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Thanks to everyone who participated in our virtual book club for April (which I introduced here). April’s selection was The Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans.

I’ll throw out some discussion topics, and you can post your feedback in the comments section—about these topics or about other things you’d like to talk about.

Discussion #1: Nailing the Issues

In my estimation, this book’s greatest strength is that it hits on hot-button issues for Christian women and starts a much-needed conversation. As I flipped to the table of contents, I was struck by how many of the topics evoked visceral reactions in me (modesty, submission, purity, fertility). I don’t think I’m alone in this—these are charged issues for many women because some churches have a history of coming down hard and graceless in these areas. I appreciate that this book encourages us to be intentional as we contemplate what biblical womanhood really looks like—what’s culture, what’s tradition, and what’s truly biblical.

“We dishonor the original intent and purpose of the Epistles when we assume they were written in a vacuum.” (p. 260)

Throughout these pages, Rachel extends an invitation to the Church to allow God to be creative in the way he gifts and equips women. She says that women can follow God in ways that look different for each person and encourages us to make use of our gifts, even the ones that aren’t traditionally seen as “feminine.”

“The Bible does not present us with a single model for womanhood, and the notion that it contains a sort of one-size-fits-all formula for how to be a woman of faith is a myth.” (p. 295)

Are any of the topics addressed in this book hot-button issues for you? How do you feel the Church has handled these topics—both historically and now?

Discussion #2: Entertainment Value

I’m a sucker for books about people who sign up to make their everyday lives an experiment, so I enjoyed Rachel’s premise. I appreciated her sense of humor in her retelling of events—especially her Martha Stewart cooking adventures, her backyard camping trip, and her introduction to parenting with Baby Chip.

What did you think of Rachel’s experiment? Would you ever embark on a similar journey?

Discussion #3: A “Slap-Bang” Approach

Having read my share of A. J. Jacobs, I was hoping Rachel would really dive in and explore biblical womanhood. Some of her experiments felt gimmicky and halfhearted—something of a “slap-bang” approach, to borrow her mom’s phrase.

On a related note, I would have liked to see more nuanced arguments to engage a conservative perspective. I usually agreed with her nuggets of wisdom at the end of each chapter, but it felt like she set up straw men at the opposite extreme (polygamists, misogynists, the Amish) without exploring what a more balanced approach might look like. Her claims stemmed from a pragmatic starting point (what worked for her), not from a biblical standpoint. For example, this is where she lands in the submission chapter:

“Life happened, and Dan and I quickly realized that we functioned best as a team of equal partners.” (p. 204)

It feels too easy to me to brush off parts of the Bible because they don’t “work.” After all, carrying your cross doesn’t seem like a particularly practical premise to build a religion on. How do you distinguish what scriptural teachings are unchanging standards and which ones are relevant only for a particular cultural context?

Discussion #4: The Highlight

My favorite chapter is the one on valor. Rachel offers authentic, credible insights into Proverbs 31 that I found freeing and life giving.

“Eschet chayil [woman of valor] is at its core a blessing—one that was never meant to be earned, but to be given, unconditionally.” (p. 88)

See my post here for more thoughts on women of valor.

Did you have a favorite part of the book or something that particularly resonated with you?

Rating

I commend Rachel for bringing these tough topics to the forefront of conversation among Christian women, and for that I say to her, “Eschet chayil!” Even so, I would have liked to see a more balanced, wholehearted approach. I would give this book 3 stars.

What rating would you give this book?

{Remember: I’ll send a free book to one randomly selected commenter!}

Lies
(And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them)

                        Torn            Grace (Eventually)  


A New Kind
Of Christianity

A Heretic’s Guide To Eternity         Love Wins   

The Myth Of A Christian NationThe Year Of Living Biblically 

Rejecting Religion. Embracing Grace 
(Hey, I’m mentioned in this book!)

The Misunderstood God         Evolving In Monkey Town   


There are so many more; Like Bert Gary’s “Jesus Unplugged,” and Jim Palmer’s “Divine Nobodies.”
There’s  “The Orthodox Heretic,”  by Peter Rollins, and “Crazy For God,” by Frank Schaeffer


Happy reading. Have a good life.



Oh.  Recently, I was contacted by publishing house HarperColins.  They asked me if I would read and review a new book they were getting ready to release.  I wasn’t sure at first if it was a “legit” email.  Turns out, it was.  I was very honored.
The book is “Does Jesus Really Love Me?
A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America,”
by Jeff Chu





What?  You’re still here?!?!?
OK then, here’s a list of some MORE books:

The Naked Gospel

A Time To Embrace

Do One Green Thing

What’s Wrong With Homosexuality?

Jesus Wants To Save Christians

Reblogged from Rachel Held Evans:

I think a lot of progressive Christians like myself, eager to distance ourselves from some of the rhetoric and policies of the Republican brand of the pro-life movement, shy away from talking about abortion, when our call to do justice and love mercy demand that we speak and act to address this issue, even though it may be more complicated than we originally thought. 

Click here to read the full article…

(Rod Stafford, Mike Summers, Curt Thompson, Aly Hawkins, and Rachel Held Evans discuss “Embracing Doubt.” Credit: Fairfax Community Church)

Kristin Rudolph (@Kristin_Rudolph)

A new model of Evangelical conference has emerged in recent years. It is one that aims to ask questions and spread ideas for attendees to take home and implement in their workplaces, churches, and communities, for the renewal of our culture. The Q Conference is the most visible of these conferences, but others are following suit. The latest was the Blue Conference at Fairfax Community Church (FCC) in Fairfax, VA on April 26-27. Blue, “a movement to restore culture,” derived its name from the blue seats that hosted over three hundred attendees who make up the movement, explained FCC senior pastor Rod Stafford. “We are everywhere,” he exclaimed, urging Christians to change the culture in their communities.

Sessions ranged from a psychiatrist reviewing how neuroscience points to the Gospel, to former Bush aide Claude Allen sharing how God restored him after his life derailed. Others included the principal of a DC charter school who loves working with adolescents, and a filmmaker who encouraged Christians to produce higher quality art. A Department of Agriculture official shared how the story of Joseph and the famine inspired him to address hunger through the Federal government. As the conference aimed to find a new witness for Christians in our culture, participants discussed changes within the Church as well.

Stafford interviewed Aly Hawkins, coauthor of You Lost Me about why Christian Millennials (those approximately ages 18 to 30) are leaving the Church. Hawkins said “The main thing” distinguishing this group from other generations “is access,” though they also struggle with feeling alienated and trusting authority. Because Millennials are “digital natives,” and have had access to a world of ideas, beliefs, and information that sometimes challenges their Christian faith, many don’t know how to reconcile what they encounter online with what they experience in church, Hawkins explained. She said the church is often hostile to questions and doubts, prompting some 59 percent to leave because church “doesn’t correlate with [their] lived experience.” Further, “we have a discipleship failure,” she stated, urging more focus on relationships over attendance counts.

Young Christians trying to blend their faith with their education and careers face difficulty as developing an integrated theology of vocation is a relatively new endeavor for Evangelicals. In previous generations, there was a comfortable separation between the sacred and secular, Hawkins claimed. Grandpa went to work in the factory Monday to Friday, then Sunday he took the family to Church, she explained. But, Hawkins continued, “because of the uniquenesses of Millennials, their access … most of them don’t have time for a faith that is not true to their lived experience.” This group presents “a great challenge for the Church,” she observed, “because they’re not going to let us keep that disconnection [between the sacred and secular] just because we’re comfortable with it.”

The writer noted that older generations should engage in some sort of “reverse mentoring” process, because “the ground level assumption for most Millennials is that truth comes out of dialogue.” Young Christians won’t accept “the assumptions of the past [when] you’d go to the experts” for truth.

Hawkins also participated in a panel on “Embracing Doubt” with planetary scientist Mike Summers, psychiatrist Curt Thompson, and author/blogger Rachel Held Evans. Hawkins asserted “signing off on a laundry list of beliefs is a pretty recent phenomenon in Christianity. That’s not what it meant to be a Christian for a really long time … What it meant to be a Christian was to be a part of the community, to take the sacraments of the community and to do the activities of the community. The community said ‘you were a part of us.’” Community is important, agreed Thompson, referencing neuroscience findings that show the brain needs trusting relationships, and to be healthy, we must know our relationships will not be jeopardized when we ask questions.

“Too often we make faith a cerebral enterprise,” Hawkins said, “but we are embodied people  … [We need to] start thinking about our faith as embodied action. Doing things.” Evans agreed that too often faith becomes “reductive” when it is intellectualized, when instead, “faith is action.” For Evans, “Doubt is like a fire that enlivens faith. Doubt taught me to hold my faith and beliefs in an open hand.”

