Monday, December 20, 2004
Is "A Generous Orthodoxy" Generous to Women?
Zondervan has asked me to blog-review two emergent books. I know better than to be flattered – I’ve never even been to an emergent conference, and my blog has sucked for two months. It’s probably just Opal’s compelling antics that stick in people’s minds. One of the books is Brian McLaren’s “A Generous Orthodoxy.” McLaren wonders whether some read his book “looking for dirt so you can write a hostile review” (17). I don’t intend to be hostile, but some of what I say is critical. Brian is famous, and I said “hi” to him once at Chipotle in Minneapolis, so that practically makes me famous. I’m not going to burn that bridge.
Cognizant of the critical missives launched in cyberspace toward emergent and the suggestions emergent leaders have made about such criticisms, I e-mailed this review to Brian last week (at Doug's suggestion). I hoped he would write a response, and we could spark a good dialogue about gender in the church. His brief response was "to say thanks and I'll try to learn lasting lessons from what you've written." While my attempt at a fuller dialogue didn't work, I at least won't surprise him with a review coming out of nowhere.
First off, I’m slicing through his book with my own agenda, looking at matters of gender, though the book is not about gender (there is a wonderful, but brief discussion of God and gender pronouns on 74-75, but that’s about it). This is a bit like criticizing an author for what they didn’t do (Can you believe this idiot didn’t write anything about pet care or dermatology?), but not entirely. McLaren claims to be “listening to a wider variety of older and new voices than most people do” (22), and then articulating his broad, generous vision of Christianity. I’m focusing on the range of women’s voices he’s listened to. This can easily become reductionistic – he’s read men from diverse time periods, cultures, and Christian traditions, and I don’t intend to imply that all men are saying the same things. Nonetheless, the gender issues are important. I know the emergent movement values women’s leadership, yet women seem to complain about the same types of (often unintentional) exclusionary practices they’ve experienced in non-emergent settings. Perceiving the reasons behind women’s secondary status in the church is a challenge, and we can’t reach healthy solutions without understanding the problems.
I noticed four ways in which women are used (and not used) in McLaren’s book. First, the citing of women as intellectual authorities. I most appreciated McLaren’s use of Diana Butler Bass. He refers to her as “my friend” (a warm way he refers to many authors), and cites her numerous times. He also cites Nancey Murphy, Karen Armstrong, Melanie Griffin, Flannery O’Connor, and Irshad Manji as intellectual authorities in and of themselves. Why, however, characterize Manji’s writing as “sparkling” and Murphy’s as “helpful,” while men’s writings are more often called “important,” “profound” or “my favorite”?
Unfortunately, most intellectual content in the book comes from males. The book’s foreword and back blurbs are by men (a publisher’s decision, but authors can push). While around 6 women are cited bibliographically or in stories in which McLaren learned something important, cited males include Chesterton, NT Wright, Leonard Sweet, Robert Webber, Steve Sjogren, Hans Frei, Richard Foster, Michael Polanyi, Joel Green and Mark Baker, Dallas Willard, Jay Tolson, Dave Andrews, Henri Nouwen, Romano Guardini, Gabriel Marcel, Thomas Merton, Dan Schmidt, John Yoder, Walker Percy, Philip Yancey, Miroslav Volf, Vincent Donovan, Darrell Guder, David Bosch, Lesslie Newbigin, Philip Gulley, James Mulholland, William Crocket, Randolph Klassen, Samir Vesna, Mark Oestreicher, Dean Kelley, Philip Jenkins, John Franke, Stanley Grenz, Walter Bruegemann, Hans Urs von Balthasar, CS Lewis, Kyriacos Markides, Josef Pieper, Richard Mouw, Ken Wilber, William James McClendon, Michael King, Wendell Berry, Doug Pagitt, Thomas McConnell, F. Roy Coad, Keit Matthews, Rich Bueller, Joshua Massey, Phil Parshall, and Stephen Freed.
The question for us is, how can we make ourselves students of women (and of men, and of all cultures and colors)? You can only be formed by that which you’re exposed to, and you can only cite or write about who you read and hear. Which books are in our libraries, who is on our blogroll (so many men’s blogs link almost exclusively to other men!), who preaches, innovates, and makes decisions in our churches? Who feels entitled to express their opinions publically, or to speak in public?
