Join us at The Corner of Beacon and Centre St. for an afternoon of family fun! Cool down from the hot summer sun with a treat from the ice cream truck that will be on site (pretty cool, right?). Compete in a corn hole tournament and a rousing game of ping pong. Get your face painted and try your luck in a water ballon toss. It’s going to be so much summer fun! And did we mention...there’s an ice cream truck ON SITE?! 

When: Sunday, July 29th from 12:00 PM until 2:00 PM
Who’s invited: YOU (and your friends and family)

​Heather Palmer, a doctor and former member of the faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health lead a discussion on how gender relationships have changed over her lifetime. Read along to learn more about how being in community assured Heather that someone had her back: 
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In many societies, and until the last century in the Western world, women could not work outside the home and virtually had to marry. They and their property were then owned by their husbands. A lot has changed in gender relationships and much for the better in my own lifetime. This is an anecdotal account of some personal experiences in living through these changes.

On my first day at Medical School in 1957, I was one of 12 girls in a class of about 290 men. We girls had been to all-girls schools and were younger than most of the men who had served conscripted time in the armed services. We sat in a row in the back of the huge amphitheater, wearing white gloves and demure attire, terrified! But we were in Medical School!

The historic shift in women attending Medical School is well illustrated by a local example. At Harvard, in 1943, there was a prolonged fight over allowing women into Medical School. The purpose was to make up for the absence of students due to the deployment and sacrifice of so many men in World War ll. One faculty member, however, had this to say: "The pro-feminists are apt to overlook the fundamental biological law that the primary function of woman is to bear and raise children, and the first social duty of woman is to develop and perpetuate the home." The proposal to admit women failed.

In 1945, a few women were allowed to enter Harvard Medical School for the very first time “on an equal basis” with men. By 2017, of 165 entering medical students at Harvard Medical School, 51% were men and 49% women. 

Entering a “Men’s World”
For my generation, and in my career, the biggest problems I encountered fell into the categories of put-downs, pay, and promotion. The large organizations for which I worked were especially slow to change.

Putdowns
During my career I was often the only woman working among men and I had all male superiors. I had many friendly male colleagues and some wise male mentors. But I frequently encountered putdowns that, although trivial, when repetitive, damage one’s self-confidence. I’ll share a tiny selection of examples of these incid
ents designed to “put me in my place.” 

When I revealed in a job interview that my father and sister were doctors, the senior physician interviewer exclaimed with satisfaction “that’s how your father got his sons!” The same senior physician met with a female colleague and me to discuss our academic appointments on our return to work after a pregnancy. His first question was, “Are you breast feeding?” Among pediatricians, that’s a professional question. But when we both said we were, he added with a leer “Well it doesn’t hurt your figures, does it!”

Outside the clinical setting, putdowns were common too. When I was testing the projection equipment at a meeting in DC where I was to be the first speaker, a well-known Washington gadfly mistook me for a secretary and shouted across the room at me, “When is the chairman arriving?”  Since I was not a staff person, I could have had no idea. When serving on national councils and committees I resigned myself to the inevitable senior male shoulder-squeezer. 

Once, my husband and I were seated at a dinner for wealthy donors the evening before a symposium where I was to be a speaker. A prospective donor seated at our table leaned past me to say to my husband, “I’m looking forward to your talk tomorrow, Dr. Palmer.” My husband replied “You’ll have to talk to my wife about that!” My husband was 6 foot 5 inch tall, a distinguished looking man  – we used to joke that I should put him in front of me at the Speaker’s microphone and I would speak from behind him!

My most egregious example of a putdown occurred at a meeting of about 30 participants, where I was the only woman. When the chairman asked for questions, my hand was first up; he waited a second until another hand went up, then took that questioner. He called on other questioners many times. After a while, I gave up raising my hand, until two guys behind me urged me to keep trying. After many minutes, the Chairman, glaring at me, the last with my hand up, announced “That’s all we have time for,” and closed the session. 

Some male peers seemed motivated in part by a feeling that women had an unfair advantage. When I joined a conversation between my boss and a colleague of my age, the young man exclaimed in annoyance “Have you come to flash your ankles at us?” 
It was an unpleasant surprise that some senior nursing staff clearly resented women medical students & tried to impose restrictions on us that our male colleagues did not suffer. Even in our church community, some female members tried to impose their expectations about acceptable contributions from woman members and their disapproval of women who worked outside the home.

