Wednesday, April 26, 2006
I'd like to share my vision of the church, particularly as regards sexuality. It's not a very theoretical or theological vision, however. It's just derived from my experience. And if I've learned anything about being ex-straight, it's that a big part of heterocentrist privilege is the ability to silently enjoy being good/normal, while Others have the spotlight pointed at them.
Now, I wouldn't actually write out my sexual history on the Internet, which is partly my point. In our theology and church practice, we need to have good boundaries about what belongs in public and what belongs in private. I appreciate sermons and teachings about what the Bible says about sexuality, but where the rubber(s) meet the road is in daily life. For me, talk about sexuality is a part of my close friendships and even small group, intensively so in particular life moments (dating, before marriage, at marriage, choosing birth control, infertility, child loss, child birth). In most of those moments of decision/discernment, I talked with 1-3 people in depth about what I was experiencing, and what I was to do. A few times in my life fellow believers have spoken critically about my sexuality (you are sinning, you need to change, God does not approve), and those were very painful times - how difficult must it be to walk into a church knowing that everyone has opinions about your sexuality? The people saying such things were close enough to know my story, know many of the variables and contingencies, and I had invited them in, as believers, to comment upon and to follow my story. Still, when we disagreed, it hurt. (What in the world are we doing, as believers, to broadcast our judgemental opinions about the sex lives of strangers, and even strangers outside the church, unbidden?) I believe that I answer to God for my life decisions, and others will be held accountable for how well they loved me, not how well they judged me. That would work vice versa, too. Now, discernment, accountability, and the naming of sin are difficult and necessary things, and they are different than judgments, because they come from loving people who know my story.
I want my life to continue this way - sexuality remaining an important and private part of my life, all of which is lived in the context of the church. I invite other believers to know my life and to speak into it, and even to challenge and disagree with me. I listen to sermons and public talks and books, and study Scripture myself. There are layers and levels at which to engage the issues. Sometimes sexual issues are at the forefront, and sometimes they're not. There is always sin, always love, and always grace in my life -- sex life included -- and I believe that is true for everyone, no matter how they ally themselves with cultural sexual identity categories.
That said, I have two concerns about how our sex-idolizing culture shapes how we approach holy living. First, I don't think Jesus/God affirms our desires, or affirms the sexual status quo. Jesus is our redeemer and savior, and doesn't that imply that we are in need of redemption and saving? It seems that some are quick to say "God is good, and God made gays, therefore gay is good." I am generally loathe to push Christian Reformed theology, but their simple narrative approach can be useful - God made the world good, it is fallen, and Christ is redeeming it. Doesn't that go for our sexuality, too?
My second question is about the meaning of desire. In my life, God has helped me discipline my desires more than to fulfill them or express them. In recent years, my deepest desire has been to mother my three sons who are deceased. I don't know why God wouldn't save them, and why I am left here to live however many more years without them. I will live the rest of my life incomplete as a mother, longing for something I can't have. Now, by 'discipline', I mean to teach/instruct/shape/form. Left to my own devices, my desires would implode and make me bitter and sad. I believe that God helps me redirect my frustrated desire into parenting my living children, loving other people's children (my students), and just generally redirecting my maternal energy outward to bless others, instead of inward to harm myself. I don't get to live the life I want, and it is very painful to me on a daily basis. I no longer expect God to give me what I want, or to fulfill my longing for intimacy, love, and family in the way I thought those things would happen.
I'm not making generalizations about how Christians of same-sex attraction should live their lives. But nothing in this life is too difficult, if God helps us. Increasingly, celibacy (to pick the most extreme example) is rejected as draconian, authoritarian, and loveless. But we can create communities in which the unthinkable becomes thinkable. If, in fact, the Bible restricts sexual activity to the extent that it seems to, then we need to discipline our desires accordingly. As a married woman, that means talking with friends about the selfishness, hostility, distance, pettiness, fear, and whatever else afflicts sexuality in my marriage. For single people, married people in different circumstances than mine, people with complex sexual attractions, people with unsettled genders...the discipline of desire -- molding our desires into patterns of holy living -- plays out in many ways. I just don't think we should close off any possibility, however countercultural it may be.
I could have believed that the death of my babies meant nothing, and that living a life without them would be cruel and loveless. My faith, and my faith community, helped me make meaning of their lives and of my life. It's not right that I have to live with profoundly unfulfilled love, but that's the way it is. Much of my discipleship these days is about learning to live with longing - learning to find and to make significance in a world where things have gone wrong.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
So, are you with me so far? I’m just getting started... if you could hear my voice, I’d be saying that like Al Pacino in that movie where he’s blind. “Homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” are social constructs, or identity categories that have a history of emergence and change. They are not God-created or natural ways of understanding what it means to be human. Like being “American,” or “White,” or a “professor,” we must look at these categories for ways in which they free us to love ourselves, our God and our neighbors, and ways in which they become idols that obscure our true identity and purpose. (And professional categories are also idols, when we say ‘I am a professor’ instead of ‘I work as a professor’).
Homosexuality has emerged in the modern era, and historians track its emergence. Within very recent years, we have seen the “non-heterosexual” category shift. The word ‘homosexual’ is considered offensive to most academics, because it is a medical term that paints homos as diseased/deficient. ‘Gay’ and ‘lesbian’ are too narrow, only including two types of people. ‘Bi’ is viable, but can be seen by gays and lesbians as flip-floppy. ‘Queer’ seems to work fairly well, as does ‘lgbtq’ (ah, I remember the good old days when it was just ‘lgb’). These sexual identities are forming, shifting, and gaining cultural viability right before our eyes (unlike racial constructs, which we were born into). Christians need to influence not only policy that constrains behavior, but culture that shapes minds and hearts.
It’s harder to see heterosexuality as a social construct, because it is the norm – the water we swim in, so we can’t see it. Consider, however, my personal interest in homosexuality as an example that can help make it visible. Perhaps you wonder whether I’m queer, or you wonder about my sexual history, or you wonder what I’m either repressing or projecting. Heterosexuality maintains its strength, in part, through taboo. People who are firmly in the hetero camp must not do anything to threaten their membership or to question the system of privilege – show allegiance with queers, interest in queers, or associations with queers, and you just might be one. And especially in the church, questioning or gossiping about a person’s queerness is enough to make that person be quiet. So, by definition as a majority/privileged group, heterosexuals maintain their privilege by avoiding any appearance of being queer. Telling fag jokes, or other forms of verbal or physical antigay violence, also serves this purpose.
Christians are buying a lie – that some people are born better than others. We believed it about race – God just made white people more capable of being civilized (and still do in some corners of our hearts), and we believe it about sexual identity (by birth or by choice, some people are essentially more moral, more good, and more holy than others). Whether or not same-sex intimate behaviors are sinful is not at issue here – we’ll get there later. Our culture presents us with an odd challenge, one not found in biblical cultures. People understand themselves as divided up into what may be called subspecies of homo sapiens, categorized by the direction of one’s sexual feelings. Christians understand themselves this way, too, and by any means necessary, most try to be perceived as heterosexual. We must read cross-culturally, translating Greek and Hebrew culture constructs into our own ones, which are innovative and unusual.
Christian heterosexuals – simply by buying into the idea that such a thing as heterosexuality exists and claiming it for themselves, sacrilize a cultural construct that privileges some and dehumanizes many. And they can’t necessarily be blamed – they’re using cultural categories to think about the gospel, instead of the other way round. The church has so refused to deal with sexuality that its members have little choice in the matter – lacking our own resources, we use the culture’s terms, vocabulary -- even identity constructs.