A second issue is the tendency to refer to women in terms of their relationships to men. McLaren’s grandmother and mother are favorably mentioned as teachers of children, but both remain unnamed, while his grandfathers are referred to as Robert McLaren and Stephen Smith. From the Bible, he mentions “mother Mary and Aunt Elizabeth.” Too often in the church, men are more often referred to in terms of their ideas, accomplishments, or publications, while women are more often valued for their relational and nurturing abilities. McLaren’s book doesn’t go this direction nearly as strongly as it could have.
A question for us in church practice is, do we value women mostly for their family embeddedness, or for their giftedness? Are women’s contributions concentrated in family and children’s ministry, food, hospitality, visitation, and the like? Are women referred to by their own names, or as the mother or wife of someone? How are we encouraging women to find their own voices and gifts, and to speak for themselves? Are men encouraged to form healthy relationships, nurture, and contribute to the ‘service’ ministries of the church?
The third area is including women when considering historical contributions. In discussion of history, church history, and lists of names associated with religious movements, the only woman I found in McLaren’s book was Tammy Faye Baker (mentioned as a pair with Jim). Other included George Whitefield, Wesley brothers, Charles Fuller, Bill Bright and James Kennedy, Pat Robertson, Larry Nrman, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Ulrich Zwingli, Luther, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, Copernicus, Galileo, Calvin, Pascal, Newton, Descartes, Hume, Handel, Mozart, Mohter Theresa, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer, RC Sproul, Ravi Zacharias, Os Guiness, JI Packer, Hneri VIII, Howard Snyder, Larry Crabb, St. Francis, Incan king, Pizarro, Atahulpa, Hernando, Pedro, MLK, Jr., Kierkegaard, Aquinas, and Bach. Pop culture references included only men, such as Jim Carrey, Carl Sagan, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, and Garrisson Keillor. Of course, better no women are mentioned than male authors using women as symbols of promiscuity and cultural decline (Brittany, Paris, etc.)! From Scripture, McLaren thoughtfully fills out a long list including men and women, and Jews and Gentiles. Bible people include Paul, Bartimaeus, Zaccheus, woman near a well, leper, Roman centurion, Syrophenecian woman, Abraham, and Moses.
This issue isn’t difficult to repair. For example, the chapter titled, “Why I Am Methodist” could easily have included women circuit riders and preachers such as Phoebe Palmer. These women were integral to the movement – it’s not a politically correct ‘add-on’ to include them. Biblical women who showed significant leadership and whose names are recorded include Shiphrah and Pua, Miriam, Sarah, Naomi, and others. The deeper question is, Who do we listen to? Who writes our histories, and do we consume them uncritically? And, in terms of personal bias, do we see women as decorative add-ons in pop culture, scripture, or history, or do we see and value their substantive contributions?
I was most disappointed in my fourth area, references to mentors and teachers. McLaren writes fondly about learning from friends and mentors, but the only mentors I noticed were men: Chesterton, Stan Grenz, Rector Renny Scott, and Dave. I wished he had referred to a few women as his intellectual, professional, or personal teachers.
For me, a major transition in my racial reconciliation journey was joining a black church. I had served black people as a minister for several years, and then chose to submit myself to black religious authority by joining a black church (Cheryl Sanders was pastor, so I got to work on my church gender issues as well). Experiencing black religion as a learner and a member was entirely different than helping black people as their superior and rescuer. The same is true for women. We don’t only need to be mentored, helped along, and noticed by men. Many women are of high intellect, education, and experience, and need simply to be found and learned from.
My conclusion? McLaren’s book is an interesting read about its actual subject – generous orthodoxy. Analysis of his footnotes and citations yields important questions for all of us in the church, not only the church emergent, and I’m glad his book raises the questions. What do you think of all this?
Zondervan has asked me to blog-review two emergent books. I know better than to be flattered – I’ve never even been to an emergent conference, and my blog has sucked for two months. It’s probably just Opal’s compelling antics that stick in people’s minds. One of the books is Brian McLaren’s “A Generous Orthodoxy.” McLaren wonders whether some read his book “looking for dirt so you can write a hostile review” (17). I don’t intend to be hostile, but some of what I say is critical. Brian is famous, and I said “hi” to him once at Chipotle in Minneapolis, so that practically makes me famous. I’m not going to burn that bridge.
