March 9, 2025, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Author says church is Christians' main family

By Mike Haynes

                For a woman who has a Cambridge University Ph.D. in English Renaissance literature and a theology degree from Oak Hill College in London, Rebecca McLaughlin had no trouble getting her message across clearly to a group of Oklahomans and at least two West Texans.

                I don’t think her three talks Feb. 14-15 were over anyone’s heads.

Rebecca McLaughlin at First Presbyterian
Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.

                And for someone who has written more than a dozen books, she certainly doesn’t sit in an academic ivory tower. She came across as someone who clearly walks the talk as she laid out answers to critical questions and offered guidance on living a genuine Christian life.

                For Valentine’s Day this year, my wife and I didn’t go out to eat or to see a movie. Instead, we drove the four hours to Edmond, Oklahoma, to hear McLaughlin talk in person about “The Art of Connecting: Love, Relationships and the Gospel.”

                The 45-year-old was the opposite of pretentious in jeans, a knit shirt, jacket, boots and a ponytail as she covered several key points from her books, including “Christianity Today” magazine’s 2020 book of the year, “Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion,” 2021’s “The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims” and 2023’s “No Greater Love: A Biblical Vision for Friendship.”

                Standing near the front pews and in front of a shiny communion table cross in the elegant sanctuary of Edmond’s First Presbyterian Church, McLaughlin discussed practical approaches to challenging situations. To this Texas Panhandle native, her English accent gave her an air of gravitas, but her words would have been valuable if they had come with “y’all”s and “fixin’ to”s.

                That’s because everything she said was based on an immersion in scripture and her knack for applying it to modern issues.

 

Rebecca McLaughlin at First Presbyterian
Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.

               A common refrain in her three presentations was the status of the church as the key Christian family. On Valentine’s night, she acknowledged the important role of marriage as Paul describes it in Ephesians 5. In addition to the mutual love and respect the apostle urges for wives and husbands, the passage compares marriage to the relationship of Christ and the church. McLaughlin said the purpose of marriage is as a metaphor for that bond between Jesus and his people.

Referencing I Corinthians 13, she said, “The classic love passage is not about marriage. It’s about the church.”

                She pointed out the Old Testament comparison of God as a husband and Israel as an unfaithful wife.

                “Our vision of marriage is both too small and too big,” she said. Too small in that we may not realize how important the metaphor is in pointing to the ultimate, Christ-church relationship, and too big when we place marriage above that eternal connection.

                “It was always about Christ and the church,” she said. “There is a much bigger vision of what marriage is about than just about one man and one woman.

                “This is why marriage is male and female and why husbands and wives perform different roles. Marriage is meant to point us to Christ, but it’s also meant to disappoint us.

                “Because even the best Christian marriage can only be a tiny echo of Jesus’s love for us. We elevate it to a position that the Bible doesn’t.”

“Jesus takes the marriage bond exceedingly seriously,” she affirmed, but its purpose is to point to the Christ-church relationship. “It’s the greatest love story that’s ever been told,” she said.

                McLaughlin said in our culture, sexual and romantic fulfillment is one of the greatest of our idols. The narrative is, she said, that without that fulfillment, “you’re missing out on life.” But focusing on the more significant relationship – Christ and the church – takes pressure off couples to have the “perfect” marriage and also off single people who discover that they don’t have to find a partner to be happy.

                “The primary family is the family of the church,” she said.

                McLaughlin’s first Saturday morning session focused on parenting. She acknowledged that protecting their children is the first job of parents but said they can overdo sheltering them from spiritual threats in the world.

“Sometimes, we protect kids so much that we don’t give them a chance for discipleship,” she said. “Kids are not fragile. They need some flexibility, like a tree, in order to grow. Our job is to teach them the Bible and walk alongside them as they encounter ideas that are not biblical.”

She encouraged instilling a biblical view of sex in children but said, “If you don’t repent and trust in Jesus, all the Christian sexual ethics in the world won’t help. The first priority is the gospel.”