What if we began with biblical categories to understand what it is to be human – that we are children of God, loved by God. Being American, being heteros, homos or queers, being professionals or workers – those are all cultural contingencies that must be subordinated to Bible truth. We could be heteroseuxal on an as-needed basis, say, to be understood in cultural dialogue. But we wouldn’t get life from being heterosexual, wouldn’t use it to feel morally safe or culturally superior, or to protect ourselves from discipleship or accountability. We’d be fully a part of our culture, understanding and engaging its terms, but with strategy and awareness.
That’s all for today. We do need to approach Scripture and Christian tradition, but we’ll not ask the question, “What does the Bible say about homosexuality?” Instead, we’ll ask about desire, identity, and discipleship.
8 Comments:
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Yes, definitely with you. Keep it up.
Disagree with you on the idols...the definition of 'professor' being "one who professes or teaches for employment," "I work as a professor" is redundant. But that's just linguistics, and your point is taken.
I often hope that you and I could be raising the first generation of kids who will truly not understand racism...not only will they not have to combat prejudice in their lives and hearts, but they won't even comprehend that people did and do. At least that's my hope. But I fear that "you're gay" will still be considered an insult on their junior high playgrounds. Thank goodness for Seinfeld, which has instilled the proper response in the cultural consciousness; "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"
PS - You should probably take KP off your blogroll...her blog's been hijacked.By
Josh Fuller, at 1:16 PM
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I really enjoyed your thoughtful and articulate exploration of the ways that culture and the gospel intersect around the issue of sexuality. I live in the Bahamas and I can definately understand your frustration with the Churh's refusal to deal effectively with a theological framework for understanding sexuality. I am waiting(and participating) in hope that the way our larger postmodern culture is heading will force the church to wrestle with sexual and identity issues.
Thanks for your thoughts and I look forward to reading more! -
One of my Fuller profs used this kind of thinking in a class about the family. I remember him talking about divorce and suggesting that God is far more concerned about the humanity of the people in a marriage than in the institution of marriage itself. Therefore, when the marriage threatens the humanity of the people in it, it is the institution that should be disassembled.
We--at least protestants--have come to think about divorce in terms that are very much the opposite of what the Bible has to say about the issue. I think we've done that partly out of convenience, but also because there were culturally bound reasons divorce was problematic in biblical times. It left women destitute and it was being misused by men as a means of taking on younger, more fertile wives as the mood struck them. So the admonitions against divorce are there as protection for those who were suffering as the result of a casual attitude toward marriage. It's clear that many of the early Christians also had faily casual attitudes about sex (and who wouldn't when there wasn't yet a Bible to tell you otherwise:). Anyway, perhaps the biblical admonitions about homosexuality function in a similar way--as protection for those who were at risk of being misused by a casual attitude toward sex, primarily young boys and the wives of men fooling around with other men. In other words, I'm not convinced that the homosexuality the Bible talks about includes two adults who love each other and want to share a life. Paul warns against things that break down community--dishonesty, greed, selfishness. That makes me think he was referring to the kind of sexual issues that hurt the innocent--pedeophilia and adultery--rather than acceptible adult relationships.
Then again, my thinking is probably tainted by the lesbians across the street and their secret mind games meant to make me buy into their family-destroying agenda.By
, at 4:14 PM
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I've been reading the recent postings with great interest. I agree with much of what you say about identity and God and the church.
I've also been thinking about the issue from a public policy perspective (which is what I am studying right now). And I wonder how your thoughts work its way into policy? It is clear that the actions that governments take create incentives for society. People respond to the "rules," whether it is Social Security (more money if you are married and one spouse didn't work) or welfare or the tax code (homeowner deduction). So the question is: what "rules" should government pass to create what incentives?
How does gay marriage work into this debate? How do we deal with a political system that is now based on identity politics? What choices should we make as a society, because choices are will be made whether we pass a law or don't?
any answers?By
, at 6:41 PM
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Very intriguing post and thank you for taking on this issue, it is important to dialogue about such things. I saw the documentary "Same Sex America" last night, which dealt with the marriage issue. Taking the agenda of the film into account and realizing that they were showing the extreme of the Christian right, it was still hard to see that this extreme exists, to see Christians be so obsessed with the "sins" of others and seemingly not having any self-awareness (when would they have the time when they are so focused on others?) You are right, people become objects and issues rather than individuals, and the moral high horse is evident even when the relationship is more personal (as in "I have a gay brother/sister/friend, I don't hate them, just find them completely immoral"). Carla, your comment about your neighbors made me chuckle out loud!
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, at 11:03 AM
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I don't want to pontificate about gay marriage, adoption, hate crime legislation, health benefits, and the rest. Each issue deserves its own consideration, and on policy, I'm fairly minimally informed. And while you may think I have quick and extensive opinions about everything under the sun, I don't!
It does go to show, however, how we can't focus only on the bible question of morality. 'Homosexuality' is not a single issue, if it even can be fairly cast in terms of 'issues' at all. We need thoughtful Christian engagement in all these areas.
My interest is in culture, and how we craft/acquiesce to/recast the terms of engagement over sexual issues. And, related, how Christians/the church lives and could possibly live in our culture.
I want to write a longer post taking off from Carla's comment, as well. I don't think it's wise to assume that same-sex relationships are parallel to opposite-sex relationships, nor that a gay-gay relationship is like a lesbian-lesbian relationship, or bisexuals in either of those combinations, or transsexual people seeking love and intimacy. These relational combinations all have their own dynamics and tendencies, and none of them are easily parallel to man-woman marriage. -
You rock, Jenell. You just plain rock. Thank you for your insightful commentary on this subject. You have nailed what is wrong with the entire Christianity-homosexuality debate. Heck, you've practically given the definitive explanation of the meaning of life. I love, therefore I am (yet not me, but God who lives in me).
By
, at 1:10 PM
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Josh, thanks for your good point about 'being a professor.' I've used that point regarding other topics in class, but you're correct, and I'll come up with a better example.
Monday, April 24, 2006
I spent 48 hours away from home this weekend, at Hope College for a board meeting. Left on their own, James and the boys grew their beards, didn't shower, and hunted bear. The babies' whimpers still woke me up in the middle of the night -- my mind creates the sound at nursing time, whether or not they're with me. I indulged in long periods of uninterrupted reading, and chose the very best topics for relaxation: violent American racism and the Holocaust. Why didn't anyone ever make me read Night? Each book I've started is on the Definately Must Require list for my race class, which means students will be reading 37 books next semester.
Straight white men are not yet rallying around my ex-straight ministry. It's a challenge to liberate those who don't know they're oppressed (just try teaching white people about race!).
I don't think my ideas are palatable to either liberals or conservatives, but I'm hoping maybe we can forge a way beyond those theological categories, and then beyond the gay/straight divide as well. Instead of beginning and ending with the moral question, I want to begin with the question of social construction of identity and see where it leads, thinking christianly all along. (Just a mention, however, that I am not promoting ideas that would get me dismissed from my job. And should my pursuit of truth become personally costly, I will stop pursuing it in a hurry.)
I was persuaded by the Soulforce activists. They stood at the front of a lecture hall in a row, reading stories people had written to Mel White. They are Christians, and so am I, yet we were having an adversarial, us-versus-them encounter. How can we speak of 'us' and 'them' within the body of Christ? They were passionate young people, believing in a cause enough to get out there and do something with their lives. They had personal stories of discrimination and of incredibly difficult self-discovery and identity formation. Most of them loved Jesus and wanted love and acceptance from the church. That all moves me to compassion and interest, not to debate or to hatred.