Evans also addressed attendees about “Biblical Womanhood” and “Finding Your Voice.” She was the only one of approximately fifteen speakers who gave two presentations. “Any claim to a biblical lifestyle … is inherently selective,” Evans said, asking “Does the Bible really prescribe a single right way to be a woman?” She discussed her year of living according to “all the Bible’s instructions for women,” which resulted in her book A Year of Biblical Womanhood. The blogger recounted how she didn’t cut her hair, adopted a computerized baby, learned to cook, submitted to her husband, among other “biblical” endeavors. Evans explained: “Mostly I wanted to do this because I wanted to have some better, more authentic, more honest conversation about this whole idea of biblical womanhood … so we could talk about the Bible.” The issue of womanhood within the Evangelical church is controversial, she claimed, largely because “a lot of people are looking to the Bible to function as something that it’s not … a blueprint.”

The Bible, she pointed out, does not tell women if they should pursue a career, what career that would be, where they should live, or many other questions facing women today. “I spent a year of my life completely devoted to this idea of biblical womanhood and I never found a blueprint for how to be a woman, or how to be a man, or how to be a person of faith,” Evans declared. She continued: “The Bible is meant to be a conversation starter, not a conversation ender.” “We’re part of this centuries old, dynamic, ongoing conversation with God and with one another precisely because the Bible is difficult to understand.” The writer urged Blue attendees to “surround ourselves with a diversity of people to help us understand the text.” Talk to a widow to understand Ruth, a farmer for a fresh perspective on Jesus’ parables, and a black preacher to illumine Exodus, Evans explained.

“We find God in the whispers,” Evans said in her second talk, “Finding Your Voice (in a loud world).” Instead of rushing to give the first reaction to a controversy, especially in our fast paced world of blogs and social media, she suggested perhaps waiting and listening is a better option. “As followers of Jesus,” Evans said, “maybe one of the most radical things we can possibly do is become better listeners.” She explained “the path to finding your voice often takes the counterintuitive route of becoming a better listener.” Listening to God, yourself, silence, the stories of others, and even critics is the best way to “find your voice,” Evans said.

“If you really want to be an oddball, listen to the people who offer you constructive criticism,” she instructed. Despite being naturally “very defensive” when hearing any kind of criticism, Evans reported she has become more receptive of constructive criticism, and listening to it “makes the conversation a little more interesting.” Further, she encouraged Christians to not assume something is bad “just because it is controversial.” Evans lamented that “Sometimes in the name of preserving unity, we allow a lot of injustices to persist in the Church. But unity doesn’t mean conformity. We don’t all have to agree to love one another.”

The emphasis on allowing doubts and questions is a reaction against some tendencies in Evangelical churches of the past few decades. Listening to and talking through doubts and building trustworthy community are critical elements of Church life that have been neglected by some within the Evangelical tradition. But to tip the scale too far in the other direction, where doubts are almost encouraged, doctrine is minimized, and beliefs are derived through personal experience is not a recipe for a vibrant and healthy Church. A movement founded on a reaction that doesn’t offer something substantially positive to believe in and give purpose to its members will not likely grow or perpetuate itself.

One of the modern English translations, which, perhaps more than any other, seeks for equivalent effect is J. B. Phillips’ rendering of the New Testament. In Romans 16:16 he quite naturally translates “greet one another with a holy kiss” as “give one another a hearty handshake all around.”

In Romans 16:16 he has translated “give one another a hearty handshake all around,” rather than employing a literal rendering such as “greet one another with a holy kiss.” One can well understand the reason for such actualizing, since the phrase ‘holy kiss’ is likely to be misunderstood.

Nida was implying that giving a hearty handshake is less likely to be misunderstood.

It’s time we understood some of the nuance here. There are subtle significances in what is written in the Greek of the New Testament. But there may be subtle sexism and racism and sect-ism and ethnocentricies in our behaviors today too.

Often the translator will not account for these behaviors, the unlikely “to be misunderstood” habits. When trying to make “them yesterday” dynamically equivalent to “us today,” there’s rarely any acknowledgement of the questions of exclusion, of lack of equivalence, between persons in our own context. Who is included in one’s group, and who left out, by how two bodies touch in public, in greetings? Did Paul the man and the woman Junias in Romans 16 ever greet one another ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ? Did he also greet the woman Priscilla this way? How about “Phoebe, our sister, a deaconess of the Church at Cenchrea”? Did J. B. Phillips greet the women around him this way? His translation suggests this to be the case: “Shake hands for me with Priscilla and Aquila…. A handshake too for Andronicus and Junias my kinsmen and fellow-prisoners; they are outstanding men among the messengers and were Christians before I was.”

(Well, we see that the Phillips translation considers Junias to be a man, and Priscilla not a man; but my question is whether the instruction to “give one another a hearty handshake all around” equally applies to men and to women and to men with women equally all around. This is the question brought out in those recent blogposts I’ve read. More on that in a moment.)

I’d like us to consider more the significances of the kiss, the handshake, and the warm greeting — as symbols of inequalities not only in religious contexts but also in male-female contexts. I’d just like to recall how J. B. Phillips translated other such things in the New Testament. I’d like to recall also how Nida said nothing about the Phillips translation on these other such things.

For example, Phillips has Judas kissing Jesus in betrayal. Here is Luke 22:48 -

“Judas, would you betray the son of Man with a kiss?” said Jesus to him.

That kiss of course for Phillips, for Jesus, for Judas, is significantly different from “a hearty handshake all around.” And yet the translator finds that his English readers, like Luke’s Greek readers, had no real misunderstanding of the cultural implications of the kiss.

And here is Matthew 26:47-48 in the Phillips -

And while the words were still on his lips, Judas, one of the twelve appeared with a great crowd armed with swords and staves, sent by the chief priests and Jewish elders. (The traitor himself had given them a sign, “The one I kiss will be the man. Get him!”)

Again, there is no attempt by Phillips here to make Judas betray Jesus with a hearty handshake. The kiss is clear enough. What is more, in this Matthew passage, Phillips actually adds his own literary flair by noting that Jesus had fresh words on his lips (like a kiss).  Jesus’s words on his lips are signaling some things; Judas’s kiss with his lips is signaling other things. My guess is that this literary spark is accidental and an unconscious addition by the translator. In the Forward to his New Testament, on his on principles of translation, he discusses just how Nidan he is intending to be:

I feel strongly that a translator, although he must make himself as familiar as possible with New Testament Greek usage, must steadfastly refuse to be driven by the bogey of consistency. He must be guided both by the context in which a word appears, and by the sensibilities of modern English readers. In the story of the raising of Lazarus, for example, Martha’s objection to opening the grave would be natural enough to an Eastern mind. But to put into her lips the words, “by this time he’s stinking,” would sound to Western ears unpleasantly out of key with the rest of that moving story. Similarly, we know that the early Christians greeted one another with “an holy kiss”. Yet to introduce such an expression into a modern English translation immediately reveals the gulf between the early Christians and ourselves, the very thing which I as a translator am trying to bridge.

So we catch Phillips himself talking like this — “into her lips the words.” This is his idiom. He puts this idiom of his on Luke’s Jesus this way:  “the words were still on his lips.” This rendering does seem not a very conscious thing for him to do (which is why I can only guess that his Matthew 26:47-48 has that added literary flair).

Nonetheless, there are other parts of language that Phillips does not appear to be aware of. I’m interested in how his words here betray perhaps-unconscious separations. There seems to be an ethnocentric presumption. What’s in “an Eastern mind” must not fall on “Western ears.” The woman, Martha, might indeed be — in her Eastern mind — thinking the following: “by this time he’s stinking.” But the man, J. B. Phillips, for the Western and Christian ears of his own modern English readers must render that — as if entirely pleasantly in-key — the following way: “By this time he will be decaying.” Phillips has to pre-suppose difference. He presumes to stand for all who use modern English in the Western world who are modern Christians who will not stand for the Eastern “sound … [so] unpleasantly out of key.” Then he has to bridge the dissonance. Thus, as a translator, he is working actually to erase the differences “between the early Christians and ourselves [the later Christians].” If the “out of key” can just be silenced, then the bridge backwards to these different others can be constructed.

The modern Christian part is interesting. Phillips does not seem to be thinking of the very differences among various Jews that are flaunted by the Greek text of “the story of the raising of Lazarus.” Phillips, by his translation, actually erases an important phrase that punctuates a textual and a contextual contrast. His modern English for late Christian readers has this for John 11:8 – “Master!” returned the disciples, “only a few days ago, the Jews were trying to stone you to death….”  The Greek, of course, has something different, and notably different – λέγουσιν αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταί· Ῥαββί, νῦν ἐζήτουν σε λιθάσαι οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι. Admittedly, this is odd gospel Greek that is not easy for any to understand entirely; however, other translators have not had to erase “Rabbi” with “Master!” just bridge some gulf “between the early Christians and ourselves [the later Christians].” Willis Barnstone, for example, brings out the oddity of the Greek for readers of English; in his footnote, Barnstone writes:

The conjunction of “rabbi” with “the Jews” here is an anomaly whose contradiction in identity befuddles the purpose of making the Jews appear abhorrent. In like passages in Matthew and Luke, “rabbi” [in the Greek text] has been changed to “master,” “teacher,” or “Lord,” [in the Greek text] and so the anomaly is less apparent.