                In her concluding talk Saturday, McLaughlin addressed issues from her book “The Secular Creed,” such as race relations and same-sex marriage. She is open about her life-long attraction to women and her decision to place Christ above it. She has been married for 17 years to Bryan, an Oklahoma City native with whom she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with their 14-, 12- and 6-year-old children.

                She said the church should love, not criticize, LGBTQ people. She recalled a woman who said the love that was evident on McLaughlin’s podcast was what made Christianity sound real to her. Aware of Jesus’s command, the woman said, “You guys have to love me.”

                McLaughlin doesn’t shy away from controversial topics in her books, her podcasts or in person. She was surprised, however, that she has received the most pushback about where she sits in church.

                She and her husband often sit apart during worship with the purpose of interacting better with visitors or people sitting by themselves. They believe everyone should feel welcome in God’s family. “You don’t go to church to be alone,” she said.

                In Edmond, she graciously signed my copy of “Confronting Christianity” and our sister-in-law Cheryl’s copy of McLaughlin’s Bible study workbook, “Navigating Gospel Truth.”

                Kathy and I departed First Presbyterian encouraged by McLaughlin’s messages but even more impressed by her commitment to Christ.

Pastor Eric Laverentz said attendance was down from the usual turnout for guest speakers. That’s a shame, because those who missed it would have learned much more about love from McLaughlin’s insight than from the regular Valentine’s hearts and flowers.

Feb. 9, 2025, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Treasured memories and treasures in heaven

By Mike Haynes

                “Making memories” has been a common expression the past few years. You hear it in TV commercials,

on social media posts and just in conversation.

                There’s nothing at all wrong with the concept, but I often think that memories just happen and aren’t made, similar to the idea that sometimes it isn’t the destination that’s memorable, but the journey.

                Of course we plan trips, events and family times at the house with the hope that those gatherings will be recalled and talked about fondly for years. But how many memories also are born from unexpected experiences such as getting caught in the rain or even from bittersweet moments in a hospital waiting room?

                All our memories can’t be planned; many just happen naturally.

                I’m the king of trying to preserve memories – sometimes through writing, often from all the souvenirs and T-shirts I bring home from trips and by crowding my closet with clothes from 30 years ago.

                I do know what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:19-21, NIV)

                But, but … the trinkets on my shelves are reminders of fun or meaningful times: the sticker from the Cavern Club in Liverpool; the olive wood shepherd figure from Israel; the copper cross made from my hometown church’s original steeple.

                Those items are important to me, but I know they are just “treasures on earth” that can burn up in a fire. It’s the times with people that last.

                My dad died last month. I’m tempted to summarize his exceptional, 93-year-old life, but I’ve already done that a few years ago and in his obituary that ran in this newspaper Jan. 13. Johnny Haynes made indelible marks in community service, in athletics, in his church and with his large family. So memories have been on my mind as they have for my three brothers, my sister and all the family.

                We made plenty of memories, from station wagon trips to Ruidoso on summer vacations to school sports to golf, to laughing while playing games at the kitchen table to working cattle to keeping a night watch during the 2006 prairie fire that threatened our house.

                Mom, who died in 2013 at age 83, and Dad were at the center of all the good and bad times. Everybody in McLean knew Johnny and Joyce Haynes, because they also were at the center of the church and community. My family is blessed to have had them and to have memories of them.

                At Dad’s funeral – in the church my parents had helped lead since 1950 – my family had set up a saddle to represent a life of ranching, Dad’s Roping Club chaps, one of his felt hats, his spurs, a football, a tennis racquet, a McLean Tiger jersey, lots of family photos and more. And the speakers – my pastor cousin, Thacker Haynes, friend Ted D. Simmons and nephew John Ruel Haynes – certainly evoked memories of Dad along with their sincere Christian messages.

                Thacker didn’t preach about memories the Sunday after Dad left us, though. The gist of his sermon was “The best is yet to come.”

                He did recall the local church in the 1950s and 1960s, when he and I were growing up and the town and church both had lots more people. But those days of Sunday school rooms full of children and multiple classes of adults are gone in a community that an interstate highway passed by in the 1980s. The thing is, those “good ol’ days” have been replaced with more good days. The current church helps those in need with its Angel Program, collaborates with other churches in town to build attendance at events and maybe does more in outreach than it did decades ago.

