Rachel Held Evans's Blog, page 28

What Dave Ramsey gets wrong about poverty

Dave Ramsey gives great advice about getting out of debt. I’ve seen that first hand as I’ve celebrated with friends marking their first day of debt-free living, thanks in part to Ramsey’s teachings and all those white envelopes of cash he urges his students to use instead of credit cards.

But while Ramsey may be a fine source of information on how to eliminate debt, his recent comments about poverty are neither informed nor (as he claims) biblical. In fact, they represent such common misconceptions about the poor that I addressed them in a post for the CNN Belief blog today. 

An excerpt: 

People are poor for a lot of reasons, and choice is certainly a factor, but categorically blaming poverty on lack of faith or lack of initiative is not only uninformed, it’s unbiblical. God does not divide the world into the deserving rich and the undeserving poor. In fact, the brother of Jesus wrote that God has “chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him” (James 2:5). God doesn’t bless people with money; God blesses people with the good and perfect gift of God’s presence, which is available to rich and poor alike.

Read the rest here. 

5 Reasons I’m Glad I Was Raised Evangelical

I don’t always see eye-to-eye with my evangelical brothers and sisters when it comes to politics, theology and gender, but there are many reasons I’m glad I was raised in the evangelical tradition. For those of us who wrestle at times with the religious traditions with which we were raised, I think it’s important to remember from time to time the gifts those traditions gave us. These are just a few that come to my mind: 

1.  I know and love the Bible. 

Whether I was slaying the competition in a sword drill or racking up crowns and badges in AWANA, I grew up knowing my way around a Bible. The images, stories, and words of Scripture so permeated my life that they gave meaning and direction to my own story and helped me make sense of things. My evangelical upbringing taught me to love Scripture, to consult it, and to believe it. And to this day, nothing sparks my creative energy more than a difficult passage, a stack of commentaries, and a few hours to dig in. The Bible just keeps on giving; it never disappoints. While I certainly wrestle with the Bible more than I once did, it is the love of Scripture my evangelical upbringing instilled in me that keeps me wrestling,  that keeps me from giving up. I am profoundly grateful for this. 

2.  I have fond memories of being a teenager, primarily because of youth group.

Anyone who grew up in youth group will know exactly why I’ve titled the chapter about it in my next book, “Chubby Bunny.” I was fortunate to have had an amazing youth pastor—Brian Ward—who to this day remains one of my most important mentors, champions, and friends. (And who actually kinda hated Chubby Bunny.) High school can be a disorienting, angsty time, but because of youth group I made lifelong friends, I got to travel, I deepened my faith, I had opportunities to teach and lead and use my gifts, I learned to not take myself so seriously, and I learned exactly how many marshmallows I could cram into my mouth without chocking to death. I am glad so much of my identity was forged in the context of church and in the company of people who really loved me. Not everyone’s memories of youth group or of high school are as happy as mine, so I never want to take that (mostly) wonderful experience for granted. 

3.  I've always had a deeply personal faith. 

It’s often said that evangelicalism is characterized by a personal commitment to faith, and this was certainly true of my experience. The activism, the testimonies, the active prayer life, the hours spent reading the Bible—these things emerged from a deeply experiential and powerful relationship with Jesus and the church that until my young adulthood went almost totally unquestioned. (Check out Evolving in Monkey Town for the story of how things started to unravel.) I know not everyone who was raised evangelical felt that same connection to God growing up, so there may be a personality component involved, but I’ve never been afraid to “approach the throne of grace with confidence” because I’ve spent quite a lot of time talking to Jesus already. And I think it was because my faith was so personal, so deeply important to me, that I couldn't just let it go the moment I started having questions and doubts. 

4. Potlucks. 

Evangelicalism introduced me to deviled eggs, macaroni-and-cheese casserole, chili cook-offs, and lemon squares…and to hospitality, and fellowship, and the value of just showing up with a chicken casserole in hand when your neighbor is sick or grieving or lonely. The healing power of a chicken casserole should never be underestimated. 

5. Grace at home. 

I didn’t always experience grace in the church. I saw my fair share of legalism, division, and exclusion there, and, like most people, I’ve been hurt by other Christians. But there was always grace at home. Always. My parents—committed evangelicals—taught me, by example, to be compassionate, empathetic, patient, forgiving, open, inclusive, curious, and kind. They taught me to focus on the most important thing—Jesus—and to hold the rest of my theological and political beliefs with an open hand.  They gave me the space I needed to become my own person with my own faith, and they were never afraid to say, “I don’t know” when that was the truth. No parents are perfect, but mine have been pretty great. And so when I’m at a progressive/liberal Christian conference and people start bashing evangelicals as closed-minded and exclusive, I pipe up and say, “Hey, that’s my mom and dad you’re talking about.” They totally ruined my ability to paint all evangelicals with a broad a brush, and I’m glad. 

Of course, this is not to say these experiences are unique to an evangelical upbringing. Certainly you can find a love for Scripture, personal faith, deviled eggs and Chubby Bunny in other Christian traditions as well. 

So I’d like to open the floor to all—those raised evangelical, those raised Catholic, those raised Presbyterian, those raised Mormon or Jewish or even as secular humanists….