Cognizant of the critical missives launched in cyberspace toward emergent and the suggestions emergent leaders have made about such criticisms, I e-mailed this review to Brian last week (at Doug's suggestion). I hoped he would write a response, and we could spark a good dialogue about gender in the church. His brief response was "to say thanks and I'll try to learn lasting lessons from what you've written." While my attempt at a fuller dialogue didn't work, I at least won't surprise him with a review coming out of nowhere.
First off, I’m slicing through his book with my own agenda, looking at matters of gender, though the book is not about gender (there is a wonderful, but brief discussion of God and gender pronouns on 74-75, but that’s about it). This is a bit like criticizing an author for what they didn’t do (Can you believe this idiot didn’t write anything about pet care or dermatology?), but not entirely. McLaren claims to be “listening to a wider variety of older and new voices than most people do” (22), and then articulating his broad, generous vision of Christianity. I’m focusing on the range of women’s voices he’s listened to. This can easily become reductionistic – he’s read men from diverse time periods, cultures, and Christian traditions, and I don’t intend to imply that all men are saying the same things. Nonetheless, the gender issues are important. I know the emergent movement values women’s leadership, yet women seem to complain about the same types of (often unintentional) exclusionary practices they’ve experienced in non-emergent settings. Perceiving the reasons behind women’s secondary status in the church is a challenge, and we can’t reach healthy solutions without understanding the problems.
I noticed four ways in which women are used (and not used) in McLaren’s book. First, the citing of women as intellectual authorities. I most appreciated McLaren’s use of Diana Butler Bass. He refers to her as “my friend” (a warm way he refers to many authors), and cites her numerous times. He also cites Nancey Murphy, Karen Armstrong, Melanie Griffin, Flannery O’Connor, and Irshad Manji as intellectual authorities in and of themselves. Why, however, characterize Manji’s writing as “sparkling” and Murphy’s as “helpful,” while men’s writings are more often called “important,” “profound” or “my favorite”?
Unfortunately, most intellectual content in the book comes from males. The book’s foreword and back blurbs are by men (a publisher’s decision, but authors can push). While around 6 women are cited bibliographically or in stories in which McLaren learned something important, cited males include Chesterton, NT Wright, Leonard Sweet, Robert Webber, Steve Sjogren, Hans Frei, Richard Foster, Michael Polanyi, Joel Green and Mark Baker, Dallas Willard, Jay Tolson, Dave Andrews, Henri Nouwen, Romano Guardini, Gabriel Marcel, Thomas Merton, Dan Schmidt, John Yoder, Walker Percy, Philip Yancey, Miroslav Volf, Vincent Donovan, Darrell Guder, David Bosch, Lesslie Newbigin, Philip Gulley, James Mulholland, William Crocket, Randolph Klassen, Samir Vesna, Mark Oestreicher, Dean Kelley, Philip Jenkins, John Franke, Stanley Grenz, Walter Bruegemann, Hans Urs von Balthasar, CS Lewis, Kyriacos Markides, Josef Pieper, Richard Mouw, Ken Wilber, William James McClendon, Michael King, Wendell Berry, Doug Pagitt, Thomas McConnell, F. Roy Coad, Keit Matthews, Rich Bueller, Joshua Massey, Phil Parshall, and Stephen Freed.
The question for us is, how can we make ourselves students of women (and of men, and of all cultures and colors)? You can only be formed by that which you’re exposed to, and you can only cite or write about who you read and hear. Which books are in our libraries, who is on our blogroll (so many men’s blogs link almost exclusively to other men!), who preaches, innovates, and makes decisions in our churches? Who feels entitled to express their opinions publically, or to speak in public?
A second issue is the tendency to refer to women in terms of their relationships to men. McLaren’s grandmother and mother are favorably mentioned as teachers of children, but both remain unnamed, while his grandfathers are referred to as Robert McLaren and Stephen Smith. From the Bible, he mentions “mother Mary and Aunt Elizabeth.” Too often in the church, men are more often referred to in terms of their ideas, accomplishments, or publications, while women are more often valued for their relational and nurturing abilities. McLaren’s book doesn’t go this direction nearly as strongly as it could have.
A question for us in church practice is, do we value women mostly for their family embeddedness, or for their giftedness? Are women’s contributions concentrated in family and children’s ministry, food, hospitality, visitation, and the like? Are women referred to by their own names, or as the mother or wife of someone? How are we encouraging women to find their own voices and gifts, and to speak for themselves? Are men encouraged to form healthy relationships, nurture, and contribute to the ‘service’ ministries of the church?
