Rachel Held Evans's Blog, page 17

Mental Illness & The Church: An Interview with Amy Simpson

Last month, I asked readers what topics you wanted to read more about on the blog, and one of the top responses was mental health and the Church. So I scheduled this interview with Amy Simpson days before the tragic death of Robin Williams revealed just how much we need to talk about this. Amy  is author of Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission and Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry. She also serves as editor of Gifted for Leadership, Senior Editor of Leadership Journal, a speaker, and a Co-Active personal and professional coach. You can find her at AmySimpsonOnline.com and on Twitter @aresimpson. Hope you learn as much from this interview as I did: 

 

Tell us a little about your mother and how her struggle with mental illness inspired you to write “Troubled Minds.” 

My mother had mental illness from the time she was a young adult, before I was born. But her illness was somewhat hidden and she was able to function well enough, with some challenges, until I was a teenager. She showed symptoms of a serious disorder, but they weren’t recognized for what they were. After a period of extraordinary stress for our family, her symptoms became much more pronounced. When I was 14, she began having serious psychotic breaks, losing touch with reality and losing the ability to function. After that, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In the decades since then, Mom has spent time in hospitals, homeless shelters, jail, and prison. Her illness affected my family profoundly, but we didn’t talk much about what was happening with her at home. We didn’t feel it was OK to discuss mental illness with others, so we mostly kept quiet about it when we were away from home too. The church, like other places, was mostly silent on this issue and didn’t offer much of the kind of help we needed. We felt very isolated, as if we were the only ones going through the experience.

As I got older and pursued healing for my own wounds, I sought to understand my mom’s illness and how it affected me. I started learning about how common mental illness is—my family was far from alone in our experience. I read other people’s stories and realized how similar they were to ours. I began to understand that the church’s lack of engagement was affecting many more people than just my family. God began to nudge me toward writing on this topic as a ministry to others and a challenge and encouragement to the church.

Your father was a pastor for many years. What did your church do right in responding to your family’s situation, and what did your church do wrong? And what can we learn from that? 

My mom was affected by her illness while Dad was pastoring, but when she became severely ill, Dad had recently left what turned out to be his last pastoral position. So we went through the really rough stuff as active laypeople. My family has always been very involved in church and dedicated to our Christian faith, but we did not receive the help and support we needed from the church. Like other families, we were affected by stigma and a sense of shame that kept us mostly silent about our problems. And church leaders who wanted to help us, for the most part, didn’t know how to help. I don’t blame them for this; they must have been as confused and uncertain as most people are when it comes to mental illness.

In my own experience, what churches have done wrong is mostly remain silent—just ignore mental illness altogether. As a young teenager, I would have been helped tremendously by discussion of mental illness within the church and even within the context of my youth group. My whole family would have benefited from extensions of friendship and offers to help when we were at our lowest. Instead, we felt pressure to pretend as if everything were fine and to put on our best face at church. This had the effect of making me feel as if I needed to do the same in my relationship with God and kept me from really trusting him for a long time. It also forced me to seek answers to my deepest spiritual questions on my own; I didn’t feel I could go to anyone with them. 

The learning, in my view, is that talking about it (and doing so in a way consistent with sound Christian theology) is a great place to start and might accomplish 50 percent of what people need from the church. For people isolated by stigma and fear, it’s powerful to hear an acknowledgement that this kind of suffering exists, that it doesn’t mean God has abandoned them, and that people in the church might be willing to walk through it with them.

One of the most painful elements of mental illness is that it’s marked by isolation, which is exactly the opposite of what people need. Everybody needs community and loving friendship and a place where they belong. And one of the things people with mental illness most need is for this kind of loving community to tighten around them, not to loosen. 

This is one of the things the church can provide. In fact, the church is one of the only places left in our society where community is built in and readily available—at least in theory. So when we do know someone is suffering, we need to draw toward them, not away. It goes against the instinct we often have to pull back in an effort to keep from getting involved in something we’re not sure we can handle. But we can all handle being kind, being loving, extending a hand of friendship.

LifeWay Research recently found that a third of Americans—and nearly half of evangelical, fundamentalist, or born-again Christians—believe prayer and Bible study alone can overcome serious mental illness. I’ve heard stories from many friends and readers who say their pastors discouraged them from taking psychotropic medication, and even shamed them for it, suggesting that getting help for depression, anxiety, or even bipolar disorder represented a spiritual weakness. Why are teachings like these so dangerous? 

There are two big dangers here. These teachings perpetuate serious misconceptions about what it means to be a Christian. And they discourage people from seeking life-saving help. Most mental illness is highly treatable, with some treatments up to 90 percent effective. But only about half of people who need treatment actually receive it. 

Experts say more than 90 percent of people who die by suicide have a mental disorder. About 38,000 in the U.S. die by suicide each year, and some of that blood is on the hands of Christians who have discouraged, or even prohibited, their sisters and brothers from receiving help and hope in a mental health crisis. 

But suicide is not the only risk; this teaching perpetuates darkness and pain. Thousands of people live under a cloud of untreated mental illness, believing they are doomed to misery, their potential and purpose suppressed, and we are all poorer for it. 

I’ve also noticed that many churches discourage members from seeking professional counseling, urging them instead to receive all counseling “in house,” through the church. Why is this problematic? And how can pastors remain personally and pastorally involved in the lives of those struggling with mental illness while also recognizing when it’s time to make a referral? 

Churches need to understand that mental illness is not simply a spiritual condition. While it may be related to a spiritual issue, mental illnesses are real diseases and disorders with biological and environmental causes. People should not be expected to “get over it” or to be cured simply by reading the Bible, praying, and trying to have more faith. There is no reason churches should feel more qualified to address mental illness than other types of illness. I’m not aware of any churches in the US who do heart surgery or physical therapy in the pastor’s office. Churches should address the spiritual needs of people who are receiving help elsewhere, but that help should complement appropriate therapeutic intervention, not replace it. 

Churches can build relationships with mental-health professionals. Most Christian counselors are eager to work in partnership with churches, and many people in treatment will sign consent forms for their doctors or therapists to consult with pastors or other church leaders. When a loving, trusting, and supportive relationship is in place, the church can actively participate in helping people pursue their own health. And when those consent forms are not in place, church leaders can still consult professionals for general advice on how to respond to various types of illness within their congregations. 

You’ve described mental illness as the ‘'no-casserole' illness, meaning faith communities don’t always rally around a person or family suffering from mental illness the way they might a family walking through cancer. What are some practical ways Christians can better respond to their brothers and sisters dealing with mental illness? 

When someone comes to us and says, “I have cancer” or “I broke my leg,” we don’t freak out and think, “I have no idea how to fix that, so I’m going to tell the person to get professional help and walk away.” No, we don’t feel a sense of obligation to cure cancer or reset the person’s broken bone. We know what to do. We pray for them. We ask them what they need. We bring meals to their house to feed their family. We give them rides and make sure their kids are taken care of and even do the laundry.

But when someone is having a mental health problem, our first thought is more likely to be something like “I don’t know how to help with that.” We might tell the person to get professional help and figure we’ve done our job and there’s really nothing more we can do. Why don’t we offer casseroles to people who have a family member in a behavioral health hospital or a depressive funk? Why don’t we make sure they and their families are taken care of? There’s no reason we can’t, and it’s a great place to start because we already know how to do it.

There’s so much more the church can do, but I encourage people to start by thinking about the things you already know how to do for people in crisis.

In Troubled Minds, I profiled 4 churches that have programs specifically designed to offer support to people with mental illness. And there are many more programs out there. But not nearly enough churches are doing that kind of ministry. I hope and believe we are soon going to see many more churches doing so.

For those churches that are ready to do something bigger and more intentional to minister to people affected by mental illness, there are examples to follow. And one of the things many of them have in common is that they are led by people who themselves have a mental illness that they’re managing well, or who have a close family member seriously affected by mental illness. People’s own experiences help them see the desperate need for ministry in this area, and if they have done some healing and they’re not in crisis, they are perfectly positioned to do ministry to other people who are going through the same thing.

