Christian Bookstore's Shameful Actions

In the 19 years since Teresa Hairston first published her magazine, Gospel Today, she never had faced a major situation with Christian bookstores across the country that carry the publication.

She's tackled a number of issues over the years and has featured a number of celebrities and ministers, ranging from Yolanda Adams to Bishop T.D. Jakes to Kirk Franklin.

But when the Atlanta entrepreneur decided to feature five female pastors on her cover this month, she says, LifeWay Christian Stores treated her as if she had converted her Christian publication into something akin to the material of porn purveyor Larry Flynt.

Apparently, the owner of LifeWay, the Southern Baptist Convention, wasn't too happy with Hairston telling the story of female pastors because the women go against the convention's 2000 decree that only men can serve in the role of pastor.

According to Hairston, the Christian company didn't even give her the courtesy of a heads-up.

"We got an anonymous tip," she told me Tuesday on the "Tom Joyner Morning Show," and after checking it out, she discovered that the magazine had been removed from the shelves in all of LifeWay's 100-plus stores nationwide and had been placed behind the counters.

"They have never called me," Hairston said. "Never sent an e-mail. Nothing. I had to go see my distributor to verify what they had done."

The actions of LifeWay don't stun me. I have seen this movie before.

A few years ago, my wife was a LifeWay teacher. She had taught at the company's teaching centers for years, but then one day, she was notified that she would have to take down her Web site and comply with their rules against female pastors or be dropped as a teacher. Her crime? Calling herself the Rev. Jacquie Hood Martin.

It wasn't that she did so for the heck of it. She graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; was the first female staff pastor at Houston's Brookhollow Baptist Church/the Church Without Walls, a Southern Baptist Convention church; and has been leading folks to the Lord across the country for 20 years.

She was angered by LifeWay's decision but made it clear that she didn't serve the bookstore or even the Southern Baptist Convention. She made a commitment to serve Jesus Christ and was not about to back away from her call to ministry because a male-dominated organization decided that its interpretation of the Bible calls for a woman not to be in the pulpit.

So she cut them off and kept on calling herself the Rev.

Religious folks will quickly say that Scripture is clear that women can't be pastors and lead men, yet Hairston says that when she featured Pastor Paula White on her cover two years ago, LifeWay didn't take any action against the magazine.

Anyone who has served in a church or has been a member of any faith knows that there are those who have strict interpretations of their faiths' writings and others who have different interpretations.

I've heard Brookhollow's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Ralph Douglas West Sr., preach several sermons stating that what Paul wrote in 2 Timothy regarding only men preaching was specific to that church, not a blanket ban. Second, there were instances in which Paul wrote that his views were his own, not mandates from God.

That is a doctrinal fight that any of us can have anytime. (And I love it how these same Bible-thumpers ignore the biblical story of Deborah, who was a judge in the Old Testament and presided over men.)

But what is a greater issue is that LifeWay clearly has no respect for freedom of the press. Here is arguably the top Christian bookstore in the country making a decision based on their teachings and applying it to a magazine. Regarding having female pastors, a spokesman for LifeWay Christian Resources, which runs the stores, was quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week as saying, "It is contrary to what we believe."

So LifeWay and the Southern Baptist Convention fight vigorously for freedom of religion, but they don't give a hoot about the other freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution?

I now wonder whether LifeWay makes it its business to cull magazines containing stories that go against its doctrine and pull them from the shelves.

That is the kind of nonsense that drives more people away from religion. I suppose it's fitting that this story would come out at the same time as Bill Maher's religious documentary, "Religulous," which skewers all the major religions for their dogmas. I'm sure he feasted on positions of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The conduct of LifeWay and the Southern Baptist Convention is shameful, and they owe Hairston an apology. Yet she's taken it in stride, saying that instead of giving the company hell, she'll "give them heaven."

I say give them a lot of hell for this because they deserve it for their actions.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN contributor and the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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