We ought not hold personal identities that trump our identities in Christ. Race functions that way when we worship, live, socialize and relate only with those of our racial kind. Nationalism functions that way when we kill Christians in other parts of the world in the name of patriotism. And sexual identity works that way when we live and function in communities based on sexual orientation -- and find more love and acceptance there -- than in the church. We need identity constructs to function -- personally, I rely on constructs (and none of these are directly addressed in scripture) like "professor", "Minnesotan", and "Idol-watcher." I form community around these roles, and they shape me. But when they take priority over "Christian," they become idols.
It's obvious that sex is an idol in our society. Got to have it, can't live without it, can't be a healthy functioning adult without expressing it. Likewise with sexual identity - people before the 20th century didn't even have sexual identities - they operated only with gender identities (man, woman) and related social roles (single, monk, nun, husband, wife). Now, even before their pubescent sexual hormones are activated, children are encouraged to explore, name, and claim their sexual identities. And this much more than even when I was growing up just twenty years ago.
In addition to the idolatrous status of sexual identity (for both heteros and homos), sexual identity makes full inclusion of non-straights impossible in the orthodox church (by orthodox here, I mean rejecting of same-sex sexual intimacy. Probably a poor word choice.) Dialogue is impossible when one group is defined as immoral from the get-go. Gays are inevitably immoral, while straights are moral by default and immoral by exception. You can't have a dialogue when one group is defined as 'less than' before discussion even begins. We should speak together as believers, considering others as more important than ourselves (not as less moral than ourselves), in settings in which cultural idols hold no sway.
A pseudonymous young man experiencing wide-ranging sexual desires once said to me, "It's not that I'm gay, because I'm not. But if I'm having sex with men, then I can't be straight, right? Why can't I just be Tom?" Tom, you can just be Tom, seeking counsel from other Christians as you pursue holiness in the way of Jesus. Perhaps we can't bridge the gap between gay and straight, but I know we can bridge the gap between Tom and Jenell.
6 Comments:
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Amen, sistah! As an elder in our church, we've had some pressure to take a "stand" against homosexuality, and I just don't understand why THIS is the one thing we feel we need to have a position on. We're perfectly comfortable with a nebulous approach to so many other things. I said I'd rather not be an elder than take a position that might alienate some members of our community.
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Jenell, thank you. You write the most thoughtfully and lucidly on this topic than any other Christian I have read.
Dana Ames
Ukiah, CaliforniaBy
, at 6:23 PM
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Hi Janell. I've been reading your blog for awhile now, but have never commented.
I have also recently read Night; it made me moan and cry with the agony of remembering that there are other life experiences outside of my own. I don't mean this to sound trite, either. It is a hard read, but necessary.
I really enjoy your blog!By
A. Borealis, at 6:50 PM
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"Most of them loved Jesus and wanted love and acceptance from the church. That all moves me to compassion and interest, not to debate or to hatred. "
yes! yes! yes!
Jenell, I appreciate what you've been saying here and thanks for sticking your neck out. (Hope it DOESNT threaten your job.....) One question to consider - I've been wondering if the "straight/gay" divide is even a reality - what do you think about the sexual continuum - that idea that most of us are somewhere in the middle about our sexuality rather in stuck rigidly on either end? -
Exactly, juniper. There's plenty to critize Kinsey about, but his "kinsey scale" has had lasting value. In this view, there are few with absolutely, no-exceptions same-sex attraction or opposite-sex attraction. Put those two conditions on the poles, and then most people will locate themselve somewhere in between.
That spectrum could allow for us to be individuals, all somewhat different, with individual stories. Instead, the model is popularized into three chunky categories - gay, bi, straight. In addition to what I've been writing about, those categories play up certain parts of experience and erase others, encouraging us to identify more (and conform to) with external categories than to our own created selves. -
A clarification: Kinsey's scale had seven units, ranging from exclusively homosexual to exclusively heterosexual. It was popularized down to three: gay/straight/bi. For a sad use of the scale (asks people to rank themselves according to 'how gay are you?', which reduces the whole scale to only one category!, see http://gaylife.about.com/cs/gay101/a/kinsey.htm.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Jesus says you can come to him and lighten your load, gain rest from your worries, and be blessed on your journey. I believe there is freedom for you. I should know - I used to be heterosexual myself.
Remember when you were young? As a toddler and a young child, your eyes and heart were wide open to everyone - delight at the stranger in the grocery store, anticipation toward a potential playmate, joy at the warm touch of another human. That love, and the physicality of that love, wasn't sexualized or labeled. The cultural script underlying it defaulted to heterosexual development, of course, and you learned that your particular contellation of interests, abilities, and self-expression earned you the social role of 'heterosexual'.
In adolescence, you may have had conflicting feelings, or even confusing and wide-ranging sexual experiences. You learned, however, to play a role, even taking on the labels "straight" and "heterosexual" and owning them deeply. It's amazing, when I see heterosexual men, how they are all so similar - who teaches them how to act like that? They wear very limited colors and fabrics, have only a few hairstyles to choose from, walk with bravado (their limbs and stance use more space than women or gay men), and use a very limited range of facial, emotional, and vocal expression (no high register, no tears, no giggles, limited surprise/fear/tenderness/joy). It's like you all must take a class together to develop this demeanor!
Membership in the 'heterosexual' club comes at a price. You must suppress some of your possible interests, emotional expressions, and possibly even relational depth. You must repress any sexual feelings, and lie about any sexual experiences, that deviate from the heterosexual norm. Your enjoyment of theater, fashion, color, texture, touch, and emotional purging is limited.
When you become a Christian, however, you can leave all that behind. You can just be a person, a child of God, a loved one. In the church, we understand cultural categories, but we don't live by their power. Identity comes from God -- loved child of God -- not from subcategories of humanity defined by sexuality.
Sexuality, then, is part of your story, but it's not the whole story or even the most important story. In intimate small groups or close friendships, we tell the stories of our lives. On our journeys, sexuality leads us down detours, into clearings, onto mountaintops, and into shadows. That's true for everyone, but so-called "heterosexuals" are burdened by cultural privilege that prevents them from telling their stories honestly. Dividing people into stratified sexual groups means the privileged ones have to work to maintain their privilege, and at any cost, must not get evicted from their group.
The Gospel is clear: you are loved by God. And when Christians are who we truly are, our message is also clear: you are loved by us. We journey to wholeness together. Come inside, where the culture's labels and privileges and rules don't apply. Like I said, I know how difficult your struggle is, because I used to be heterosexual. In most settings, I'm still perceived that way, because in many ways I fit the cultural category. In my heart, though, I know I'm really a child of God, and I understand my sexuality in that light. The people who know me best -- who know my story and help me understand my past and make choices for the future -- encourage me to live not with the burden of cultural privilege and all it takes to maintain it, but to live lightly and to rest freely, which is possible when you come to Jesus.
10 Comments:
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so...what are you trying to say?
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This is so, so beautiful.
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I talked with Greg Boyd yesterday who said something that I think is so perfect that I'm using as often as I can. He said Christian communities are called to define themselves by their center, not their boundaries. The implications of spending our lives seeking to live like Christ are profound, particularly in this conversation.
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, at 12:02 PM
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Excellent, and made me laugh as well (I'm pretty sure you were intending to be funny in the beginning there).
I'm glad to see this theme on your blog in recent days...I've often wondered whether to comment. So many people have done so in order to say how unsure they are of what they believe. I would be the apparent minority who knows exactly what I believe about this and how I interpret what little the Bible says on the topic. I would write about it on my own blog if I didn't have so many readers who would be offended.By
Josh Fuller, at 1:04 PM
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I like this so so so so so so so much! Thank you.
ChristyBy
, at 11:56 PM
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Oops! Greg Boyd just outweighed you in profundity on your own blog...how does he DO that???!
