Cody Cook's Blog, page 28

The Gospel According to Batman V Superman

Fresh from the theater after having seen Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, I have been reflecting upon one particularly fascinating theme within it. In a far more thoughtful and sophisticated manner than the vast majority of overtly “Christian” movies, this film promotes a theology–even a gospel.

Warning: some spoilers ahead.

From the outset, I want to point out that this isn’t a theologian finding theology where it wasn’t intended. Indeed, Lex Luthor (of all people) reiterates explicitly and repeatedly that what transpires in this film points to something greater–the problem of evil and man’s relationship to God.

Luthor provides the viewpoint of the unrepentant cynic. Superman is odious because he resembles God and God cannot be trusted. If God couldn’t prevent the suffering of a young, abused Lex, better for God to die (or at least his proxy). Luthor therefore attempts to orchestrate deicide against Superman, first by the hands of man (Batman) and then by the hands of the devil (Doomsday).

The answer to Lex’s supposedly unsolvable problem of evil comes out of left field. How does a seemingly omnipotent and omnibenevolent God respond to evil, particularly when it results in free human beings who want to kill him despite His desire to save them? He identifies with their humanity and gives his life in order to defeat him who has the power of death (in this case, Doomsday). In doing so, he inspires conversion in men (represented here by Batman) who for the first time see God as loving–and pure love means being willing to suffer for the good of the beloved even though the lover doesn’t have to.

If God is willing to suffer with us, maybe our suffering isn’t as meaningless as we think it is. This seems to be the catharsis of Bruce Wayne. When Wayne sees Superman as powerful and alien, Superman (like God) seems quite dangerous. But when Wayne realizes that Superman has taken on humanity and even feels a love for his human mother as great as Wayne did, this changes him. Suddenly Wayne is overwhelmed with compassion–with empathy even–and helps Superman to rescue his mother from the clutches of Luthor. One can hear echoes of Jesus’ words to John on the cross to take care of Mary: “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:27).

This theology addresses what bothered so many fanboys about this movie–Batman’s willingness to kill. In this reading, it makes sense for Batman to kill for most of the movie–life is ultimately meaningless to him, so he creates his own purpose. It is Superman’s love and sacrifice that changes Batman, not a cold, deontological ethic grounded in passionless conviction. Despite what the enlightenment deists affirmed, it is not philosophy which makes us good but love. After seeing Superman’s self-identification and self-sacrifice to save humanity from death, Batman is determined to be a better man. This is the reason why he decides not to brand Luthor in prison, a brand which we are told sets inmates apart for death by the hands of fellow prisoners.

Though it has to be teased out, there is a rich theology in this film which is frankly unparalleled by what the Christian film industry is producing. It presents a gospel which is somehow more moving and more compelling despite not having to be spelled out.

The Medium is the Massage: on the Temptation to Replace People with Technology

Sherry Turkle is distraught. The more this MIT professor of the social studies of science and technology looks at the world around her, the more she sees an obsession with technology that undermines genuine social interaction and hinders meaningful relationships. She goes to technology conferences and finds that “what people mostly want from public space is to be alone with their personal networks.” This is because, “online life provides environments where one can be a loner yet not alone, have the illusion of companionship without the demands of sustained, intimate friendship.” In other words, we find that we need something outside of ourselves, but at the same time we don’t want the messiness and difficulty inherent in traditional relationships. New technology helps us to circumvent this tension. Said one elderly Japanese woman of a robotic dog in her nursing home (as quoted by Turkle): “It is better than a real dog…It won’t do dangerous things, and it won’t betray you….Also, it won’t die suddenly and make you feel very sad.”

In one sense, Turkle’s critique goes too far. In another sense, it doesn’t go far enough. Most of Turkle’s critiques could also be applied to just about any other medium which stands in for traditional communication. The internet meme with a decades-old photo of a train full of passengers all reading newspapers instead of talking to each other underlines that point quite nicely. Once a medium acquires respectability (through nothing more than time and familiarity), we simply stop noticing how much it gets in the way of face-to-face interaction. The Disney film Beauty in the Beast, for example, features an 18th century female protagonist, Belle, who is thought strange by her neighbors for her obsession with a medium of communication, namely books, and the impact that this has on her ability to socialize with them (it really is a tale as old as time!). However, we are expected to sympathize with Belle, whose anti-social habit we now view as sacrosanct, and view the villagers as provincial and outmoded. Replace Belle’s books with online video games and the lesson would be a very different one—and at the very least the online video games have a more obvious social dimension. In sum, Turkle seems to be missing the point by picking on only the contemporary technologies.

