Rachel Held Evans's Blog, page 34

Antoinette Tuff: A true woman of valor!

I hope Antoinette Tuff's story doesn't fade from our memory too quickly. She is a true woman of valor who showed extraordinary love and compassion in a frightening situation. Where others might have cowered before this shooter, or responded with more violence, she prayed, told stories, offered love, made herself vulnerable, and embodied radical grace. Eshet chayil to Antoinette Tuff! May we all become a little more like her today. 

 

What Would Jesus Do (With His Enemy)?

Preston Sprinkle, who is perhaps best known for co-authoring the bestselling book, Erasing Hell, with Francis Chan, has recently published a new book advocating Christian nonviolence which I think many of you will find quite challenging and thought-provoking. The following post is adapted Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2013). Enjoy! 

*** 

Everyone in America knows the catchy slogan: What Would Jesus Do (WWJD)?

Of all the Christian memorabilia donned by the church, these bracelets and T-shirts have remained at the top of the list for quite sometime. For only $5.99, you too can show the world that you follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to do what Jesus would do when faced with temptation.

The apostles too asked the question “What Would Jesus Do?” only they answered it quite differently than many Americans do. The apostles didn’t appeal to Jesus’s life to encourage believers to read their Bibles, do their devotions, or abstain from sexual temptation—all virtuous things, mind you. Instead, they pervasively and unashamedly drew upon Jesus’s nonviolent response to evil as a model for believers to follow. 

More than any other character trait of Jesus, His suffering by the hands of evil people became the central feature of cross-bearing Christians because it was the heartbeat of our cross-bearing Lord. 

Throughout His ministry, Jesus never retaliates and always loves His enemies even when He is violently attacked. When He is unjustly accused of treason, His accusers “spit in his face,” “struck him” and “slapped him” (Matt. 26:67). No retaliation; only love. Moments later, Roman soldiers spit on Him and pound His head with a stick (27:30). Still no retaliation; only forgiveness. 

Jesus therefore models His own command to not “resist evil … but turn the other cheek.” He could call down a legion of angels to deliver Him, but He refuses to confront violence with violence (26:53). While on the cross He prays for his oppressors: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus’s life is peppered with violent attacks, yet He never responds with violence. He embraces suffering, not because He is weak, not because He can’t do anything about it, but because suffering is the God-ordained pathway to resurrection glory. 

Now, you may think, Yes, but the reason Jesus doesn’t resist His death is because He has to die for the sin of the world. This is correct. There is uniqueness to the atoning value of the cross. His nonresistance is a theological necessity: He has to die for the sin of the world. 

But that’s not all that’s going on. Jesus’s nonviolent, non-retaliatory journey to the cross is also a pattern for us to imitate. 

When Jesus talks about His suffering on the cross, He commands His followers to do the same: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). When Jesus washes His disciples’ feet—even the feet of His betrayer—He tells His followers to do the same: “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:15). Again, just after He predicts His crucifixion, He tells His followers, “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44). We are slaves of all. Jesus rebukes James and John for their thirst for violent retaliation (Luke 9:51–56), encourages His followers to endure patiently when violently attacked (Mark 13:9–13), and disarms Peter when he violently resists evil by hacking off the ear of a man trying to arrest Jesus (Matt. 26:52).

Nonviolence is the upside down rhythm of Christianity, the direction of the river that flows in Eden. 

And the New Testament highlights Jesus’s nonviolent response to violence as a pattern to follow more than any other aspect of His ministry. Read Romans 12, 1 Peter 2-3 (or all of 1 Peter, actually), Hebrews 10-12, or the book of Revelation in its entirety. Believers who desire to Do What Jesus Would Do don’t conquer their enemies with swords, guns, or drones, but with non-retaliation and love. The apostolic witness is pervasive and clear. 

Let’s put this in the perspective of WWJD. Paul celebrates the gift of celibacy, arguing that a celibate person can be hugely effective for the kingdom (1 Cor. 7). But Paul does not use Jesus’s celibate life as an example to follow. Jesus threw him a softball but Paul doesn’t swing. Again, Paul says that he could refrain from working and be supported by the ministry (1 Cor. 9:6–12), but again he doesn’t appeal to Jesus, who did the same (Luke 8:1–3). Also, Jesus was a man of prayer and often stole away time to pray, and yet Paul—in all his talk on prayer—never appeals to Jesus as a model for praying. This is fascinating: the “what would Jesus do” cliché is rarely echoed by the New Testament writers. 

Rarely but not never. Because when it comes to enemy-love and our response to evil, the New Testament writers race to the life and teaching of Christ as the pattern for believers to imitate.

The New Testament is ubiquitously clear: don’t retaliate with evil for evil; do good to those who hate you; embrace your enemy with a cross-shaped, unyielding divine love. Such a rich and pervasive trajectory—from Jesus’s Sermon, modeled through His life, commended to His disciples, taken up by the apostles, and demanded of the early church—shows that non-retaliation and enemy-love are not some insignificant whisper lingering on the edge of Jesus’s ethical landscape. And if American Evangelicals are not readily known for such enemy-love (that includes you, Al-Qaeda), then they are not Doing What Jesus Did. If there are exceptions to this—assassinating Hitler, for instance—these exceptions must be seen as deviating from the dominant rhythm of Christianity. 

*** 

So, what do you think? Should nonviolence factor into our consideration of what Jesus would do? Why doesn't it more often? What are some obstacles in the way of a more consistent nonviolent Christian ethic?  