The third area is including women when considering historical contributions. In discussion of history, church history, and lists of names associated with religious movements, the only woman I found in McLaren’s book was Tammy Faye Baker (mentioned as a pair with Jim). Other included George Whitefield, Wesley brothers, Charles Fuller, Bill Bright and James Kennedy, Pat Robertson, Larry Nrman, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Ulrich Zwingli, Luther, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, Copernicus, Galileo, Calvin, Pascal, Newton, Descartes, Hume, Handel, Mozart, Mohter Theresa, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer, RC Sproul, Ravi Zacharias, Os Guiness, JI Packer, Hneri VIII, Howard Snyder, Larry Crabb, St. Francis, Incan king, Pizarro, Atahulpa, Hernando, Pedro, MLK, Jr., Kierkegaard, Aquinas, and Bach. Pop culture references included only men, such as Jim Carrey, Carl Sagan, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, and Garrisson Keillor. Of course, better no women are mentioned than male authors using women as symbols of promiscuity and cultural decline (Brittany, Paris, etc.)! From Scripture, McLaren thoughtfully fills out a long list including men and women, and Jews and Gentiles. Bible people include Paul, Bartimaeus, Zaccheus, woman near a well, leper, Roman centurion, Syrophenecian woman, Abraham, and Moses.
This issue isn’t difficult to repair. For example, the chapter titled, “Why I Am Methodist” could easily have included women circuit riders and preachers such as Phoebe Palmer. These women were integral to the movement – it’s not a politically correct ‘add-on’ to include them. Biblical women who showed significant leadership and whose names are recorded include Shiphrah and Pua, Miriam, Sarah, Naomi, and others. The deeper question is, Who do we listen to? Who writes our histories, and do we consume them uncritically? And, in terms of personal bias, do we see women as decorative add-ons in pop culture, scripture, or history, or do we see and value their substantive contributions?
I was most disappointed in my fourth area, references to mentors and teachers. McLaren writes fondly about learning from friends and mentors, but the only mentors I noticed were men: Chesterton, Stan Grenz, Rector Renny Scott, and Dave. I wished he had referred to a few women as his intellectual, professional, or personal teachers.
For me, a major transition in my racial reconciliation journey was joining a black church. I had served black people as a minister for several years, and then chose to submit myself to black religious authority by joining a black church (Cheryl Sanders was pastor, so I got to work on my church gender issues as well). Experiencing black religion as a learner and a member was entirely different than helping black people as their superior and rescuer. The same is true for women. We don’t only need to be mentored, helped along, and noticed by men. Many women are of high intellect, education, and experience, and need simply to be found and learned from.
My conclusion? McLaren’s book is an interesting read about its actual subject – generous orthodoxy. Analysis of his footnotes and citations yields important questions for all of us in the church, not only the church emergent, and I’m glad his book raises the questions. What do you think of all this?
30 Comments:
"I wished he had referred to a few women as his intellectual, professional, or personal teachers."
Do you want him to lie or tell the truth? Should he refer to women that way even if they weren't? Or do you mean to say, "I wish a few women had been his intellectual, professional, or personal teachers"? If few women are among his mentors, that's not necessarily anybody's fault, women, men, or McLaren's. That's just the way things turned out for him.
--Ed Cook
By
Anonymous, at 11:34 AM
Great post! Long, but great! :)
I think it is nice thatt some of the evangelcal church is emerging from its box. I made this comment on a another blog:
This is one of the issues that I mentioned about the Emergent Conference in SD this year. Where are the woman leaders? Pastors? Priests? I am struck that a HUGE part of Christ's church still does not include woman pastors.
If approximately 65% of those attending church are women, then it would only seem that a woman can be a voice. If a bunch of white dudes are "controlling" the conversation then what can we expect? I realize that many "denominations" in the Body of Christ are ordaining women etc. (Episcopal & others)
Someone mentioned on another blog about the emergent church organizing. I thought to myself, how dangerous. Who gets to decide who is in and who is out? Who gets to decide what "voices" are around the table? Whose voices? If WE CONTROL who is at the "table" we will never be the church. Sounds like a very modern notion.