What are you thankful for about the faith with which you were raised? What positive effects did that tradition have on your life? 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

2 questions regarding the HHS mandate and religious liberty

Okay, since the HHS mandate is back in the news again, I’ve got two questions: 

1.  If the owner of a private, for-profit company can make decisions regarding the healthcare coverage of his/her employees based on religious conviction, what’s to keep an employer who is Jehovah’s Witness from refusing to cover blood transfusions or an employer who is a scientologist to refuse to cover any costs related to mental health? How is it preserving “religious liberty” to allow employers to impose their religious convictions onto their employees regarding what they can purchase with their compensation? 

2.    I can’t for the life of me understand this new evangelical preoccupation with birth control. Providing easier/cheaper access to birth control has been shown to dramatically decreases abortions, so it seems like this would be something we pro-lifers would want to support. If cheaper birth control would decrease abortions, why wouldn’t Christians support it? 

 

Related: Christianity Today recently published a short article on how the morning-after pill does not inhibit implantation, but rather blocks fertilization. And for an interesting look at the problem of categorizing the pill as an abortifacient, check out Libby Anne’s piece on the topic, where she notes that “if your goal is to save ‘unborn babies,’ and if you truly believe that a zygote – a fertilized egg – has the same value and worth as you or I – the only responsible thing to do is to put every sexually active woman on the pill,” because the pill actually reduces the number of zygotes naturally rejected by a woman’s body. 

For another fantastic post on this topic—and a third question, really— check out Rachel Marie Stone’s piece, “What if Jesus is saying it’s okay to pay for things that are against your religion?”  I'm against the U.S. drone strikes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians. Should I refuse to pay my taxes? 

Finally, for my views on abortion, see “Why progressive Christians should care about abortion.” 
 

Ask a Reformed Pastor...(Response)

The Reformed tradition is much broader and more diverse than many of us realize, and since we’ve already featured the more conservative Justin Taylor for “Ask a Calvinist…” I thought it was time to interview someone from the progressive end of the Reformed spectrum for our “Ask a…” series. And I think we found the perfect interviewee. 

The Reverend Jes Kast-Keat is a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America. She currently serves as the Associate Pastor at West End Collegiate Church in Manhattan.  Jes is one of the twelve voices that writes for "The Twelve. Reformed. Done Daily" which is a collaborative project of diverse theologically Reformed voices. Her theological inspirations include John Calvin, Serene Jones, Oscar Romero, Teresa of Avila, and the countless everyday theologians who ask questions and "ponder anew what the Almighty can do". Preaching the grace of God and administering the sacraments is what gives life to Jes. You can follow her on Twitter here. 

You asked some fantastic questions, and Jes has responded with great thought and care. Enjoy! 

 

***

From Jes: The grace and peace of the Triune God is yours!

Let’s rewind a few hundred years before we get to today’s questions, shall we? Imagine that it’s the year 1563 and we are living in a region of Germany called the Palatinate. The ruler of our land, Elector Frederick II, thanks to his wife, Princess Marie of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, is a new convert to the ideas of Calvin. He decides to gather a large group of ministers and commission them to write a Reformed confession in the form of 129 questions and answers that would serve the people as a devotional tool for preaching and teaching of Scripture. Little do we realize that some hundred years later this tool, called the Heidelberg Catechism, would be one of the most influential catechisms in the Reformed tradition.

Fast-forward to the year 2013 and let’s allow the Heidelberg Catechism to open up and frame our conversation for today:

Q 1. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Wandering pilgrim, resistant doubter, joy-filled believer – by the grace of Jesus, we belong to God. It is in that spirit that I offer my words.

 

From Ouisi:  “When you're doing pastoral care, you encounter suffering and sin in an upfront, here-and-now, personal and communal way. How does your Reformed faith impact your approach to human brokenness?”

Anytime I am in pastoral care with someone, I begin with the realization that I am sitting next to someone who is beloved of Christ. I am sitting next to someone who has the divine spark of God in them. Whatever suffering is brought into a pastoral care situations, I am reminded of Colossians 1:17, “In [Christ] all things hold together.” God is present; I am not God, but my role is to be keenly watching for where God is on the move, even (or especially) if that means God is crying with us in the immense pain that is present in our stories.

I am also not shocked by the ways things are not right.  Systematically and personally, goodness has been thwarted. This doesn’t mean that we aren’t capable of goodness and holiness; it just means that things are much more vulnerable than we like to realize. My job is to communicate the presence of God’s grace in the midst of things gone array. I’m constantly looking for the presence of God in unexpected moments and people.

 

RHE asks “So I guess my question is this: How do you understand election? Is it about individual salvation from hell or something else? And how is this compatible with the otherwise inclusive posture of so many progressive Reformed churches.”

Election is about mission. Election is about the type of people we are called to be in this world and not so much about the world after this. To be potentially cliché, election isn’t so much about what I’m saved from but what I’m saved for. Election is about being called to be lovers of the world. For God so loved the world, we are now to go and do likewise.

Or to directly link the two words from your question that everyone’s eyes immediately darted to (“election” and “hell”), election is about saving people from hell. But it’s not a furnace-in-the-future type of dystopia. The elect – that is, the people of God – are called to join God in working for the redemption of all things. This means quenching the thirst of those who spend every day on this earth in a hell without access to clean water and the myriad of other hell-on-earth realities that so many people are born into.