It would seem that in this context, the word “Rabbi” in the Western and Christian and modern English ear of Phillips does “sound … unpleasantly out of key.” The solution to this problem is to erase the word, to supplant it with another.

What, then, of the male-female differences flaunted by the Greek text of John 11? What does the Phillips translation do with these in “the story of the raising of Lazarus”? The Greek narrative highlights these facts:

• that the women in it speak freely to the man Jesus as a lover (φιλεῖς),
• that this man does in fact love (ἠγάπα) these women and their brother,
• and that one of these women (Μαριὰμ) has loved him back in ways that are easy to misunderstand and that are far more than a “a hearty handshake.”

What we notice is how consistent Phillips is to his translation principle to “steadfastly refuse to be driven by the bogey of consistency.” In this case, this is a good thing.  We all can see how the Phillips translation of John 11 (“the story of the raising of Lazarus”) does not entirely lose all of the male-female differences that the original text highlights. The modern translation does not erase the fact, for instance, that “Mary [was the woman] who poured perfume upon the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.” There she is in her “Eastern mind.” And, presumably, she’s acting as if any late-Christian Western woman would.  Moreover, Phillips, the translator, does seem aware that this bit of text (ἦν δὲ Μαριὰ[μ] ἡ ἀλείψασα τὸν κύριον μύρῳ καὶ ἐκμάξασα τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ ταῖς θριξὶν αὐτῆς) is elaborated on in another gospel. At the very least, John’s gospel and Luke’s record something very similar. And the Phillips translation does treat both John 11 and Luke 7 consistently, even if both are inconsistent with the translation treatment Romans 16. In both John 11 and Luke 7 of the Phillips, there the woman publicly loving the man is not giving him “a hearty handshake.” The point of the gospels in this context is, in part, that this is a woman, not a man, greeting the other as a woman might however shocking that is but certainly not as a man would.

In Luke’s account, the woman is giving a man stinky kisses.

Here is Luke 7:36-50 in the Phillips -

Then one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to a meal with him. When Jesus came into the house, he took his place at the table and a woman, known in the town as a bad woman, found out that Jesus was there and brought an alabaster flask of perfume and stood behind him crying, letting her tears fall on his feet and then drying them with her hair. Then she kissed them and anointed them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were really a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of a person is touching him. He would have realised that she is a bad woman.”

Then Jesus spoke to him, “Simon, there is something I want to say to you.” “Very well, Master,” he returned, “say it.”

“Once upon a time, there were two men in debt to the same money-lender. One owed him fifty pounds and the other five. And since they were unable to pay, he generously cancelled both of their debts. Now, which one of them do you suppose will love him more?”

“Well,” returned Simon, “I suppose it will be the one who has been more generously treated,”

“Exactly,” replied Jesus, and then turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “You can see this woman? I came into your house but you provided no water to wash my feet. But she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. There was no warmth in your greeting, but she, from the moment I came in, has not stopped covering my feet with kisses. You gave me no oil for my head, but she has put perfume on my feet. That is why I tell you, Simon, that her sins, many as they are, are forgiven; for she has shown me so much love. But the man who has little to be forgiven has only a little love to give.”

Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

And the men at table with him began to say to themselves, “And who is this man, who even forgives sins?”

But Jesus said to the woman, “It is your faith that has saved you. Go in peace.”

What is notable about the Phillips translation here is how he does not erase the sexism, the contrast in behaviors between the man and the woman that puts the men over women.

What we might also note is how Phillips erases the failure of the one man to kiss the other. Perhaps for the modern English Christian Western ears of Phillips and his targeted readers this is just too much. The Greek of Luke clearly has “φίλημά μοι οὐκ ἔδωκας” and refers to the lack of a kiss by the man in contrast to the constant warm kissing by the woman. But the Phillips renders that as follows:

There was no warmth in your greeting, but she, from the moment I came in, has not stopped covering my feet with kisses.

Phillips seems to be implying the lack of an expected hearty handshake man to man. But at least the sexist difference is not erased. Men shake hands heartily. Men allow women to kiss them. There is a question about whether men ought to kiss each other or women in public. There is a question about when women ought really to do the handshake as do men with men.

And so that brings us to some recent blogposts. Well, the first doesn’t so much point to sexism as it does to other constructions of difference around a hearty handshake.

A while ago (in 2012), “Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics… Destroyer of Trolls…  that angry puppy” shared the following “image of a handshake superimposed upon a Greek cross.” This is easy to misunderstand despite the fact that it’s no image of kissers superimposed on, say, a Roman cross.  So, let’s understand. Rod was flaunting the fact that some blogs [including this one, sigh] — but not others — based on rather spurious criteria were deemed “exceptionally Christian.” Here’s that image:

As Rod’s post was posted, a scientific study came out that other blogposts (earlier in 2012) were reporting. For example, an unnamed writer for sciencedaily.com reported one of the scientists publishing the study as saying:

[B]e aware of the power of a handshake. We found that it not only increases the positive effect toward a favorable interaction, but it also diminishes the impact of a negative impression. Many of our social interactions may go wrong for a reason or another, and a simple handshake preceding them can give us a boost and attenuate the negative impact of possible misunderstandings.

And Lisa M.P. Munoz, for cogneurosociety.org, also reported with quotations from this same scientist, Sanda Dolco:

Handshakes have been proven to increase the perception of trust and formality of the relationship, and a handshake initiated by a female has been shown to increase the perceived feeling of security when making risky financial decisions. Yet, the study of interpersonal and emotional effects of handshake, and the associated neural correlates, has been largely neglected.

The respective posts were accompanied by these pictures:

And Steve McGaughey, for the Beckman Institute that was sponsoring the study, posted the following picture (of “Beckman Institute researcher Florin Dolcos [on the right] and Department of Psychology postdoctoral research associate Sanda Dolcos [on the left]”):

The visual rhetoric here is that a female engaging in a hearty handshake with a male may “attenuate the negative impact of possible misunderstandings” and definitely will “increase the perceived feeling of security when making risky financial decisions.” It takes twenty-first century science to prove these things.

Sometimes we in the Western world understand the hearty handshake as something men do that women don’t initiate much or do as well or even need to do with men. So three more recent blogpost cases of that:

Brian LePort in his (2012) review of one of Rachel Held Evans’s books, at his blog Near Emmaus, writes this:

Throughout the book the reader is introduced to Rachel’s husband Dan through journal entries he wrote during the course of the book’s development. Let me tell you something: Dan challenged me to be a better husband to my wife far more than any literature from Focus on the Family or Desiring God could ever do. Dan is the ultimate team player. He supports Rachel. I gain from the book that he makes Rachel a better person and she makes him a better person. One can critique egalitarian marriages, but the fruit of the Spirit seems to be blossoming in the midst of their relationship, so do what you will with that. As I read his thoughts he made me ask myself if I am doing all that I can do to help Miranda become all that God has made her and whether I have supported my wife in her giftedness. Someday I’d like to meet Dan, give him a big handshake, and thank him for existing.

What is interesting is how LePort does not express any desire to give Held Evans a big handshake or to have her and his wife give one to each other. The context, of course, is a discussion about how Mr. Evans supports Mrs. Held Evans in their most egalitarian marriage.

Casey Quinlan in her (2013) critique of Gentleman Scholar‘s post for slate.com starts in this way:

You see a business associate at a conference. You meet a new co-worker at the plant. Your boss wants to meet with you for a second.

But there’s a complication! The person in question is a woman. Tricky stuff. What do you do?

Hold out your hand. Shake it two to three times firmly whilst making eye contact. All fingers, yes. Smile and continue with business.

Shaking hands with a member of the opposite sex should be that simple, but unfortunately others don’t see it that way.

What is interesting is how Quinlan has to remind, at the end of her post, “At the end of the day, women are human beings.”

Grace Yia-Hei Kao in her (2013) post to women, concludes “by quoting Dr. Karen Kelsky of the ‘Professor Is In’ blogsite… from her helpful post entitled ‘The Six Ways You’re Acting Like a Grad Student (And how that’s killing you on the job market)’”:

“And lastly, the handshake. Oh my god, the handshake. If you do nothing else from this post, please, I beg you, do this. Get up from your computer, go find a human, and shake their hand. Shake it firmly. Really squeeze!  Outstretch your arm, grip their hand with all your fingers and thumb, look them firmly in the eye, smile in a friendly, open way, and give that hand a nice, firm shake. Repeat. Do this until it’s second nature. If it doesn’t feel right or you aren’t sure if you’re doing it right, find an alpha male in your department, and ask him to teach you. Seriously, grad students, butch it up.”