 In Troubled Minds, you speak with Christians battling a variety of mental illnesses. What have you personally learned about faith and life from them? 

Those conversations were educational and inspiring. And since the book released last year, I have had so many more. I speak at churches and conferences around the country, and I hear people’s stories. People send me emails. These conversations have deepened my faith and reinforced my belief in God’s incredible power of redemption. I feel like I have a front-row seat on God’s gracious work, and I am more convinced than ever of the truth of Romans 8:35-38. Absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love. If death and hell themselves don’t have that power, mental illness certainly doesn’t.

I can’t help but think of my own family, who has been through a lot. All six of us are following Christ. All of my siblings are healthy, whole people engaged in ministry. And all of us are more compassionate, more ready to be used by God because of what we’ve been through. My mom is currently living in an assisted living facility. When my family visited her at Christmas time, we met some of her friends. One of them told us about the tremendous influence Mom has had on the other residents there. This man was not a person of faith, but he recognized the presence of Christ in my mom’s life. Because of her, he said, the other residents had more hope and joy in their lives. Because of her, people felt listened to. They felt like they had a friend. Because she had made it for him, he had a Christmas ornament hanging in his apartment: simply an artistic rendering of the name “Jesus.” And it wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t been there. 

God has a purpose for everyone, and our limitations don’t limit him. People with mental illness are precious to him, and they should be precious to the rest of us.

***

Be sure to check out Troubled Minds and Amy's blog.  Or follow Amy on Twitter. 

On Race, the Benefit of the Doubt, and Complicity

© 2014 Elvert Barnes, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio

The morning after the jury reached a verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, I watched the sun rise over snowcapped mountains from the coffee shop at the Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park.  Dan and I were vacationing there with friends, and I’d arrived at our designated meeting point a little early so I could  "pray and meditate" [read: drink my first cup of coffee without having to talk to anyone].

At the Many Glacier Hotel, we had no TV, no Internet, and only spotty cell phone coverage, so I learned the news by eavesdropping on the conversation happening at the table next to mine. 

“Not guilty,” a middle-aged man wearing a North Face fleece said to the group of four—all men, all white. 

His declaration was followed by nods and murmurs of assent from the rest at the table. Something was said about self-defense, something else about “thugs.” 

Then, “Those people need to learn some respect.” 

Those people? 

Surely I had heard him wrong. 

I turned to face the table and opened my mouth to speak.  

And then I closed it. 

Surely I had heard him wrong.  

I’ve been doing this all my life—giving people the benefit of the doubt, imagining that racism is largely a thing of the past, not nearly as bad as they say.

I did it when, on a double-date, my friend’s boyfriend used an ugly variation of the n-word to describe a group of Black children at the park. Surely I’d misheard him. No one says that sort of thing anymore, right? 

I did it when a Black friend in college divulged to me how difficult it was for her to be a minority on a Christian college campus. Surely she’s just being oversensitive. People aren’t racist here; she must be reading into things. 

I did it when Trayvon was first shot. We need to wait to get all the facts before we react, right? No need to jump to conclusions; there are two sides to every story. 

And I do it every time my first response to a report about police brutality or a story about racial prejudice is,  well it couldn't be THAT bad.

...But it is that bad. 

I do it thinking I’m being careful and gracious and deferential, when the truth is, I’m only being careful and gracious and deferential to the people who look like me. I’m more likely to believe a white person than a black person, to give the former the benefit of the doubt. Thus, I become part of the problem. I am complicit—via ignorance, via unchecked privilege, via selective curiosity and engagement—in a culture that places more value on the stories of the fair-skinned than the stories of the dark-skinned. 

Robin DiAngelo describes the problem as racial illiteracy, and she puts it like this: 

“Like a nontechnical user trying to understand a technical problem, our racial illiteracy limits our ability to have meaningful conversations about race. Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to racial prejudice and the personal actions that result. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced. Social scientists define racism as a multidimensional, highly adaptive system — a system that ensures an unequal distribution of resources among racial groups. The group that controls the institutions controls the distribution and embeds its racial bias into the fabric of society.”

I’ve been told all of my life that we live in a post-racial culture, that my generation is essentially free of racial prejudice. And from my small, predominantly white town in East Tennessee, that’s an easy enough lie to believe. It’s a lie I want to believe. 

But wanting to live in a just world is not the same as living in a just world. And as the events in Ferguson this week reminded us, our country is far from just. Racism isn’t simply an insensitive comment your elderly relative makes here and there, it’s a pervasive, unjust, and ongoing system that actively oppresses millions of people. And white Christians have absolutely no excuse to ignore it. 

In the U.S., African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. And even though five times as many white people use drugs as African Americans, the latter are ten times more likely to be sent to prison for drug offenses. 

One study suggests that in 2012, a black man was killed every 28 hours by police, security guards, or self-appointed vigilantes.  This week, it was Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager from Ferguson, Missouri. Last week, it was John Crawford, shot and killed for holding an airsoft gun inside a Walmart. The week before, it was Eric Garner, choked to death by police after he was caught selling cigarettes illegally. And as many parents of Black children will tell you, their greatest fear is that it will be their sons or daughters next, so much so that they often give their kids ‘The Talk,’ warning them that they will be treated differently by police because of the color of their skin. 

If you’ve never had to give your kids that Talk, think twice before you call this an “isolated incident” to which our brothers and sisters are “overreacting.” 

Multiple studies have confirmed the presence of racial bias in law enforcement, and yet Pew reports that when asked the question, ‘Do police treat blacks less fairly?’ only 37 percent of whites said yes (while 70 percent of African-Americans said yes).  How can this be reconciled with this week’s images of a highly-militarized police force using tear gas on peaceful protestors? How can it be reconciled with the stories our Black brothers and sisters tell us about being harassed and treated with suspicion? 

“I have no criminal record,” writes Ryan Herring at The Ghetto Monk, “however I have had numerous run-ins with the police, none of which my actions provoked. The most common of course is being followed around a store. I have never committed a traffic violation but I have been pulled over several times. A few of those times I was asked to step out of my vehicle to be frisked and forced to sit on the curb in humiliation while being verbally intimidated and having my car searched. The reasons I was given as to why this type of action was necessary or to why I was even pulled over to begin with were always made up out of thin air.” 

What has perhaps struck me the most in the six days since Michael Brown was shot is the difference in my social media feeds. Among my white friends and followers, things pretty much carried on as usual up until Wednesday afternoon when I began to see more tweets and Facebook statues about the events in Ferguson. But among my friends and followers of color, this story elicited a passionate, focused response, right from the start.  

This is not to say white people don’t care, or that delayed responses should be chastised as “too little too late.” Not at all. We’re all learning here, and we all communicate our concern in different ways. I just wonder if it simply reflects the painful reality that one group’s “let’s wait and see” is another group’s “not again!” Perhaps if we, the privileged, were in a better habit of listening, the response would have been more universally shared. Rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep happens more naturally among those who have listened long enough to know the depth of one another’s stories, and to know their context. 

I was reluctant to post this article when so many others are writing better, more practical things about race and reconciliation. To be honest, I’m scared—of saying the wrong thing, of revealing my ignorance, of detracting attention from the voices that really ought to be heard.  (And I think, in the long run, the best thing I can do is share my platform with others through guest posts and interviews.) But several friends encouraged me to go ahead and speak up. “Show solidarity with the oppressed,” they said, “and challenge the privileged.” 

Well, that means challenging myself. 

To listen better. 

To educate myself. 

To remain open to correction. (That one's hard!) 

To speak up, even when it’s risky. 

To confront my own privilege, even when it’s uncomfortable. 

And to actually believe that racism is real and pervasive—present not only in the power structures of the Empire, or in the conversation around a neighboring table at a restaurant, but also in the dark corners of my own, dangerously-biased heart.  

Lord, have mercy. Forgive us our sins. Light the path to change. 

[For some great insight on how white allies can best respond to this situation, check out "Becoming A White Ally to Black People in the Aftermath of the Michael Brown Murder" by Janee Woods.]