Pay
Unequal pay for men and women is now a hot issue. In the UK, large firms are required by law to publish data on the salary difference between male and female employees. As the data roll in, it emerges that women lose out on £140bn ($186 bn) a year due to the gender pay gap. 

My personal experience reflects the complexities of this issue. In 1966, as an intern, those who lived in hospital accommodation received free room and board and $2,000 a year in salary. Those who were married received a large “living out” allowance if they were male but not if they were female, the assumption being that husbands would support female interns. During most of my career I worked at a University where it was widely known that men in equivalent jobs were paid substantially more than women. Lip service was paid to the idea of equal pay for equal work, with the explanations that women couldn’t work such long hours because of home and child care duties, and that women’s careers were interrupted by time taken off for pregnancies or to care for aged relatives. I did not join the earnest committees set up by the University to debate women’s rights because they served as yet another time wasting distraction from getting my work done in competition with my male colleagues!

Promotions
Like many young women entering a male world, I assumed that if I did good work it would be noticed and rewarded with promotion. It was a long time before I realized that wasn’t how it worked! In the mid 1990s, a woman professor in another school of the University warned me that I was being overlooked while less qualified men gained promotion. My requests for promotion were met with blank refusals. My Department head gave no reason but said “Why do you want to be a professor, my wife doesn’t!”  Given the hostility I began receiving from my senior male colleagues, I saw that if I pressed the issue, I would be perceived as an aggressive “bitch.” But many junior women faculty who had left and many women recent graduates urged me to take a lead in fighting for promotion. Without that pressure, the example of a few women in other Schools of the University, and the unflagging support of my husband, I would not have taken the next step: I filed a grievance. This gave me the first opportunity to hear the rationale for refusing promotion. It revealed, among other things, that the all male senior faculty in my department had voted thumbs down without even reading my Curriculum Vitae. 

This process was stressful. One Sunday, during the service at First Baptist Church in Newton Centre (FBCN), we read together Psalm 56: 

Rob and Chris are devoted, fun loving fathers to three kids and invaluable volunteers to Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE). Their involvement with MARE as experienced parents began at the Jordan’s Assumption event where they shared their story with an audience of prospective parents. They were featured in MARE’s Heart Gallery portrait project with their then family of four.
 
This past summer, they wondered if it was time to open their homes and hearts up again to another child and re-enter the adoption process. This is the piece they wrote for Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange’s (MARE) Family Blog, explaining how they reached their decision. Click here to read about how they let their hearts take over.
 
Here at First Baptist Church in Newton Centre (FBCN), we are committed to celebrating creativity, courage, and connection. Rob and Chris embody these values.

Here's what they have to say about the adoption process:
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In the midst of all of the conversations about what was practical, we eventually let our hearts take over.

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Big changes like the industrial revolution took a long time. This digital age, however, has been such a fast transition. We find ourselves in the middle of a change that we are yet to fully understand or know how best to encounter or embrace. Where does this leave us and what can we do? 

This blog post captures only a little bit of what transpired. For those interested in accessing some resources that the panelists shared, click on the downloadable PDFs.

Three panelists Jeff Levin, Pam Penton, and Reebee Girash offered insights for parents interested in navigating the challenges of stress, spirituality, and parenting.

Levin, life coach and educator, spoke of how imagination and independence are essential for identity formation. A stressor that Levin asked the audience to consider is the message that kids are receiving today. “If you want to be successful, your window of opportunity is narrow and you don’t have time to go tire swinging.” Are children hearing that they don’t have time to be outside to exercise independence and imagination? How does such a message, often subtle, affect kids? He further described the process of “mirroring” and asked, “How do you ‘mirror’ when you constantly have an iPhone in your hand?” 

Penton, Director of a childcare center, emphasized how stress is infectious. “We pass it down through our body, eye contact, through our faces.” The big question that Penton asked the audience to consider is, “How does anxiety and stress in adults get passed on (however unintentional) to children?” Penton, a big proponent of being outside in interaction with the world, reminded those gathered in our beautiful chapel that we adults need to make time to be inquisitive and playful. Kids have a way of picking up what they understand to be their family’s downtime. 