At the same time, this is exactly why her critique doesn’t go far enough. Books connect you to people of a different time and place, giving you the ability to see through their eyes and enter into a kind of dialogue with them. Similarly, online video games and chat rooms provide opportunities for those who struggle to fit into their own communities to form others with satisfying friendships and regular affirmation of their interests and personalities. However, insofar that both can become a replacement for and not a facilitator of our interactions with others, they become something akin to an idol—an object of obsession which stops us from loving God and loving others. As John Calvin wrote, our minds are a “perpetual factory of idols.” We allow pornography to replace our spouses, the Bible to replace God, and chat rooms to replace friendships. Anything which stands in the way of our loving God and others is a threat, and our trouble is not necessarily that we love the wrong things, but that we can quite easily make good things into idols. As Turkle astutely puts it, “emotional life can move from ‘I have a feeling, I want to call a friend,’ to ‘I want to feel something, I need to make a call.’” The trite but accurate expression, “we are supposed to love people and use things” is relevant here, and we must always fight the temptation to get these reversed.

The Syrian Refugee and the Good Samaritan

A recent article about John Kasich, the governor of my home state of  Ohio, noted his opposition to providing asylum to Syrian refugees. Kasich’s reasoning is also that of many of my conservative friends and family members, though admittedly more polished:

“‘The governor doesn’t believe the U.S. should accept additional Syrian refugees because security and safety issues cannot be adequately addressed,’ Kasich spokesman Jim Lynch said in a statement. ‘The governor is writing to the President to ask him to stop, and to ask him to stop resettling them in Ohio. We are also looking at what additional steps Ohio can take to stop resettlement of these refugees.'”

Kasich’s concern is that in seeking to take in Syrians whose lives are threatened by radical Muslims, some of the aggressors might tag along with them. In light of the attacks in Paris, this concern has come to the forefront of the minds of many.

Setting aside the fact that the 9/11 hijackers went through the proper legal channels to receive tourist and work visas, and that Islamic radicals have also come about  within our own country (see, for instance, John Walker Lindh), it must be admitted that we are far too unrealistic when it comes to the threat of death or violence. While we should always do our best to stave it off, Americans have a tendency to think that it can be quarantined in some place where it can’t reach us. As such, any risk of danger is not a risk worth taking, even if the payoff is extraordinary.

This is the American civil religion: America is a holy nation, set apart for its own works and meet for its own purposes. Our apostles proclaim the gospel of American exceptionalism to the American first, and secondly to the rest of the world, though ritual circumcision would be an easier obstacle to overcome to become part of the covenant community of God than the process of seeking asylum.

This attitude is America at its worst, though it would be unfair to deny that there are compassionate Americans who would love to  help Syrian refugees, but who also want to minimize the risk of spreading radical violence to their own nation where their families (the people they are most responsible for) would be in danger. There are practical concerns here which aren’t inappropriate to raise.

However, for American Christians, who often identify as conservatives, there ought to be more balance in how we talk about this issue. The Bible is not silent on this topic, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan provides us with at least one important moral teaching which ought to inform how Christians should think about this problem.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Luke 10:25-37 (ESV)

   The scene is a road beset by violent robbers. An innocent man falls to one of them and will surely die if no one intervenes. A priest and a Levite both walk by him, ignoring his plight. These are two men who view themselves as having a privileged position due to their nationality and their place within their own society. Why did they fail to stop to help someone so clearly in need? Apathy may be part of the reason, but perhaps the threat of violence was the greater concern? Jesus had already established that this was a dangerous road, and maybe there was a genuine fear that the man on the road was merely bait to get them to stop where they could be more easy prey. Better to just walk on. This man wasn’t any of their business, really, and there’s no good in risking their lives for someone who might not really need their help after all.