Election isn’t just Reformed fire-insurance. It’s a free gift of God’s grace for all the people of God. We don’t do anything to earn it or deserve it. But we receive it with gratitude. And it is from this gratitude, fueled by the grace of God, that we live lives as the called and chosen (but not frozen-chosen) and elect people of God in this world. 

This is why a progressive Reformed church will be so inclusive: our radical welcome is a reflection of God’s radical welcome. A God who lovingly welcomes all calls us to do the very same.

(Also, check out Nathan’s comments the first time you asked this. I don’t know who he is but his words are beautiful and accurately reflect how many of us in the Reformed tradition make sense of this!) 

The following questions is from a colleague who I went to seminary with and is someone I recommend you all follow on twitter (@NatePyle79). He is a generous voice in the Reformed tradition.: What of the Reformed tradition do you struggle with most and how do you live with, and enter into, that struggle? What does the Reformed tradition uniquely offer the church and Christian thought?” 

I struggle when “Reformed” is past tense rather than present tense and we forget the living God is in our midst “doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:19). My friend, Reverend Gretchen Schoon-Tanis, reminded me that our liturgy says, “I thirst for God for the living God, where shall I go?” I struggle when we forget this, when we disengage from the world, and when we forget that God is alive in our midst in places that some are quick to dismiss. The whole world is thick of the presence of the Holy.

I think we uniquely offer the marriage of the heart and head in worship, a unique liturgy and approach to scripture, and a sacramental worldview that implicitly cares for creation.

The marriage of the heart and head in worship: Reformed theology helped me realize I didn’t have to check my intellect at the door but it opened the door that all my questions/doubts/beliefs are held in grace.

Liturgy/Scripture: Our liturgical practices centralize around a rigorous engagement of Scripture. I’ve arrived to my progressive views in part because of Scripture, not in spite of it. The congregation I serve is welcoming and affirming of the LGBTQ community because of Scripture, we are involved in alleviating hunger because of Scripture, we think God calls all sorts of genders to preach because of Scripture, etc… I ask questions of the text and the text asks questions of my life; I love that.

Sacramental Worldview/Creation Care: Look, it’s the Reformed tradition where I was first introduced to a theological framework of creation care. In John Calvin’s Commentary on the Psalms he writes: “It is no small honour that God for our sake has so magnificently adorned the world, in order that we may not only be spectators of this beauteous theatre, but also enjoy the multiplied abundance and variety of good things which are presented to us in it.”

Put another way, the entire earth is full of the steadfast love of God (Psalm 33). The Reformed tradition provides a theological framework for caring for ground we walk upon!

 

From Aaron: I'll pickpocket Roger Olson and ask: "Do you believe God 'designed, ordained, and governs' sin and innocent suffering for his glory?"

Essentially this question is one of theodicy: why is there suffering and evil in this world? It’s a particularly fitting question for a Reformed theologian as our tradition is one that relishes in God’s sovereignty – all things are under God’s authority. 

Simply put, no, I do not believe that God ordains suffering. So what do I do with suffering? How do we make sense of it?  

The great Reformed theologian Karl Barth reminds us not to mistake God’s providence with an omnicausality, meaning that God is the cause of evil. There are so many theories on evil that I’m not sure always benefit us; there is a difficult mystery on this topic. Here’s what I do believe: I believe God suffers with us. I believe, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Letters and Papers from Prison, “The Bible directs us to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.” A God who suffers with us is a God who is intimately connected to our personal and systematic liberation. God is not a divine puppeteer removed from creation wishing us luck. God is with us and for us. A Reformed theologian I highly respect, the Reverend Carol Howard Merrit, has a fantastic little piece on this idea of God being for us that I encourage you to check out. 

While I struggle with the brutality of the cross, I find that this is the time and place to talk about the cross. For in this horrific moment we know a God who grieves. The cross shows us a God who suffers with us when the hands of humans enact injustice. 

From William: My question: How do you cope, as a female minister in the broadly "Reformed" spectrum, with the conservative-types in your tradition who neither value nor validate you as a genuine minister or even as being genuinely "Reformed"?

I’ve been baptized. I’ve known I’ve been called to ministry since I was a child and played pastor with my stuffed animals by giving them pieces of bread and grape juice enacting the Sacrament. The greater church confirmed that inward call when I was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament. How do I cope? I remember my baptism and I dance in those waters of grace fiercely!

It sure as hell ain’t easy. I lean into the spiritual practice of lament, often. (Did you know that just fewer than 50% of the Psalms have lament themes in them?) Lament is a way we can honestly tell God how things are disappointing and how we long for the full reign of God in the midst of the brokenness we experience. I’m really good at honest and raw prayers (that whole “I love Jesus but I swear a little” is true in how I pray). I lament and find hope again and again each time.

When I was ordained my Pastor, the Reverend Jill Russell, charged me to remember my baptism on the days it was hard and remember I am from dust and to dust I shall return on the days my pride becomes my anthem. I live between water and dust.

From Ben: People outside the Reformed tradition often write about it as if it were synonymous with "Calvinism." (I've probably been guilty of this a time or two.) What do you wish the rest of us knew about Reformed theology that's bigger than just Calvin, Five Points, etc? (And conversely, what do you appreciate most about Calvin?)