Amazing :0)
(Oh, appreciated the post too...) -
Boyd's Repenting of Religion is rumbling around in my subconscious as I think about homosexuality. He doesn't draw all the implications out for that particular issue, so I don't know what he thinks about what I'm writing. He is one of the more gregarious and truly people-loving persons I've known (he was my prof for theology and western civ). He would define community by the center, not the boundary, so that more people can be a part of the loving.
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test
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Thank you for posting this! Our church is preparing for a series on sexuality and the church, and this is exactly the sort of thing that we are starting to explore. If you don't mind, I have taken the liberty of posting this blog entry on our discussion board (giving credit, of course :)). Thank you for exploring this outloud.
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Love it! :-)
Thanks.By
graham old, at 8:54 AM
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
First, why did Zondervan want to pair McLaren and Campolo? If anyone knows, please comment. They're not a "younger-older" pair, nor are they a "divergent viewpoint" pair - are they "modern-postmodern" pair? It doesn't really seem like that, either. They fit together somehow, but I can't quite put it into words.
Anyway, they write this book together sort of about their views on everything - along the lines of Campolo's 'hot potato' book. They don't write with a single voice - you know which of them is writing at any given point.
I only read the introduction and the chapter on homosexuality. Campolo wrote the chapter, and says that while homosexuality may be against God's creational intent, so is Christians' mean responses to homosexuality. That argument is like "Shit! And look at yourself - you care more about the fact that I said shit than that millions of children are starving to death." It's a good point, but it raises a second issue without satisfactorily dealing with the first. McLaren writes a brief commentary at the end of the chapter in which he, too, emphasizes interpersonal kindness, telling a story about how a gay man was more merciful to him than many Christians are to gays.
This message is important, and sadly, continues to bear repeating. But we've just got to get off the dime and start moving on understanding homosexuality. Queer scholarship is starting to circle back on heterosexuality, questioning what deconstructinionism and other theories mean when applied back to the majority group. The concept "homosexual" itself is quickly becoming less and less useful, and many reject it altogether. Christians are focused so narrowly on the morality of same-sex sex acts, and reduce all other questions to that one. At least Adventures in Missing the Point attempts to broaden the discussion to include praxis along with doctrine.
We are behind, behind, behind the times, discussing the issue with concepts and vocabulary from at least twenty years ago. It's one thing to do this with praise songs, and quite another to do it with peoples' lives.
2 Comments:
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When I was going through a very difficult time 2 years ago, the most helpful thing I heard was "I don't know what to say because I have no idea what you are going through". That comment was made by a close friend who happens to be a gay man. How right he was; I will remember that comment for as long as I live. It's probably the only one that really helped me. If others could only admit the same thing the world would be a more compassionate place. Does this have anything to do with your post or am I on a tangent?
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, at 8:34 PM
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Kim,
I wrote you a long reply, but it never appeared here. I don't really remember what it said, either.
In Night, Elie Wiesel says something like, of course no one can _know_ exactly what you experienced, but they can try to _understand_. And that might mean doing more listening than talking.
Well said.
Neumark is a creative, wild, risk-taking young woman who goes to college, works with communidades de bases in Argentina, marries a guy she met there, comes back to the States and ends up an inner-city pastor in the South Bronx for fifteen years. She pastors a reinvigoration of a ghetto church (mostly Puerto Rican) and works with the surrounding community.
Probably because I'm so isolated this year, Heidi spoke to me as a friend might. Her story first made me self-deprecating. I should have done a better study-abroad, should have stayed in the ghetto, should have lived among Spanish speakers...I felt like the risks I've taken were lame risks. I think her vivid descriptions of relationships with inner-city believers, and the on-the-edgeness of their daily lives and their faith, made me miss the way I used to live, and regret that I didn't stay there for fifteen years. Blah blah blah, negative nostalgic detour! I came back around to appreciate and celebrate Neumark's amazing and near-eccentric life, and her ability to tell stories and speak of faith in ways that reach many.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
This afternoon's public session was on anti-gay violence, and was moving. Obviously, anti-gay violence would seem to be common ground for all involved. But hasn't that point been made, over and over again? Sad that there's a need to keep repeating it, and sad that we haven't made more common ground.
The anti-gay violence presentations were based on the persuasive power of story. Indeed, I was emotionally moved (I could admit I cried, but really, the breastfeeding hormones make me cry at Price is Right, too. But not when Bucky got voted off). Is it true, that I need to choose between being a loving, compassionate, anti-violent pro-homosexual and being a Fred Phelps Christian? That can't be the only choice, but often it is presented that way. The outcome of encountering gay stories is not necessarily theological affirmation, though more and more, it seems that experience leads our theology (I believe it has on the issue of women in leadership. Culturally, women's leadership has become normalized, and now Christians accept it based on that normalization, whether or not they have seriously studied the scriptures that seem to forbid it.) So, my question from that session is, what is the place of personal experience in the making of theology?
Tonight's session was a variety of topics in a panel discussion comprised of three Bethel people and three Equality riders. Buzz, buzz, buzz, the campus was abuzz. Huge attendance and energy. In this session as in my own public speaking this year, I come away with a question that seems to be coming to my heart over and over. What can we really accomplish in large-group, public discussions? We can talk about some general things, but the real work of discipleship happens in smaller, more intimate settings. I don't think "we" should stand up in public and tell "them" how to live their lives. We each are accountable to God for how we live, probably more than how well we tell other people how to live. There's a person who has same-sex experience, but doesn't define himself as gay. A gay person who has never had sex. A confused person with lots of attractions. A married person with attraction to everyone but their spouse. A person with no sexual attractions. The "gay" "straight" dichotomy only privileges one group and creates a monolith of everyone else, neither of which are helpful. Those are all specific stories with specific details, and each person has their own relationship with God. And God understands our choices and the constraints upon them even better than we do. Cultivating communities of intimacy and holiness will be much more difficult than setting up public debates or speeches. This stuff will get worked out away from the media and stages, in long conversation, detailed Bible study, and relationships over time. I know there's a need and a place for doctrine, policy, and institutional cohesiveness, but it seems that individuals are constantly being hurt and dehumanized in the name of some larger, macro-level issue.
And if any Equality Riders want to e-mail me and let me know how things go at Eastern or Wheaton, feel free!
2 Comments:
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Hey Jenell!
It was great to meet you today! Thanks for your hospitality. I apologize for our bus driver; he should've stopped at the crosswalk to let you pass!
Peace,
DavidBy
, at 12:34 AM
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No problem - I wouldn't want to get in the way of a big gay bus, anyway!
Their intent is to reach out to closeted students at Christian campuses, and to bring public attention to the discriminatory policies of such institutions. (I won't try to put Bethel's position in my own words, but if you're interested, it's all here). Their words and actions, already, have sparked some thinking for me.
1a. They directly challenged the "hate the sin, love the sinner" slogan, which many agree needs to get the boot. The woman said that such theology encourages conditional love. You should love all people, but not with abandon. Love gay people with conditions. As an anthropologist, I see this as a conflict of worldviews. In the slogan's worldview (if a slogan may be anthropomorphized), sexual identity is separate from behavior. It makes sense, then, to love the person and the personhood, but not to love sinful behaviors. In the gay person's mind, however, the behavior, the desire for the behavior, and person, and the personhood are all conflated. A person with this worldview cannot accept the loving intent (when it even is loving) of a slogan that is seemingly slicing up the whole person into parts: personhood and behavior. Question: Is it possible for those who perceive the Bible as forbidding same-sex sex to love gay persons with abandon?