Pay Attention to #Ferguson: Some Resources

Social media has transformed the way we talk about injustice, and as events unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, we’ve been reminded once again of the pervasive and systemic racism that is present in the U.S. and that affects millions of our brothers and sisters every single day. I am at once grateful for the power of social media and disturbed by the uncomfortable realities it often forces me to face. I’ll write more about that next week, but in the meantime, some ways to listen, learn, and act: 

Follow on Twitter…

Antonio French

My interview with local media following my release from #Ferguson jail this morning: http://t.co/7ScNgrVfmn

— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 14, 2014

Ryan J. Reilly 

This cop seemed to take pleasure in the way he treated me. Hope to prevent others from being subjected to his abuse.

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 14, 2014

Colorlines 

Following Ferguson: Thursday's Roundup http://t.co/pMUgSLgTxk

— Colorlines.com (@Colorlines) August 14, 2014

Shaun King

About to cross 150,000 signatures in our petition for smart, safe, fair policing. Aiming for 200,000 by tonight. https://t.co/Uwpnx7fbFw

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) August 14, 2014

Christena Cleveland

Wrote this last year, but relevant to #MichaelBrown. "3 Things Privileged Christians Can Learn from the Trayvon Case" http://t.co/M0YLadZi8W

— Christena Cleveland (@CSCleve) August 11, 2014

Dru Hart

Any claim to nonviolent practice in America that doesn't centralize resisting white control & domination is just noisy status quo rhetoric.

— Drew G. I. Hart (@DruHart) August 14, 2014

Brittney Cooper

#HandsUp #DontShoot #MikeBrown #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/gjwMDC2gT6

— Brittney Cooper (@ProfessorCrunk) August 14, 2014

Stacia L. Brown

"Someday you will understand just how many of our horror stories begin & end with sidewalks." http://t.co/lPmeRnzgTq pic.twitter.com/oxgZflGghs

— stacia l. brown (@slb79) August 14, 2014

 

Read…

Do Black Lives Matter in Our Community? by Nekima Levy-Pounds

In Defense of Black Rage by Brittney Cooper 

How the War on Terror Has Militarized the Police by Arthur Rizer & Joseph Hartman

When Terrorism Wears a Police Badge at The Ghetto Monk 

When Parenting Feels Like a Fool’s Errand by Stacia L. Brown

Racial Bias, Police Brutality, and the Dangerous Act of Being Black by Kristen Howerton

“Hands Up Don’t Shoot” Images 
 

Go Deeper….

“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

"Ten Books on Racial Reconciliation and the Church" by Amy Julia Becker 

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone 

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

 

Take Action…

National Moment of Silence

Petition to Enact Federal Laws to Protect Citizens from Police Violence & Misconduct 

 

There's a lot of information circulating out there. What have you found most helpful? 

Sunday Superlatives 8/10/14

© 2008 Martino!, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio
Around the Blogosphere…

Funniest:
Pete Reynolds at McSweeney’s with “A Meteorologist Works Out Some Personal Issues During His Forecast” 

“Are you going to want to die because of how hot it is outside? Yes, you will want to die. I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you. If you want someone to sugarcoat it for you, somebody to tuck you in at night and tell you that there’s a cold front on the way, that the sun-sweetened summer days of your youth haven’t been transformed by global warming and a lifetime of crippling mistakes into a pit-stained heat-hole of suffocating regret, then maybe you should just switch right on over to Kevin O’Dell and the Channel 6 Weather Squad, because you won’t find it here. I’m not Kevin O’Dell, folks. I’m Tom Sykes, and I’m just giving you the straight dope here at Channel 3. I tell it like it is. And what it is, folks, is extremely hot outside.”

Wisest: 
Sarah Joslyn at She Loves with “Lazy is a Four-Letter Word”

“I’m learning something about my need to say YES—it comes from a deeply rooted need to prove I’m enough. I need to prove I’m not lazy. I need to prove I’m worth having around. You know what I want to say yes to more often? Nap time. I want to shut down my computer all the way because I have completed my work and I can rest. I want to say yes to rest.” 

Cutest: 
Noah Ritter steals the show during interview 

Coolest: 
Julie Fletcher photographs Australia’s remote Southern region

Most Liberating: 
Christena Cleveland with “Farewell, StrongBlackWoman”

“My name is Christena and I am a StrongBlackWoman. I am beatable and human, and I am okay with that.  I give myself permission to scream when I am angry, cry when I am hurting, ask for help when I need it, and remove myself from communities that can’t or won’t care for and nurture me as a black woman. Every day is a struggle to put down the StrongBlackWoman façade and take up authenticity, true strength rooted in God and community, self-love, and mutual love. But today I choose to face that struggle and receive the help I need to overcome it.” 

Most Enlightening (nominated by Shirley W)‏:
Jeremy Courtney with “Learning to love the ‘enemy’ in Iraq” 

“The world may watch from afar and denounce all Iraqi Muslims as militants bent on conquest. But up close, the reality is very different. It was a Muslim cleric who may have saved this Christian's life. And I'm not the only one. Even as jihadists justify their atrocities in the name of Islam, millions of Muslims are standing in solidarity with Christians who have been expelled from their homes.”

[Related, be sure to check out and share Karima Bennounce’s TED Talk on people of Muslim heritage challenging fundamentalism. I shared it a couple weeks ago in Superlatives, but it seems freshly relevant in light of recent news.] 

Most Thoughtful:
Kristen Rosser with “The Feminization of the Church”

“Ultimately, ‘feminization’ isn't the real problem.  Women aren't the problem.  Let's face it, in the vast majority of churches the decisions aren't getting made by women-- but Adam's tendency to blame ‘this woman You gave me’ for his choices is still visible in male church leaders today. I firmly believe that if churches will just preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, both its comfort and its challenge-- Christ will take care of the rest.  Men will rise to the challenge to pick up their crosses and endure the stigma of gender contamination in order to identify with Christ.  And this will in time erase the notion that church is a ‘women's thing.’” 

Most Heartbreaking (nominated by Kristin Selby) 
Stacia L. Brown with “When parenting feels like a fool’s errand” 

“I do not want to talk about this anymore because I was happy this month and you just turned four on the first and all I can think about is the promise I see in you. I think about how well you’re hearing these days with the tiny aids that screech when you hug me and hiss when the batteries are weak. I think about how much easier it’s become for you to simply say, “Help, please” instead of throwing a frustrated fit for the language you cannot find. I think about how often I keep you near me and how many people take umbrage with that. She has to learn, they say, how to live in this world. But how can you learn at 4 to do what still makes me flail and falter at 34? And how can I let you go when a girl a year younger than you was gunned down in our city last week and a boy who would’ve headed off to college for the first time on Monday was executed within steps of his Ferguson, MO home on Saturday?” 

Most Convicting: 
Rev. Erin Wathen with “#BecauseJesus” 

“…Tangled up in each of these contradictions, we glimpse the dark soul of a nation in love with its own comfort, and often indifferent to the suffering of others. And while the Christian tradition may not have conceived this rhetoric of chilled apathy, it has certainly aided in its birth and consequent upbringing.” 

Most Eye-Opening:
Marianne T. Duddy-Burke with “A Lesbian Mother on the Discriminatory 'Inclusion Act'” 

“Adopting these two strong, resilient, loving, generous, talented girls is probably the best thing my spouse and I have ever done. We knew that children who have been in the foster care system would bring scars with them, and that those scars would cover deep wounds. But nothing in the months of training, interviews with social workers that at times felt more probing than doctor's visits, or the reams of paperwork we completed before being certified as foster parents fully prepared us for what lay ahead. We have spent countless hours with trauma therapists, family coaches, physical and occupational therapists, teachers, principals, mentors, tutors, adoption support agencies, physicians, psychopharmacologists, and other adoptive parents than I'd ever want to tally up, all in hopes of finding ways to support our kids.”