   This is one of the dangers in taking the anti-asylum/America first position: you put yourself at risk of forfeiting eternal life because you shut yourself off from loving your neighbor as yourself. If other equally moral concerns eventually lead us to determine that we cannot take these refugees in ourselves, we must still do what we can so that we can say, with all sincerity, that we looked at the example of the good Samaritan and sought to go and do likewise.

Nietzsche for Bitstrips

In celebration of a new book I’m working on that discusses the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Antichrist (among other anti-Christian works), here is a collection I put together of some of Nietzsche’s most disturbing words set to Bitstrips, that silly little comic strip creator that puts a facsimile of YOU in the action!

I looked, and behold! a spray tan horse (or, how the loss of literacy could spell the end for western civilization)

John McWhorter thinks that Kim Kardashian is the new normal when it comes to how we communicate–and that’s okay. In an article for The Daily Beast appropriately titled “Why Kim Kardashian Can’t Write Good,” McWhorter notes a tweet by Kardashian that read, “Today marks the 100 year anniversary of Armenian Genocide!” McWhorter’s central thesis is that America is shifting from book-patterned thinking to more informal, verbal-based communication, and that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

He seems to agree with media theorist Neil Postman’s premise that the primary communication medium a society uses will necessarily shape how it communicates, and that each medium has its own structure and emphases. What he doesn’t acknowledge (and what Postman does) is that not all mediums are appropriate for all messages, and that when a new medium becomes the predominant one in a culture, it can fundamentally change the public discourse.

This shouldn’t be news to Christians.

In the Old Testament, we find two mediums of communication privileged when it comes to facilitating worship and theological instruction: written and verbal. Writing seems to be the highest form of discourse given the place of primacy that the Ten Commandments, and indeed the whole Torah, had in the Jewish mind (see Deuteronomy 31:10-12). However, verbal discourse had a distinct importance since it was the primary mode of daily communication; thus the command to talk about the law of God with one’s children (Deuteronomy 6:7). For the Jew, verbal discourse was common and therefore the most practical, but even this verbal communication was shaped by a text, at least when it came to theological matters. For comparison, a commonly cited example of a primary medium shaping a secondary one is the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, which, when transcripts are read, appears to be more like written prose than extemporaneous speech due to the bookishness of American society of that time. One could reverse this example and note the influence of informal speech on the writing style of, for instance, Rob Bell in his book Love Wins.

Pictorial representations for the purpose of teaching and inspiring worship were not completely without merit (Exodus 25:22), but could not be used to facilitate worship proper, as the Hebrews learned all too well during the incident of the golden calf (Exodus 32). God could be represented in words, particularly those written words that He inspired, but not in images. The implication of this is that the Bible seems to be aware that the medium in which a message is transmitted is not irrelevant to the content of the message, and that God did not feel that pictorial representations of Himself conveyed what He desired to disclose.

The idea that medium is related to message is implicit in the New Testament as well. Jesus, the itinerant  preacher, relied primarily on verbal modes of communication, and is therefore known not for the kind of sustained linear argumentation more commonly seen in writing, but for telling memorable parables and stories that could be easily repeated. Paul, on the other hand, was a writer. He communicated his points by building his case progressively and carefully arranging his data. He wasn’t interested so much in quickly grabbing the attention of a passerby and giving him a convicting aphorism to remember, but in demonstrating his thesis to someone who was willing to follow his train of thought from beginning to end. Jesus’ theology has to be constructed by the reader. Paul’s already is constructed.

It is important to note that both Paul and Jesus helped to share the gospel message, and that neither of their approaches was inherently bad for achieving this goal. Jesus’ approach left us with memorable, convicting stories which could be applied in varying contexts whereas Paul gave us the stuff of systematics. Hearing both is necessary for allowing the gospel to touch our lives holistically, but if we lose the Pauline approach, we will have lost the ability for sustained, developed, complex thought and be left instead with a worldview resembling a Twitter feed–a random arrangement of surface level slogans.

If the mediums used by Paul and Jesus to share the gospel had an enormous effect on what they were able to communicate, then this has tremendous relevance for us today: if the highly sophisticated verbal discourse of Jesus stands in such marked contrast with what we find in Paul, how much more does it contrast with our emerging oral culture? Moreover, what happens to a formerly literate society when verbal communication becomes the primary medium, particularly when it is not the kind of oral culture that emphasizes verbal artistry, recitation, and memorization, as most other oral cultures have been? We are not, after all, an oral culture shaped by Beowulf, but by Twitter.