Girash, minister and educator, started with a sobering insight. By the time kids are 10 years old, they can see if spirituality is meaningful for their parents. In other words, whatever we do, kids see and feel our values. Girash noted how all parents want their children to be safe, loved, and filled with wonder and to be kind, grateful, gentle, and just. Living in a digital age, she noted, is not necessarily a bad thing for these values. As a way of offering insight to navigate the digital age, Girash shared her own family’s practices. “I love you” means no phones during family dinner or prayer. “I love you” further means taking a full day off to be intentionally present together as a family. 

During the discussion, folks pointed out that technology is now an essential part of formal education at every level. Can one then differentiate between media for learning and social media? What is the balance? 

First Baptist Church in Newton Centre is passionate about addressing the needs of the communities that we are part of. Write to us if you have an idea. We’d love to hear from you.

Raising children in the midst of Snapchat, Twitter, and Youtube presents unique challenges. Parents and professionals need a new set of skills and strategies to navigate the digital world with children. Come, listen to, and participate in a Q&A with three panelists from three faith traditions who will address stress, spirituality, and parenting children in a digital age.

Jeff Levin, M.A.T., M.S.W, is a consultant and coach to parents, families, schools, teams/athletes and corporations all over the U.S. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Boston College School of Education, and the Smith College School for Social Work. Jeff began his professional career as a middle-school English teacher and practiced psychotherapy for over twenty-five years. Jeff grew up in Newton, MA and is now based in New Hampshire and Boston.

​Pam Penton is Director of Meeting House Childcare Centre in Newton, MA. After having majored in Child Study at Tufts, Pam earned her graduate degree from Lesley University in Multicultural Special Needs with a focus on Mental Health issues for Middle and High School students in 1991. Pam began her career working with school age and older students for 12 years and eventually returned to the Early Childhood field in 1998 and stresses Nature Education. Pam grew up in Waltham, now lives in Newton, and is a single parent of an eleventh grader.

Reebee Girash is Associate Pastor at Eliot Church with an emphasis on children’s and youth ministry and Denominational Counselor to United Church of Christ students at Harvard Divinity School, where she received her M.Div. in 2002. She has a great passion for social justice ministry, and particularly for climate action. She is a volunteer with 350MA as well as the Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action. Reebee grew up in Nashville, TN–and still contends that y'all is proper English.

For more details, contact Minister for Community Life, John Boopalan: john[at]fbcnewton.org

A Curated Interfaith Series (Fall 2018 dates: Sept 30, Oct 28)
Our guests for this special interfaith series will include two Shia Muslims and a Christian from the Muslim majority country of Indonesia. Click here to learn more.

Romans 13: What's the Fuss? Sunday, August 5
Sze-kar Wan, Professor of Biblical Studies, explores the historical, political, especially theological factors responsible for Paul's words in Romans 13.1–7. Some recent politicians' misuse and abuse of the passage notwithstanding, Paul intended it as a subversive, transgressive statement. Come join us. Help us unlock the liberating message encoded in Paul's words.

Journeys in Adoption. Sunday, May 6.
We have two beautiful families that have adopted. These families inspire us to embody courage, creativity, and connection. One family has children in college and beyond. Another has children in elementary school. Come join Steve Loar, Chris Teague and Rob Case as they share their adoption journeys.

Click here to find out more about Rob and Chris' journey.

Gender Relationships over the Last 50 Years. Sunday April 15.
Heather Palmer, longtime member of the church, will lead a discussion on 'Changing Gender Relationships over the Last 50 Years.' Come join us as Heather encourages attempts at understanding these events, illustrating with examples from her experiences as a doctor and Faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health. What does it mean to look back and look ahead?

Does God Really Love Diversity? Sunday, March 25.
Sze-kar Wan, Professor of Biblical Studies at Southern Methodist University, led us in a superb discussion.

He asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Luke 10:29
 
First Baptist Church has formed an interfaith partnership (Newton Brookline Asylum Resettlement Committee) along with five other local congregations:  Temple Reyim, First Unitarian Universalist Society of Newton, Temple Beth Zion, Grace Episcopal Church and the Newton Center Minyan. Refugee Immigration Ministries (www.r-i-m.net) and other organizations connect us with asylum seekers who need our help.
 