Most Challenging: 
Michael McBride (at Amy Julia Becker’s place) with “In Christ there are no racial stereotypes” 

“Along with pastoring The Way Christian Center in the Bay Area, I serve as the director of the LIVE FREE Campaign, a faith-based movement committed to organizing the moral voice and actions of the faith community to end gun violence and mass incarceration. I remember speaking to a largely evangelical audience about the destructive impact that gun violence and mass incarceration are having on the youth and families in my congregation and neighborhood. I explained how these families are largely working class, black and Latino families who find their kids and loved ones caught in a maze of broken systems and structures as soon as they make a bad decision or mistake in judgment. At the end of my talk, a pastor, who described his congregation to me as white suburban dwellers, said to me, 'You know Pastor Mike, I am just gonna' be honest, why don't your people just get a job, stop asking for a free pass and stop committing crimes? My people are struggling just like yours and we are not looking for anyone's help!..."

Best Writing:
Jessica Bowman at Deeper Story with “His Hands They Heal, His Hands They Bruise”

“His fists fly frantically and I raise my arms in protection. He batters against my weak barrier of forearms and fingers, unconscious to the struggle. He isn’t fighting me. He’s fighting someone far away, in deserts of trauma, in wars without hope. A wrist, a shoulder, I manage to cling to him.” 

Best Response: 
Michael Gungor with “I’m With You”

“But listen, huddle people… I’m for you. I really am. And I’m with you. I was raised in the huddle. Some of the best people I know are in the huddle. But you don’t need to be so afraid. You don’t need to repress your intellectual ability to ask questions and seek truth in order to stay in the shadow of the huddle. Because, let me tell you something, there is light outside. In fact, God is both inside and outside of your huddle. And you can still love God and love people and read those early Genesis stories as myth with some important things to teach us. Not all of you will be ready to do that, and that’s perfectly ok. But know that if you create these dichotomies where we force people to either fall into the camp of scientifically blind biblical literalism or a camp where they totally write off the Bible as a complete lie, you’re going to rob a lot of people of some of the richness that the Bible offers. You’re going to create a lot more jaded, cynical people that are completely anti-religion out there. And you are going to continue to repress the questions that lurk in the back of your own mind. And that’s just not healthy. That sort of thinking actually quashes and limits human thriving in the world.” 

Best Reflection:
Richard Beck (quoting Cornel West) with “Love Your Way Through”

“I think a lot of theological conversation ends up in absurdity. In the face of pain. In the face of suffering. In the face of death. In the face of things we know nothing about. In the face of all that absurdity I think Christians talk too damn much.  Me included, given the flood of words on this blog. But the main reason I am a Christian is that it gives me a way to ‘love my way through.’” 

Best Interview: 
Grace Wong interviews Helen Lee and Kathy Kang in “There’s No Such Thing as Passive Aggressive Peace” 

“’It’s hard to be a peacemaker if you don’t have an understanding of the different ways of communication and wrestling with different conflicts and styles,’ Lee said. ‘Diversify your own relational circles. Ask yourself if you’re pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to interact with people who are different from you.’” 

Best Question:
Kathy Schiffer with “Should the Catholic Church Sell St. Peter’s Basilica to Help the Poor?”

“If the great art of the Church were sold, it would most likely be preserved behind closed doors, in private collections of the very wealthy.  Better, I think, to allow everyone–even persons of humble means–to enjoy the works of the Masters, to allow their hearts and minds to be drawn upward toward heaven by the rich imagery of the saints, by the glow of alabaster and the sheen of marble and the intricacy of fine metalwork.  The Church has been a repository of great art, and has made its treasures available for all to enjoy."

Best Perspective:  
Elizabeth Esther with “Some thoughts on what it means to forgive our abusers” 

“Forgiveness means I have no more resentment or the desire for revenge. It DOESN’T mean I tolerate more abuse. It DOESN’T mean I must “accept” empty apologies.”

Best Step in the Right Direction: 
Acts 29 Removes Mars Hill, Asks Mark Driscoll To Step Down and Seek Help

Best Point: 
Rachel Marie Stone with “Inclusive language for God does not equal heresy” 

“Beneath all this, I can’t help wondering: Surely God is not really so fragile as to need all this defending? ‘I AM WHO I AM,’ God says to Moses. God gets to define who God is, and no one else does. If God is pleased to express God’s nature in female metaphors, as a birthing, nursing, comforting mother, who are we to object?” 

On my nightstand…

Julian of Norwich: A Contemplative Biography by Amy Frykholm

I’ve long been interested in the life and writings of Julian of Norwich, and Amy Frykholm brings her world to life in this lively and accessible volume, which I devoured in a matter of hours. Highly recommended for fellow Julian fans. 

Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength by Chanequa Walker-Barnes 

 














 

I was so moved by Christena Cleveland’s review of this book I decided to check it out myself, and I’ve not been disappointed.

Walker-Barnes seamlessly weaves together the academic and pastoral in this book that has me rethinking everything I thought I knew about race, womanhood, and even the Trinity. I’m hoping to feature an interview with the author on the blog later this month, so keep an eye out for that. 

The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church by David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen

This book has been recommended to me about a thousand times, but since I have never been the victim of serious spiritual abuse, I figured I wouldn’t have much to learn from it.

But since we’ve been discussing the subject so much on the blog, I finally delved in. This is such a wise, instructive, and enlightening book, I wish I’d read it sooner. I recognize so many of your stories in its pages. We will definitely be discussing this one in the weeks to come. 

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 

Because some books are just worth reading twice…or three times…or four times. 

***

So, what caught your eye online this week? What's happening on your blog?

From the Lectionary: Present in the Chaos

© 2013 Renaud Camus, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

I'm blogging with the lectionary this year, and this week's reading comes from Matthew 14:22-33

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’  Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the primordial waters. The water was dark and deep and everywhere, the ancients say, an endless and chaotic sea. Then God separated the water, pushing some of it below to make oceans, rivers, and seas, and vaulting the rest of the torrents above to be locked behind a glassy firmament. In Ancient Near Eastern cosmology, all of life hung suspended between these waters, vulnerable as a fetus in the womb.  

For the disciples of Jesus, the volatility and mystery of the sea was associated with the chaotic, the demonic, the unknown. A powerful storm conjured memories of the story of Noah’s flood when “the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.”  Water was, and is, a powerful force that can in a moment give life and in another take it away. 

I know this fear—the fear of chaos, of evil, of death. It arrives unexpectedly and unwelcome, often just after I’ve made some great declaration of faith and convinced myself I’m in control. I’ve climbed out of the boat, put one foot in front of the other, and then suddenly realized the foolishness of the whole enterprise, the forces we’re all up against in this scary world.  They’re dropping bombs in Iraq now, and I know I’m supposed to be against that, but the alternative seems just as dangerous, just as awful. The cycle of violence, fear, and hate continues, on and on—only the word cycle doesn’t quite seem to fit, does it? It’s too neat, too orderly, too predictable. It seems more like chaos, like an unleashed sea.  

No rhyme. No reason. No guiding Hand. 

Notice that Jesus doesn’t tell his disciples to stop asking questions. He doesn’t tell them to abandon inquiry, lament, or struggle. He doesn’t chastise Peter for taking the risk and climbing out of the boat and into the thick of it. He simply reminds him, “I am here. Do not be afraid.” He is present—even in the chaos, even in the storm. We have to be present in the chaos too, to see Him and to trust Him again, to walk on water. 

I am a person of little faith.  I startle at every crack of thunder. I worry about the wind and the waves. I am not convinced that God is present in the chaos, much less able to save us from it. I am standing in the thick of it. And yet Jesus said that even a little faith is enough to uproot a mountain and send it into the wild sea. Even a little faith is enough. 

 

On Forgiveness and Abuse

© 2009 Rick Harris, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio

Note: Healing from abuse is a long and difficult road and requires a lot of “offline” work. If you have experienced abuse, or are in an abusive relationship, I’d encourage you get help from the authorities if necessary, and from in-the-flesh counselors if possible. I am not a professional counselor. Blog posts and social media can help us think through and confront the dynamics of abuse, and they can assist in healing, but they are no substitute for professional help. For a long list of resources relating to domestic violence, sex abuse, bullying, child abuse, and spiritual abuse, please check out this list that followed our “Into the Light” series on abuse and the Church. 

Lately I’ve found myself engaged in several conversations about the place of forgiveness and grace in the context of bullying and abuse. 