Good advice for all of us.

What is interesting is the way Kao must emphasize the gendered difference in the handshake.

What is interesting to think about is how Romans 16, in the Greek, is perhaps written by a Roman citizen. But as J. B. Phillips would translate it, this same letter to the young church in Rome would be written by “a true Jew, [... a male] circumcised on the eighth day, … a member of the tribe of Benjamin, … in fact a full-blooded Jew.”

What is interesting is to try to understand the φιλήματι ἁγίῳ or the holy kiss or even the hearty handshake as being applied by so many men, with so many women also named, equally here. Did men back then need to learn this from women? Do men now have anything to learn from women?

How dynamically equivalent are all of our equivalencies? Doesn’t erasure of difference by the translator, when the difference is the difference of the Other, presume that there is no dynamic equivalence in the translation?

In light of John Piper’s most recent bout of asinine, vitriolic insanity, I’m considering exclusively subjecting myself to the authority of women for the next year. Maybe longer.

No more male theologians. No more male bloggers. There’s too many of us anyhow. We’re always going on about something, and it’s all-too-often through the lens of a dominant, patriarchal culture.

Some of us, oh we apologise for it.

We apologise for the fact that we’re whiteish, middle-classish straightish men. And then we get back to the business of being the whiteish, middle-classish straightish men who, from time to time think about women.

We get back to the business of being the whiteish, middle-classish straightish men, who from time to time read Rachel Held Evans, or Julie Clawson, or maybe tune into Jamie the Very Worst Missionary for kicks. We might respect church-planting pioneers like Karen Ward or Nadia Bolz-Weber, for what they’re doing. Just don’t ask us to go hear them speak, or change who we read. Don’t ask us to learn from them.

Let me get back to my Tom Wright and Walter Brueggemann. Sit me down with Wendell Berry or Brian McLaren or Shane Claiborne. You know, the heavyweights. Oh sure, there are some of us enlightened egalitarian dudes out there. And we’ll react negatively against Piper’s statements, not least because he’s an easy target.

The two questions I’m left with go something like this: Have we changed? Are we willing to do so?

If change means more than making a little noise and milking it for a few blog posts, I don’t know what I’ll do. Because really, in the end, I want to go back to reading the good old boys. What women are doing good theology these days anyhow?

And who the hell is Ellen Davis?

A note to all of the whiteish, middle-classish, straightish egalitarianish males out there: it’s time to come clean.

As much as we rail against Piper, many of us, when it comes to our “teachability” are functionally complementarians. Take a snapshot of your bookshelf or blogroll. What’s the ratio of male to female authorship?

The patriarchy has a deep coercive hold on you too.

I spend a lot of time thinking and studying about what people and the Bible says about gender roles because in my heart of hearts I believe most what Paul says in Galatians – “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ.” (emphasis mine) So, when I stumbled upon Rachel Held Evan‘s book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood - I was ready for a little hope and a little more digging into this idea. 

If you’ve ever read Rachel’s blog, then you know that she is thoughtful and well research (two of my favorite characteristics in a person), so I knew that this dense little book would be more than an exercise in gimmicks to sell books. What I did not expect was to find a book that was as freeing as it was. Rachel’s honesty and research continually point back to the Bible, but does so in a respectful way. I would feel comfortable suggesting this to some of my more complimentarian friends because – although she disagrees with some of their tenets, she does so in a way that does not alienate and I think the very way she tries to live out some of those tenets invites a conversation that I think it important to keep having.

But, my favorite part? The part that had me crying and praying hallelujah? That would be reclaiming the Proverbs 31 woman. Rachel befriends an Orthodox Jewish woman, Ahava (wife of a Rabbi), and when she gets to her month on Proverbs 31, she turns to Ahava for advice – as Proverbs 31 has become an exhausting to do list for Rachel and many other Christian women. Ahava’s response is liberating. That idea of a valorous wife (eshet chayil) is a blessing. In Jewish cultures it is the men – not the women – who memorized Proverbs 31, so they can sing it as a blessing to the woman. How beautiful!

So, basically, buy this book. It will make you think. You will add no less than 12 books to your Amazon wishlist as you go through the footnotes. And you will become a fan of the thoughtful, bright, hungry voice of Rachel Held Evans.

I was spiritually burnt out by the end of 2012. Fortunately I hadn’t lost hope that things would get better. But I didn’t have much in the way of spiritual and emotional resources – partly because I refused to be nourished by the God who was causing me so much confusion and pain.

Since then, the melting has begun, scattered in tiny fragments. Sometimes I chase it, and it eludes me. Sometimes it takes me by surprise. Always I am aware that it’s not entirely up to me.

I guess it takes a long time to melt a glacier.

***

In February I sat in church, feeling bored, and frustrated that I was bored, and lonely, and frustrated that I was lonely, and vulnerable, and wanting very much to not be vulnerable. The Bible readings had no impact on me, but during the sermon (which I was determinedly trying to block out), the pastor referenced the veil over our hearts.

Ahh.

I immediately pulled out my neglected journal, and wrote:

It’s not that church is boring. It can be, but that’s not it.

I have a veil over my heart. I am too hurt by loneliness, by disconnection, to let God in, let alone the people around me. I refuse to melt with vulnerability. I don’t want to fall apart. I don’t want to admit deep loneliness, nor holding God at arm’s length. I don’t feel close enough to anyone to allow them that knowledge or to display my vulnerability. Because it will hurt more to let someone care for me and pray for me out of pity, and then not stick around. I’m afraid of intimacy because rejection hurts so much.

So I put a veil over my heart in church. I leave quickly when church is over. I tell myself it’s boredom during the service. My heart is crying, “get me out of here please!” Away from the people who know and love each other, who are in their comfort zones. Away from singing and prayer and the Word of God. Away from scrutiny. I want to keep my emotional and spiritual distance through physical distance.

I came out of that church service feeling so raw, and so bewildered to see all the people around me loving each other, that I stalked off to find a vacant room, where I proceeded to bawl my eyes out. I told Joel to fetch one of three women there that I trusted.

He brought to me a beautiful INFJ who sat with me for hours, let me cry, validated my feelings and experiences, prayed for me (without me cringing) and promised to continue to support me. She’s still keeping her promise.

***

The days were turning out better than I had planned, particularly due to surprising and beautiful friendships. The hurt and anger of loneliness were no longer icy winds blowing over my cold heart like they had been.

The inability to meaningfully connect with God remained.

I’m a fan of John Eldredge’s book Walking With God for showing that we have the privilege of listening to God’s voice to guide us. I believe God really does want to speak to us at times, so I tell other Christians how important it is, lend out Eldredge’s book, and have led workshops discussing the topic. I’ve experienced him speaking to me, often in short sentences or song lyrics, but sometimes in longer conversations. There was that time I was talking to Jesus during a sacred moment at Easter Camp, a holy conversation that went back and forth in my mind for some time, and I was feeling very comforted and peaceful until I asked him, “Does this mean it’s going to get easier now?” Silence. End transmission. That is so like him.

This time, I didn’t even think of it. Until, as I was writing about not knowing my path, it occurred to me that ordinarily I would speak to Jesus about this, and ask him for guidance. But, as I said then, “Jesus and I aren’t really on speaking terms right now.” I didn’t want to speak to him about anything – I was still too upset about all my doubts, confusion, and frustrations.

I thought about this more in the coming weeks. I continued to ponder my doubts, how complex this life and this world and religions really are, and felt more strongly that I needed God’s voice to guide me, because I couldn’t make all the best decisions on my own.

I gave it a shot in March, as I considered pursuing another work opportunity. I stepped away from the screens, retreated to soft music and whirring thoughts, and asked Jesus what I should do.

It felt like trying to get water from a stone. Eventually Jesus said, “You can serve me in either of these places.” So I chose to stay where I was.

I was glad Jesus still wanted to talk to me.

***

Immersed as I usually am in Sara Groves music and various Christian blogs, I’m always fascinated by the themes of love and hope. Now my heart was tuning into the stories of healing and miracles. I noticed bloggers sharing stories of their relationship with Christ being hard but oh so worth it for the healing that came. In all honesty, I didn’t think I really needed any healing myself (we can talk another time about my pride). But I was reminded that Christianity has something to offer the world: loving, intimate relationship with the God of the universe.

As for doubts – well, I can handle having some doubts. My brain chemistry definitely leans me more towards open-ended and grey than black-and-white thinking. In the past I’ve wrestled with doubts that drove me to atheism, and only by resolving some of my most compelling concerns could I accept my faith again with integrity. But many questions remain.

I read Evolving in Monkey Town this week. I didn’t expect to get so much from it, but it was one of the most reassuring books I have read for a long time. That may seem odd given that the book is filled with doubts Rachel Held Evans has wrestled with, and no neat resolutions are offered. But I was reminded that it’s okay to have questions – and when we do, sometimes the most important thing is not answers, but a safe place to ask.