I personally identify as a theologian and minister in the Reformed tradition and usually not just a Calvinist (though I do love much of Calvin). Why? Because there are so many voices between the Reformation and today that nuance this tradition so beautifully. I think the Reformed tradition is wide and deep. It was because of the book Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics that I first became a feminist theologian. I remember writing a paper on traditional views of atonement in light of feminist theology in seminary and thinking “I love this stuff!” (I got a 100% on that paper, still proud of that!) Imagine that, Reformed theology helped me become a feminist! I also suggest checking out Serene Jones’ book Feminist Theory and Christian Theology for a Reformed perspective. 

I think John Calvin was more of a mystic than what many know of him today. He writes about our mystical union with Christ, particularly in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We are raised up to God and Christ meets us. Something mystical happens in the feast of grace. Wine and bread, these are the gifts of God for the people of God, Amen!

 

What do I hope I leave you with? 

1)    I am one voice in a large stream and do not represent the totality of progressive Reformed theology. 
2)    Bread, wine, water. Gifts of grace for you.
3)    Simply, Jesus loves you.

Thank you for your questions! I also want to thank Reverend’s Wayne Bowerman, Stacey Midge, and Jim Kast-Keat for their conversations with me in responding to your questions. I believe in the collective voice of the church! Know God is with each of you in your questions, thoughts, and beliefs. 

Joy,
Reverend Jes Kast-Keat

***

Note: Kelly Youngblood is facilitating a conversation around the question, "What does it mean to be Reformed?" featuring a member of a church in the RCA, a CRC pastor, and a UMC pastor. Be sure to check that out! 

The Dark Stories (A Tribute to Victims of Violence)

In honor of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I'm reposting this excerpt from A Year of Biblical Womanhood. 

 

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you."
—Maya Angelou

I’m glad I have a biblical name.

It’s a name as old as the storied shepherdess of Paddan Aram—a woman so captivating her husband pledged seven years of service in exchange for her hand, a woman whose determination to bear children sent her digging for mandrakes and bargaining with God, a woman brazen enough to steal her father’s idols and hide them in a camel saddle, a woman who took her last breath on the side of the road, giving birth, a woman whose tomb survived obscurity, conquest, earthquakes, and riots to become one of the most venerated and contested sites of the Holy Land.

Beautiful, impetuous, jealous Rachel. Rachel who fought to legitimize her existence the only way she knew how. Rachel who, though it killed her, won.

With Rachel, I notice the details. I absorb her stories as a child does, wide-eyed and attentive, the distance between long ago and yesterday as close as a memory. And like a child, I long for more, wishing at times that I could sit beneath Anita Diamant’s fictionalized Red Tent, where Dinah learned the history of her family from four mothers—Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah—who Dinah says “held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember.”

We recall with ease the narratives of Scripture that include a triumphant climax—a battle won, a giant slain, chariots swallowed by the sea. But for all of its glory and grandeur, the Bible contains a darkness you will only notice if you pay attention, for it is hidden in the details, whispered in the stories of women.

My quest for biblical womanhood led me to these stories late at night, long after Dan had gone to sleep, and I conducted my nightly research by his side in bed, stacks of Bibles and commentaries and legal pads threatening to swallow him should he roll over. The darkest of these stories mingled with my dreams, and I awoke the next morning startled as if I’d been told a terrible secret.

Perhaps the most troubling of the dark stories comes from the lawless period of Judges.

Jephthah was a mighty warrior of Gilead and the son of a prostitute. Banished from the city by Gilead’s legitimate sons, he took up with a gang of outlaws in the land of Tob. Jephthah must have earned a reputation as a valiant fighter because, years later, when the Gileadites faced war with the Ammonites, the elders summoned Jephthah and asked him to command their forces.

When Jephthah reminded them that they had expelled him from the city, they promised to make him their leader if he agreed. The opportunity to rule over those who once despised him proved too much for Jephthah to resist. As Jephthah charged into battle with his countrymen behind him, filled with “the Spirit of the Lord” (Judges 11:29), he made a promise to God: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering” (v. 30).

The text reports that God indeed gave victory to Jephthah. He and his troops devastated twenty Ammonite towns, thus deterring the Ammonite king from further attacks. When Jephthah returned home, glowing with sweat and triumph, “who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines” (v. 34). She was his only child. The Bible never reveals her name.

When he saw her, Jephthah tore his clothes and wept. Surely he had expected an animal to come wandering out of the first floor of his home where they would have been stabled, not his daughter. He told his daughter of his vow and said he could not break it. The young girl resolutely accepted her fate. She asked only that she be granted two months to roam the hills and weep with her friends over a life cut short.

Unlike the familiar story of Isaac, this one ends without divine intervention. Jephthah fulfilled his promise and killed his daughter in God’s name. No ram was heard bleating from the thicket. No protest was issued from the clouds. No tomb was erected to mark the place where she lay.

But the women of Israel remembered.

Wrote the narrator, “From this comes the Israelite tradition that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah” (vv. 39–40).

They could not protect her life, but they could protect her dignity by retelling her story—year after year, for four days, in a mysterious and subversive ceremony that perhaps led the women of Israel back to thesame hills in which Jephthah’s daughter wandered before her death. It was a tradition that appears to have continued through the writing of the book of Judges. But it is a tradition lost to the waxing and waning of time, no longer marked by the daughters of the Abrahamic faiths.