For Christians whose abuse occurs at the hands of a pastor or in the context of a religious environment, getting out and getting help can be complicated by appeals from the abuser (and his or her supporters) to Christian values like unity, grace, and forgiveness. These values are indeed at the very center of what it means to be Christian, and so it is especially tragic when they are invoked to maintain a culture of abuse or to shame those who speak out about it. 

An example that comes to mind, of course, is Sovereign Grace Ministries, where dozens have come forward alleging their families were discouraged from reporting sexual abuse to authorities and small children were forced to “forgive” their abusers in person, even hug them, because church leaders insisted the sins of the child were equal to those of the abuser and all people are in need of the same grace. We see it play out every time Mark Driscoll engages in bullying behavior and those who call it out as wrong are shamed for not extending more grace to the famous pastor. Each time he issues yet another apology, Christian leaders tell us, (and those caught in the abusive environment at Mars Hill), that the Christian thing to do is accept the apology without question and wipe the slate clean in the name of grace and forgiveness. 

What makes this sort of response to bullying and abuse so profoundly damaging is the grain of truth it contains. Central to the Christian message of salvation is the scandalous good news that Jesus Christ sets both the oppressed and their oppressors free, that there is grace enough for them both. Christians are indeed called to forgive, even when it is costly and undeserved, and Christians are indeed called to work toward healing and reconciliation even when it is hard.

But these teachings should never be invoked to protect abusers, shame survivors, or coerce reconciliation. Yet in nearly every email I receive from survivors of abuse, (and sadly, I receive a lot), I hear stories about how hard it was for them to confront and address the abuse they suffered because they were told that doing so wasn’t Christlike. 

So this is something we need to talk about.  It’s tough to disentangle stands of truth from strands of lies, strands of good motives from strands of selfish motives. Our conversation here is only a start, but here are four thoughts on which to build: 

1.  Forgiveness does not require staying in an abusive situation. 

Elizabeth Esther, author of Girl at the End of the World and herself a survivor of spiritual abuse, puts it beautifully: “Forgiveness means I carry no more resentment. It doesn’t mean I tolerate more abuse.” 

It’s only been in the last two or three years that I’ve been made aware of just how often victims of abuse are discouraged by church leaders from reporting and escaping their abuse. Often victims are told that it is selfish to speak up or get out, that just as Christ suffered on the cross, they must suffer too. 

Let me say this loud and clear: There is nothing selfish about escaping an abusive relationship or a toxic religious environment. The life to which Jesus calls us is an abundant one, a joyful one, and a just one. It isn’t always easy, and it certainly requires self-sacrifice, but God does not delight in the suffering of His children. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” Jesus said, “and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If you are being bullied or abused in the name of religion, if you suffer the heavy yoke of legalistic rules and authoritarian church leadership, Jesus is calling you out of that life and into a new one, where the fruit of the Spirit isn’t coercion or fear, but rather love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

Healing is a long and hard road, and forgiveness often takes time. But neither requires staying in a destructive, damaging environment. No one—not the abuser, not the abused, not the community—benefits when abuse or bullying goes unchallenged.  In fact, often the first step toward healing for everyone involved is to stop the abuse or to flee it. It’s hard to heal in a war zone. 

[For more on this, check out The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church by David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen, and Is It My Fault?: Hope and Healing for those Suffering Domestic Violence by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb.]

2.  Forgiveness does not require accepting empty apologies or trusting the bully/ abuser. 

Here’s what I mean:  Anyone who has studied the dynamics of abuse knows that the "tearful apology" is often just a part of the cycle. A woman is abused by her boyfriend. She leaves. He offers a tearful apology. She accepts it as sufficient and returns to him. He starts abusing her again. And on and on it goes.  Those who have seen a loved one caught in this cycle know the frustration of hearing her say, “I think he really meant it this time,” when no substantive steps have been made to put an end to the abuse. 

When Christians are told that Christlike forgiveness means accepting every apology as sincere, we can inadvertently perpetuate abuse. There is a difference, after all, between an apology and repentance. An apology is an acknowledgment of wrong. Repentance is marked by a dramatic change in direction, a noticeable change in behavior.  While neither an apology nor repentance is required for forgiveness, an apology alone is not enough to rebuild trust. The abused girlfriend can forgive her abuser without accepting another empty apology as a sufficient reason for returning to him. 

Forgiveness isn’t earned, but trust is. You can forgive a person without trusting him.

Dan and I were talking about this yesterday, and Dan put it like this: “An apology is for the benefit of the bully/ abuser. Forgiveness is for the benefit of the victim. It releases the victim from lingering damage caused by past abuse. But it's a mistake to tell anyone in an abusive situation exactly when they should accept an apology. Until the victim is completely removed from abusive situation and has had time to process what's happened on their own, what looks like beneficial forgiveness can actually enable the abuse cycle to continue. When the exchange of verbal apology and forgiveness allows abuse to continue it defeats the purpose and benefit of the forgiveness, which is to lessen the harm done to the victim… Forgiveness is renewable and not the same thing as trust which can be lost forever... If someone's been a victim of bullying at the hands of Mark Driscoll, for example, they are under no obligation to ever trust him again.” 

3.  Grace does not require remaining silent about bullying and abuse. 

Whenever I write about this topic, I get a flood of responses from people who say I’m being too divisive. Why should the Church air its dirty laundry when it comes to abuse? Why should we call out bullying behavior in our brothers and sisters in Christ? Won’t that hurt our reputation in the world? Won’t the world see us “bickering” with one another and be put off by Christianity?

But confronting bullying and abuse is not “bickering.” It’s the right thing to do. It’s standing in solidarity with the very people Jesus taught us to prioritize—the suffering, the marginalized, the vulnerable. When it comes to injustice, a far more important question to me than "What will the world think if they see us disagreeing?" is "What will the world think if they don't?" We don’t protect our witness to the world by hiding abuse. We protect our witness by exposing it, confronting it, stopping it. Defending the defenseless is an essential (and biblical) part of our calling as followers of Jesus. We don't just abandon it when the bully happens to be a Christian. 

How do you think gay and lesbian people feel when a prominent Christian consistently uses crude, homophobic slurs to describe them and then see no other Christians standing up for them? How do you think people respond when they see yet another article in the paper about a church that prioritized protecting its reputation over protecting children who were being abused?  As Christians, our first impulse should be to protect and defend the powerless, not the powerful, and yet too often, the reverse is the case. 

“The greatest failure of the church/Christian organizations when it comes to responding to abuse is institutional self-protection,” explains Boz Tchividjian, founder of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (G.R.A.C.E.). “Too often Christian institutions have been willing to sacrifice the individual human soul in exchange for the protection of their own reputation.   What makes such responses even more heinous is that they are often justified in the name of ‘protecting the name of Christ.’ Such a justification is nothing but a pious attempt at self-protection.” 

 [See also, “How (Not) To Respond to Abuse Allegations” and “On Being Divisive”]

4.  Forgiveness and grace do not preclude justice or demand superficial reconciliation 

Desmond Tutu, who is a bit of an expert on forgiveness, wrote,  “True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.”

It’s hard not to see the vague and generalized public apologies that have become a part of our cultural discourse as anything but attempts at superficial reconciliation. And when outsiders demand that those who experienced the full force of those wrongs simply accept public apologies and forgive, it only makes things worse. While forgiveness can certainly happen without repentance and mutual trust, I’m not so sure that reconciliation can happen, or should be demanded, without repentance and mutual trust. And true healing is messy, meandering, and hard, not something that can happen with a press release or that can be dictated by outside observers. 

Similarly, forgiveness does not preclude justice, truth-telling, and accountability. Far too many churches prefer to handle conflict and even abuse “in house,” often glossing over the suffering of the victims in an effort to jump ahead to forgiveness and reconciliation without holding abusers/bullies accountable for their actions. We saw this play out tragically in the case of Sovereign Grace Ministries, where church leaders failed to report the abuse of children to the authorities and so most of the victims were denied justice, or saw justice severely delayed. 