I love the emergent conversation and think it is a work of the Spirit, but we need to let the Spirit work and stay out of God's way. One way we stay out of God's way is to be inclusive of "those" not like us. A great place to start is by asking the question, "Who is not here?"
Rick
By
Rick, at 11:52 AM
Interesting. I find myself coming back to this question: "Are women referred to by their own names, or as the mother or wife of someone?" I think that's often what happens. I just wonder where that leaves those of use who are displaced and single, with no family ties to identify or label us? Perhaps that's why the single women I know have such difficulty in more traditional churches (and why I find Solomon's Porch quite welcoming)?
Most of my in-the-flesh mentors have been women. I'm not sure that there's anything wrong with that; it involves a level of intimacy and closeness that I don't feel comfortable developing with most men. Of course, I balance it out by reading male authors.
- Rachel
By
Anonymous, at 2:01 PM
Did you read the book? Or just the index? I can't figure out from your review what McLaren thinks about anything.
By
Anonymous, at 2:35 PM
As a man who is referred to as "Carla's husband," I have nothing to say. But under my pseudonym, Maris Nepal, let me just say that having been taught by Nancey Murphy, I can go on record and say that she is the smartest, most brilliant professor that I've ever learned from. I'm embarrassed around this woman; she makes me quake in my boots. Carla will want me to say too that she got the highest grade in Nancey's ethics class.
By
Jimmy, at 3:19 PM
This is a fantastic review, Jenell - insightful and something that many Christians need to hear. Sometimes it's not about what's there - it's about what isn't.
Thanks.
By
Christy, at 5:20 PM
Ed, I didn't write that McLaren had no woman mentors b/c I don't know that - maybe he just didn't mention them. But the mentors and influencers in our lives don't 'just happen' - most of my mentors 'just happen' to be men, in large part b/c I have feared women's disapproval and have avoided mentoring opportunities. Not until my mid-20s did I begin seeking out women as mentors and personal influencers. The preponderance of (wonderful) male mentors in my life was in large part due to my choices.
And to anonymous (why be anonymous?!), yes, this is a review of the reference material in the book. I did read the text, but read the references more closely. There are numerous other good reviews and discussions of the text (see www.agenerousorthodoxy.blogspot.com).
By
Jenell, at 7:11 PM
thanks, jenell, for saying these things. it's hard to explain why it matters or what it says when women are absent in this particular way. i don't think we quite get it yet, but this helps.
By
jen lemen, at 11:02 PM
Jenell,
This isn't entirely related, but it is similar enough that I need to write a "purge comment"--not directed at you, but at the boob I heard on the radio last night. Driving home alone, I turned on Christian radio to hear a segment on "Evangelical Feminism and the Truth of God". The "professor" (I can't remember where he was from) just wrote a book about how evangelical feminism (or "egalitarianism" as he referred to it) is not of God and it is just one more example of how the church is succumbing to the culture. They talked about headship, male leadership, authority, etc...and for whatever reason, as my blood was boiling, I was thinking to myself, "I wonder what Jenell Paris would say about this?!"
WHY is the message still out there that women are only to be "cherished and nurtured" (according to this broadcast) and that men are supposed to be the only ones leading? Is it really and truly "unbiblical" for a woman to be in a position of leadership and authority within a church? What if I don't want to be cherished and nurtured, but I want to lead in a particular area? How could the God who created me in His image tell me that I must remain silent?
Anyway, these are questions I wanted to scream out the window as I subjected myself to what I really believe is a bunch of crap.
I appreciated your blog today and I look forward to further postings about this subject.
Also, Merry Christmas!
By
Rachie Rach and the Funky Bunch, at 12:02 AM
Jenell,
This is a very good post. One of the most frustrating things I have experienced is being in a relevantish-emergenty church that had nothing to offer women in the way of true leadership opportunity. I was actually told to tailor the way I conduct myself around my husband so that other males would respect him and feel comfortable around me. In no uncertain terms they wanted there to be a visible power distance in our relationship. It felt just exactly the opposite of emergent and was singularly painful for me. I remember the pastor saying (paraphrase) " I know you feel called to [lead] but it just cannot be so, is not meant to be so, or I risk upsetting my male membership." He was only 34 years old. You aren't making too much of this. I really fear a conservative, evangelical church that learns to parade as emergent and progressive. The damage that can do . . .