Be sure to check out Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence. You can read the first chapter for free on your iPad or iPhone. Be sure to follow Preston on Twitter or check out his Web site. 

 

Let’s talk about submission! (Series & Synchroblog Announcement)

Next week, I’ll be hosting a blog series entitled “Submit One To Another: Christ and the Household Codes.” The series will be similar to our Mutuality Week from 2012, but will focus specifically on those frequently-cited passages of Scripture that instruct wives to submit to their husbands, slaves to submit to their masters, children to submit to their parents, and Christians to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Colossians 3:12-4:6; 1 Peter 2:11-3:22). 

These are some of the most misunderstood and debated parts of the New Testament. (They are also some of the most interesting!) So we’ll be drawing primarily from the perspectives of a variety of biblical scholars and theologians, but also from regular families seeking to apply these texts to their own lives. 

 I’ve been planning this series for ages, so it’s been fun to finally bring it together and invite you to participate. Obviously, I’ll be coming at this from a perspective that emphasizes mutuality in Christ over hierarchal gender relationships (you can get an overview of my own position in this post: “Submission in Context: Christ and the Greco-Roman Household Codes”), but if you see things differently, feel free to weigh in as well. The primary purpose is not to simply deconstruct the hierarchal view but rather to explain and discuss perspectives that emphasizes mutual submission with Christ as the example. 

The series will run from Monday, August 26-Friday, August 30. If you want to participate by contributing to the conversation on your own blog, write a post and share it in the comment section or via social media throughout the week.  

On twitter, we’ll use #onetoanother.  

If you need inspiration, here are some prompts: 

How have these passages made an impression on you personally? What is your history with them? How has your understanding of submission changed through the years?

Write about the context of the Household Codes. What might we be missing by skipping the verses preceding them and following them? Who were Peter and Paul’s primary audience? What do we need to understand about their world? 

Compare the Household Codes of Peter and Paul to those of Aristotle and Philo. How are they different and how are they the same? 

What does “submission” mean in your marriage, family, church, or community?  (Might be fun to incorporate some photos or stories into a “This is What Submission Looks Like” post, not unlike  the “This Is What A Feminist Looks Like” meme.) 

 Imagine you are a member of one of the house churches in Colossae or Ephesus  (perhaps a woman or a slave) and write from the perspective of the first hearers of these texts. If you are single, how do you interpret and apply these passages? 

 How do you respond to the Household Codes given their historic connection to the defense of slavery in U.S. history? Does that change how you see them?  

 Can the word “submission” be redeemed? How? 

 What is most misunderstood about the complementarian understanding of these passages? What is most misunderstood about the egalitarian understanding of these passages? 

Or take it in a totally different direction. I love it when folks take a topic like this and run with it – with photos, cartoons, poems, videos, etc. Be creative! 

Whether you plan to participate in the series by simply reading and commenting or by writing a post of your own, I’d encourage you to prayerfully look over the passages mentioned above, in their full context, in preparation for the discussion. Maybe even try reading them in the spirit of Lectio Divina. 

Finally, the books I’ll be citing the most include Discovering Biblical Equality, edited by Ronald Pierce and Rebecca Grootuis, and Gordon Fee; Colossians Remixed by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmat; and Man and Woman, One in Christ by Philip Barton Payne.  So check those out if you want to get a head start. 

The Household Codes used to be a source of serious doubt and frustration for me as a Christian woman, but now, understood in their context, they have become some of my favorite parts of Scripture! Looking forward to discussing them with you. 

Any questions? Ideas?  

 

How do I involve God in my sexuality?

Today we continue our series on Sexuality and the Church with a guest post from Tara Owens, CSD, one of the wisest writers I know. Tara is finishing up a book on spirituality and the body to be published by IVP in 2014. If you’d like to be updated when the book comes out, you can sign up here. She’s also a spiritual director with Anam Cara Ministries, senior editor of Conversations Journal, and a lover of Sherlock, great poetry, boxing, red velvet cupcakes and her husband. You can follow her on Twitter here or here, check her out on Facebook here or here, or connect via email here.

Enjoy. 

How do I involve God in my sexuality?  

“Yet an integral spirituality, one that marries heaven and earth, must embrace intellect and the body, tradition and experience, analytical rigor and spiritual courage. Both sides are essential: the abstract (“God”) and the concrete (“your body”). Theories of the body, pathways of the soul—these are wonderful maps and excellent recipes for wisdom. But the map is not the territory, and the recipe is not the meal.” 
- Jay Michaelson, God In Your Body, p. xi

I’m going to get this out of the way first, so you can be frustrated at the beginning of this post instead of the end—I’m not going to give you the answer.

I know, I know. It’s aggravating, isn’t it?

As a spiritual director, I journey with people as they journey with God. I call myself a midwife to the soul, someone who comes alongside to help people bring to birth the life God, and that is what I do. I have training and tools that help me discern with others the work of Christ in their lives, supervisors who ensure I am maintaining professional standards, peers who encourage me in my own relationship with God.

And none of that give me a formula for helping people grow in their spiritual lives. None of it allows me to treat a person as a problem or a set of stages to be worked through. The practice of spiritual direction is so hard to define because it starts with relationship, and relationship isn’t about standardization or measurement, checking the boxes and getting it “right” (whatever that means.)

The same is true of our sexuality and our relationship with God.