Zach Hoag wrote a fine piece on this not long ago, arguing that “the gospel is not antithetical to justice, as some superficial presentations have insisted. Instead, the gospel is a holistic work of restoration that includes grace and forgiveness from God for even the vilest actions – but always, only received in the midst of a genuine process of repentance and change, all while consequences and boundaries are enforced to protect innocent people.”

When Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, he vowed to forgive.  He did not, however, vow to stop talking about injustice. 

***

In conclusion, Christians must find a way to teach radical forgiveness, undeserved grace, and restorative reconciliation without perpetuating and excusing bullying and abuse. It breaks my heart to think that a word meant to be so sweet and so powerful to followers of Jesus—grace—will forever be regarded by some of the most vulnerable among us with shame and fear because we failed to act wisely and with courage. 

For more on this, check out our Into the Light series on abuse in the Church, G.R.A.C.E., and The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church by David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen. 

What other points are worth considering in this conversation, and what resources would you add? 

Sunday Superlatives 8/3/14

Around the Web….

Most Relatable: 
Sadie’s (Now-Viral) Existential Crisis 

Most Practical:
Susan Silk and Barry Goldman with “How Not To Say the Wrong Thing”

“Draw a circle. This is the center ring. In it, put the name of the person at the center of the current trauma. For Katie's aneurysm, that's Katie. Now draw a larger circle around the first one. In that ring put the name of the person next closest to the trauma. In the case of Katie's aneurysm, that was Katie's husband, Pat. Repeat the process as many times as you need to. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Parents and children before more distant relatives. Intimate friends in smaller rings, less intimate friends in larger ones….Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, ‘Life is unfair’ and ‘Why me?’ That's the one payoff for being in the center ring. Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.”

Most Beautiful: 
Hummingbird photographs by Chris Morgan 
 

Most Enlightening: 
Jeremy Courtney with “Behind #WeAreN: ‘If one group is marked, we’re all marked”

“Iraqi Muslims have said they are Christians — not because they have converted to Christianity, but because they see themselves in their Christian neighbors. In the West, we have largely washed our hands of the entire Iraq project and hung both Muslims and Christians out to dry. We meant #WeAreN to be a lighthouse that guided us back to the shores of humanity by recognizing all of the peoples of Iraq who have been targeted by the murderous Islamic State. Instead, through avatars and news articles that validated the suffering of our group, often to the exclusion of others, #WeAreN has become a siren, calling our ship off course and into the rocks of a dehumanizing Christian tribalism. When we find tragedy in the suffering of some and gloss over the suffering of another, we have strayed far from The Way of Jesus.”

Best List: 
Englewood Review of Books with "25 Books to Watch For..."

Best Question:
Jackson Wu at Jesus Creed with “Does the gospel begin with Adam?”

“…We have no examples in the New Testament where someone gives a gospel presentation that begins with Adam in order to prove that someone is a sinner. We should at least be humble enough to ask why this is the case.”

Best Interview:
Michelle Boorstein interviews Krista Tippett of “On Being”

“It’s challenging to cover the best of religion because the best of religion has qualities of humility. The best religious voices and lives are the last to throw themselves in front of microphones. It’s a quiet story, it’s a story of every day goodness.”

Best Idea: 
Call Me Ishmael: The Phenomenon Revolutionizing How We Talk About Books
 

Best Advice: 
The Common Table with “A Thousand Ways to Gather”

“If there's a longing within you for deeper connections, please don't let a messy house, or a lack of cooking skills stop you. Grab take out and meet at a local park. Make sandwiches and have a picnic in the yard. Throw your mess in a closet before everyone walks in the door. Or better yet, leave it out for them to see. They just might love you more for being normal.” 

Best Sermon
David Henson with “Send Them Away: A Homily for the Loaves and Fishes” 

“When the disciples looked out at the multitude and at their resources, the disciples saw only scarcity — what they lacked — and they responded with the only rational solution they could conceive. Too often we see the world this way, through a lens of scarcity, a lens that fears we might not have enough or might have what is rightfully ours taken from us. Whether that’s our  food, our security, our stuff; our comfort, our complacency, our critical distance from those hungry people.”

and 

Nadia Bolz Weber with “Sermon on How Hard It Is Being Spiritual Without You”

“All of that is to say, you cannot be separated from the love of God in Christ because it is in you. It cannot be taken out. You are a walking love of God in Christ for one another.”

Best Perspective: 
Michel Martin with “What I’ve Left Unsaid” 

“Too often in my baby-boomer generation, women of color have had to fight our way into conversations that should have included us to begin with. That needs to change. It needs to change because while we have many experiences that are similar to those of our white colleagues, we are also living with realities that are very different.”

Best Image:
A Map of the Introvert’s Heart

Wisest: 
Matthew Paul Turner with “Grace is not a hashtag”

“Grace is not a hashtag. Grace is not ‘giving the benefit of the doubt.’ Grace is not passive or passive aggressive. Grace does not harbor abusers. Grace is not something to be demanded just because the conversation makes you uncomfortable. Grace is not an excuse to remain silent. Yes, grace is an idea filled with uncertainty. It’s a balancing act. It’s nonsensical. It’s otherworldly. But grace is also present. Grace is intentional. Grace is active."

Bravest:
Debi Jackson shares the story of her transgender daughter 

Truest: 
Peter Enns quoting Oswald Chambers 

“The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.”

Most Profound: 
Matt Ingalls at Missio Alliance with “Equality Via Existence”

“In the Kingdom, if you exist, you are equal.”

Most Powerful:
Cia Mathew with “Do I Need to Be White?”

“…The Jesus I follow lived as a man who wasn't rich, wasn't privileged, and wasn't white. The Jesus I follow dined with the city's most marginalized. The Jesus I follow choose twelve, ordinary men to carry the Good News to the nations. The Jesus I follow suffered. The Jesus I follow cares. And the Jesus I follow gives me an identity and voice that is valid.

Most Thoughtful:
Noah Stepro at Missio Alliance with “How You Read the Bible: The Binary Language of Gender”

“Gender is one of the most nuanced and delicate issues in the entire canon…no issue is as culturally shaped as the roles, mores and power structures of men in women (in the Bible and elsewhere). The world of women in the Bible is vast and never monolithic.Women range from slaves, prostitutes and concubines (wives without property rights) to prophet(esses), apostles and judges. In moments of the biblical saga women have a woefully low place – legal property of the paterfamilias. At other times the Bible challenges cultural mores and elevates the status of women to the highest ranks of the burgeoning subculture (apostle, judge, prophet). A binary approach to this subject typically reveals an apathy for socio-historic research, a muddling of current cultural (or in this case western, pre-war) worldviews with trans-cultural Biblical mandates, and a disdain for complexity in theology.”

[See also  Larry Largent with “Recapture the ‘ideal biblical family’”] 

Most Intriguing: 
Mike McHargue with “How Being an Atheist Made Me a Better Christian”
“Losing God changed me. I no longer feel like I have to have answers to all the questions we face in life. I'm happy to look for an answer without finding one, and I'm comfortable with uncertainty. My faith is an act of simple trust now.”

[See also Steve Bell’s response, “Thin Places and the Existence of Beauty”]

Most Honest: 
Ed Cyzewski with “Why I Avoided Christians Who Lost Their Faith”

“When I met Clark, I wanted my faith to look like one particular set of beliefs. Everything had to fit into a particular box in order for Christianity to survive. As I explored the Christian traditions and wrestled with the toughest questions about God, evil, hell, and the trustworthiness of the Bible, I saw that there is a firm foundation for us, but it wasn’t always the foundation I stood on. I wonder what Clark would have said if I could have asked him about the reasons why he left the faith. I wonder if he would have felt safe enough to trust me with that precious information after our difficult past. I wonder if I would have had the grace to show him that this faith he’d left is actually quite resilient.”

IRL…

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for little Juliette Erickson. After nearly five months in the hospital, she is finally home! Though this is a big step, the Erickson family could still use your prayers and support. If you would like to make a donation to help cover medical costs, you can do so here. 