I wanted to do something to bring this ceremony back, so I invited my friend Kristine over to help me honor the victims of the Bible’s “texts of terror.”

…We prepared for the ceremony for weeks—Kristine with wood and paint, I with poetry and prose. Finally, just before Christmas, while the tree was lit and paper snowflakes hung from the windows, Kristine came over with a heavy paper bag in her arms. We sat on the living room floor with the coffee table between us and began the ceremony.

We started with the daughter of Jephthah, whose legacy inspired me to honor her the way Israel’s daughters once did. I read her story from Judges 11, followed by a short poem by Phyllis Trible recounting the young girl’s tragic end. Kristine lit a tall, white taper candle on the coffee table, and together we said, “We remember the daughter of Jephthah.”

Then Kristine read the story of the concubine from Judges 19 who was thrown to a mob by her husband, gang-raped, killed, and dismembered. I lit a tiny tea candle, and together we said, “We remember the unnamed concubine.”

Next we honored Hagar, whose banishment from the house of Abraham nearly cost her life. I read her story from Genesis 21 and a poem by Tamam Kahn titled “No Less Than the Prophets, Hagar Speaks.” For Hagar, we set aside a damask votive, which we lit before saying together, “We remember Hagar.”

Finally, we remembered the Tamar of the Davidic narrative, whose rape in the king’s house left her desolate and without a future. A heartbreaking poem from Nicola Slee pulled each of the stories together and connected them to the silent victims of misogyny from around the world. We resolved as Slee had to “listen, however painful the hearing . . . until there is not one last woman remaining who is a victim of violence.” We lit a white pillar candle and said together, “We remember Tamar.”

Then Kristine unveiled her diorama. Constructed of a small pinewood box turned on its side, the diorama featured five faceless wooden figures, huddled together beneath a ring of barbed wire. Nails jutted out from all sides, with bloodred paint splattered across the scene. Glued to the backboard was a perfect reflection of the five feminine silhouettes cut from the pages of a book. Around this Kristine had painted a red crown of thorns to correspond with the circle of barbed wire. Across the top were printed the words of Christ—“As you have done unto the least of these, so you have done to me.”

 

Kristine and I talked for a while after the ceremony was over—about our doubts, about our fears, and about how sometimes taking the Bible seriously means confronting the parts we don’t like or understand and sitting with them for a while, perhaps even a lifetime. Ours was a simple ceremony, but I think it honored these women well.

Those who seek to glorify biblical womanhood have forgotten the dark stories. They have forgotten that the concubine of Bethlehem, the raped princess of David’s house, the daughter of Jephthah, and the countless unnamed women who lived and died between the lines of Scripture exploited, neglected, ravaged, and crushed at the hand of patriarchy are as much a part of our shared narrative as Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, and Ruth.

We may not have a ceremony through which to grieve them, but it is our responsibility as women of faith to guard the dark stories for our own daughters, and when they are old enough, to hold their faces between our hands and make them promise to remember.

***

From A Year of Biblical Womanhood. 

Are you being persecuted?

Because this question comes up every holiday season, I thought I'd help everyone out with a handy chart. Thanks to Ryan Richardson for making it look good: 

See also: "Blessed Are the Entitled?" / "God Can't Be Kept Out" / "I Stood Up for Christmas. Have You?"

...Apparently, this bugs me every year. 

Lament for the Philippines

Today’s post comes to us from Tim Krueger. Tim was born and raised in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators. He is the editor of Christians for Biblical Equality's magazine, Mutuality (@Mutualitymag), and enjoys finding God's fingerprints in history, culture, and language. He is an occasional contributor to the CBE Scroll, but gave up his personal blogging endeavor years ago after realizing he lacked the time and interesting material needed to sustain a blog. But as time or quality material are less crucial for Twitter, you can find him there (@kruegertw) tweeting maps, puns, and occasionally something of consequence, like gender, faith, and culture. He and his wife, Naomi, live in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

***

I moved from the Philippines to Minnesota when I was fourteen, but part of my soul is forever bound to those 7,000 islands. When Typhoon Haiyan approached the eastern islands of the Philippines, that part of me began to stir. I scoured the internet for updates. A photo here, a shaky cell phone video there. It just looked like a lot of rain and wind. Not so bad—I’ve always liked rainstorms, and this one could set a record! Haiyan was moving fast, which meant less chance for damage. Nervous excitement turned to hope and almost relief.

Then the rest of the pictures began appearing. The casualty reports began to trickle in. The wave of nervous excitement and hope crashed, replaced by a deep sadness I can only describe as mourning.

I mourn for my home. I’ve never met the people in the pictures, but I feel like I know them. What remains of their homes, stores, schools, streets, and markets looks familiar to me. The giant tangles of power and telephone lines are no different from the ones I used to marvel at through my dentist’s window. I don’t see a foreign country; I see my home.

Usually, when I see rubble, I’m amazed by the power of the storm. Now all I see are the homes, the livelihoods, and the bodies, all drained of life. I see a family who has scraped by all these years, taking two steps forward, now finding themselves three steps back.