If we’re looking for the way to get God to bless our sexual lives, the solution to the problem of what it means to be a sexual being, we’re only going to come up with false rules and standards, ways of being that force some people out and others in, models of holiness that may work for one season of life but fall apart in another.

I’m not going to give you the answer to involving God in your sexuality, because there isn’t one standard that will work for all people.

But there is a relationship.

Our sexuality, which from my experience has a much broader expression than who we have sex with, involves all the ways we go about seeking embodied connection with one another. Our sexuality has to do with the physical feelings of attraction and arousal, and how we choose to act on those feelings. It can be expressed in genital intercourse, but it can also be expressed in our friendships, and in the ways that we go about creating communion with the world around us. The eros of our human nature can be expressed as equally in kissing as it can in great art.

Sexuality, then, isn’t a place that’s tangential to our spiritual lives, but integral to them. As sexual beings, our bodies urge us toward connection with one another and, ultimately, with God. Our sexuality is our embodied experience of the longing for union, to know and be known, desire finding voice in skin and lips and movement.

When we lose this fundamental truth about sexuality, we lose the plot. Instead of being the impelling force that shows us how deeply we want others, want God, sexuality gets framed as something dangerous and destructive, a need for pleasure or a desperation for fulfillment. Sexual expression can be about those things, of course, but that’s not what it’s made for, not what it’s telling us that we’re about. When sexuality gets framed as something to repress or feed, something that needs to be reigned in or fanned into flame, we’re seeing it as merely an appetite, a set of biological compulsions, and we’ve lost something fundamentally human about ourselves.

The other mistake that we make, both in society and in the church, surrounding our sexuality is assuming that it is fundamentally a private thing, something that involves us and our bedrooms and no one else. We don’t talk about it, unless we’re talking about the rules surrounding what not to do, because it doesn’t have anything to do with the broader community of God. It’s what goes on between a married couple in covenanted union, and that’s about it. 

Sexuality, our experience of the erotic, is actually designed to be the very center of community, not divorced from it. Sexuality is both personal and communal, a stepping into community to enact God’s love in an embodied way. The ways in which we participate in that enactment—the image of union, vulnerability and joy sex can be—are fundamentally tied to the whole community. If we’re using sex to dominate, objectify or get pleasure at the expense of the other, we’re enacting something false not only about community but about God.

Involving God in our sexuality means holding on to what it means to be sexual in the first place, and what that sexuality points us toward. God longs for union with us (recall, for example, Jesus’s impassioned prayer in John 17 for union), and our longings for embodied union reflect His desire for us. In Orthodox tradition, this movement toward union with God is called theosis. We see the ultimate icon of that union in Christ, who gives Himself completely to God with a self-giving love.

So, I haven’t answered the question. Without sitting down across from you, without hearing your story, knowing your struggles, knowing the community in which you live, worship, wonder, wrangle and wait, I can’t answer it for you. But I do know One who can and will walk with you in it.

Just ask.

 

Sunday Superlatives 8/18/13

Praising Dan at the City Gate as part of my year of biblical womanhood. 

IRL…

Today is Dan’s birthday! And let me tell you, his awesomeness only increases with each passing year.  It’s such a joy to be married to a man this funny, creative, smart, and wise. Not only does Dan keep this site up and running, he’s busy working on a Web startup, writing a screenplay, and renovating another investment property. Just yesterday, he invented a new tape measure. Best of all, Dan is an amazing husband, the best companion and teammate I could ask for. So grateful for him today. 

Dan, poised to take every possible picture of Yellowstone National Park

Together at Glacier National Park

Around the blogosphere…

Best Cartoon:
“Trash” by Left-Handed Toons

Best Profile: 
Susan L. Oppat at Faith and Leadership with “The Woman Behind Textweek.com” 

“When her son was diagnosed with autism, Jenee Woodard had to give up her dream of a career as an academic scholar. Instead, she created The Text This Week, an influential trove of online resources for pastors writing sermons, Christian leaders and educators.”

Best Spoken Word (language warning):
Neil Hilborn with “OCD"

Best Writing Advice  (nominated by Luke Hyder) 
Andrew Peterson with “What Andy Gullahorn Taught Me About Songwriting”

“I can’t tell you how many times over the years that maxim has snapped me out of whatever florid garbage I was writing. It’s a good idea to emulate your heroes, to ask yourself when you get to the bridge, “What would Paul Simon do?” Or when you happen upon a guitar part which, miracle of miracles, sounds unique enough to try and build a song on upon, to ask, “How does James Taylor get into a part like this?” Steal boldly, I say. But most often, when I’m scribbling in a notebook the nonsense that I hope will become a not-unbearable song, when it’s late and I’m sleepy and I’m stuck, stuck, stuck, I remember these words: “Write it like you would say it.”  It usually opens the door to the lyric I was looking for. It keeps me from putting on airs, which we’re all prone to do. People can spot a fake a mile away."

Best News:
Nadia Bolz-Weber with “Today We Are Closer: Lutherans Elect First Female Bishop” 

Best Conversation-Starter: 
Molly Ball at The Atlantic with “The Quiet Gay Rights Revolution in America’s Churches” 

Best Take on a Tough Passage:
David Henson with “The Divisive Love of God: Homily for Proper 15C (Luke 12:49-56)”

“He rejects his own family in front of a multitude and then goes on to accept into his new family prostitutes, tax collectors and outcasts, an open and inclusive stand that ironically causes division within polite society. He tells would-be followers not to bother burying their parents, an outrageous and insulting suggestion to the people of the time. He proclaims that anyone who leaves a family for him is blessed by God. Jesus certainly seems to have an unconventional perspective on family values.”