On the Blog…

Most Popular Post:
“I Don’t Always Tell You” 

Okay, so technically the Mark Driscoll post was more popular than this one, but the conversation that followed “I Don’t Always Tell You” was one of the most honest and moving we’ve hosted. So thank you for weighing in with your encouragement and stories. 

Most Popular Comment (Maybe ever, with a whopping 578 “likes”!)
In response to “Inside Mark Driscoll’s Disturbed Mind…” Just A Woman wrote: 

“When I hear Driscoll, I always think of my father who walked his baby girl up and down the hall when she cried from colic, played tea party and let her style his hair as a grade schooler and taught her how bake bread when she was older. ("I helped make her and I'll help take care of her," he would say.) Certainly Driscoll would have called him out as "pussified" had they known each other. What Driscoll wouldn't have known was the man who in WWII was captured by the Japanese survived the Bataan Death March, and nearly starved to death in almost four years as a prisoner of war. He forgave them all for how he had suffered and taught me how to count to 10 in Japanese and appreciate the good in Japanese culture. Now that is what a real man does if he can. I doubt Mark could.”

***

So, what caught your eye online this week? What's happening on your blog?

Melinda Gates on the importance of access to contraception worldwide

So I've been working on a project related to maternal health for the Nashville-based, nonprofit organization Hope Through Healing Hands, and in my research, I bumped into this very cool 2012 TED Talk from Melinda Gates about the importance of access to contraception worldwide. I especially appreciated that Gates spoke so openly about her Catholic faith and her conviction that access to contraception is an important social justice issue. 

"Some people think that when we talk about contraception that it's code for abortion," she says, "which it's not. Some people--let's be honest--they're uncomfortable with the topic because it's about sex. Some people worry that the real goal of family planning is to control populations. But these are all side issues that have attached themselves to this core idea that men and women should be able to decide when they want to have a child...Birth control has almost completely and totally disappeared from the global health agenda. And the victims of this paralysis are the people of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia." 

More than 200 million women in the developing world want to use contraception but do not have access to it. As Gates explains, access to contraception would dramatically curb maternal deaths, infant deaths, poverty, and illness.  If every mother waited two years in between her children, it would help save the lives of 2 million kids every year. 

This article details much of what Gates says in the talk, if you're interested in reading. 

Just seemed to important not to share! 

[For more, see my friend Rachel Stone's piece, "Birth Control and the Debate We Shouldn't Be Having."

 

From the Lectionary: 5,000 Companions

© 2008 Joel Penner, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

I'm blogging with the lectionary this year, and this week's reading comes from Matthew 14:13-21:

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves;  Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’  They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ 

Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

When I was a little girl, the story of Jesus feeding the great multitude was my very favorite of them all.  

I loved it because, according to John’s account, it was a little boy who provided the disciples with his own packed meal of five barley loaves and two fish that Jesus miraculously multiplied into a feast to feed 5,000, complete with baskets of leftovers to spare. 

In that boy, (who I imagined boasted a face of freckles and a mess of black hair smelling of sea salt), I could see a little of myself. I liked to believe that, had it been me, I would have marched right up to those intimidating disciples, Rainbow Bright lunchbox in hand, and volunteered my lunch for the good of the people, fully trusting that Jesus had the situation under control. 

And so, whenever the preacher arrived at this text, I found my mind wandering to that little boy. I imagined what happened to him that day, and the day after that, and the day after that—what he told his mother when he rushed home breathless with excitement, how he felt when his best friends didn’t believe him, why he almost ran away from home so he could follow the miracle-working carpenter himself.  One of my first handwritten stories, scrawled across the wide-ruled notebook I carried under my arm every summer, was a creative retelling of the Feeding of the 5,000 from the perspective of the little boy who helped make it happen. …. Which basically means I was doing midrash when I was in fifth grade, but I digress….

It’s an enlightening exercise, really, envisioning a story like this one from the perspective of a single, seemingly minor character. Within this legendary story hides more than 5,000 others—the story of the skinny orphan, the skeptical tax collector, the despised Samaritan, the curious fisherman, the struggling widow, the disdained prostitute, the wealthy mother, the angry zealot, the ostracized Canaanite, the banished leper, the suffering slave, the repentant sinner....and ultimately, the story of you and me. 

It is the story of a crowd of people who had little in common except that they were hungry—for food, for healing, for truth, for Jesus. And it is the story of a crowd of people who were fed. 

No questions asked. 

No prerequisites demanded. 

No standards of holiness to meet first. 

“The gospel story that makes the most sense to me about the Eucharist is the feeding of the five thousand,” writes Nora Gallagher. “Jesus didn’t ask those thousands of people camped on that hillside whether they had confessed their sins or how clean they were. He fed them.” 

In the story of the feeding of the 5,000 we see Jesus once again addressing the most essential, physical needs of his fellow human beings - hunger, thirst, companionship - and once again, breaking down every socially-constructed barrier that keeps us from eating with one another. 

He did the same thing when, much to the chagrin of the religious leaders, he dined with tax collectors and prostitutes and told his more well-to-do hosts that  “when you give a banquet, invite the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.”

The English word companion, is derived from the Latin com (“with”) and panis (“bread”).  A companion, therefore, is someone with whom you share your bread.

So when we want to know about a person’s friends and associates, we look at the people with whom she eats, and when we want to measure a someone’s social status against our own, we look at the sort of dinner parties to which he gets invited.  Most of us prefer to eat with people who are like us, with shared background, values, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, beliefs, and tastes, or perhaps with people we want to be like, people who make us feel important and esteemed.  Just as a bad ingredient may contaminate a meal, we often fear bad company may contaminate our reputation or our comfort. 

This is why Jesus’ critics repeatedly drew attention to the fact that he dined with the wrong people. By eating with the poor, the despised, the sick, the sinners, the outcasts, and the unclean, Jesus was saying, “These are my companions. These are my friends.” 

It was just the sort of thing that got him killed. 

Nora Ephron once said that “a family is a group of people who eat the same thing for dinner.”

All who feast on the Bread of Life are family. All who dare to feed the hungry, fellowship with the suffering, and befriend sinners are companions of Christ. This, after all, is the Kingdom: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered together, not because we are rich or worthy or good, but because we are hungry, because we long for more. And just as the fish and the loaves continued to multiply, so have the companions of Jesus. The family just keeps growing and growing.  

So whoever you are in this ongoing story,  these feeding of the many multitudes, if you are hungry, come and eat. You don't have to earn a spot. It is given. 

The baskets are overflowing and there’s always room for more. 

Inside Mark Driscoll’s disturbed mind

[Content note: crude language, slurs, misogyny, homophobia]

I haven’t blogged about Mark Driscoll in ages.  

In the past, I’ve been critical of his bullying tactics and his views on sex and gender, but lately it seems the influential Seattle mega-church pastor has made plenty of news on his own, as it was recently revealed he plagiarized, used church funds to buy a spot on the New York Times bestseller list, and engaged in other alleged misappropriation of funds. 

Driscoll has long been known for his authoritarian leadership over Mars Hill Church, and for his controversial teachings regarding gender and sexuality. He made national news in 2006 when he blamed Ted Haggard’s affair with a male escort on Haggard’s wife for “letting herself go” and has often repeated the teaching that women who fail to please their husbands sexually (by providing regular oral sex and maintaining their attractiveness) bear some responsibility for their husbands’ infidelity.

Driscoll refers to pacifists as “pansies,” the emerging church as “homo-evangelicals” who worship a “Richard Simmons hippie queer Christ,” and churches with women in leadership as “chickified,” warning that “if Christian males do not man up soon, the Episcopalians may vote a fluffy baby bunny rabbit as their next bishop to lead God’s men.” 

He has long spoken out against the supposed “feminization” of the church and argued in support of a more violent, macho-man Christianity, stating “I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”  In 2011, he issued a call on Facebook for his followers to share stories about and ridicule “effeminate anatomically male worship leaders.” 

Those of us who have been following Driscoll’s rise to popularity within the neo-Reformed movement over the last decade have been warning that teachings like these reveal a disturbed and dangerous man who needs counseling, not a place at the pulpit. But many of his supporters continue to back him, arguing that though his language is salty, his teachings are “biblical.” 