***

Two days ago, I tried an old wineskin: I went for an early morning walk in the sunshine, music playing in my headphones, journal and pen in my pocket. I sat down on a tree stump and began to journal. I sang along to praise music. I let the sun shine its warmth down into my melting heart.

It was a holy experience.

God was there with me – subjective, yes, but personal, and close, and loving. But then, he’s always been there, hasn’t he? I knew it, but I can’t believe the immense difference it makes to also feel it.

I’m not as afraid of trying quiet time again. And possibly failing. I’m not as scared to read a passage from the Bible, nor as wary of prayer. I’m even looking forward to going to church tomorrow.

The process of melting is still a work in progress. It’s such a slow process, longer than it’s ever taken me to reconcile to God before. But that’s okay. I feel warmer than I have in months, and I’m going to keep placing myself close to the warmth of God. The rest is up to him.

For Christmas, David got me “A Year of Biblical Womanhood” written by Rachel Held Evans. It was such a great book!! I read it in about a week and actually read a lot of it aloud to David during the evenings. She writes with a lot of humor (which helps me to relate to anything), but I found what I liked most was her writing put to words a lot of things I have struggled with in the past, or do currently. She brings to light a lot of questions and different ideas to things that are very common in the evangelical world. One of my favorite chapters was her talking about what it means to be a Proverbs 31 woman. I found it to be enlightening and encouraging. She has a lot of sources for her findings, most of which are just plain Scripture. I appreciated knowing she wasn’t just spouting off her own opinions  but had taken time to research and study and come to conclusions based on those things.

If you are looking for a book that will make you laugh and think all at the same time I highly recommend it! You don’t have to agree with everything in a book for it to be good. I won’t say I agreed with every single word written, but I agreed with a majority of it. If nothing else, it will give you a different perspective and way of looking at things you may think you’ve had figured out for a long time. It was both encouraging and challenging for me to read this book, and I highly recommend it!

In May, when I travel to India, I’m going to have two fifteen-hour flights, one at each end of the trip. I’m planning on reading as much as I can during those blocks of time, so yesterday I loaded up my Kindle with some new selections that I can’t wait to tackle.

This is my India reading list.

Want them for yourself? Here are the Amazon links:
Evolving in Monkey Town
Game of Thrones
Autobiography of My Mother
An Unquenchable Thirst

This summarises something of the thinking behind this site.

Rachel has a few points in her post:

1. Humour works when it’s directed toward yourself

The vast majority of the jokes on this site are directed at ourselves. A good example is the Socially Awkward Christian Penguin.

2. Humour works when it’s directed toward your own community or culture

And our main culture here is the Church of England in it’s context in England. An example is in this Doctor Who article.

3. Humour works when it’s directed toward the powerful

Have a look at this article about Lord Carey.

4. Humour works when it tears down idols

How about this?

We hope we regularly make you smile but we also hope that sometimes we can be a prophetic voice in the church through our satire.

When I told my husband about this he listened and for valentines day this year I got this:

A rewrite of Proverbs 31 just for me:)

I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it a million more I know just how blessed I am to have this amazing guy in my life.

Proverbs 31: A Rewrite

A wife who inspires better character I have found, worth more than jewels I can’t afford.
She makes me realize my life is complete and I really need nothing more.
Ever since we began life together I find mine made better and full.

Although she doesn’t have to collect sheaves, harvest flax or spin wool
She sifts through grocery stores and catalogs, always looking for what is fair
Because all the world’s important and our family’s well being is not her only care.

Rising before the dawn and waking early will never be her cup-of-tea
But the morning routine we have as I bring her coffee in bed is just fine by me.

She may never buy a field as wealth is not something we will ever come to
But it doesn’t change her mission in making our home a place of value.

She is crafty and creative and a seamstress at times in finding ways to provide for us all
But compassion also springs out of her doings and often leaks out of our walls.

We often don’t have money for the clothes that we need but it never messes up her flow
We are provided for in ways unseen regardless of the rain or the sun or the snow.

She loves making our bed for it is our favorite place, in blankets and pillows and duvets
And when I go out to provide for our family I pine for it throughout my day.

She wants what is best for me day to day and pushes me to be great in my career
But financial success is not her end as she would rather my work be filled with cheer.

The strongest person I know and she never knows fear living a life filled with laughter
She is wise and beautiful, teaching me good things that echo both now and forever after.

The greatest gift that I know she receives every day is hearing little voices call her mom
Blessed above all, my wife, lover and friend and I praise her with the words of this Psalm.

Many women are great in this world and this life but you for me pass them all.
You are loving and true, you make our home amazing and you are faithful to your call.

So thank you for being a woman of valor; a woman who knows and fears the Lord
You are my eshet chayil and I love you for that only a fool would seek after more…

“Love the sinner.  Hate the sin.”

How many times do we hear this, particularly in response to the debate over homosexuality in the church?  I cannot count the number of comments and conversations that begin something like this:

As Christians, we love everyone.  We love the sinner, but hate the sin.  Haven’t you read the following Bible verses?…

Here’s why I hate that expression:

There seems to be a whole lot more hating of the sin going on.

(And, yes, I’ve read those six Bible verses.  I’ve also read some others.)

It’s easy to say we love everyone.  It’s easy to use faith as a crutch.  It’s easy to make a blanket statement about such a profoundly difficult thing as to love everyone.

Everyone?

It’s not easy to practice what we preach.

Brothers and sisters, forgive me, but talk is cheap.

(And, yes, I realize the irony of saying that as a writer – as someone who spends so much time just “talking” via a computer screen.  I’m a sinner, too.  See below.)

Still, just saying we love someone doesn’t always translate into actual love, either in emotion or in action.  We need to DO more loving of the sinner.  Yesterday.

But, here’s the thing.  We are all sinners.  

Our gay friends are sinners.  Our straight friends are sinners.

We. are. all. sinners.

I just happen to be of the conviction that it is not our innate sexual orientation that makes us sinners.

I am also of the conviction that those who agree with me and those who faithfully believe that same-sex attractions are inherently sinful can (must) do a better job of loving the sinner person.

Recently, I read the book, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel in the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate, by Justin Lee.

In a word (or two):  Read it.  

If we say we truly “love the sinner,” then reading this book is a tangible thing we (on both sides!) can DO to put that love into action.

But how can reading a book help us to love the sinner?

Because, as Justin puts it, many of the “loving” things we say are anything but when we only see the world through our own lens.

In the Christians-vs.-Gays culture, Christians weren’t such a great people to be around if you were gay.  They might lecture you, talk down to you, or quote the Bible at you, but they weren’t very likely to make you feel loved.  Quite the opposite.[1]

(Sometimes this is true, too, if you are an ally.)

Wait.  Wait.  Before you say, “But, we are doing these things out of love!”…Read on.

Torn shares the real life story and struggle of an evangelical Christian coming to terms with his sexuality and with the church and God he loves.  I found Justin’s story to be powerful.  Informative.  Enlightening.  And, at times, heartbreaking.

And, in my opinion, it is a story that can be so incredibly helpful to Christians (and non-Christians) on both sides of the debate.

Reading Torn is a great first step in getting to know someone’s story.  It is a tangible way to start loving in action and not just in word.  

Maybe it is a story familiar to you as an evangelical Christian.  Maybe it is a story familiar to you as someone who has same-sex attractions.  Maybe it is a story that is the furthest thing from your own life experience that you can imagine.

Great.  Read it twice. 

Because in order to really have a debate within the church that honors all Christian views on homosexuality, we need to understand all these views.  We need to especially hear the voices of those caught in the middle.  We need to read their stories.  We need to spend more time talking to them, and less time talking about them.

(Again, guilty as charged.) 

For it is only when we wear the other shoe, if only for a moment through the lens of a book, that we can we hope to really reach out with real love and compassion.

Real compassion would mean teaching people how to be more sensitive to the needs of the gay people they encounter and helping them understand our struggles better.[2]

So, regardless of where we fall on the “homosexuality as sin” debate, here is one thing we can all do better.  Let’s love.  Let’s learn.  Let’s hear each other’s stories.  Let’s really listen as if they were our own.  (Because they are.)

Let’s really love the sinner.  Period.

*****

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.  1 John 3:18

Note:  I first came across Torn: Rescuing the Gospel in the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate via a series on “Sexuality and The Church” taking place over on Rachel Held Evans’ blog.  I highly recommend reading her summaries and commentary as well as some many of the stories and perspectives shared in the comment sections.  You can find her posts on Torn here:  Chapters 1-4, Chapters 5-6, Chapters 7-11, Chapters 12-13, Chapters 14-15.

Post also shared with Reconciling Ministries Network and Believe Out Loud.