Best Storytelling: 
Alise Wright with “When You Don’t Fit in At Church”

“On Sunday mornings, I wake up early, kiss my still sleeping husband good-bye, and drive nearly an hour to my church in one of the more rural parts of West Virginia. I park my van, covered in HRC and Obama and Strong Bad bumper stickers in a sea of conservative pickup trucks. I wear an Arrested Development t-shirt among a throng of Christian t-shirts. I should not fit in.”

Best Sermon Series:
Jonathan Martin with “Return to Eden”

Biggest Lobster:
This One

Most Relatable: 
Jen Fulwiler at Conversion Diary with “Netflix Giveth and Netflix Taketh Away”

“You did this before with Dora the Explorer, and I didn’t complain. I wasn’t happy about it, but it didn’t cause me too much of a problem since my four-year-old says she doesn’t like “all that Spanish talkin’” and wants to watch only programs that use “real words” (we’ll be adding a multiculturalism component to our homeschool soon). I only muttered a few grumbles when Downton Abbey suddenly was gone, since I knew I could track down new episodes — I would find and watch that show if the only place it were available was on one television in a yurt in Turkestan. But now Shaun has disappeared too, and I’m reaching my limit. If Breaking Bad goes away, I will riot. You got us hooked on these shows, and now you have a duty to keep them going. And I don’t want to hear about how Amazon out-bid you on the rights. Did you see that movie Inception, where the guys hacked into a CEO’s dreams to get him to change his mind about a business decision? You know where Jeff Bezos lives. Think outside the box, people.”

Most Thoughtful (nominated by Korin Reid): 
Judy Dominick with “What Color Am I?”

“God is not colorblind.  In fact, not only does He see color; He intentionally pursues a full representation of humanity’s color spectrum through proclamation of the gospel.”

Most Grace-Filled: 
D.L. Mayfield With “The Ministry of Funfetti” 

“I’m not Joan of Arc, it turns out. I’m just somebody who likes to bake cakes.”

Most Encouraging: 
Christena Cleveland with “Everything I Know About Reconciliation I Learned in the Church”

“The church taught me that though racism steals, kills and destroys, the church can partner with God to restore, resurrect and heal.”

Most Challenging: 
Tara Woodard Lehman at the Huffington Post with “Do You Really Need Church?”

“After giving it much consideration, I've decided that there is at least one very good reason why I need Church: I have a really bad memory.”

Most Heartfelt (nominated by Joanna Dobson) 
Tanya Marlow with “No Job for Job (When the Comforters Need Comforting)"

“But what happens when the comforters need comforting? Who ministers to the ministers?”

Most Instructive:
Kurt Willems with “Stop turning Devotions Into Dogma: Reflections on How We Read the Bible”

“I’m convinced that we Christians should be passionate about emphasizing both devotional readings and theological readings of the bible in the context of the church. Both benefit a person individually and the church corporately. When appropriated in a way that only emphasizes devotional readings to the exclusion of solid biblical studies. Devotions should not be dogma and theology should not limit the voice of the Spirit. We need to allow these two ways of reading the Scriptures to complement each other appropriately while simultaneously emphasizing the ways in which they are distinct. Then, when a person hears from the Lord in their devotional reading time, we can affirm it while cautioning that such a word differs from the art of biblical interpretation. This keeps the church intellectually honest and engaged while guarding the church from spiritually draining intellectualism. Thus, the head and the heart work together."

Funniest: 
The Onion with “Group of Friends Engage in Passionate, Incoherent Discussion About Current Events”

“The passionate discourse, said to have been initiated by a muted feed of CNN playing on one of the restaurant’s televisions, reportedly contained scores of factual inaccuracies, gross oversimplifications, self-contradictory declarations, and assertions that would fail to hold up against even the slightest of scrutiny. Sources confirmed that the terms ‘fracking,’ ‘sequester,’ ‘Tea Party,’  ‘entitlements,’ and ‘the Fed’ were all used out of context at various times throughout the heated debate, and that the phrase ‘Washington is broken’ was also uttered over two dozen times.”

Coolest: 
40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World

Wisest: 
Christina Gibson with “Poison Control and Grace” 

“She had a comforting lilt to her voice.  I recognized it later. It’s just called grace. It’s not the cynical ‘I expect the world to fail so of course you’re a terrible parent’ outlook—it’s the “I get that we’re all going to bomb out, so of course your kid ate poop” perspective. And anytime I need a reminder of what grace feels like, I’ll call the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center just to hear someone say I’m not a failure.”

On the blog…

Most Popular Post:
“You Don’t Hate Me. You Hate My Brand”

Most Popular Comment: 
In response to that post, Erin wrote:

“’So, have you ever felt you’ve been treated like a brand— a simplified rendering of your actual hopes, dreams, and ideas? This might be a good time to pause and ask minorities what it is like living in the U.S.”

*** 

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

 

You don’t hate me. You hate my brand.

Last week, after a hurried, 700-word article of mine generated exactly 2.5 gazillion responses on the internet, I found myself lying face-down on top of the covers on our bed in the middle of the day. 

Like, for an hour. 

Dan finally walked in to make sure I wasn’t dead…or worse, watching a Netflix series without him.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m just so sick of RHE,” I said, my voice muffled by our comforter. “I really need a break from her.”  