1b. The concept of sin doesn't make sense when applied to things we understand to be part of our created identity. How could being born a woman, or short, or red-haired, be a sin? It makes sense that choices can be sins, but can a person, in their personhood, be essentially sinful? I think the problem is in the equating of sexuality with identity, which is equally true for heterosexuals as for homosexuals. The Soulforce folks are equating their "Equality Ride" with the "Freedom Riders" of the civil rights movement. It's no sin to be born black...but it is a problem that our culture socializes people to believe that they are members of different races. The deeper problem -- even sin -- is the cultural construct. The related issue is the notion of being born with a sexual orientation. I don't believe we are born gay or straight - we are born with sexual potential, that is shaped by many factors over time. Then we make sense of our desires and experiences by using cultural categories like "gay" and "straight." Some may be born predisposed to same-sex or both-sex desire, but that's different than saying one was 'born gay.'
2. One person equated celibacy with lovelessness, which seemed very sad to me. Question: How can we cultivate communities of intimacy and love for all?
3. Activism is a confrontational strategy designed to persuade (or sometimes force) others to budge. Question: Is there a way to allow for disagreement and still hold our religious organizations together? Not simply 'agree to disagree', but stay together in face-to-face relationship and in discipleship and pursuit of personal holiness, even as we disagree about what the Bible says? What a naive question - it seems impossible, especially when questions of power are at stake -- but I think it is one of my foundational questions at this point. Trying to create and maintain doctrinal conformity just seems like a losing battle - seems like there should be a way to carry the Gospel along through our generation, taking divergent doctrine as a given instead of as a problem.
That's all so far for me. Next is a session on violence -- just last week there were anti-gay hate messages written around the Michigan Institute of Technology (which doesn't forbid homosexuality on theological grounds, by the way...). An important topic to learn about.
4 Comments:
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I like the way you think. I myself have yet to figure out what I think on the topic of homosexuality and I definately have a lot of "propaganda" I was brought up in to wade past before I can think freely on it without a skewed view. But you've given me some things to chew on.
Part of what I didn't like about Bethel was the need to conform. If you were different or had issues in any area of life, you needed to keep them hidden in order to survive. If any of those things came to the surface (as they once did for me), you risked a lot. I personally was persecuted instead of loved and I felt like an outcast. I was accused of being things the accusers had no authority to judge on. And I was shut out from some things I had enjoyed participating in. I even lost friends over it. Not to mention getting a big black mark in my "permanent file" which certain faculty were sure to show when I applied to do things like Welcome Week staff. I was told to "go get help" or else. I wasn't offered a loving coucil, I wasn't offered a chance to explain myself (the little I did explain was pushed under the rug as a decision on my situation had already been reached by amateur psychologists).
I wouldn't doubt there are those at Bethel who struggle with sexuality in many realms (well I know there were some struggling even with the heterosexual aspects while I was there). There certainly are kids doing just about everything they aren't supposed to per the Covenant. And I feel for any current students there who feel the need to put on a mask just to survive. I think the idea of a group like the Equality Riders is merited, they just don't really seem to go about it quite right. I'm not sure anyone will ever be able to change Bethel and other institutions like it due to old fashioned ideals that are stuck to by stubborn old bitties who give loads of money and have lots of influence. It's sad, and it's more sad that I wish I had gone to the U. -
Often, as faculty, we hear the official policies about dealing with students, and I trust that the policies are well-intended, as are those who articulate them. It's important to also hear the stories of students for whom things seem to have gone wrong, over and over. I'm glad Jen's creativity and liveliness thrive, despite experiences that would squelch it.
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Like Jen (and probably a lot of Christians if they were honest) I am not sure what to think of homosexuality. My own church, the Anglican Communion, is at dagger's drawn over the issue, and I can't imagine that the Episcopal church will endure without a nasty split of some kind.
When I was a Bethel student in the late 80s and early 90s, I had a difficult internal time with bisexuality. I can indentify with Jen's comment: "it's... sad that I wish I had gone to the U."
It was out of the question to have talked openly about this considering the social costs. Who would decide actively to join the out group, to become the Other? a neurotic, a prophet, or a fool.
Of course, aren't Christians called exactly to this, to be prophetic, to be seen as neurotic, foolish. But I was hurting then, and a coward.
And really maybe Bethel is a different social mileau than it was 15 years ago. And society is surely different. And I am different.
Do keep posting about this (or, as a last resort, about anything) because you are thoughtful, smart and write wonderfully.
Blessings -
Thanks, Troy, and Jen too, for putting parts of your stories out there. Troy, your single comment does inspire me to keep trying to learn about sexuality and grace, and to pursue the hard work of putting my learning into words...and the even more difficult work of putting it all into practice.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Despite DJ's suggestion that my classes and all others in my department are already fabulous (really, DJ, I don't give you grades anymore!!), some ideas for revision are solidifying. Intro to Anthro will be structured around real ethnographic writings about the Kung San and the Waodani, and I'll give anthro theory and method through lecture. The other option is using a lengthy textbook, and spend class sessions reading aloud portions that students already read for that day. It's a tried and true method, and would probably require the least amount of prep.
Race and ethnicity - I need to do some serious reading. My question for myself is, How can I inspire students to stay engaged with the issues beyond the semester they're in my class? Which books are so culturally important they are worth reading more than once? I've used some heavy social science books, some lame-ass diversity crap, some currently popular books, and a few other ideas. Now, I'm thinking about taking a great books approach. Which books have shaped our culture, or are currently shaping our culture, and would be worth reading even if your prof weren't making you read them? From your comments and my own ideas, here's a reading list for myself, from which to choose books for class:
James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time, Go Tell it on the Mountain)
Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man is probably too long for my purposes, but check it out)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (King)
Amy Tan, Joy Luck Club (is this just a popular book, or of deeper significance?)
My First White Friend (Patricia Raybon)
I Begin My Life All Over: The Hmong in America (Lilian Faderman and Ghia Xiong)
Nelson Mandela, The Long Road to Freedom
Primo Levi (The Drowned and the Saved)
anything from Ghandi?
Shusaku Endo (any suggestions there?)
And then we'll have a weekly poetry or music experience:
Maya Angelou
Negro spirituals
James Weldon Johnson, Black National Anthem (we could listen to this every day and continue gaining from it)
prayers from Mother Theresa
Marvin Gaye/60s revolutionary music
or, possibly, we'll just listen to Amy Grant classics
or, possibly, we'll write our own haikus after long periods of silence (again, this might be a prep-reducing strategy)
My class is always very heavy on African-American and Hmong issues, becuase those are the two groups that most interest me. Any 'great works' from other cultures that you really like?
I'm also crafting an assignment called "Do Something!" They'll choose a current race or ethnic conflict and do something activist or educational to make a difference. I've done something like this before, and it seems to work well.
Are long posts about details of my work interesting to anyone? It's helpful to me, as are your comments.
In closing, I hesitantly point out that Soulforce is coming to my campus tomorrow to protest our discriminatory policies against GLBTQs. My mom is coming over all day to babysit the boys so I can go participate and see what's happening. I may or may not blog about it - it's a complicated situation in lots of ways, and it may not be wise to blog about it. Maybe I'll just report to you what happens.
15 Comments:
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Hello Jenell,
You don't know me but I've been following your blog a bit, and as a fellow new mother I have enjoyed hearing about your boys. (My sister has twins, so you remind me of her.) Also, I enjoyed your threads on Generous Orthodoxy regarding Christine Pohl's book -- she's a friend and mentor and its' exciting seeing her work being discussed.
As for your reading (great list!!), you probably know this one, but I really enjoyed "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down", about the collision of western medicine and Hmong spiritulity in Merced, CA.
Maybe we'll meet some day! Have fun with your boys!By
Maria Kenney, at 12:22 PM
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Native Son is a book that has most affected me.