Filipinos have a reputation for being the happiest people in the world. Joyous, resilient, and religious, Filipinos are always smiling. But not now. And I wouldn’t expect them to, but it still doesn’t compute. It’s not supposed to be this way. Yet, even through the sadness, I see them on the news thanking God for sparing them. That doesn’t computer either, because in my world, we just complain that God let so many lives be lost. 

I mourn because the sex traffickers are circling like vultures, ready to grab up the desperate and newly-orphaned girls and boys walking the streets. 

I mourn the silence of many Christians I respect. I’m not talking so much about my immediate church community, who has been bathing the Philippines in prayer this week, but those voices that stake their reputations on biblical justice and reconciliation, demand that the church be more like Jesus and less like white America, and call us to enter into the narratives of pain and oppression in the world.  When disaster strikes our shores, they have no shortage of ink to spill reminding us to have compassion on the victims, or to weigh in on the theological implications of so-called “acts of God.” But when thousands of bodies, caked in mud and pierced with splintered boards and rebar, lay baking and swelling in the ninety-degree heat, where is their ink? Where is their lament?

I believe it’s there, but it needs to be spoken more loudly and more often. 

I mourn my own silence. Because I know that if this disaster had been an earthquake in Iran, a monsoon in Bangladesh, or any number of other disasters, my soul wouldn’t be troubled. I’d see the news, say “oh that’s so sad,” and move on. I’m keenly aware of the fact that the only reason I feel the way I do is because this happened to my home. When the tidal wave hits a piece of dirt that I don’t identify as my home, where is my voice? Where is my lament?

I’ve never really been one to ask “why does God let these things happen?” I’ll never know, except that our world is broken and that means death and disaster are always around the corner. I’m convinced God is more pained by this than I am, so let us mourn with God and with each other. 

But now I find myself asking “how am I meant to mourn?” How are we meant to mourn?

I mourn because I don’t know how to mourn. I believe we’re called to enter into the suffering of our neighbor. But I don’t believe we’re called to live our lives paralyzed by sadness. I don’t know how to live in that tension. My sadness is fading, and normally I would say that’s ok, natural, and probably good. It’s necessary for survival. But maybe it’s just because in my world, when I’m tired of being sad, I can exercise my privilege to step away to YouTube and distract myself with other pressing questions, like “what does the fox say?”

So tell me, because I really don’t know: how should the body of Christ mourn together? How do we hold mourning and joy in tension? How do we enter in, yet stay afloat? What should we care about, and how deeply, and for how long? Are we all meant to mourn deeply, or are we meant to mourn what’s close to us, while our community surrounds us with love? I think maybe that would work, but that means we need space for lament. We have Facebook walls, but no Wailing Wall—where can we gather to listen and mourn, and then to heal together, to break bread together, and to serve the broken together?

***

Note from Rachel: If you want to help, consider donating to Samaritan's Purse. As many of you know, my brother-in-law Dave, his wife Maki, and their family live in Cebu City, where they have been working closely with Samaritan's Purse in relief efforts. In a beautiful coincidence (?) my sister Amanda, who works for Samaritan's Purse, has been helping to coordinate those efforts. We've all been impressed by this organizations' speedy and effective strategies. 

Other fantastic organizations on the ground include:  World Vision, the Philippine Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and Oxfam. Give what you can. 

Sunday Superlatives 11/17/13

IRL…

Best Conversations/Connections: 
I had an amazing time at the Q: Women and Calling event in New York City and, to my surprise, left feeling profoundly encouraged about the progress of gender equality within evangelicalism. I’ll share more about that in the week ahead, but you can get a little peek at what our conversations were like by watching this dialog with myself, Shauna Niequist, Kathy Khang, and Rebekah Lyons above (and here.)

Best Teacher in the World:
My mom, Robin Held, who was honored as "Educator of the Week” by a local news station.

Mom teaches 4th grade science & history at Dayton City School and creates a fun, family-like atmosphere in her classroom where her students learn to be as compassionate and curious as she is. Right now her students are tracking the phases of the moon by observing it each night. Later in the year, they will work together to build an awesome model of the Jamestown settlement. She teaches through storytelling, song, art, rhythm and rhyme and she goes out of her way to love on the kids who come from difficult home situations. We can’t go anywhere in town together without her getting stopped by dozens of former students eager to give her a hug.

I am so blessed to have had this amazing educator as my mom. She made our childhood incredibly rich and fun and memorable. Eshet chayil, Mom! You are a true woman of valor! 

Around the Blogosphere...

Best Feature:
USA Today features our friend Caleb Wilde in “An Undertaker for the Overshare Generation” 

“He tweets. He blogs. He embalms. Caleb Wilde is a sixth-generation mortician, working for the family business in small-town Pennsylvania — a Victorian-style funeral home where the only visible concessions to modernity are two big-screen televisions used by overflow crowds to watch a service.” 

(We featured Caleb in “Ask a Funeral Director”) 

Best Satire: 
Micah J. Murray with “How Feminism Hurts Men”

“Because of feminism, church stages and spotlights are often dominated by women. Men are encouraged to just serve in the nursery or kitchen. Sometimes men are even told to stay silent in church. Because of feminism, women make more money than man in the same jobs Because of feminism, it’s hard to find a movie with a heroic male lead anymore. Most blockbusters feature a brave woman who saves the world and gets a token man as a trophy for her accomplishments.”

