. Some Americans have even begun to cancel their travel plans in order to watch the Games from the security and safety of their own homes. After seeing the aforementioned coverage, who can blame them? Instead of reporting the facts, the majority of news outlets, in their unquenchable thirst for ratings and page clicks, are creating a narrative out of “what ifs” and “could bes” that is altering the course of the Games themselves.

Let’s be real. We live in a world where a terrorist attack could happen at any time, on any day. The Olympics are obviously a logical target, but the event has gone off without a hitch 47 other times. In fact, the most dangerous attacks are the everyday ones, the ones no one has planned for: the attacks of Sept. 11, the Boston Marathon bombings, the car explosions and suicide missions that are a part of the everyday life of people all over the world and receive nearly no coverage in our media.

I have to wonder if our visceral reaction to the safety measures in Sochi are remnants from the Cold War. What if, instead of Russia, the Olympics were being held in France or Spain and suddenly there was an uprising in the Basque region? Would we call in to question French President François Hollande’s ability to keep our athletes and citizens safe? Or is it just easier to question the motives of Russian President Vladimir Putin because he has been seen as the enemy other times in U.S. history?

Holding Russia to a higher standard is unfair. No American can forget that our country has not prevented every terrorist attack. The Boston Marathon, 9/11, and, yes, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics are just a few examples of when terrorism has struck on our own turf. On the other hand, the U.S. hosted the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City a mere five months after the 9/11 attacks. There were probably plenty of countries that were wary about sending their athletes and citizens to our seemingly “unsafe” nation. The 2002 Games were without incident and provided some much needed peace and unity.

Thankfully, the U.S. government is responding to the terrorist threat more responsibly than the media is. Instead of just finger-pointing, the U.S. is working with Russia to share our knowledge and expertise in counter-terrorism. This type of global dialogue is encouraging and, to me, what the Olympics are really about.

The beauty of the Olympics is that it doesn’t matter how many people use it as their political platform for acts of terrorism. It will remain a symbol of global unity. The Olympic spirit and ideals are not tangible things that are able to be destroyed. Long after we all have shuffled off this mortal coil, the Olympics will continue so that our grandchildren’s children can cheer on their favorite sports (I’m looking at you, curling) and chant the always inspiring “USA! USA!”

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Choose your own biblical view of marriage

An article published in the Washington Post last week draws attention to the claim in Rep. Steve Pearce’s memoir that a wife is to “voluntarily submit” to her husband. While the fact that this statement issued from the mouth of a U.S. congressman attracted headlines, the idea itself is not news. There is already a best-selling book that posits this idea: the Bible.

Rather, there is an anthology of ancient literature, considered by many to be sacred, containing a couple of letters that posit this idea. It’s important to remember that the Bible as we have it today is not a book like Harry Potter. Instead, it is a compilation of 66 books, letters, collections of poetry, folktales, instructions, myths, and legal codes.

One of my least favorite sentence-starters is, “The Bible says…” because the Bible says a lot — much of it contradictory. After all, these works were written by countless authors and revised by innumerable editors over the course of several thousand years. It’s essential, then, to understand the context in which “the Bible says” something. For example:

The Bible says that polygamy was taking place from the very beginning of the faith, and the practice is never condemned. Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, had two wives and a slave, all of whom bore him children. His grandson, Jacob, married two sisters and had two concubines. Much later in the history of Israel, King David had at least seven wives, and his son Solomon is said to have had a harem including 700 princesses and 300 concubines. Each of these men was routinely criticized when he failed to do what God wanted of him, and yet polygamy was never something for which they were punished.

So let’s look at the context. At the beginning of a faith intended to spread to the whole world (Genesis 12:1-3), it’s critical for members of that faith to procreate and for their offspring to survive. Polygamy is a social structure that seems particularly suited to achieving these goals. We now live in a context in which very few places in the world — if any — are unaware of the Judeo-Christian faith; polygamy is no longer a necessity. This line of thinking is also pertinent to the conversation about same-sex relationships, which I will not address here.

The Bible says that, should a married man die with no male heir, his brother is to sleep with his widow until she gives birth to a son. This command — and it is a command — is known as levirate marriage, and it is the central conceit of the story of Judah and Tamar. In Genesis 38, Judah is punished for failing to provide one of his sons as a husband for Tamar. In the Book of Ruth, the character of Boaz is commended as a “man of valor” for taking Ruth as a wife after her husband dies.

The law of levirate marriage seems to have developed, in part, as a way for men to maintain control over the wealth within a family; however, it also arose in a context in which there was no social security, no unemployment pay, and no such thing as a homeless shelter. This practice was, in effect, a social safety net for widows and children who would otherwise have no way to care for themselves. In a culture that has systems in place (at least, in theory) to provide for the less fortunate, this practice is truly obsolete.

Before we return to Pearce’s perspective on marital relationships, let’s look at one more thing the Bible says: namely, that it’s better for single people never to marry at all. This idea comes to us most clearly from the Apostle Paul, the author of many of the letters that make up the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 7:8-9, Paul recommends to the unmarried and the widowed that they “remain unmarried as I am.” Indeed, Jesus himself was never married.

Marriage clearly wasn’t the highest priority for these two men. The context here is that Jesus and Paul lived their lives believing that the final culmination of history was just over the horizon. Jesus proclaimed that “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (Matthew 24:34 and verses following), and Paul wrote that “the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). In light of such apocalyptic thinking, dedicating oneself to marriage took a back seat to dedicating oneself to the faith. Jesus made this explicit when he said, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Nearly 2,000 years later, we recognize that life on Earth is probably one of God’s long-term projects; perhaps marriage is back on the table.