Following Rowan Williams and Eugene Rogers, Beck argues for an account of sexuality that is modelled on the self-offering love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the divine life. In this framework, sexual intimacy and marriage are seen as a risk-filled venture and occasion for mutual joy and discovery. He argues, further, that marriage should be defined in terms of grace (love and commitment) rather than nature (child-bearing) and that the defining feature of marriage is election: “I choose you.” This is consistent, he argues, with the fact that our relationship to God is rooted in grace rather than biological lineage.

At some level I am deeply appreciative of Beck’s initial reflections on sexuality. In many ways I think that his words (owing much to Williams, obviously) are right on the mark. I can only agree when he writes: “The reason sex can be so painful and tragic is that we expose ourselves to the perceptions of another. And this exposure carries great risk, psychically and spiritually.” Extending the thought of Rowan Williams, he also argues: “Sex is to enter into a communal space where there is giving and receiving, a mutuality, a sharing of selves and perceptions. This is why sex matters. It is a location where we discover our humanity through our being with others.”

On the other hand, I must confess that it strikes me as curious (astonishing, in fact) that the possibility of the child is utterly and completely absent from these reflections on sexual intimacy. A kind of levelling appears to have taken place where anything that doesn’t fit a broad/generic account of sexuality has been excluded. Thus for Beck there is risk, but it is never the risk of the third, the child. There is mutuality, but not a mutuality that leaves room for an infant. There is giving and receiving, but no receiving of a child. There is openness, but no openness to a new life.

[In a way Beck’s approach mirrors that of Close Relationship theorists – social scientists who for the sake of their research into intimate or close relationships must exclude variables that are not present across all such relationships. This is acceptable for social scientists, of course, who have their own questions to ask and answer – but for a theologian?]

In relations of sexual intimacy between women and men, from their teenaged years through to menopause (for the woman), the possibility of the child is very often the elephant in the room. Indeed, beyond coitus interruptus, there is a massive industry dedicated to preventing that child from making an appearance – condoms, contraceptive pills, surgical procedures, and innumerable pharmaceutical products. In so many instances, there is great anxiety about the effectiveness of these techniques. And these techniques have, in fact, come to define human sexuality in the modern west. The logic of safe sex (which is, in part, sex that excludes the child) dominates our culture.

As much as we might try, the possibility of the child cannot be separated out from sexual intimacy as it is experienced by a huge number of those who are sexually active (even if the possibility of the child is present only in a negative way). Yet Beck elides this aspect of sexuality rather effortlessly. The possibility of the child NEVER appears in his descriptions of a grace-defined sexuality. (It reappears in his later discussion of marriage, only, where he offers the rather banal and sterile observation that “no doubt human reproduction is part of human sex.”)

I for one am not at all satisfied that such a denial of the natural, of the child, should come to define a theological account of human sexuality – its risk, vulnerability, beauty, and its potentially comic and farcical nature. Sexual intercourse between man and woman need not be reduced to reproduction. Indeed, who could do such a thing!? But the possibility of a little one appearing on the scene – who looks like me, or my great aunt, and yet is utterly different from me – is, as they say, a game changer. Am I open to learn from her, to care for her, to share with my wife in the painful and joyful and demanding task of raising this one produced through our union? These questions define sexuality between a woman and a man.

As an aside, I see no reason why we should not interpret the ‘one flesh’ of the second creation account in terms of a rich and fecund (fecund both spiritually and biologically) intersubjectivity – rather than in the terms of ‘reproduction’ (a graceless term!) I have tried to get at some of this in my own reflections on Adam and Eve, in a paper in Modern Theology, which can be found here.

From the perspective of sexuality between woman and man, Beck’s account appears to cut off nature from grace. The grace of the triune God is a grace that encounters us and renews us in our embodied identity and relationships. Grace does not encounter me as an abstraction whose sexual intimacy with his wife can somehow neglect or be forgetful of the possibility and reality of the child. Indeed, the possibility and reality of the child defines that intimacy (even when it does so negatively, if you will). Further, openness to the God of grace means openness to the gift of the child that God may give – and to everything tumultuous that this child implies. The child is not merely nature. The child is also grace. As is openness to her.

To amend (emend?) Wiliams’ words, as quoted by Beck, in relation to sexual intimacy between a man and woman:

“Properly understood, sexual faithfulness is not an avoidance of risk, but the creation of a context in which grace can abound because there is a commitment not to run away from the perceptions of another and because there is a commitment of openness to the other, and to the child that God may give.”

I’m reluctant to start listing people because 1) I know I’ll leave people out and 2) I’m finding new people every day. But let me mention some anyway: Rachel Held Evans, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, Jenny Rae Armstrong, Lana, Morgan Guyton, Jonathan Fitzgerald and Carson T. Clark (no blog at the moment but good FB stuff). You should take a serious look. They are asking important questions and thinking of faith in vital and significant ways. Many have reflected deeply on an upbringing that focused on knowing answers without really pondering questions. Now that they are in their 30s, they are finding the means of exploring the questions and testing whether the answers work.

My reading has taught me a few things. First, they have a high view of scripture as the Word of God. That view is high enough that they aren’t afraid of asking difficult questions in its presence. They trust God with their questions and confidently believe that God will show them Truth.

Second, they have a high degree of compassion for those outside the evangelical fold. This is why they write on topics like gay rights or religious nones. They have made it a point to interact with those from different backgrounds and commitments and attempted to write with those individuals in mind.

Third, they are essentially hopeful about God’s work in contemporary society. There’s not a slippery-slope argument in the bunch. No looking back wistfully at Mayberry (maybe Common Perks on Friends, but that’s a different thing). They see change in society as something to be engaged — not blindly embraced but not attacked either.

In a word, they are believers in Grace. The see God extending it all around us and are smart enough to extend it to others as well. Even those older bloggers who dismiss them or call them names.

One of the great things about surrounding yourself with college students all the time is that their optimism is contagious. I see what they hope for their future and how they engage the world. And I’m confident that in another decade they’ll be impressing me with their writing as well. When I listen to them, I learn stuff. And I find that the world is a better place. Far better than grasping a sour vision of a world in despair.

I read folks my age as well. They do great work. I’ll give them a shout-out in a future post. I’m probably way more selective in the older list. Too many of today’s leaders make me mad. But enough of them open windows to the soul to let me know that we older folks can learn a lot by listening to our youngers.

This week was no different, with tensions surrounding the Supreme Court’s recent contemplations and multiple recent tragedies this week. I happened to witness a lively but very civil debate.

However while walking by I overheard the phrase, “you just need to live the Bible.”

Is it possible to live the Bible? If so than how do we go about living the Bible, or living biblically?

Living a phrase of the Bible can be damaging. Expressing the Bible in your own life can be life changing.

In our pick & choose society we can often forget that the Bible isn’t a book full of good phrases and suggestions on how to live.

It is the raw and unfiltered accounts of real men and women who were trying to live and know God in their culture.

The word Bible is a fairly new word in  the whole picture of history. The word the ancients often used to describe the words of God or the inspired words of God was scripture. The word Scripture is used all throughout the Bible and Old Testament books such as Daniel and the book of Psalms.  In Hebrew the word is כתב and is pronounced kathab, it means a record of things.

The Bible isn’t an account of broken people who become perfect and try to live in a certain standard. The Bible is a chance for us to see the unique paths people that people travel with God.

The Bible is an exposé, and gives us a look into what real spirituality is; a journey that for each person is unique and distinct to that person. The Bible is a raw look into different people from different cultures exploring what is means to follow God  and share that hope in their day.

I believe living Biblically is essential to a life of faith.

Living Biblically means embracing diverse roads, different journeys and celebrating uniqueness.

If we take living Biblically to mean a set agenda for everyone to live by, than we are no longer dealing with a divine inspired spirituality, we are dealing with  man made standards.

If that was the case living biblically would be…

Dashing little ones against stones.– Psalms 137:9

Having slaves. — Leviticus 25:44

I will not go on with the many Old and New Testament scriptures that would not be fit for today’s living. My hope is that you begin to see the Bible not as an explanation of God but as an exploration of God.

When a faith is bound by two covers, it’s a book. When faith is built on God it has no boundaries and no walls.

So let us live Biblically and embrace difficulty and rise up against injustice and destroy walls people put up around God.

But there’s no denying the wisdom and influence of Redeemer Presbyterian (New York, NY) pastor and author Timothy Keller.  So there was a lot of excitement over the weekend over a post by Derek Rishmawy who has a Patheos blog Christ and Pop Culture, and wrote ‘Who Are You Sleeping With?’ My Conversation with Timothy Keller.  

First, here’s the context:

…Drawing on his experience in urban, culture-shaping Manhattan, Keller responded that one of the biggest obstacles to repentance for revival in the Church is the basic fact that almost all singles outside the Church and a majority inside the Church are sleeping with each other. In other words, good old-fashioned fornication.