                Thacker recalled a farmer friend showing him how to plow a field. My cousin kept looking back to see if his row was straight, and the friend told him you have to look directly ahead if you want to plow a proper row.

                The scripture reading was John 2:1-11, the story of Jesus changing water to wine. After the miracle, the wedding banquet master was amazed that the best wine had been saved for last.

                If we listen, God is talking to us, Thacker said. And he’s showing us what to do next. If we follow that voice, our spiritual lives will get better and better. “Jesus saved the best for last,” he said. “We need to keep going forward, because Jesus is saving the best for last.”

                Before the water became wine, Jesus’ mother had told the servants, “Do whatever he (Jesus) tells you
to do.” That’s the key, my cousin said: “In my life, when I listen to the Holy Spirit and do what he wants me to do, it always works out.”

                A few days before my Dad’s final breath, he had separate intimate talks with another of my cousins and with one of our nieces. Both times, he made it clear he was ready to go to the place Christ had prepared for him – and to dance again with Mom.

                And as another niece was leaving the hospital room that week, I heard him whisper to her, “Y’all do the best you can, and I’ll do the best I can.”

                He had great family memories, but he was looking forward.

Jan. 12, 2025, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

In cold weather, compassion extends to pets

By Mike Haynes

                My wife and I automatically change the channel when certain public service announcements come on, at least long enough to ensure that they’re over.

                It isn’t that we disagree with the message; the images and sounds presented are just too real for us.

                Most of the PSAs are TV spots for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The sad but cute faces of puppies and other pets filmed in filthy or freezing conditions are shown with the intention of generating sympathy and support for the organization.

                That’s a good motive, and there’s nothing wrong with the ad campaign. For us, though – and especially Kathy – it’s preaching to the choir. We don’t need to see helpless animals that appear to be in pain gazing at a camera, seeming to say, “Please help me.”

                Kathy and her mom, Peggy, are longtime volunteers with the Amarillo SPCA – not connected with the national organization that runs the pleas on TV. On a regular basis, they see dogs and cats brought to the animal shelter that have been starved, mistreated or abandoned. So for them, seeing pets on TV in similar circumstances is not motivation, but overload.

They and the other local volunteers are especially mindful of pets in the winter. We’ve just moved into a time of sub-32 temperatures when outdoor water bowls freeze up and some animals live in snow, ice and howling wind.

In this farming and ranching region, many of us give little thought to what outside animals might face, and certainly, some are more hardy than others. The agriculture industry wouldn’t survive without herds of cattle roaming pastures.

I grew up in the country where none of our dogs or cats lived inside, but they did have places of shelter, regular food and fresh water. Animal rescue folks probably wouldn’t think that was enough.

Other pet owners, though, simply shouldn’t own pets. Plenty of people here and everywhere treat animals like those seen on the ASPCA TV spots. And in January in the Texas Panhandle, the biting cold makes it imperative to at least offer some kind of shelter.

For Christians, a constant theme is compassion. I know, the kindness that Jesus preached and displayed was for down-and-out people, not animals. The Bible says little about the treatment of pets or livestock. And despite the messages that PETA pushed a few years ago, Jesus wasn’t a vegetarian. At the least, he ate fish, and he certainly didn’t say anything about giving up meat.  

But he did talk about a shepherd going out of his way to bring one of his 100 sheep to safety.

 People come before animals, of course. We believers in Christ expect to be in heaven for eternity, but scripture doesn’t directly address the question of whether our pets or other animals will be there, too.

                “America’s preacher” Billy Graham thought so, and so did Methodist founder John Wesley, who preached a sermon speculating that because animals suffered from the fall of man in Genesis, they, like us, will be restored to paradise when all are resurrected.

                Beloved humorist Will Rogers said, “If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”

                Whatever the situation in the afterlife, we do have animals around us here and now. Compassion is a key biblical concept. If we have it for people, why wouldn’t we be expected to have it for animals, too?

                Maybe more of it could alleviate the need for those distressing pet videos on TV.