It’s funny how, as bizarre as that sounded, Dan knew exactly what I meant. There’s the Rachel whose strengths, weaknesses, dreams, quirks, passions, failings, and pet peeves he knows so intimately, the one still in her pajamas at 4 in the afternoon and pouting on his side of the bed, and then there’s the Rachel Held Evans who smiles from the corner of a Web site, cheerfully drumming up blog posts, pageviews, books, lectures, and the occasional controversy to be digested by the public each day.  

They aren’t complete opposites of one another, of course, but they aren’t exactly the same either. 

One uses a lot more profanity.

In the publishing industry, we talk a lot about a writer’s “brand”—the general impression an author leaves with readers based on her personality, writing style, favorite topics, marketing, packaging, and audience. But these days, you don’t have to have a book deal or a literary agent to cultivate a “brand.” You just need a little online real estate on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, or some sort of blogging platform. 

Over time, as your life gets distilled into these little pixels, it’s easy for the people who see them—be they friends, acquaintances, or perfect strangers—to assume they represent you in your totality. Even more frightening, as you gather feedback and gain friends/followers/subscribers, you can start to believe it too. 

But we are not our messages, no matter how much we believe in them. We are not our filtered photos, or our tweets, or our political and religious ideologies. We are not even the stories we tell, no matter how carefully and truthfully we tell them.  

We are not our brands.

We are human beings—little bundles of cells and relationships and hopes and fears that can never be crammed into images or words. 

I have to remind myself of this now and then, when I see people discussing me on the internet in terms that dehumanize and reduce. They are caricatures, really, the sort of portraits you can pay a street artist in New Orleans to draw for you.  The features are exaggerated, but they are based on just enough reality to look familiar, to make me a little more mindful of those warts and moles and wrinkles. Other artists accentuate the positives, of course, but those are glamor shots and no matter how many I hang in my locker, we all know they’re not entirely true; it’s all about the lighting. 

It would be easier to ask for grace if I’d done a better job of extending it. But I too objectify other people. I’ve assumed that Mark Driscoll is his bullying, macho-man brand, John Piper the sum of his views on women. While these brands certainly don’t spontaneously generate, and while these ideas should be discussed, debated, and sometimes denounced, I find myself reluctant to retweet the fake twitter accounts or join in any online jeering.  Because it’s a heck of a lot easier to dish it out than it is to eat it up, let me tell you, and I think sometimes we  inadvertently perpetuate celebrity culture by railing so loudly against it, by feeding into the caricatures with our derision. 

As much as I find Mark Driscoll’s “brand” highly distasteful and seriously problematic, I don’t know the man, so I have no business hating him. And as much as you may love or hate the RHE brand, most of you don’t really know the girl behind it, no matter how candid I am with you, no matter how hard I try to be real. 

The truth is, that dude whose blog posts totally rub you the wrong way may be the best person in the world with which to watch a football game or talk theology over beer. That acquaintance on Facebook whose pictures make her life seem perfect may struggle with self-doubt, depression, and fear. That stuffy Calvinist you love to hate may melt into a goofy, delightful playmate when he’s tickling his kids on the living room floor. The feminist you always imagine shouting other people down may have an unbelievably tender heart.   The pastor you think is always wrong probably gets a few things right. And t he pastor you think is always right definitely gets  some stuff wrong.

Perhaps the most radical thing we followers of Jesus can do in the information age is treat each other like humans—not heroes, not villains, not avatars, not statuses, not Republicans, not Democrats, not Calvinists, not Emergents—just humans. This wouldn't mean we would stop disagreeing, but I think it would mean we would disagree well.

It’s hard acknowledging the limits of a medium through which my own writing career has flourished, but I want you to know:  The conversations we have here—as encouraging, informative, and life-changing as they can often be—are meant to be brought to dinner tables, coffee shops, AA meetings, parks, church fellowship halls, long car rides, dorm rooms, and diners, among people who (whether they agree or disagree) can look you in the eye and take you in, not as a brand but as a human being.  It’s riskier, I know, but it’s truer. It’s better.  And I think it’s what good writing is intended to accomplish—to connect us to the truth in one another, our world, and the divine...in real life, not just our heads. 

Growing Pains 

As if this post wasn’t self-indulgent enough, I should confess I’ve been experiencing some growing pains. I love that the blog is growing and that more people are reading my articles and books, but I’m in that awkward teenage stage when your arms and legs are suddenly longer so you’re knocking stuff over and running into doors. I’m upsetting apple carts I didn’t even mean to upset, apparently making theological statements about views I didn’t even know existed. I feel a little in over my head, to be honest.  

[Let’s get real. When all you’ve got is an English Literature degree and they’re asking you to comment on substitutionary atonement at Christian colleges and church trends on CNN, something’s gone amiss.]

So I’m recalibrating a bit, figuring out what it means to steward whatever influence I have in ways that are both creative and sustainable, and that perhaps give some other folks the chance to step up to the mic. I’m also pouring the best of myself into a new book, which means posts may be a bit spottier… and weirder, as they will likely have been written after 1 a.m. 

Thanks for your patience, wisdom, support, and willingness to call me on my crap. You’ve helped me grow my brand, yes, but you’ve also made me a better person.  I hope we get the chance to really know one another someday. 