Best Writing (nominated by Kelley Nikondeha): 
Antonia Terrazas at Deeper Church with “So Great A Cloud of Witnesses” 

“…We sing at the end of the night. Heart cracked open, this feels like a petition. My voice is lost in the crowd of witnesses.”

Best Open Letter: 
Lea Baylis with “An Open Letter to Paleo Diet Enthusiasts”  [Language Warning]

“There is one thing that would impress me about the Paleo Diet, and that’s if you went full on. Like, move into a cave and start hunting your meat and gathering your vegetables. Go on, hunt some big game with a bow and arrow. Prepare your meat without the benefit of running water and antibacterial soap. Carve your own knife that’s sharp enough to cut through bone.”

Best Storytelling: 
Benjamin Moberg with “On Football, Incognito, and What It Means to Be a Man”

“And he made that star quarterback understand that his value was not in his arm, his speed, being the captain was not just about athletic ability. His value was in how he treated others, how he led others with grace and understanding, how he could be a friend to the freshman full of athletic insecurities, how he could be an example.”

Best Song: 
Audrey Assad with “I Shall Not Want” 

Funniest: 
Jamie Wright with “This is my Brain on Hugs” 

“As soon as I saw my son's friend's dad, my arms began to rise like a hungry zombie, “We are going to hug you, Semi-familiar-Dude-in-the-grocery-store!”, and my brain was like, “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”. So my arms were indicating they wanted a hug but my face was implying that a hug was a really bad idea. That poor guy. I'm just so confusing, with my arms that say “hug” and my face that says “stab”. But it gets worse!Because. My mouth was going non-stop during this terrible, terrible interaction.”

Scariest: 
11 Terrifying Kids From Vintage Advertisements Who Will Freeze The Very Marrow in Your Bones 

Wisest: 
Halee Gray Scott at Her.Meneutics with “The Church’s Missing Half”

“A failure to proportionately and adequately represent women is a failure to steward the giftedness of half the individuals in our midst. The spiritual gifts are not gendered. The genesis of leadership is grounded in the spiritual gifts, which are freely given by God without respect to gender, race, or social class. When we don't showcase enough women's gifts and voices within the body, we fail to steward the corporate giftedness entrusted to us. Like the unfaithful servant, we bury the one talent entrusted to us. How would the church account for a similar stewardship of financial resources, that half of the resources were burned away?”

Bravest: 
Abby Paternoster and Nathan Groenewold at the Calvin College Chimes with “Listen First: Introduction to LGBT Feature” 

“Last summer, I walked into Pastor Mary’s office and forced out the deepest, darkest secret this CRC pastor’s kid had to offer: I’m gay. I never thought I would say those words out loud. To anyone…” 

It looks like the response to this series has been overwhelmingly positive on the Calvin campus, which is so encouraging. 

Best Response (nominated by Bob Keeley): 
Debra Rienstra with “Love Reality” 

“As the older generation, our job is not only to teach but to bless. So I want to bless the students who’ve courageously told their stories on this campus. I want to bless the many gifted, beautiful students (and friends, colleagues, acquaintances...) I’ve known who happen to be LGBT—I have been greatly blessed by them, and grateful for their trust and honesty. And I want to bless this current generation of Calvin students who are doing difficult theology, in real time, in real life, right now. Thank you for what you are teaching us, what you are demanding of us in this moment.”

Best Reminder: 
Donald Miller with “The Story You’re Believing May Be a Lie” 

“Imagine how much unnecessary negativity floats around in our brains because we’ve made up a story in our mind, convinced the narrative is true?”

Best Reflection: 
Jennifer Lundberg with “You Made Me Brave”

“Because of you, because you were my friend, I was now brave enough to stand up to those around me that pushed me to vote against my conscience, against you. Because you were my friend. Not my gay friend. My friend. And your marriage, your family are important to me. Very important to me.”

Most Thoughtful:
Chaplain Mike at iMonk with “Are we more gracious than God?” 

“But even on the cross, Jesus uttered the words, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). That is not the language of penal substitution. Those are words of generosity — Jesus is asking God to overlook the ignorance of his executioners. Maybe sometimes Jesus just looks us in the eye, touches us, and says, “Go in peace.” Maybe sometimes he just runs down the road, throws his arms around us, and welcomes us home. Maybe sometimes he just lets us off the hook. His love covers a multitude of sins.”

Most Convicting: 
Marlena Graves with “Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover” 

“Even though I’d like to think that I am generous and mostly unprejudiced, that I’m immune from judging people based on superficialities, I know I do. After my family, and what amounts to be a small church full of people, were maliciously harmed by Christian leaders of a certain theological and denominational bent (despite an uproarious public outcry calling these leaders to account and condemning their actions), I find myself recoiling when this particular denominational group is mentioned. I have visceral reactions. I associate much that is wrong with the church with them and people like them. I am prejudiced. I am judging a person by denominational trappings."

Most Challenging: 
Rebecca Wanzo with “12 Years a Slave and the Problem of (Black) Suffering” 

“Looking away has become a national pastime -- from the poor, the sick, and the civilians killed by war and drones. It is unclear to me what kinds of representations of suffering can always escape condemnation as sentimental, or manipulative, or "suffering porn." But when we disparage 12 Years a Slave for trying to capture the essence of pain in chattel slavery, we are disavowing people whose pain can never totally be represented. There are, of course, other stories about slavery and black people that can and should be told. But that does not lessen the importance of this one.” 