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Hi Jenell! I read Deep River by Shusako Endo a few years ago...i still think about it and want to reread it...might be a good option :)
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Kirsten and Robert, at 2:11 PM
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I think the Joy Luck Club can have deeper significance. It's really about the ways in which cultural expectations shift even within a culture. I think that can help us recognize you can never pigeon-hole a culture, that no matter how much we study a culture, it is a living, organic thing and we can never really say we have it nailed.
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, at 3:15 PM
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Right, Native Son should have been on my list. It's fairly short, too...
I just don't teach narrative very well. Essays, theory, and research reports work well for me. But I'm still working on fiction and nonfiction narrative. The postmoderns love story, I know, and I see my own life and views in that light, but my pedagogy is stuck back in propositional modernism. -
Shusaku Endo: Silence (or is its 17th century setting undesirable?);
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart;
Maxine Hong Kingston: The Woman Warrior;
Etel Adnan: Sitt Marie Rose;
Nadine Gordimer: Something Out There (short stories);
Isaac Singer: The Magician of Lublin, or maybe Love and Exile;
Tayeb Saleh: Season of Migration to the North; -
Silence by Endo is a wonderful book that has had profound implications on how I look at faith especially if it is in another culture. It is a 17th century setting, but there is a lot of that could be gained from the story.
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Silence by Endo is a classic, but he's got some other good ones:
Sea and Poison: Set in WWII, the ethics of Japanese Doctors doing experiments on US soldiers (not that applicable).
The Samurai: Tells the story of three Samurai (from poor samurai families) who attempt to reach Spain to open up a trade route. Traveling through Mexico Endo's take on Christianity, native Mexicans, Spaniards, and Japanese. The Samurai convert to Xianity and must navigate roles of faith and ethnicity in forming identity.
Not the biggest fan of Things Fall Apart.
Another great work is the play "Master Harold...and the Boys" by Athol Fugard. the play is set in 1980s South Africa and shows how racial apartheid affects and perverts good people: white and black.
As always too many good books to read.By
, at 9:16 PM
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incidents in the life of a slave girl is harrowing and really stays with you. a lesson before dying is a quick read and makes the point. native son sticks, too. but maybe this is all high school reading and too basic?
i wonder if you could find something provocative from this american life that would be short to listen to in class & be a good discussion starter in addition to more standard college level reading. that would fulfill the need for narrative.By
, at 10:47 PM
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it's the day after easter, and my brain is empty. or full. or something. I will check in again sometime when I'm feeling smarter.
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"The Rez Road Follies: Canoes, Casinos, Computers, and Birch Bark Baskets" by Jim Northrup is the book that comes to mind.
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I'd forgotten about Things Fall Apart -- good one! We used that in a class at seminary, great discussions.
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Maria Kenney, at 11:29 AM
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Now I'm exhausted by the thought of all the good books I haven't yet read. I will get going on many of these!
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When a Hyena Laughs: A Somalian Novel by Abdi Abdulkadir Sheik-Abdi.
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make sure they read "the fire next time." keep spreading the gospel according to james. his vision is needed now more than ever. my entrance into the blogosphere is to spread what james has taught me. visit www.bygpowis.blogspot.com. snoop around. if you like, pass on to like minds.
Friday, April 14, 2006
As you know, I've been struggling with my ability to teach Intro to Anthropology, especially given that I only have a PhD in the subject, and my students are just coming out of high schools where they were taught no anthropology. I also have a former TA, now finishing her master's, begging to help teach the class for no pay. I'm going to allow her to reach that dream, as well as require my regular TA to come to class. Three instructors to 65 students will make for some decent discussion groups, instead of me saying, "Any questions?" to a huge class, resulting in the two outspoken high-achievers talking all the time, further diminishing their social prospects without their awareness.
My moment of clarity came, in large part, from articulating the reason behind my fear. I fear Intro to Anthro because it is a survey course, and textbooks normally cover, say, 50 world cultures at least. Test banks offer questions about how the Siriono load their blowguns, how yak milk is made into tea, and the nutritional value of seal blubber. I simply don't know everything about all cultures. There, I've said it.
I do have three things, in addition to general and theoretical knowledge of my field. I know stuff about African-Americans and domestic anthropology (subject of my dissertation and significant chunks of my life), and I am very interested in the !Kung San and the Waorani. The !Kung San are the Gods Must Be Crazy people, which is one of the more ethnocentric ways of describing them. The Marshall family supplied numerous anthropologists for the Kung, and they were great writers and filmmakers, so there is fantastic ethnographic data on them. The Waorani are the people who killed Jim Eliot, also the most ethnocentric description possible. Because students have heard of them (though they don't know their name or location), we could look at the culture from a secular anthropological point of view, as well as a missionary point of view. Would make good discussion of how Christians ought/ought not engage other cultures.
So the class gets structured around real writings, not a textbook (have I offered you my rant against textbooks?). We'll use a slim introductory volume on anthropological theory and method, not a 400-page survey. And students might leave the class remembering something about three cultures, instead of remembering nothing about fifty.
I'm very excited about this.
My second class (of three) for fall is Race, Ethnicity and Peacemaking. That class feels like a pre-make-over housewife on Oprah. Worn out. I'm dead set against textbooks, ever, in that class. Students need to read world-changing writing that will inspire them to care about race/ethnicity. And my question for you today is this: What book changed the way you think about race? And even better, what book changed the way you live, with respect to race?
I want to answer that question myself, but nothing is coming to mind quickly. Life experience changed my racial world more than books. The one book on my new reading list is Blood Done Sign My Name (found it from Phil). It's on reserve for me at the library, but I haven't picked it up because I need to sew those baby hats!
6 Comments:
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Having gone through both of those classes, I think your proposed methods of teaching sound great. So, can I come teach the class too? Just kidding...
I think I would have to agree that life experience has changed my ideas about race far more than any books have, and I read so many great books during my time in the SoCu department, that it would be hard to pin down just one. However, books and classes have been very powerful too - Race, Ethnicity, and Peacemaking included. I am going to go ahead and say Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela is one of those books that really solidified my thinking on race, and has shaped who I am today.
-DJ
so, yes, obviously i read your blogBy
dj and rachel, at 10:46 AM
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Jimmy would say "invisible Man" byy Ralph Ellison.
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, at 11:18 AM
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This terribly unscholarly and pop-culture of me, but Toni Morrison's books (particularly Beloved) have affected me as much anybody's in that regard.
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Josh Fuller, at 1:49 PM
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Two most powerful books in my own life that changed my thinking about race were:
Go Tell It On the Mountain (James Baldwin)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
This sounds like such a smart approach. Wish I would have had you as a prof in my art history survey (could have learned something about 10 artists instead of nothing about 500....) -
For me, the shattering experience around race came when Roots was first on television in 1977; I was ten, and I bought the book. (Or had my Mom buy it for me.) I read the whole thing in a weekend, the biggest adult book I had read until that age. It was the first book written for grownups that made me cry.
On the other hand, not a great choice for a class. -
You should check into Howard Thurman's writings. All of his books are great, Jesus and the Disinherited is the most well known, and reported to be influential on Dr. King. But they are all really meaningful. I have been reading pieces of all of them and I would say that every single one, even the devotions speak to the issues for your Race, Ethnicity, and Peakemaking class from an often unheard Christian perspective.