***

So, have you ever felt you’ve been treated like a brand— a simplified rendering of your actual hopes, dreams, and ideas? Where does this happen – on the internet, in church, at your work? Who in your life actually knows you?  And what can we do to avoid making caricatures of one another? 

 

On sinning no more…

How’s that working out for you? 

The "go and sin no more" thing? 

Because it’s not going so well for me. 

I’ve known Jesus for as long as I’ve known my name, and still I use other people like capital to advance my own interest, still I gossip to make myself feel important, still I curse my brothers and sisters in one breath and sing praise songs in the next, still I sit in church with arms folded and cynicism coursing through my bloodstream, still I talk a big game about caring for the poor without doing much to change my own habits, still I indulge in food I’m not hungry for and jewelry I don’t need, still I obsess over what people say about me on the internet, still I forget my own privilege, still I talk more than I listen and complain more than I thank, still I commit acts of evil, still I make a great commenter on Christianity and a lousy practitioner of it. 

But Jesus pours out his mercy, staying the hand of my accusers again and again and again.  I go, stepping over scattered stones, forgiven, grateful, and free. 

I go, but I do not sin no more. 

Do you? 

They were doing the “biblical,” thing you know—the religious scholars and leaders who surrounded the woman caught in adultery that day. They probably had Leviticus 20:10 at the ready:

“If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.”

 They wanted to see if this Jesus fellow who ate with tax collectors and prostitutes and who touched the ritually impure, could be tough on sin. So they picked a clear-cut sin with a clear-cut consequence—a biblical slam dunk— and passed around the stones. 

“The Bible says we should stone this woman?” they challenged Jesus, “What do you say?” 

Would he be so foolish as to contradict God’s Word? It would be the ruin of this ministry! 

I wish we knew what the carpenter scribbled in the sand that day. Lists of names? Lists of sins? Something about how God desires mercy over sacrifice? Inscrutable doodles meant to redirect the crowd’s judgmental gaze? 

“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” Jesus finally says before crouching to the earth again, the God who formed us out of dust covered in it. 

The gospel notes that it was the oldest in the crowd who left first. They knew. 

One by one, the religious elite dropped their stones and walked away. Seems the sinning no more thing wasn’t working so well for them either. 

“Woman, where are they?” Jesus asks after they have gone. “Has no one condemned you?”

“No sir.” 

I imagine she was still trembling. 

“Then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” 

It’s one of just two times in his recorded ministry that Jesus said this—“go and sin no more”—and I don’t believe for a second he expected this woman to do such a thing...at least not forever, at least not for good.  

He knew she was not so different from the religious leaders who surrounded her, not so different from you and I.  He knew that hers would be invisible stones, the kind she’d grip tighter each time she saw the man who once shared her bed but not her public humiliation, each time she heard the whispers of her neighbors or the loud, pretentious prayers of the men who had grabbed her and surrounded her and threatened to kill her, each time she heard rumors that the person who saved her would himself be put to death. 

She would sin, no doubt. 

But perhaps she would think twice before casting those stones. Perhaps she would stop for a moment to consider the irony of becoming just like her accusers. 

We tend to look down our noses at these ancient people with their purity codes regulating everything from the fibers in their clothes to the people they touched. But we have our own purity codes these days—people we cast out from our communities or surround with Bible-wielding mobs, labels we assign to those who don’t fit, conditions we place on God’s grace, theological and behavioral checklists we hand out before baptism or communion, sins real or imagined we delight in taking seriously because we’d like to think they are much more severe than our own. 

“Let’s not forget that Jesus told that woman to go and sin no more,” Christians like to say when they're afraid this grace thing might get out of hand. 

Lord have mercy.  

Of all the people in that story, we’ve gone and decided we’re the most like Jesus.

I think it’s safe to say we’ve missed the point. 

We’ve missed the point when we quote the Gospel of John like the Pharisees quoted Leviticus to justify a gathering mob. 

We’ve missed the point when we use it to condemn rather than convict.  

We’ve missed the point when we turn this story into a stone.

*** 

See also: "Breaking Bad and the Evil Within Us All" 

*** 

UPDATE: I made a few changes to my depiction of Jesus' response to the woman based on Matt's suggestion below in the comment section, which you should definitely read. Grateful for your feedback. 

 

Not “Just” Friends - Thoughts on cross-sex friendship by Alise Wright

We’re finally picking up where we left off in our yearlong series on Sexuality and The Church with a guest post from my friend and fellow blogger, Alise Wright. This post is a rewrite of a presentation on sexuality and friendship that Alise gave at The Wild Goose Festival last Friday.

Alise is a wife, a mother of four, an eater of soup, and a lover of Oxford commas. You can generally find her sitting behind a keyboard of some kind: playing or teaching the piano, writing at her laptop, or texting her friends a random movie quote. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, or at her blog. 

Enjoy! 

In 1989, Harry told us that men and women could never be friends because the sex thing always gets in the way. And while we might laugh at the bluntness of Harry’s words about men and women and friendship, as a culture and as a church, we have embraced them as gospel truth. Harry has become a prophet for the cross-sex friendship narrative. 

This is not always the message we receive when we are young. As children, we are given numerous positive examples of cross-sex friendship. We have Charlotte and Wilbur. Marlin and Dory. Jess and Leslie. In literature and film, we are given the message that friendship between boys and girls is perfectly acceptable, that we can see the wholeness of the person regardless of their sex organs. The stories show that differences are something to be overlooked in favor of relationship.