Is Kim Kardashian the harbinger of the West’s doom, and proof that careful, structured thought is on its way out? Perhaps. But that is exactly why we as Christians must hold fast to our religious heritage and remain, as the Qur’an referred to Jews and Christians in an era of increasing illiteracy, a People of the Book.

Christian Involvement in Politics Is Not a Zero-Sum Game

When Christianity was granted the status of an approved religion by the Roman Emperor Constantine 313 A.D., and especially when it became the official state religion in 380, believers found themselves responding in one of two ways. Some basked in their new found power and luxury, holding it over the now oppressed class of pagans. We’ll call them the Constantinians. Others, the monastics, sought to check out of this new institutionally supported Christianity which they saw as sensual and double-minded. It seemingly didn’t occur to anyone to simply participate in society as one group among many and allow evangelization to happen through freely established relationships instead of coercion.

This false dilemma remained in force through the Protestant Reformation, during which time the Roman Catholics and Magisterial Protestants sought to crush religious dissent via the power of the state while the Anabaptists went into hiding and designated Christian participation within the larger society, and particularly in politics, as sinful.

Fast forward to the summer of 2015 in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that same sex marriage is a civil right. Before this ruling, the majority of confessing evangelicals and Roman Catholics had demanded that their government maintain a Christian value judgment enshrined into the law and they were not willing to replace it with a more pluralistic non-religious entitlement such as civil unions. After the ruling, with one new view of marriage backed by the force of the state, Christians are increasingly anxious that this new entitlement will lead to government discrimination against Christians.

For these Constantinian Christians, politics is a zero-sum game. If a non-Christian group gains something, this means Christians have lost something. The debate over gay marriage was set up intentionally to be this kind of arrangement, but this risk was considered acceptable in order that their side might prevail.

That the debate over gay marriage was nothing more than a power play can be demonstrated by comparing how conservative Christians compare this ruling with other, more egregious ones. The Dred Scott Decision which came down from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857, declaring that slaves did not have the same rights as free persons and thus undermining the Christian belief in human equality before God, is not generally considered to be a loss for Christianity, because Christians as a group lost no political power. The same can be said for many other deplorable events in America’s history. But as power has now been wrested from the hands of Constantinian Christianity, American Christians are saying, as one evangelical writer did, “I am horribly grieved that a lifestyle that is so contrary to Christian morality is being celebrated in a country that once honored Christian values.”

It is, of course, not Christian values which America has honored, but Christian hegemony. As such, American Christians generally believe that there are two options open to them in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision–fight for the return of their political power or remove themselves from society.

May I humbly suggest that we have a third option?

The Defeat of American Constantianism and the Resurrection of Grace

I once heard Phil Burress, head of the religiously and politically conservative organization Citizens for Community Values, talk about the political work that his group had done. While most of it was pretty standard religious right stuff like campaigning against pornography and gambling, one issue stuck out. He spoke of legislation they supported which protected exotic dancers from being groped by customers.

What made this cause unique was that instead of simply working to shut down strip clubs (which CCV would no doubt be in favor of), they were seeking to protect women who found themselves working in jobs which were morally objectionable. They were essentially saying to these women, “what makes you valuable isn’t whether or not you refrain from engaging in behavior I find to be morally wrong, but that you are made in the image of God. As such, I want to show honor to you as a child of God that He loves.”

While Christians who have the freedom to participate in the political process need to take this responsibility seriously, we often imbue it with too much importance. We forget that the world and its people are fallen, and we are shocked and dismayed when it behaves accordingly. If American Christianity has lost the battle against legally recognized gay marriage, what does this loss teach us that we didn’t already know? We live in a country where people who are willing to live and let live can do more or less anything else they choose to. The benefit of such an arrangement is that as Christians we have the freedom to explore our faith without fear of reprisal. The corollary to this is that others are also free to reject Christian belief and behavior.