The major substance of the piece comes in the second section:

Keller illustrated the point by talking about a tactic, one that he admittedly said was almost too cruel to use, that an old college pastor associate of his used when catching up with college students who were home from school. He’d ask them to grab coffee with him to catch up on life. When he’d come to the state of their spiritual lives, they’d often hem and haw, talking about the difficulties and doubts now that they’d taken a little philosophy, or maybe a science class or two, and how it all started to shake the foundations. At that point, he’d look at them and ask one question, “So who have you been sleeping with?” Shocked, their faces would inevitably fall and say something along the lines of, “How did you know?” or a real conversation would ensue. Keller pointed out that it’s a pretty easy bet that when you have a kid coming home with questions about evolution or philosophy, or some such issue, the prior issue is a troubled conscience. Honestly, as a Millennial and college director myself, I’ve seen it with a number of my friends and students—the Bible unsurprisingly starts to become a lot more “doubtful” for some of them once they’d had sex.

And it makes sense, right? When you’re engaged in behavior you’ve been raised to believe is wrong, but is still pretty fun, more than that, powerfully enslaving, you want to find reasons to disbelieve your former moral convictions. As Keller pointed out, Aldous Huxley famously confessed in his work Ends and Means that he didn’t want there to be a God and meaning because it interfered with his sexual freedom. While most of our contemporaries haven’t worked it out quite as philosophically as Huxley has, they’re spiritually in much the same place.

I’ve heard it said that one of the reason people love to debate Noah and the Ark and Jonah and the Whale is because they are looking for an out. If they can find a problem with the Biblical text in one section, it absolves them from responsibility in others. So much of the debate clearly is about something other than what it appears.

In one of the comments, I noted:

I’ve heard it said that one of the reasons churches are finding it so hard to get male volunteers is because a lot of guys don’t feel ‘worthy’ because of their online addiction to porn. Someone has already noted in the comments here its possible application in this situation as well.

In other words, spiritual intensity wanes as spiritual truth comes into conflict with actual individual behavior. 

Keller’s thesis did not sit well with Rachel Held Evans.  In a piece titled Is Doubt an STD? — the title itself confuses the cause and effect — she challenges the sweeping generality of Keller’s response:

Keller seems to assume that thoughtful questioning among young people are typically the result of sexual activity and their desire to justify it. This was not true for me, and it is not true for many of the young adults who leave college with questions about science, philosophy, politics, and religious pluralism that challenge the fundamentalism with which they were raised…

…Furthermore, learning that a college student is sexually active does not somehow discredit his or her faith experience.

But while she accuses Keller of being dismissive of the real spiritual concerns of young people, I felt she was just a little too dismissive of Keller.  I wrote:

Keller is teaching us to look for “the question behind the question,” not unlike Jesus with the woman at the well in John chapter 4. I think he may be on to something; but Rachel, I agree that this approach could backfire if it is dismissive of genuine questions and spiritual concerns. I think you have to earn the right to ask someone who they’re sleeping with.

There was a lot of push-back on Rachel’s take on Keller, and so yesterday, she published some of the highlights of the critiques she received.  You can read those here.

If you don’t know it, read the story of the Woman at the Well in John 4 here.

So, I will throw out my story here with names changed, in hopes that it will help someone else, because I really wish I had known a better way to respond at the time.  My opinion here is basically that, if someone won’t answer the question you are asking, it is not right for them to simply change the subject to something else, particularly if it is what I call a “fishing expedition.”  That is, they are trying to find out something else about you, that you did not volunteer and that may or may not even have a bearing on the question.

So, here’s the story.  It took place about 4 or 5 months after I graduated from college.  I was one of those unfortunate souls who could not seem to find my way with those of the opposite sex.  I had had only 3 dates in my life at that point.  I had no shortage of interest, having had numerous crushes, all followed by rejection, which led to depression, which often lasted longer than the original crush.  All of the crushes were on perfectly acceptable boys from church.  Over the summer though, my sister had introduced me to someone who actually seemed to like me.  Unfortunately, he did not share my faith, so I had told him I would not date him again.

In self defense, it seemed, I had nursed a crush on someone else past the point where I should have long since given up.  I realized I needed help getting out of the pattern of crush, rejection, depression though.  After all, I was also actively job hunting and really could not afford to be seriously depressed.  I racked my brains trying to figure out who to approach for advice on this.  It really seemed I would need someone older and wiser than someone my age.  I finally decided to go to someone I will call Dana, who had known me since I was 13.  She had a reputation for being hard on people who were dating people she disapproved of, but since I had not been up to anything, I figured that was a moot point.  She was normally quite discerning and knew me well, I thought.  We had had many discussions about life and God.

Eventually I screwed up my courage and went to see her.  We dispensed with the pleasantries and I asked my question.  Maybe it was actually two questions.  First was how on earth I could recognize when someone simply was not interested, so I could move on, hopefully sooner, rather than after wasting months moaning over them.  The second, related question was how I could get over them, without falling into a deep depression every time.

Her response was to ask me who I had a crush on.  Now in my head, I wanted to know why she wanted to know and what difference it made. But I gave the name of the guy, someone who had often joined me in late night, after meeting conversations with her.  All I recall of her response to that was that she said I already knew the answer.  Okay, I had actually come there, because I figured it was time to get over him, right?  I was a little nettled that she seemed to think he was so wrong for me.  After all, to that point, at least in my mind, he knew me better than any other male on earth.

So I moved on to the second question.  I can’t recall her answering that at all.  But she did tell me  how until she met her husband she was just using all the guys she dated.  Whoa!  In my mind she was now accusing me of using people, something I had never ever done.  I was hurt and I was angry.  I had wasted an hour or more spilling my guts to her and she hadn’t helped me at all!  I left and vowed I’d never open up like that to her again.  I think the anger somehow helped me bypass the worst of the inevitable depression.

Eventually I forgave her, but you know, I really never trusted her as a friend after that. Where once I had been a sort of protege, we simply were not close as adults.  That was sad, but it’s not the point I want to make here.  You see, thinking of the situation, and stories I had heard of others who somehow ran afoul of her standards for us, I really think she was on a fishing expedition.  She was fishing for some sort of sin, and most likely of the sexual variety.  Perhaps that she would have known how to deal with, whereas clueless, socially awkward girls were a mystery to her.  I should have known, I suppose, given that she had been popular when young, that she would have had no clue to how the unpopular girls operated.  But I am surprised that she was not able to just say, “I don’t know”  in answer to my questions, instead of fishing for sin.

My point is this though, if you go to someone with a sincere question, whether it be about doubts or the mysteries of relationships, you have a right to a sincere answer.  You have a right to question, and you have a right to be heard.  Someone who changes the subject, particularly to something very personal, has their own agenda.  Whether or not their agenda hits home, you have a right to call them on that.  I can only wonder how my encounter would have gone, had I come right out and demanded to know why she thought the name of my current crush mattered.  The real question was not how do I get over so and so, but how do I get over rejection.  I’m not at all sure that she had much grasp on how many of us were driven by rejection in our lives, sometimes in directions that made things worse instead of better.  What we needed was not judgement, but healing.

So here’s my advice.  When someone answers your honest and sincere question with another question, particularly one that makes you squirm, that is too personal, don’t accept it.  Turn it right back to them with something like, why would you ask a thing like that?  They are the one who is trying to sidestep the topic, why not bring it right back to where you started?  At the very least, if they are honest, they will tell you their agenda.  If you don’t want to discuss it, you can tell them so, you can leave and find someone else to discuss your issue with.  You can even choose to discuss it if you want, but it’s out in the open, not hidden behind a baited gotcha hook.  Even if you are younger than the person you are talking to, you deserve to be treated with respect.  If it seems like they are making a power grab, maybe you shouldn’t trust them.  I think most people will respect you when you call them on a boundary violation, which is usually what is going on when you get angry.  The hard part is to not let the anger take control and to calmly discuss how they are violating your boundaries.

Websites

A Guide to Being Catholic - this has been a fantastic resource for me! I haven’t read all of the pages the author has up, but everything I’ve seen so far has been really good. Everything is written at a basic level so I don’t find myself having to google words or phrases. This website pretty much covers everything – from devotions and prayers to the foundations of the Catholic worldview.

Don’t Let Problems in the Church Steal Your Peace - my mom has been throwing fits about things she’s read about the Vatican, so I went on a mission to find a way to be okay with problems in the Church. This article was an answer to prayer! Even though it’s written by a Catholic for Catholics, it’s perfect for Protestants wanting to defend their faiths as well. Sadly enough we live in a culture where “bad” people in our Churches steal our peace about our faiths – but Jimmy Akin’s explanation of why that shouldn’t be soothed my heart and mind, and hopefully it will yours as well!

Books I’ve Recently Purchased

If Protestantism is True - I will be honest…I’m slaving through this book. The concepts are really, really good…but I’m really not a fan of Devin Rose’s writing style. I find myself having to read with a notebook because he crams really huge concepts into tiny sections. He also jumps from topic to topic fairly quickly, which causes some confusion. However. I am determined to get through it because he really does have some amazing stuff to say. I also find myself thinking a lot as I read – which is exactly what I want out of a religious book. (Also the kindle version is only $2.99!)