Of course, even with young children, we adults have a need to sexualize those friendships. Adults will join in the chants of “Becky and Tommy sitting in a tree!” and promise that our opposite sex children will have to marry one another when they’re old enough. We keep sex in the front of the minds of even the most innocent among us. Children are unable to develop friendships without the threat of romantic involvement being a part of it. 

As children age, this intensifies. Not only do adults place this burden on children, but they begin to place it on themselves. Boys and girls begin to notice attraction and automatically assume that their friendships with the opposite sex, or in some cases the same sex, must have a romantic outcome. Boys and girls begin to look at one another strictly as potential sex partners.

In the Church, through our efforts to downplay this, we often amplify it. We talk about purity and modesty and in the process draw attention over and over again to the very thing that these young adults are struggling to come to terms with. Our desire to focus on purity becomes simply another way to focus on sex. 

Additionally, with our desire to keep people pure, we begin to sexualize all physical expressions of love. We make all physical contact suspect by implying that it is the path to something immoral. We make intimacy something to be feared rather than something to be sought after. 

We often talk out of both sides of our mouths. We encourage intimacy, but at the same time, we talk about "guarding our hearts." Intimacy requires that we let our guard down, and yet, when it comes to friendship that might include any kind of attraction, we build walls to protect us. But we don’t usually talk about how those walls end up cutting us off. 

When we focus on fear, rather than on love, we cut ourselves off from the kind of intimacy that allows us to really rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We allow detachment to become the norm, and even call that holy and good.

We become absolutely terrified of all attraction. The truth is, all of our friendships have some level of attraction, regardless of the sex and orientation of those involved. I am a straight woman, but I have a non-sexual attraction toward my female friends. They look more beautiful to me. I want to be physically close to them. Because I’m straight, no one thinks anything about this. But if it’s my male best friend? Then there might be trouble. Then we’re playing with fire.

My best friend and I are both married. Our marriages are incredibly important to us. In fact, the way that we speak about our spouses and the surety of those relationships is one of the things that has given us space to explore a close, intimate friendship. The friendship that exists in our marriages is the foundation for our friendship apart from our marriages. 

The truth is, because I’m a sexual being, there will always be a sexual element to any friendship. What I need to focus on is just how I am going to deal with those sexual feelings when they arise. Am I going to pretend they don’t exist and risk allowing them to overrun me and simply end the friendship? Am I going to follow them to their natural end because that’s what I have to do? 

Or perhaps, there is another way. Perhaps instead of ignoring or giving in, I can acknowledge, and focus those feelings into something healthy. When I sense attraction, I can look at it as something more than just an urge to be satisfied. I can examine it for something deeper in that person that draws me to them. I can discover the trait that I find attractive and focus on building that, rather than seeing it develop into something sexual.

We have made marriage and sex the ultimate expressions of intimacy. And while they are beautiful and worthwhile, they are simply one way for us to experience intimacy with another person. We have relegated friendship to a position of “just” and “only” when the Scripture refers to it as a weaving of souls together. We use Ruth 1:16-17 in our marriage ceremonies and forget that it was a pledge of friendship.  We allow the absence of sex to lessen intimacy. 

Intimacy can never be “just” or “only.” Intimacy indicates a fullness and a wholeness. Intimacy speaks of closeness, of familiarity. Intimacy requires knowing, not simply of surface things, but of the deep parts of the person. It takes us beyond “just” and “only” into a place of oneness. The kind of oneness that Jesus prayed would be present in his disciples. 

Intimacy is frightening, especially when sexual attraction is or even could be present. Because we have so closely equated intimacy and sex, we often make it difficult to see one without the other. 

We lament that the world has separated intimacy from sex, but many Christians have done something equally damaging, in that we often imply that intimacy must be paired with sex. 

And yet, I know, because I live it, that we can change our thinking. We can experience intimacy, even with someone with whom there may be sexual attraction and keep sex in its proper context. Rather than using fear as a fence to keep us safe, perhaps we can center our friendships on a deep love that keeps us in the center of God’s will for those relationships, which means that we will do what we can to protect our relationship, not abandon it.

My best friend is a man. We are both married, though not to one another. We have a deep love of one another. We do not deny our maleness and femaleness when we are together, but we do not allow it to be the lone descriptor of our friendship. We are not “just” or “only” friends - we are intimate friends whose souls are weaved together. 

We are one. 

*** 

Do you have close friends of the opposite sex (or of the sex to which you are generally sexually attracted)? How do you navigate those relationships? Have you ever been discouraged from pursuing them?  

Would love to get your feedback here!  

And don't forget to find Alise on Facebook, Twitter, or at her blog.  

 

Sunday Superlatives 8/11/13

Around the Blogosphere…

Best Interview: 
Kelton Reid interviews Maria Popova about reading, writing, and creativity

“We’ve created a culture that fetishizes the new(s), and we forget the wealth of human knowledge, wisdom, and transcendence that lives in the annals of what we call “history” – art, literature, philosophy, and so many things that are both timeless and incredibly timely. Our presentism bias – anchored in the belief that if it isn’t at the top of Google, it doesn’t matter, and if it isn’t Googleable at all, it doesn’t exist – perpetuates our arrogance that no one has ever grappled the issues we’re grappling with. Which of course is tragically untrue.”

Best List: 
“21 Kids Who Sold Out Their Parents” 

Best Insights: 
Charles M. Blow at the New York Times with “Marriage and Minorities” 

“One can’t bemoan the breakdown of the family — particularly the black family — without at least acknowledging the structural and systematic forces working against its cohesion.”