Is our key responsibility to these people to consolidate political power and treat them as our opponents in order to remind them who’s in charge; or is it to treat them as human beings made in God’s image? June 26, 2015 may stand as American Constantinianism’s Waterloo, but it need not be Christianity’s. God’s grace has and will conquer. If we respond with love and humility toward those whom Christ died for, it can be our Milvian Bridge.

Dr. James White on Annihilationism

When reformed apologist James White took a call on the topic of annihilationism on on his June 25th, 2015 webcast, he showed a surprising degree of sympathy for those who hold to an annihilationist or conditional immortality position, though he still gave reasons as to why he wouldn’t hold such a view himself.

For those who are unfamiliar, annihilationists believe that the unredeemed will not suffer eternal conscious torment but will finally be destroyed. While there is much that could be discussed in White’s comments on annihilationism, he emphasized one point in particular and has done so many times in the past when discussing this issue. As such, it seemed worthwhile to discuss this one point.

Dr. White seemed to think that the central issue in the debate is this:

“Is the punishment of the ungodly limited in its time span so that the punishment is a finite punishment, which assumes a cessation of sin? …From my perspective the only way anyone can stop sinning is through an extension of grace and divine power and a changing of their nature.” (quoted from the webcast)

In other words, how can sinners ever stop being punished for sin if they never stop sinning? So long as someone has not been redeemed by grace, they remain in a state of rebellion and are thus still deserving of the wrath of God.

There are, I think, some misapprehensions of the annihilationist position on Dr. White’s part that support his criticism. To begin with, he seems to assume that the punishment for sin is conscious torment, and is thus unintentionally begging the question. The annihilationist does not believe that punishment for sin is conscious torment, but utter destruction. As such, once this punishment has been applied, there is no sinner left to engage in rebellion against God, and thus no continuation of sin.

When Jesus died as our substitute, He died as our substitute. It was His death that was efficacious. According to Paul, this is part of the key proclamation of the gospel message:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures…” (1 Corinthians 5:3, ESV)

If the punishment that Jesus took for us is the punishment that we would have been forced to bear ourselves, then this punishment is death and not eternal conscious torment.

White also seems to assume that the difference between the traditional view and the annihilationist view is that the latter supports a belief in finite punishment. Not at all. The annihilationist believes that the damned will be utterly destroyed, never to return to life. This punishment is therefore of infinite duration, even if it isn’t experienced by the damned consciously for all eternity.

Dr. White would probably point to other reasons why he couldn’t hold to this perspective, but his central objection simply fails to address the annihilationist position.

Wicker Man and Wife

I recently wrote an article for a great organization called I Believe in Love. The article was titled “Why Marriage Is Good For Men” and sought to argue that, despite the many reasons why men are avoiding marriage, it can still be of incredible benefit to men, provided they find the right woman.

What was fascinating to me were some of the responses I got in the comments section: clear expressions of the genuine fears that men have when it comes to marriage. Though there have been numerous books of late claiming that men aren’t getting married because they’re simply immature, an alternative rationale has been posited by Helen Smith in her book Men on Strike. Far from being thoughtless losers, men are simply being smart, muses Smith. After all, what’s in it for men when it comes to marriage? A man who chooses marriage has many obligations and expectations from society, but not many rewards. It is, Smith alleges, the opposite with their wives. And should the marriage end in divorce, the court system will very likely favor the woman when it comes to who’s offering the financial support to whom. The result, according to Smith, is that men are “going Galt,” a reference to Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged in which capitalist innovators, feeling unappreciated for their contributions, decide to remove themselves from society at large.

The responses to my article seemed to suggest that some men do in fact feel exactly as Smith described. One man noted that it is women who have undervalued marriage, since the vast majority of divorces are initiated by them. Another referred to marriage as “legal enslavement” and resented my claim that marriage is, for men, often a rite of passage into responsible adulthood that provides men a deeper sense of fulfillment. Still another questioned whether I had really demonstrated any benefits for men in marriage, claiming that I had simply tried to “shame men into their proper place.” This last claim underlies the suspicion that women know that men are desperately needed but aren’t willing to appreciate male input or provide tangible benefits to them for their efforts and even sacrifices. Therefore, these women simply insult men in hopes that they will return to “their place” as the support system that ostensibly “independent” women can take advantage of at their leisure, though without the respect that this position brought to men in the recent past.