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. (Leviticus 19:33-34)
 
People seek asylum because they have suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution because of their political beliefs, race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group.  Our asylum seeking families have legal representation. Most have lawyers associated with the PAIR Project (Political Asylum/Immigration Representation) which provides free legal services to indigent asylum seekers.
 
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)
 
Our interfaith partnership provides housing, food and support to asylum seeking families as they settle into the community and become independent. We are now assisting a Yazidi family, two families from Africa and one from South America. We had a beautiful Easter service and our 2018 Easter Offering went to help these families. 

To learn more, visit: www.nb-arc.com
 
The Compassion in Action Committee leads the congregation in finding ways to identify with the poor, marginalized, and oppressed in our midst and around the world. 

Once upon a time, the word "queer" simply meant strange, odd, or peculiar. In the 20th century, however, the word was used pejoratively to refer to those considered more than strange, odd, or peculiar, but also sexually deviant. As we enter the 21st century, the word is being reclaimed and embraced by those who see themselves on the margins of what might be considered normal or typical.

Christians have never worshipped a "typical" God. Christians worship a God who can be known personally but who is also strange, odd, peculiar, and even unknowable. Could we also ask the question, "Is God Queer?"

The question is meant to facilitate creative conversations that will help foster understanding and appreciation of encounters with friends and strangers, especially things that deviate from our expectations for them, including (and perhaps especially) God. Join a conversation with ministers, academics, and theologians in The Chapel. Coffee and dessert reception at 6:30 p.m. Free and open to all. 

Continuing the Conversation: After the panel event, we are making space to continue the conversation from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on three consecutive Mondays (2/26, 3/5, and 3/12). They are opportunities for people to further discuss matters arising from the Friday event. Each of the panelists will have two reading suggestions that we may use as a starting point for discussion. 

For more information, email John Boopalan: john[@]fbcnewton.org

Dr. Angela Bauer-Levesque is Harvey H. Guthrie, Jr. Professor Emerita of Bible, Culture, and Interpretation of the former Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge. She has contributed to The Queer Bible Commentary (Book of Jeremiah) and to the lectionary site Out in Scripture. Her other publications include The Indispensable Guide to the Old Testament (The Pilgrim Press) and Seeing God in Diversity: Exodus and Acts, coauthored with Elizabeth Magill (Church Publishing). Professor Bauer-Levesque received her PhD and MPhil from Union Theological Seminary in New York, and her MDiv from the Universität Hamburg, Germany. In her teaching and writing Professor Bauer-Levesque has emphasized various aspects of social location (gender, race, sexual identity) and their impact on interpretation. She and her wife live in Cambridge, MA.

Dr. Cody J. Sanders serves as the pastor of Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Harvard Square and American Baptist Chaplain to Harvard University and teaches on the adjunct faculty in pastoral care at Andover Newton Theological School. Cody grew up a gay, Southern Baptist kid in South Carolina with an early sense of call to ministry, not quite knowing how his faith and sexuality would merge or if a vocation in ministry would ever be possible. He now cultivates denominational community within the Alliance of Baptists where he co-coordinates the Racial Justice & Multiculturalism Community and within the American Baptist Churches USA. Dr. Sanders is the author of A Brief Guide to Ministry with LGBTQIA Youth (Westminster John Knox, 2017) and co-author of Microaggressions in Ministry: Confronting the Hidden Violence of Everyday Church (Westminster John Knox, 2015).

Dr. Megan DeFranza is a Christian theologian, author, speaker, and facilitator of challenging conversations especially around Christianity, sex, gender, and sexuality. She is producing a documentary “Stories of Intersex and Faith” with Lianne Simon and Paul Van Ness and serves as a Research Associate at the Center for Mind and Culture in Boston and as a Visiting Researcher, Boston University School of Theology. She is best known for her book, Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God (Eerdmans, 2015) and has contributed to other dialogical volumes, including Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations (InterVarsity Press, 2014). In all her endeavors she works to contribute thoughtful and humble reflections on the mysteries of God and human being in the hopes that, together, we can build a more just, reverent, and loving world.