My boys aren't just middle-class white males. They are Caucasians among Caucasians, whiter than white, burned by the spring sun. And they have no hats. I vowed to make their hats, since I'm not making any of their clothes. Now I have the fabric, but it's hard to get going. Like cleaning my bedroom, there are just so many steps. Find fabric, find pattern, cut out pattern, cut out fabric, find thread, load bobbin, sew, iron, make size adjustments... But now that I've created some blogaccountability, maybe I'll do it.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
A few weeks ago I got together with an old friend who, long ago, turned from Christianity to a personal mix of yoga/meditation/Course in Miracles/entrepreneurial capitalism. I told him my first three sons had died, and that it made me very sad, and he said, "But isn't it only sad from your perspective? It wasn't sad to them. Can't you stop being sad by altering your perspective?" I see what he's saying -- I read Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle -- suffering exists only in the mind. Full acceptance of reality is the path to peace. Even Eckhart Tolle says extreme suffering is the ultimate 'test case' for his philosophy, however, and agrees that sometimes the best you can do is to accept your nonacceptance (which is profound). My old friend and I talked about the possibility that my grief is an illusion for about five minutes, at which point it became too painful for me and I switched to a different illusory topic.
Last night, Hank Hannegraf (The Bible Answer Man) fielded this question: Why did God command the Israelites to kill the babies of the Amalekites? I mean, I can see why they killed men and women, but babies?" Hank said that the lives of those babies had been predetermined, and God knew all complicating factors and trajectories. Those babies might have grown up to be evil, perhaps causing more evil than their existence could justify. Or the babies were created to be killed so the Israelites could triumph. Hank said the same as my friend said, that we are disturbed by shortness of life, but that is an illusion of perspective. A life of one minute may be all God wanted for someone, while someone else gets 90 years. Ultimately, God knows best, so shut your trap and stop questioning him. (I believe that last pronoun refers to God and not to Hank, but I could be wrong).
My old friend and Hank both seem to believe that suffering is less than really real. We may suffer, but it is due to lack of perspective on our part. Everything that happens is as it should be. This is a bizarre confluence of New Ageism and fundamentalism - a denial of the suffering of the flesh.
Here's my response to my old friend and to the caller. When bad things happen, they are bad; that's why we call them "bad things." The pain we feel in our hearts when injustice occurs is real - it's not an illusion, and it's not a blessing in disguise. In my humble and only partially informed outsider's opinion, there is a deep message in eastern religion about acceptance, and I believe it is true, but I don't think it allows us to evade suffering. We don't suffer when we don't care, and if you want to take detachment in that way, then go ahead...but you won't get to love people. My personal mix of Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra says to love people, feel your 'positive' and 'negative' feelings (and eventually stop labeling them), but be a sieve for feelings. Experience them, and let them pass through you. You can't cling to good or bad feelings, and you can't cling to the people and things you love. Everything changes. Live deeply in the moment, and love deeply, trusting that you were created with a capacity for life after loss. When you love with abandon, you find yourself living eternal life, in the here and now -- the kind of unguarded love that can mark our lives eternally. And that returns us to Jesus, which was where I really had started, and I do believe he was born in the East.
Why did God tell the Israelites to kill Amalekite babies? I have no idea. Why might the author of I Samuel have written Israelite history in a way that sacrilized the victor's military endeavors? Hmm. There is more than one way to understand difficult texts. I haven't really looked into this one, so I don't have a conclusion, but I can see plenty of questions to take to the commentaries.
When babies die, I turn to Job instead of to systematic theology. When babies you love die, then you wish you had died so you never would have had to feel so bad. And if God could have saved them but didn't, maybe he could have killed you but didn't. That's just a wordy way of saying that it's wrong and unfair.
If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy, before I go tot he place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow. (Job 10:19-21)
If you take time to absorb the very worst feelings and thoughts, eventually they will pass through you, and you'll move on...not by twisting your mind around some counterintuitive idea of God that makes you sort of afraid of Him, but by meeting God in the midst of life as you live it. Lament may not be the whole story, but neither is satisfied healing, and neither is systematic theology. You have to know what time it is.
10 Comments:
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holy crapoly this is good. I am convinced that people who say these things either haven't dealt with true suffering or have experienced it, but not dealt with it. There's this belief that suffering is an anomoly and so we work so hard to explain it away, but as you say so perfectly, any explaination for how to deal with pain has to be applied to dealing with joy as well. There is, I think, more comfort in the idea that life is a mix of joy and pain, love and loss, and that God is present in all of it. I think I learned that from you.
By
, at 11:37 AM
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Another great post. You are so wise. It sounds like you should be the "Bible Answer Woman" instead of Hank Whats-his-name.
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Great thoughts and writing Jenell - thanks
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i stumbled across your buddy hank's website yesterday at work while doing a funding search for a christian phd scholar in management (tmi). anyhoo, it seems to me that hank's justification skills for suffering are on par with the level of beauty on his website.
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I actually enjoy Hank - he knows lots and lots and lots of details about the Bible. His suffering comments were more his own pastoral commentary, which I tend to disagree with. But it's amazing, when people call in with questions about biblical minutae, he's all over it.
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Great Post. I just found your blog, and appreciate your words. I have never been comfortble with those who say that everything that happens is God's will ("Everything happens for a reason")- I prefer to think that everything that happens is God's concern ("Everthing happens because of a reason...and God is there with us in the good and the bad").
I recently posted the text of a sermon (russkirby.blogspot.com)I preached that connects with this topic.
b blessed
russ -
Jenell,
Speaking of Ekhart and Deepak and those guys: I've been listening to this Ram Dass tape about the respons to suffering - it's a copy, so I'm not at all sure what the title is. He says a lot, but one thing that sticks is: suffering may be redemptive, but you cant tell someone that WHILE they're suffering. When they're suffering, all you can do is be with them and love them. And, human continue to be in relationship, knowing that it will cause suffering. He says that it's "the perfection of the system -- human heart breaks, cosmic heart stays wide open"
All this a long way of saying "right on! great post!"
And not to get to gender-ish on you, but I couldnt help but notice that these two well meaning but thoughtless individuals were men. And it seems a very male way to deal with suffering (Ram Dass excluded, natch) to say "It's all in your head...." even if they're saying it in the nicest possible way. -
I am really sorry your well intentioned friend was so "helpful". I think it is more likely that your friend is an illusion than your grief.
Life is suffering.
I needn't say more on that.
I think of the Amalekites every time I hear someone who suggests praying "God surprse me!" I'll pass. -
Right, Juniper. I think there are places in suffering where a person goes alone. Friends and loved ones should be witnesses, not commentators or saviors. I loved it when friends said to me, "I remember what you said last week...how are you today?" or "I remember this small detail about the hospital, or the memorial service, and here's what it meant to me" or "I miss your babies, too."
I still will insist that suffering is not redemptive, not in the moment or later. God is our redeemer, and God comes to us in suffering and in joy. We receive God and God's gifts, not the gifts of suffering. Suffering gets no credit for anything, in my accounting. -
"Everything that happens is as it should be."
I had to really think about this over the last day or so, because at first I thought I agreed with it. Ever since my experience of deep and real suffering, I have found great comfort in the thought that God knew it was going to happen, and he prepared me for it. I have applied this thought to so many situations in my life ever since -- God knows where I'll be a year from now, God knows how we're going to get the money for (whatever), etc.
I now see that thinking that "everything that happens is as it should be" and "God knew it was going to be" are two very different philosophies. God may think it sucks just as much as I do -- it wasn't as it should have been, because many things aren't, in a fallen world. Now what I'd like to know is why God could have saved my dad, and didn't. Or why God miraculously healed my grandfather of Hodgkin's and saved him after a farm accident, but let him die of heart disease. I have accepted now that I won't ever know, not here.
I also love what you said about the fact that we're created with the capacity for life after loss--something that is almost impossible to see in the moment of deepest suffering.