A Year of Biblical Womanhood – How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master” - I love, love, love Rachel Held Evans. I loved her as a Protestant and I love her even more as a Catholic. She’s one of those people that just has a beautiful soul. Her words are full of truth and beauty. In this book she spends a year following the Bible as literally as possible. It’s a very light-hearted yet serious book – she’s really good at making you think and laugh all in one sentence.

Books I’ve Recently Been Loaned

(I don’t have any comments on these because I haven’t even looked at their back covers yet!)

A Biblical Walk Through the Mass: Understanding What We Say and Do In The Liturgy - Edward Sri

Sinners Welcome: Poems - Mary Karr

Rome Sweet Home - Scott and Kimberly Hahn

Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots - Scott Hahn

How’s that for a conversation starter? Actually, reading up on Habermas helped me make some connections with practices we need in the church, our colleges, and our politics. It came at a good time when I was dealing with high degrees of frustration about communication.

Yesterday former ambassador, presidential candidate, and conservative pundit Alan Keyes spoke on Spring Arbor’s campus. I didn’t go to the lunch (it cost money) but I did attend the open discussion in the afternoon. We had a couple of interactions that I’ve written about on Facebook. I want to be clear — I have no objection to having conservative speakers on our campus. Both Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo did chapel this spring and were well received.

What troubled me about Ambassador Keyes was the way he made his arguments. Not just loud and ideologically driven, they actually made it hard to follow the argument due to the sheer number of loosely connected ideas. On many occasions, I felt that it would be good to hit the “pause and rewind” button to review the logical connection that was being made. Because many in the crowd liked his conclusions, it seemed the way he got there was less important.

The same thing happens to some liberal pundits. They are so intent on making their derisive points about conservatives that they don’t make good argument.

It happens in churches. Thanks to a tweet from Rachel Held Evans today, I learned of this story of Tim Keller’s speech at the Gospel Coalition. According to the author (and commenters who were there), Keller suggested that one of the major obstacles to true revival was related to young people having premarital sex. I’m not advocating for premarital sex, but the issues of today’s culture cannot be handled in such a reductionistic fashion. There are a host of issues related to the authentic questions young evangelicals are asking. Sex is a minor one. As Jamie the Very Worst Missionary wrote, sex is a big deal but not the biggest deal. I’m reminded of the argument Putnam and Campbell made in American Grace: that the rise of evangelicalism was in part a push back against sexual freedom of the 1960s. It proved not to be enough of an argument over the long run.

Politicians’ “discourse” seems intent on stating their preferred positions (especially those favored by the gerrymandered constituency). Politicians and pundits caricature the other side, distort their positions, and make speeches in front of empty house chambers in order to cut YouTube videos.

Which brings me back to Habermas. His project in the latter part of the last century involved the connections between quality communication and civil society. He makes some remarkable claims. First, he suggests that there is a form of Objective Truth and that we can attend to a reality not dependent upon our personal opinions. Second, he affirms the possibility of intersubjectivity — that we can understand another’s position even if we disagree with it. Third, our conversation must avoid both coercion and ideology. Finally, by practicing careful conversation that attends to the other and respects the value of their position, we begin to weave together a civil society.

I’m reminded of a book I read long ago by defense attorney Jerry Spence. It was called How to Argue and Win Every Time. It was a little slight of hand: he really suggested that if you made your argument so carefully that the other fully understood, that constituted a win. I still find it helpful.

I don’t know if Spence read Habermas, but I like the continuity. We must learn to speak in ways that carefully engage the other’s legitimate position, examine complexity in place of shibboleths, and think about how our argument will be heard. These are important liberal arts skills directly related to critical thinking.

Our colleges do best when we figure out how to handle diverse positions. Our politics do best when they are addressing the complexity required to pursue the common welfare. Our churches do best when we can affirm God’s Story without minimizing the complexity of His work in the contemporary world.

I needed to hear Habermas today. He will keep my optimism alive for at least another week.

As soon as I shared them, I heard from a mom who expressed concern that I was bottle-feeding… *my computer baby*.
(For the record, La Leche Leaguers, the Baby-Think-It-Over manual clearly states that “although you will be feeding Baby with a bottle, the recommended method for best nutrition is breast feeding.” – p195)

And, yeah… it is weird when you put it like that. Who cares how a doll is fed???

And, of course, we don’t. We’re not concerned that Rachel’s doll has an increased risk of hospitalisation for diarrhoea or ear infections, or is more likely than its breastfed peers to develop diabetes, asthma, allergies or leukaemia (to name a few). We do not fear that Chip will be one of the 911 babies each year who die in America due to not being breastfed. Nor do we believe that Rachel has increased her risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer, osteoporosis or various lifestyle illnesses like cardiovascular disease by missing the opportunity to breastfeed her doll for a weekend.
And to be honest, I am surprised that she received criticism. After all, since she is not a mother, there’s no particular reason to expect her to be aware of these issues, or to have experienced sabotage from a bottle-feeding culture. No one can be on top of all the issues involved in every cause. Rachel Held Evans has plenty of other important stuff to keep up with.

But, I do understand the frustration and disappointment, and I’m going to try to explain those feelings, and why I think the feeding of a doll actually is important. It comes down to this: Breastfeeding is a learned skill, and it is learned, first, visually and second, through practice.

Breastfeeding is learned visually

We women are supposed to grow up seeing women breastfeeding all around us all the time. We’re supposed to absorb subconsciously what normal attachment (latch) looks like, how babies of different ages can be positioned, what it looks like to respond to early feeding cues. This should be innate knowledge. We should all know what normal baby behaviour is because we will have seen how our little sisters and brothers and cousins behave.
Our culture, however, has lost enormous amounts of breastfeeding knowledge and normal baby knowledge, replacing it with myths from so-called ‘experts’ who overbore that knowledge in the course of one or two generations. Now, the vast majority of baby feeding images in the media (starting with childrens books) are of artificial feeding. Unreasonable expectations of babies abound. Meanwhile, women breastfeeding in public are encouraged to be ‘discreet’ (read: not let anyone see – and learn from – what they’re doing). Ever hear someone tell a bottle-feeding mum to be discreet?

Breastfeeding is learned by practical experience

This, of course, is something we don’t expect to get the chance to do until our baby is born. But Rachel could have given herself a little head-start here, by looking into positioning and attachment and taking the opportunity to practice. When I take antenatal breastfeeding classes, I give the mums-to-be a chance to hold a doll and try to get a feel of the basic principles of good positioning (if you know an Australian mum-to-be, click here to find her an Australian Breastfeeding Association Breastfeeding Education Class), but really, all you can do is wait for the real thing. That said, Rachel has reinforced in herself the cultural norm of artificial feeding, adding just one more layer to her subconscious idea of what mothering should look and feel like.

If Rachel Held Evans is very lucky (that is, lucky enough to live in the right place, and to receive good information and support) she will have her baby naturally in a Baby-Friendly Hospital, and will experience a beautiful skin-to-skin time leading to a natural baby-led attachment process in which she and her baby follow each other’s lead and teach each other how to breastfeed in their own time. She will be encouraged to learn and respond to her baby’s cues. They will go on to have a beautiful breastfeeding relationship, strongly supported by everyone around them, and mutually wean when they are both ready.

More likely, she will experience some, or many ‘Booby Traps’ (cultural sabotage): She will probably have a very medical, interventionist birth after which her baby will be whisked away to be weighed and suctioned before she gets to hold the swaddled body in the wrong position while someone tries to force the baby to attach. Very likely, multiple people will give her conflicting advice on how to breastfeed. Medical professionals and well-meaning family and friends alike will likely interpret perfectly normal baby behaviour as problems to be solved… with artificial baby milk – which will be oh-so-conveniently available due to the free samples she can expect to get from formula companies. In fact, as I write this, it occurs to me that the whole premise of Chip and his computerised siblings unwittingly contributes to one of those cultural myths about normal baby behaviour: that babies only communicate vocally and therefore we need to wait until a baby is crying – the last sign of hunger – before we feed him or her (which can lead to poor latch and/or decreased supply). After being caught in one or more of these traps, she will probably, if the statistics hold true, end up weaning earlier than she had intended, fully believing that ‘breastfeeding just didn’t work for me.’

So, as a breastfeeding advocate, I am disappointed and frustrated by RHE’s photo – and the makers of Chip – because, by reflecting and inadvertantly reinforcing our bottle-feeding culture, they show how far we still have to go. After all, when it comes down to it, if “the recommended method for best nutrition is breast feeding”, why did the doll even come with a bottle?

Further resources:

Mongolia – one example of what a truly breastfeeding friendly culture can look like.

Show Children Breastfeeding (what a 9yo can learn visually).