Best Writing: 
Addie Zierman with “For the One Who Married Young”

“When you marry young, you’ll know the delight of building a life together out of garage-sale coffee tables, relatives’ old couches and thrift store mugs. You’ll stop your car in the middle of the road and reverse half a mile to pick up an old, falling-apart-desk marked Free. You’ll laugh all the way home, high of the unexpected treasure of all of this.”

Best Analysis: 
Tyler Glodjo with "How the Church Resegregated Schools in the South"

“This brings me back to my original question: How does a public school in Jackson, TN come to be 99% black when it is 1) home to one of the many lawsuits that finally ended school segregation throughout the South 45 years ago and 2) has only one black resident for every two whites ones? The answer: segregation academies, a phenomenon not uncommon throughout much of the South in the late 1960s and early 1970s. If you happened to guess white privilege, that fits too."

Most Relatable: 
XKCD with “Students”

Most Honest: 
Kathy KyoungAh Khang with “The Dirty ‘A’ Word” 

“I just don’t know if it’s okay to say that I have ambitions outside of my home. My home life ambitions have been affirmed in Church. My professional ones? Not so much.”

Most Heartbreaking: 
Eileen Button with “Not In My Pew”

“It breaks my heart, especially when I consider their giftedness, faith, and love. I know they face the same challenges as the rest of the imperfect people who fill the pews. They could use the support of a loving community, and they would love to support the community. Every day they need to choose selflessness over selfishness, communication over silence, and faith over fear. As they raise their teenagers, they must rely on each other for patience, understanding, and wisdom. They should also be able to rely on their church. But the same church that believes nothing can “separate us from the love of God” makes Jordan and Kelly feel separate, as if their relationship qualifies as the unforgivable sin. It’s no wonder that most Sundays they choose to worship at home.”

Most Insightful: 
Peter Enns with “Honesty in the Journey (or On the Raising of Young Heretics)”

“Over the years, I have been thankful to God that I didn’t correct my son’s theology, for that would have been utterly stupid. Had I shamed him or coerced him into saying the right thing (so I would feel better about my parenting skills), I would have been responsible for creating another religious drone, another one who, at a young age, was already learning to play the religion game. I would have taught my son a crippling lesson, that faith in God requires him to be dishonest with God and with himself.”

Most Informative:
Joshua Smith with “Luke, The Progymnasmata, and the ‘Prodigal Son’” 

“Parsons notes the similarities between the parables of Jesus and Theon’s writings about fables as rhetorical devices, which Theon defines as “fictitious stor[ies] which depict or image truth.”[4] More importantly, Theon suggests that a fable is capable of holding multiple meanings, and thereby receives its rhetorical and philosophical weight.[5] This is probably why so many scholars have likened the parables of Jesus to riddles—stories that are difficult to understand, with multiple possible interpretations and a propensity for causing confusion (see Mark 4:10-12).”

Most Encouraging: 
Dinesh Ramde at the AP with “Sikh Temple Attack United Victim’s Son, Ex-Racist” 

“Kaleka and Michaelis look nothing alike. Kaleka is a clean-cut Indian who teaches high school social studies. Michaelis, who's white, has both arms covered in tattoos that mask earlier racist messages. But as they sat together in the temple recently, just down the hallway from the bedroom where Kaleka's father was shot, they seemed like brothers, insulting each other good-naturedly and arguing over who was more handsome.”

Most Inspiring: 
Idelette McVicker at She Loves with “Standing Under My Tree”

“I recognize that stance, I thought. It had nothing to do with legs, feet or hips. It was a heart stance.”

Bravest:
Christena Cleveland with "Everything I Know About Racism, I Learned in the Church" 

"The church taught me that my experience of racism is only real if the majority culture says it is. "

Wisest:
Rachel Macy Stafford with "The Day I Stopped Saying 'Hurry Up'"  

"I gave my child a little time... and in return, she gave me her last bite and reminded me that things taste sweeter and love comes easier when you stop rushing through life."

 

And let’s be sure to be in prayer for Woman of Valor Margaret Feinberg who is battling cancer.

###

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

 

'Breaking Bad,' Sin, & CNN

My post for the CNN Belief Blog today is about the reality
of sin and why we love ‘Breaking Bad.’  

The other day I was asked
in a radio interview why I’m still a Christian. Since I’ve never been shy about
writing through my questions and doubts, the interviewer wanted to know why I
hang on to faith in spite of them.

I talked about Jesus—his
life, teachings, death, resurrection, and presence in my life and in the world.
I talked about how faith is always a risk, and how the story of Jesus is a
story I’m willing to risk being wrong about.

And then I said something
that surprised me a little, even as it came out of my own mouth:

“I’m a Christian,” I
said, “because Christianity names and addresses sin.”

I’ve
been thinking a lot about sin lately because like many Americans I’ve gotten
hooked on “Breaking Bad” and am plotting ways to avoid any sort of social
interaction on Sunday night so I can catch the first of the final eight
episodes of the award-winning AMC series.

Read the rest.

Speaking
of CNN, I'll be appearing on CNN’s New Day Sunday
with my friend Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. EST to
talk about millennials and the Church. He and I discussed staging a conversion scene, but couldn’t
decide who should be converted. It's live TV. You never know what will happen!  

So, got any other ‘Breaking
Bad’ fans in the house? Thoughts on the next season?