Monthly Archive for May, 2007

Recently, I attended a col­lo­quium enti­tled “Live in Peace with One Another.” Dr. Heather Clements, pro­fes­sor and the­olo­gian, spoke on human gen­der and sex­u­al­ity as it relates to the Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity. Hav­ing come from an evan­gel­i­cal back­ground, I found what Dr. Clements had to say on human sex­u­al­ity a breath of fresh air. In my tran­si­tion from high school to col­lege, I resolved my beliefs on homo­sex­u­al­ity and the church. I was told homo­sex­u­al­ity was wrong, but never fully agreed this was true. It took me a while to be com­fort­able in say­ing this, but now I feel I have reached a point where I am sure in my beliefs. I took Dr. Clements course on Church His­tory because I had heard from friends she was pro­gres­sive in her the­ol­ogy. I pulled this quote from her talk address­ing homo­pho­bia in the church: “Per­haps we would be less sure that we could judge the state of a person’s soul by their sex­ual behav­ior. Such an atti­tude of humil­ity would be help­ful in slow­ing, if not pre­vent­ing, the divi­sion of con­gre­ga­tions and even the global Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity over mat­ters of sex­u­al­ity and gen­der.” I approached her about an inter­view a few weeks ago.

What brought you to Azusa Pacific Uni­ver­sity (APU)?

My mother-in-law at the time went to church with APU Hag­gard School of The­ol­ogy pro­fes­sor Don Thorsen, and so my hus­band at the time had a very pos­i­tive view of APU. After I got my Ph.D. in Phi­los­o­phy of Reli­gion and The­ol­ogy from Clare­mont Grad­u­ate Uni­ver­sity and had started teach­ing Hebrew and Church His­tory at Schol­ars’ Bible Col­lege in Moreno Val­ley, he sug­gested I put in an appli­ca­tion to teach as an adjunct at APU. It so hap­pened that both full-time Prac­ti­cal The­ol­ogy pro­fes­sors had just stepped down, and so my com­bi­na­tion of aca­d­e­mic back­ground in the­ol­ogy and posi­tion (at the time) as the pas­tor of a small church was a good fit for the university.

In your paper, A con­struc­tive Wes­leyan the­o­log­i­cal pro­posal: Redemp­tion and sanc­ti­f­i­can­tion of human gen­der and sex­u­al­ity, you ref­er­ence Craig Keen. Did he have part in bring­ing you to APU? Or visa versa?

I was on the search com­mit­tee that helped to hire Dr. Keen. I have been here about six years longer than Dr. Keen, though over­all he has been teach­ing the­ol­ogy many more years than I have.

How does your back­ground in Appalachian reli­gion inform your work at APU? Would you con­sider teach­ing a spe­cial top­ics class about the reli­gious prac­tices you stud­ied?

I think my back­ground in Appalachian reli­gion makes me more open to explor­ing regional and cul­tural dif­fer­ences in the prac­tice of Chris­tian­ity, but I have not found a lot of inter­est in this topic among stu­dents at APU, so I don’t think there would be enough demand for an actual class on the subject.

Con­sid­er­ing the cli­mate at APU, is your valid­ity as a woman pro­fes­sor ques­tioned by other fac­ulty or stu­dents? If not, why?

When I started at APU in 1998, I taught in what was then the Chris­t­ian Min­istry pro­gram. I was at times ques­tioned for teach­ing min­istry as a woman, but when I switched full-time to teach­ing in the the­ol­ogy pro­gram instead, this did not seem to be as much of a con­cern. Since then, I have seen sev­eral other women teach­ing min­istry, bib­li­cal stud­ies, and phi­los­o­phy at APU quite suc­cess­fully. Part of the ear­lier prob­lem may have been that there were only one or two women total (includ­ing me) on the under­grad­u­ate Reli­gion and Phi­los­o­phy fac­ulty in those ear­lier years.

On the other side of the spec­trum, are you looked down upon in “sec­u­lar” cir­cles for work­ing at APU or for being a mother?

In my ear­lier years at APU, when I was only on one-year con­tracts, I did look for work else­where, and found that work­ing at APU caused me to be seen as a less attrac­tive can­di­date at sec­u­lar uni­ver­si­ties due to assump­tions that I would have a strong evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian ori­en­ta­tion in the class­room that would not be con­sid­ered appro­pri­ate at such insti­tu­tions. I think that would remain true.

Do you find stu­dents agree with your views on sex­u­al­ity and gen­der?

Stu­dents at APU seem some­what divided on the issue of sex­u­al­ity, but many seem to feel that gen­der issues are no longer a prob­lem for their gen­er­a­tion. So I would say that while I don’t go out of my way to bring this issue up in the class­room or in one-on-one dis­cus­sions with stu­dents, when it does come up, I find that stu­dents are often at least accept­ing of diver­sity of opin­ion on the issue among sin­cere Chris­tians. I espe­cially try to make it clear that I will respond to ques­tions about my opin­ion when asked but in no way con­sider it appro­pri­ate for me to use the class­room to try to con­vert oth­ers to my view, and stu­dents seem to under­stand that.