Most Likely To Make You Ugly Cry (nominated by Abby Norman) 
Esther Emery with “Letter to a Woman Called to Ministry” 

“The darkness does not want you to use your voice. You are so full of light. The darkness will tell you that you are too much. Too loud. Too greedy. Too masculine. Too angry. Too emotional. Sometimes you will believe this. Sometimes you will try to make yourself small, and quiet. Sometimes you will hurt yourself trying to be small and quiet. Do this with me. Walk outside and look up to the sky. Reach your hands up to the wide, expansive sky, far above the crowdedness and the jostling. There is room for you up there. There is room for every bit of you up there. That place is yours.” 

On my nightstand…

Birmingham Revolution: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Epic Challenge to the Church by Edward Gilbreath

On the blog…

Most Popular Post: 
On Being Divisive

Most Popular Comment: 
In response to “Can we teach our children modesty without guilt,” Ben Irwin wrote: 
 

"As the parent of a three-year-old girl, I wonder about this a lot, too. Here's one thing we've started doing, and one thing I've stopped doing that will hopefully make some kind of difference (even if it feels like we're just making this up as we go)...

One thing we've started doing: teaching our daughter about her body...minus the euphemistic names for certain parts. We want her to grow up knowing (a) her body is not something to be ashamed of and (b) it belongs to her. She doesn't need to flaunt it or use it to conform to someone else's expectations. And she doesn't need to feel like it's something dirty or shameful either.

One thing I've stopped doing: making jokes about how I'm going to invest in a shotgun collection when she starts dating, or how I'm not going to let her out of the house till she's 30. I know they're just jokes, but they can still affect someone's mindset — hers, mine, etc. In particular, these jokes reinforce the patriarchal view of a girl as someone else's "property" ... her dad's, her husband's, etc. It contributes to the false notion that her body is something dangerous, something to be kept locked away, something to be ashamed of. I'd rather take my chances letting my daughter out the door someday with a healthy view of herself than keep her under lock and key with a skewed view of herself.” 

Ben followed up with a great blog post as well. 

*** 

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

Ask a Reformed Pastor…

Photo Credit: David Vanderheyden

So I’ve heard from more than a few of my Reformed brother and sisters that I have a bad habit of painting the Reformed tradition with a broad brush (especially when I’m disagreeing vehemently with more conservative groups like the Gospel Coalition!). So I figured since we’ve already featured Justin Taylor for “Ask a Calvinist…” it was time to interview someone from the more progressive end of the Reformed spectrum. And I think we found the perfect interviewee. 

The Reverend Jes Kast-Keat is a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America. She currently serves as the Associate Pastor at West End Collegiate Church in Manhattan. Roman Catholicism and American Evangelicalism influenced her while growing up. It wasn't until seminary that she encountered the Reformed Tradition and fell in love with a wide stream of robust theological thinkers and vibrant spiritual leaders. She is originally from Michigan and has lived in New York City for the past three years. While theology makes her heart sing, you will also find Jes enjoying a show on Broadway, sitting in Central Park with the poetry of Mary Oliver, or hitting up a concert.

Jes is one of the twelve voices that writes for "The Twelve. Reformed. Done Daily" which is a collaborative project of diverse theologically Reformed voices. Her theological inspirations include John Calvin, Serene Jones, Oscar Romero, Teresa of Avila, and the countless everyday theologians who ask questions and "ponder anew what the Almighty can do". Preaching the grace of God and administering the sacraments is what gives life to Jes. You can follow her on Twitter here. 

You know the drill!

If you have a question for Jes, leave it in the comment section. Please take advantage of the “like” feature so we know which questions are of most interest to readers. At the end of the day, I’ll choose 6-7 questions to send to Jes for response. You can look for the follow-up with her responses in about a week. 

Check out the other interviews in our “Ask a…” series here.  

The day we made the Berenstain Bears laugh

From Monday:

It started after several of you commented on this little piece of Facebook hilarity: 

Every time I see this list of "things similar to @rachelheldevans", it makes me laugh. Oh, internet. pic.twitter.com/gms4SDEEqa

— Micah J. Murray (@micahjmurray) November 11, 2013

Which led to this fun conversation: 

Reasons to like my FB Page: 1) it's similar to the Berenstain Bears 2) I share 1-star reviews of my books there: http://t.co/5fQvT3xgbv

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) November 11, 2013

@rachelheldevans You had me at Berenstain Bears.

— Chris Cox (@wilcomoore) November 11, 2013

@wilcomoore @rachelheldevans LOL! :D

— Berenstain Bears (@TheBerenstains) November 12, 2013

@wilcomoore Dude. You made the @TheBerenstains laugh!!!!

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) November 12, 2013

@wilcomoore @rachelheldevans ROTFL! =)

— Berenstain Bears (@TheBerenstains) November 12, 2013

@rachelheldevans Thank you!

— Berenstain Bears (@TheBerenstains) November 12, 2013

Then a bunch of you jumped in and shared your favorite Berenestain Bears stories and I counted the whole day as an internet win. 

You rock.