It would be very easy to assume a Marxist kind of dualism on this point. Since men have traditionally had power, their core identity is one of oppressor; men do not have any genuine grievances but are simply reacting in fear to the fact that they have been displaced and are no longer needed. Or so the argument goes. But the problem with this kind of thinking is that it practically requires that the “oppressor” (men) be either destroyed or relegated to a subservient class. This kind of answer, which is not meant to encourage intelligent discussion but simply to shut it down, demonstrates that the fears of these men has at least the ring of truth. Surely the end game of women’s rights shouldn’t be to create a society modeled after the film The Wicker Man, where men are disposable at the altar of feminine power, but to create opportunities for both men and women to use and develop their natural abilities and to be respected members of equal standing within the human community.

How can we ensure such a future for our young boys as well as our young girls? How can we address the fears of men that they will not be respected for their efforts should they seek to step up and take responsibility? If men and women truly need each other, and they most certainly do, what changes in our thinking have to take place before both are given the freedom to reflect the image of God and be a benefit to their families and their communities?

Nebulosity, thy name is feminism

Aziz Ansari recently delighted mainstream feminists on The Late Show with David Letterman when he claimed that, “if you believe that men and women have equal rights, and then someone asks you if you’re a feminist, you have to say yes.” His contention was, essentially, that feminism is nothing more than the claim that men and women ought to have the same rights.

As nearly every westerner knows, feminism has an image problem. According to a recent Huffington Post poll, only 23% of women identified with the label feminist, even though only 9% of both male and female respondents claimed to disagree with the statement “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals.” In this climate, Ansari is a welcome public supporter for many feminists (the ones who don’t think that having male genitalia necessarily makes you an oppressor, anyway). But is he correct? It’s certainly true that most dictionaries agree with his definition, but there are so many varieties of feminism, some of which frankly contradict the idea of gender equality, that it doesn’t approximate how the word has been used by many self-defined feminists.

To cite only one example, in an episode of the podcast Fully Engaged Feminism, Avory Faucette of the Radically Queer blog brought up an issue dividing traditional second wave feminists from more contemporary feminists–whether men who identify as women should be welcomed into the feminist fold. Said Avory, “it’s right for some people not to identify with the label feminist because” of the “radical feminist” notion that “patriarchy equals [having  a phallus].” They also discussed a feminist event at a pagan conference that excluded transgender men who identified as women because “their physical embodiment in a space was triggering” to women.

Despite what Ansari claims, the most accurate-to-life definition for feminism is probably the etymological one. A feminist is someone who has beliefs or doctrines centered around female concerns. Therefore, feminist thinking is woman-focused thinking. It should be obvious that this doesn’t necessarily tell us about its validity or rightness. Which women? Whose concerns? The feminist group Radicalesbians emerged out of woman-focused concerns that oppression of women was so central to men’s identities that any woman who has sexual or romantic interactions with a man is participating in their oppression. They therefore consciously chose to engage in only lesbian relationships. Is this equality-focused thinking? No, but it’s certainly a form of feminism. On the other side of the feminist spectrum, women like Suzanne Venker and Christina Hoff  Sommers have claimed that much of feminism has negatively affected women by putting pressure on them to pursue what are traditionally thought of as male-oriented activities (career, sexual “freedom,” etc.) when that often isn’t what they want. They are also women who are concerned about women’s issues, and yet they are often labelled anti-feminists due to a feminist orthodoxy that has nothing to do with feminism’s dictionary definition.

This brings us to the other major problem with saying feminism is simply synonymous with equality: it is, frankly, sneaky. Some issues which are considered to be essential feminist issues, such as open access to abortion or making sure that women have equal representation in the corporate world whether they want it or not (and data suggests that many don’t), are not obviously relevant to the cause of equality. But by saying that feminism (which is often seen to include pro-choice philosophy by default) simply is  the belief in equal rights between the sexes, one can sneak these controversial issues in and make the person who has accepted the feminist propagandist definition believe that they are common sense, since political equality between the genders is common sense.

As a Christian, I think that the safety, well-being, and freedom of women should be an essential concern on both a personal  and societal level. But when someone asks if I’m a feminist, I have to ask, “what do you mean?”