Tribulation Worketh Patience

We may soon find out, if W. David Hager becomes chairman of the powerful Food and Drug Administration panel on women's health policy. His résumé seems more impressive for theology than gynecology.

"Jesus stood up for women at a time when women were second-class citizens," Dr. Hager says. "I often say, if you are liberated, a woman's libber, you can thank Jesus for that."

A professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kentucky, he has a considerable body of work about Jesus' role in healing women, and last summer he helped the Christian Medical Association with a "citizens' petition" calling on the F.D.A. to reverse its approval of RU-486, the "abortion pill," claiming it puts women at risk. (RU-486 or RU-4Jesus?)

Karen Tumulty reports in Time that the F.D.A. senior associate commissioner, Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with Bush family ties, has rejected doctors proposed by F.D.A. staffers and is pushing Dr. Hager.

The policy panel, which helped get RU-486 approved, will lead the study on the hot issue of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women. As Time notes: "Some conservatives are trying to use doubts about such therapy to discredit the use of birth control pills, which contain similar compounds."

Dr. Hager wrote "As Jesus Cared for Women," blending biblical accounts of Christ healing women with case studies from his own practice. "Jesus still longs to bring wholeness to women today," the jacket says.

He writes about a young patient named Sparkle who gets a job at a strip joint in Kentucky and becomes promiscuous and gets several sexually transmitted diseases. Sparkle reminds him of "a woman Jesus met who was generally known in her town as a sinner, but whom Jesus saw through eyes of love."

With his wife, Linda, he wrote "Stress and the Woman's Body," which puts "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and recommends Scripture readings to treat headaches (Matthew 13:44-46); eating disorders (Corinthians II, 10:2-5) and premenstrual syndrome (Romans 5:1-11, "Tribulation worketh patience.")

To exorcise affairs, the Hagers suggest a spiritual exercise: "Picture Jesus coming into the room. He walks over to you and folds you gently into his arms. He tousles your hair and kisses you gently on the cheek. . . . Let this love begin to heal you from the inside out."

Dr. Hager is also an editor of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies, and the Family." One of the pieces, "Using the Birth Control Pill is Ethically Unacceptable," says scientific data show that the pill causes abortions.

Dr. Hager said he disagreed with that piece. He says he prefers not to prescribe contraceptives to single women, but will if they insist and reject his advice to abstain.