Erica
By
Anonymous, at 9:06 PM
Jenell - Wow, you have articulated so much of what I have been feeling, but so much clearer than I have been able to express it. Thank you for posting this review - and for addressing what so many people still do not understand or know. Who is not heard from? And are we being mentored in a whole way - both male and female voices? A pastor I once knew told me, off the record, that he believes the fuss about genders is about power. I believe that to be true, and until we understand the undercurrents we will not be able to all swim together. I'm looking to swim together. Thanks for bringing this into the Light. Anj
By
Anonymous, at 8:37 AM
thanks for this review - i think it's a challenge that brian is way open to: finding and listening to female mentors. but i think it's also a challenge for women to be more vocal and trendsetting in this new emerging thing, you know?
By
Rick, at 9:45 PM
Thank you for this posting--a friend pointed it out to me and I thought I'd jump in with a response.
I'm quite confident that my busy friend Brian is honestly pursuing the issues of leadership by women in emergent circles! Yours is a thoughtful and generous review that should keep the conversation going.
Brian and I became friends through our mutual editor at Jossey-Bass Publishers in San Francisco (who is an amazingly talented woman and thoughtful Christian). We both grew up in the evangelical sub-culture, but I joined the Episcopal Church about 25 years ago in college. That choice brought me into a much wider experience of Christian women in history, women bishops and pastors, and theologians who happen to be women than I ever would have encountered in the evangelical world. And that encouraged me to earn a Ph.D. in religious studies--something I was, sadly, discouraged from doing at Scottsdale Bible Church where I first met Christ as a teenager. My youth pastor actually told me that it was "too bad" that I was a girl--if I was a "guy" I could go to seminary and study theology! Such attitudes still, I regret to say, shape the worldview of many otherwise fine Christians.
As we all begin to break through the decaying barriers of "liberal" vs. "conservative" and "evangelical" vs. "mainline" in our common pursuit of a faithful way of life in Christ, we should be able to mine many sources of thought once exclusive to our "camps." And to share encouraging and empowering stories of shared leadership in Jesus Christ. To friends and leaders like Brian, I hope I bring the riches of a conversation going on in my circles for three or four decades now--a conversation that has created great theological and pastoral energy in the old mainline.
For anyone seeking to read first-class theology by women, you can't go wrong with Elizabeth A. Johnson, "She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse," a deeply biblical reading of the Christian tradition regarding gender and God; and "God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life," by Catherine Mowry LaCugna, one of the most rawly intelligent books on the doctrine of the Trinity penned by a contemporary theologian. For a nice start to understanding the role of women in Christian history, the best, basic book is "HerStory: Women in the Christian Tradition" by Barbara J. MacHaffie. Also, check out Ellen Cherry, Barbara Brown Taylor, Nancy Ammerman, Dorothy Bass, Nora Gallagher, and Stephanie Paulsell.
And if you hadn't yet seen it, Brian wrote the afterword to my new book, "The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church" and I am currently writing a blurb for his new book, "The Last Word." I am deeply grateful for our theological conversations and know that they bear fruit in both our hearts!
Peace. And many blessings on this Feast of St. John, the third day of Christmas!
Diana Butler Bass
Alexandria, Virginia
By
Anonymous, at 3:26 PM
Yay! Links on my blog to women 8. Links to men 7. One not included (the sniders) although Annette has done the posting so far so it could go either way.
Good Review though. I hope to start a church with my wife someday as the senior pastor and I as the associate pastor. She's just much smarter and more thoughtful than I am. I'm not much more than mediocre without her, in life and probably in ministry too.
By
The Accidental Buddhist, at 9:12 AM
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
By
Jan, at 5:16 PM
Jenell, as one famous person to another (I also once said "Hi" to Brian!), I just wanted to say how much I appreciated your review. It was very sparkling and most interesting. ;o)
However, I did wonder if this kind of analysis applies to a book like AGO. I found the book to consist of 2 parts. Part 1 (and by far the most important part) was about an approach to Christian orthodoxy. Part 2 then demonstrates this by showing the different aspects of Brian's belief. I just wonder if it's all too personal and individual to Brian to be approached like this.
What do you think?
By
Graham Old, at 12:12 PM
I keep coming back to this post, maybe because it has become "the poster child" for me of the women's voices I am reading on other blogs.