The New Mexican congressman’s understanding of marriage, namely that “the wife is to voluntarily submit, just as the husband is to lovingly lead and sacrifice,” comes from the “household code” found in Paul’s letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians. Paul’s mission was to continue the expansion of the Church. The “code” sections of the letters are a set of directions for maintaining the hierarchical order of society: women obey men, children obey parents, slaves obey masters.

At the time these letters were written, Christianity was a developing faith. Some thought it was primarily subversive — after all, these people were talking about a King up in heaven, which some of the Powers-That-Were took as a threat to their own authority. Christianity does demand radical change, and so these passages may have been an attempt to say, “Yes, we’re different, but we’re not clueless! We know how the world works.” The way the world worked in the first century was that men were in charge. Perhaps the household code was meant to reflect, rather than to legislate, that reality.

In America today, that reality is no longer uniformly the case. Women have more discretion (though not absolute freedom, especially in oppressive or abusive situations) in the forms their relationships will take. Reading the passages from Ephesians and Colossians, we might choose to focus less on the gender of the person in charge and more on the idea of mutual care and respect: that husbands and wives, parents and children, even, er, “bosses and employees,” are to show concern for one another.

In each of these examples, there is a practice and a principle: the practice of polygamy served the principle of spreading a faith; the practice of levirate marriage served the principle of concern for the powerless in society; the practice of eschewing marriage served the principle of wholehearted dedication to one’s faith; the practice of the household code served the principle of maintaining social order. Far too often, we get bogged down in the practice, without going a step further to discern the principle it serves.

So choose your own biblical view of marriage, but do so recognizing that context is crucial and that the Bible isn’t a book of answers; it can’t live our lives for us. What we need is a faith that engages such a book, a faith that is alive, adaptable, and not afraid of change, a faith that is born and reborn each day. That’s the kind of faith that can show us how to live.

The author is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and serves as a chaplain in the Virginia Commonwealth University health system.

For further reading on these topics, check out Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire by Jennifer Wright Knust (New York: HarperCollins, 2011).

This poster offends the sensibilities of a Kansas father.

Sex ed debate requires cool heads

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The debate about sexual education in public schools is flaring once again, this time in Kansas, where a father is upset by an “X-rated sex ed poster” at his daughter’s middle school. Much to my chagrin, the poster contains no titillating images of sex acts in progress, and is instead an 8.5-x-11-inch sheet of paper posing the question, “How do people express their sexual feelings?” and giving examples ranging from hugging and hand-holding to vaginal intercourse and anal sex.

The outraged father contacted his local Fox News affiliate, and the story has now received national attention, including a CNN interview with him. It is understandable that, like most fathers, he is upset by thoughts of his 13-year-old daughter being exposed to sex. However, this information is pertinent to her reproductive health, and I would be willing to bet it is not the first time she has come across these words.

The reality is that we live in a country where 1 in 200 mothers insist they had a virgin birth. Researchers found the parents of these women had difficulty discussing sex or birth control with their children. It is not a coincidence that schools with comprehensive sex ed curricula have seen teen pregnancy rates decrease. Even if teens cannot get facts about sex at home, they are now being armed with information early on about how best to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

If the age of 13 is “too young” to be talking about such things as vaginal intercourse, when is the right time? Technically speaking, any female who is ovulating could become pregnant. It is not unusual for menstruation to begin in girls as young as eight. Ignoring the hormones and primal instincts in their bodies doesn’t make those feelings go away.

This Kansas school has what is called an “abstinence plus” education plan, which basically tells students: the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and STIs is to abstain from sexual activity, but if you are planning to engage (or are already engaging) in sexual activity, here’s what you need to know to protect yourself.

This is the system I was exposed to in my public school. I vividly remember being in third grade when all of the boys were sent to a different classroom. (I thought it was extremely unfair at the time that the boys got to watch a rerun of Bill Nye the Science Guy, while I was forced to sit through a video explaining my alien-like reproductive organs and how they work.)

I am now in my mid-to-late 20s and do not have children. Some may say that not being a parent invalidates my opinion on the subject, but I will remind the critics that I, too, have parents. My mother and father worked hard to ensure I always felt comfortable asking them questions about sex. In fact, I came home at the tender age of 9 and blatantly asked my parents: “What’s an orgasm?” after hearing some older kids talking about it on the bus. Instead of deciding I was “too young” for such a concept, my parents and I had a frank discussion about sex.

While I personally didn’t engage in sexual activity in middle or high school, a lot of the girls around me did. Often, these girls would look to their peers for advice; unfortunately, peer advice in this situation is a little like the blind leading the blind. In fact, I only know of one girl who asked her mother for guidance. That mother promptly sought to put her daughter on the birth control pill and instructed her in proper condom use (you go girl!).

When it comes to sex and teen girls, a lot of individuals (myself included), have a very knee-jerk reaction. After we take some time and a step back for some perspective, we realize that by the age of 13, these kids have already seen, heard, and had in-depth discussions with their peers about the words displayed on this piece of paper. In reality, by 13, the school is probably a little too late to start discussing these concepts.

The father in Kansas is well within his rights to pull his child out of public school and send her to a private school that would align more with his religious and moral beliefs. However, all of my friends who attended private, religious schools ensure me there were still instances of teen pregnancies in those schools — perhaps they were part of the virgin births sweeping the nation?

The bottom line: teens have had sex in the past and they will continue to do so in the future. All we can do as a society is ensure they have the tools at their disposal to be as safe as possible if and when they decide to become sexually active.