This week, several bloggers have uncovered some of Driscoll’s online rants from his early days as a pastor.  In his book, Confessions of a Reformission Rev, Driscoll writes about how he posted as “William Wallace II” on the discussion board on his church Web site. Here are his words:

Well, it seems those posts have recently been reassembled here. Below are some excerpts from the 100+ pages of Driscoll's rants.

Driscoll on young men: 

“We live in a completely pussified nation. We could get every man, real man as opposed to pussified James Dobson knock-off crying Promise Keeping homoerotic worship loving mama's boy sensitive emasculated neutered exact male replica evangellyfish, and have a conference in a phone booth. It all began with Adam, the first of the pussified nation, who kept his mouth shut and watched everything fall headlong down the slippery slide of hell/feminism when he shut his mouth and listened to his wife who thought Satan was a good theologian when he should have lead her and exercised his delegated authority as king of the planet. As a result, he was cursed for listening to his wife and every man since has been his pussified sit quietly by and watch a nation of men be raised by bitter penis envying burned feministed single mothers who make sure that Johnny grows up to be a very nice woman who sits down to pee…”

“One day Johnny finally gives in to the pressure of his pre-humpers singles ministry and gets stuck with some gal left on the shelf long after her expiration date that is just like dear old mom who wants him to shut up like Adam, take his beating, and join a church men's group that is really a woman's group in disguise complete with cookies and crying and antidepressants to cope with the insanity. Poor Johnny is by now so completely whacked that he's afraid of having kids and hold off his taking on any more responsibility as long as he can because Johnny is a boy trapped in a man's body walking around in a world of other boys all trying to keep their pee pee behind their zipper and do just like their momma told them and be good women.

And so the culture and families and churches sprint to hell because the men aren't doing their job and the feminists continue their rant that it's all our fault and we should just let them be pastors and heads of homes and run the show. And the more we do, the more hell looks like a good place because at least a man is in charge, has a bit of order and let's men spit and scratch as needed. And all their whining and fighting is nothing more than further evidence that we are still kings and unless we do our job everyone and everything is getting screwed except Johnny (metaphorically speaking of course).”

Driscoll on gay Christians: 

“Can I be a gay Christian? In the infamous words of the now metaphysically challenged and likely kindling ex-pentecostal pastor Sam Kinison "How can one man look at another man's hairy ass and find love?" What an insane conversation. Every man knows you can't build anything with bolts and bolts. Damn freaks. And the pastel cashmere wearing sensible haircut clean shaven loafer wearing minivan driving suburban sympathizers contend "But they really really love each other." I love dogs, but I don't stick my tongue in their mouth and lobby congress for a tax deductible union. "But we need to be nice." What the hell for?  A man is free to knock boots with any sad hairy lump of clay desperate enough to climb in the sheets and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that total depravity is an understatement, but what the hell you want from me? Should we form some form of homo Promise Keepers so we can all climb into a stadium and hug each other and cry like damn junior high girls watching Dawson's Creek. I'd tell you to kiss my ass, but I'm afraid you'd take me up on it.”

Driscoll, in response to a woman on the discussion board: 

“I speak harshly because I speak to men. A woman might not understand that. I also do not answer to women. So your questions will be ignored. I would however, recommend to you a few versed to memorize: I Timothy 2:11-15 I Corinthians 14:33-35.To learn them, ask your father or husband. If you have neither, ask your pastor. If she is a  female, find another church. If you are the pastor, quit your job and repent.” 

Driscoll, in response to posters who objected to his comments: 

“I have been thinking and praying about this whole string and I am really sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. I am sorry if men of God had their inner child spanked. I feel terrible for all the tears you guys have shed over the pain of my words. Please forgive me. Please come to my house right now so I can hold you tightly in my arms and draw you to myself and whisper oh so sweetly in your ears...shut the hell up."

“Please hike up your skirt and come to my house. I'll bake you something and pretend like I care.” 

Driscoll on “pussified” men: 

“This thing has become a bloody mess. You quasi-homo thinking men have screwed the whole thing up. But, thank you for making my point so clearly. I am not a woman. So, scrap all you want. Hurl insults. Throw your petty theological  darts. Have a good cry. Whatever. But do not lose sight of the issue. At some point you will all learn that I don't give a crap about how you "feel." Why, because I am not talking about your right to your feelings. That is the result of feminism, psychology, and atheism which says we are all good and need to have freedom to express our goodness and receive goodness in kind. If you are a man I want to teach you a new word. Duty….My feelings and rights turn me into an idol of self-worship that mitigates against Him. I am screaming at you to do likewise. And yes I am screaming, why, because listen to all the noise we've got to cut through. Even from "Christian" men who are basically practical queers that freak out when a man shows up because it become obvious that they are completely pussified.” 

Driscoll on using the "rod of law" in marriage: 

The bottom line is very simple. Men are supposed to rule on Christ's behalf, sometimes with  a rod of law, and sometimes with a tender touch of grace. And, young Christian men are doing very little of either, and hardly anything with the rod of grace. I assure you I speak from a very wide range of experience.”

Driscoll’s “definition of terms”: 

pussified - any man who has lost his rocks and completed the process of remaining biologically male but become female in all other ways

male lesbian - any man who thinks and acts like a woman because he thinks that makes him a better person

legion - the countless number of men who have become male lesbians

feman - a woman who thinks and acts like a man because she believes it makes her equal to

 men whacker - a man who is a porno freak and chronic masturbator

manly man - any regenerate man who loves God and his neighbor and demonstrates it with grace guided practical living and rigorous theology

half a man - any man who takes a wife and does not serve as the financial and spiritual head of his home but believes the relationship is 50/50 and she should make half the money and do half of his job at home pitch a tent club - men who allow their wives to nag them so incessantly that they want to sleep on the roof of their own home

rock free - any man who attends a church with a woman pastor

mixed nuts - any man who claims Christ but is actively involved in homosexual activity

kindling - any man who does not repent of his sin and receive God's grace in Christ

homoerotic huddle - any men's group where the men cry inordantly and hug each other with deep affection

feminism - the enemy of every man, every woman, every child, and God Almighty

rocks - the courage a man must have to be a manly man

the jar - that place where unmanly men store the rocks that they never wear

artistesticularless - men who expect women to take care of them because they play guitar or paint

Marty Stewart - any man who stays at home with his kids while his wife goes off to work to provide for his family

King & Lord - Jesus

Now, Driscoll has often referred to these as his “angry young prophet days,” and says he hopes to move to a more fatherly role as he continues as a pastor and leader in evangelical Christianity. But let’s be clear: There is nothing “prophetic” about degrading women, bullying men, and using hateful slurs to talk about LGBT people.

It's true that these words were written nearly 14 years ago when Driscoll was closer to my age, (about 31), but what they reveal is the ugly heart behind Driscoll's continued teachings -  the workings of his troubled mind, which need to be addressed for his own health and the health of his congregation.

Listen up, Church:  Misogyny is real.  Homophobia is real. And a man this notorious for both, a man this severely disturbed, should not be in a position of leadership in a church. He needs counseling, not a pulpit. He needs discipline, not a megaphone. 

But many of us have been saying this for years…and years…and years. And still Driscoll pastors Mars Hill. Still Mark Driscoll headlines evangelical Christian conferences and authors evangelical Christian books. 

I’m as sick as everyone else of talking about this guy. Believe me. But it makes me even more sick to consider what will happen if we don’t, if his leadership goes unchallenged and he continues to hurt people with his teachings. This is not some obscure pastor with no platform. He’s not a random internet troller who is best left ignored. This is one of the most powerful and influential pastors in evangelical Christianity. 

But he doesn’t have to remain so.

Not if good people speak up and wise elders respond. 

Misogyny and homophobia are not okay. This is not an issue of using “salty language” or “unconventional tactics” to preach the gospel,  because there is not a trace of gospel in this. 

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(If you would like to contact the elders and leaders at Mars Hill, find them here.) 

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I'm going to close the comment thread on Wednesday morning at 10:00 a.m. EST  just because it's getting a bit hard to manage. Thanks for understanding!