The first time I heard Brian speak, he was talking about his "Wizard of Oz" analogy of doing church. I can't remember all the words and concepts of the teaching but I do remember the spirit in which he spoke about Dorothy and her style of leadership. He said it was THE leadership style that the church needed for this time and place. I thought at that time, "I could work with that guy." He seemed more open to women and what they had to give then many of the other men who were speaking at the conference that year.
I respect Brian and what he has done in the church. His book highlights for me, he is one who can do the both/and pretty well. At least he thinks about such things. At least he is willing to break outside of the typical evangelical mold and talk about real tensions in the life of faith.
As a spiritual director, I wonder what the broader implications of the comments posted here and other emergent blogs means? I sense a rumbling under the surface of discontent among many of the women who have been called into leadership. What might God be inviting in these places of wilderness? As a female pastor, the experiences mentioned are not new to me. I wish I could say different but it is not so. There is no perfect church or place to serve this side of heaven.
Richard Rohr gave some good advice a month ago when he was in town doing a "Men Matter" conference. When he addressed the women about the same sort of discontent, he wisely exhorted us to "stay on our own journey of transformation." I think it is real easy to get side swiped by turbulent times and what is not happening in the places we serve. I do believe the call is always to follow, to obey, to listen, and to love.
Keep the faith. You are not alone.
By
Jan, at 10:58 PM
I'm posting anonymously b/c I don't have a blogger account.
I'm going to start by saying the ugly, hard thing: your review made me feel like garbage.
I'm a Catholic woman who grew up about as far outside of conservative, normative Christianity as you can get. I grew up in a church full of women in leadership roles. I grew up with the assumption that I would have a career. I find myself a housewife and a mother of three, in a liberal city, and the only, and I do mean the absolute only support I have ever found for my life is in American evangelical Christianity.
I want to be valued for my embeddedness. I want to known as somebody's wife and somebody's mother. The answer to the problem here isn't to force women, who are working hard doing other things, into the masculine mold of accomplishment. You are asking the wrong questions. You shouldn't be asking where are the women mentors, where is the female intellect - you should be asking why we don't identify men as somebody's husband and somebody's father. You should be asking yourself why you need names to know someone's important.
You balk at "Mother Mary?" There is no higher human title than mother. To disappear into that name, that role, is elevation.
By
Anonymous, at 4:25 AM
I am surprised you don't comment on the thing which struck me most about AGO - the comments about Mother Mary. Brian made some comments about veneration of Mary as being a worthwhile feminizing influence to an otherwise male-dominated religion.
Personally, I hate this idea. Mother Mary as the Mother and Virgin is the contradiction and example no woman can ever live up to! Also, this creates the "holy family" image which keeps Jesus as a cute baby, and makes the dominant figures Mary and Joseph - not very theologically sound, IMO.
What I would like to see is the reclaiming of the feminine images of God - I hear there are some! Not being a bible scholar I have to take others' word for it, and I never seem to hear these ideas preached from the pulpit, but otherwise reliable sources tell me that God has some feminine images - mother hen, nurturer, etc. We should be hearing more about this!
By
elizabby, at 11:46 PM
Jennell,
I'm just getting into the book, but I think I see where you are coming from. I had a female church history teacher in college that is where she is denominationally because "there was no room" for her in the denomination she grew up in. She opened my eyes to the role of women in the history of the church. I would include her as influential in my understanding of faith for that reason, but to be honest, any other influential woman would be named by title because that is how they relate to me.
I am a married man, and out of respect for my wife, and personal piety issues, I will not enter into a mentoring relationship with a woman. That relationship is too intimate, and in my opinion has no place between members of the opposite sexes. I read women authors occasionally, but lets be realistic prior to the past 40 years, how many women were authors on theological topics/issues. One can hardly fault McLaren for not using women authors in the historical portions of the book.
All in all, however, I appreciated the review. it was good.
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Toby, at 12:29 AM
Good McLaren book, good post by you, and good comments. Thanks, everyone. As someone male and white, attempting to deal with gender issues myself (see Are Men Really Human?), I resonate deeply with your concerns. But I also confess that for me (maybe for Brian as well?) it is truly hard to come up with a list of women as long as the list of men he used. Maybe you could do us all a favor and make such a list! That would be wonderful reading / edification for all.
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Jon Trott, at 1:56 PM
Drat, that link didn't work. That URL again for Are Men Really Human?....
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refinance, at 1:49 AM
Mother Theresa is woman, but you list her among the men.
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