-Kim Van BruntBy
, at 6:57 PM
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
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This is what my bedroom has looked like for three days. It's boxes of pre-pregnancy summer clothes, winter clothes from the closet, laundered summer clothes, some baby clothes, and laundry from whatever I've worn this week. Don't you do this, too, when you switch from winter to summer clothes?
Cleaning up involves clearing a space on the floor, sorting every item of clothing I own into 'winter' and 'summer', finding pre-pregnancy summer clothes that fit, mourning the pile of pre-pregnancy summer clothes that don't fit (and isn't this really the root of the procrastination?), boxing up winter stuff, putting away summer stuff, doing laundry. And it's finally 70 degrees out - who wants to do work like this?
It must be cleaned up today. I'll post a picture again once it's improved.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Many years ago the Peters Brothers exposed Queen's satanic backmasking, which you'd think would prevent American Idol, a family show, from piping such music into our homes. Ollie and Wesley woke up and cried during almost every performance (yes, that's eight times in one hour), and I just know it was because of the spiritual dimension of rock music. Well, maybe it was the auditory dimension being played several feet from their cribs. Nonetheless, I persisted and watched the entire show anyway, with very very low volume and Ollie writhing on my chest. I just don't understand Queen. Barry Manilow was more up my alley, in keeping with my evangelistic Amy Grant tape playing that I did at debate camp.
Watching Kellie Pickler and Paris Bennett sing Queen confirms what I'm exploring about writing. There are many kinds of writing, and many kinds of writers. While I would go so far as to criticize the Jabez fish, I wouldn't criticize all popular Christian writers. Striving for commercial success may be acceptable if a person has a story to share with the masses, if a person is doing entrepreneurial ministry, or if a person's giftedness happens to harmonize with what is popular at the moment. Or if a person is trying to make a living being a writer - then you simply need to do what makes money, at least some of the time.
For me, writing for commercial success doesn't ring true, at least at this point. I have cultivated writing as a space of idealism - a space where I say what I believe is true, make a beautiful essay or article simply for the sake of doing it, and communicate with interested readers and sometimes even get to know them. If I make $300 one year and then $75 the next, it doesn't matter, because writing is not my job.
My paying job is unusual in terms of its distance from commercialism. Administrators work full time to make a college run, and professors (for the most part) don't have to keep budgets, recruit students, or work on institutional image. We even receive tenure to protect our ability to think and express ourselves freely. Higher education creates a shelter for a few lucky people to cultivate conversations about truth, beauty, justice, and the like. Academic publishing normally involves no pay, for precisely that reason. We want to keep the production of knowledge as free as possible from economic whim (that's certainly complicated in fields like pharmaceutical research, of course). Normally, I avoid the commercial aspects of my profession, but in recent years I've learned perhaps too much about how the Christian publishing industry makes their sausages.
I'm feeling a resurgance of idealism in me, and I want to protect it. I wasn't sure what had happened to my love for perfection. Infertility, infant death, and reproductive medical ethics made it seem as if even the most natural of things -- the birth of a child -- is fraught with mixed motives, disappointment, and even evil. While that may be true, I still believe that things like perfect love, trustworthy hope, and sturdy forgiveness are real. And even more than achieving performance perfection or even moral perfection, I believe in integrity - a harmony between how we were created and how we live. Rolling Stone reported that Paula Abdul's role on Idol is to "keep hope alive" for each of the contestants. As a professor, and even more as a writer, I want to be Paula.
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Jenell, I've always thought you were a lot like Paula Abdul.
"...it seem as if even the most natural of things -- the birth of a child -- is fraught with mixed motives, disappointment, and even evil." I've been having a similar conversation with myself, but regarding nutrition rather than the birth of a child. How has nutrition and wellness become so commercial, and why has this made it so hard and so costly to try and maintain a natural state of health? I know this is a totally separate topic from what you've started here, but the thought process is the same (I think). -
listen, listen dawg.
you wrote a hot one today! ;) -
I mostly hide behind my lurky curtain and read your posts anonymously, but today I had to push the curtain out of the way to say - this is a great post. You put words to some of my own thoughts, including the thought that nothing is entirely pure of evil motives - including. I often wonder, when I pick up a new book at a bookstore - am I just being sold a bill of goods by effective marketers? Where are all the books that don't have big marketing plans backing them? It's not always easy to find integrity. It's part of the reason I like blogs - because they haven't been "sold" to me.
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This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
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Josh Fuller, at 12:47 PM
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The only thing required to understand Queen is a sense of humor.
If that doesn't work, try small amounts of illicit narcotics. Increase as required.By
Josh Fuller, at 12:48 PM
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Well, it might not actually be demonic baby-disturbing influences.
But now Ollie and Wesley someday may "decide to smoke marijuana".By
chicken_pax, at 3:01 PM
Monday, April 10, 2006
I just added Al's blog to my blogroll. I know Al from Minnesota State Debate summer camp at Gustavus Adolphus in either 1988 or 1989. Now he's an editor at InterVarsity Press. Nice to see that there's a future in loving words.
Does anyone have better nerd credentials than I? President of high school debate team, and two summer sessions at debate camp.
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Well, at least now I know not to get into a debate with you. Band camp has no such enduring value.
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David A. Zimmerman, at 5:15 PM
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Band camp does qualify you, however, for lifelong association with a particular brand of nerds. Different than nerds made so by virtue of intellect, but nerds nonetheless.
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I have always consisdered debate-ers more ferocious than nerdy. I was strictly only on speech team - debate team lite for the real nerds who hated conflict so much that we couldnt even PRETEND to fight.
Anyway, maybe I'll have to revise my thinking, now... -
do i know nerds enjoy wordplay, but i don't know if they enjoy parading wordplay in subjects of their blogs.
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1988 sounds right. Jenell and I had debated against each other several times during the school year, and that summer we were in the same debate camp lab group. If memory serves me right, I think I figured out she was a Christian because of an Amy Grant tape she had. But that might have been someone else. I do remember quite clearly all the guys hitting on Jenell; I know I have a picture somewhere of her sitting on the hood of a car, arms outstretched in some glamorous model pose.
I actually dropped out of debate senior year because I tired of the cutthroat nature of it all (and had other things to do with my time than research Congressional Quarterly), but I still find myself using high school debate principles from time to time, helping authors organize their material and structure their arguments around Topicality. Significance. Harms. Inherency. Plan. Solvency. (If you know what I'm talking about, and if you still call yellow legal pads "flow pads," you must be a fellow debate geek.) -
I have that picture, too, Al, and I still occasionally look back at photos from debate camp because I was so happy. Seeing my happy face makes me wonder whether what I'm doing with my life now is that deep-down right.
Defeating other people intellectually in a competitive setting...nothing beats it. -
president of photography club.
members: two.
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What a great picture! They have the same smile on their faces! can't wait to see them again, they're getting so big.
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This is my favorite picture of you three.
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Kirsten and Robert, at 4:17 PM
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Last night I worked a shift at my local Bible bookstore. My aunt is the manager and my mom is a clerk, and they were shortstaffed. Two locals came by, one senile woman who shops for her groceries at the store almost everyday ("Well, if you don't have cookies here, what do you sell?") and a forgetful fundamentalist who introduced himself to me for the sixth time, and offered his xenophobic perspective on my academic discipline, also for the sixth time. My favorite customer was the first, a pastor purchasing a gift cross. I fumbled with the cash register, not knowing how to ring up a tax-exempt sale, and said, "Sorry, I've only been working here for five minutes." He smiled and said, "You're doing just great. Everybody has to start somewhere."
Bumperstickers offered immediate amusement. The classic "No Jesus No Peace, Know Jesus Know Peace", which evangelistically adorned my high school locker, is still kicking. And from the 90s, "1 CROSS + 3 NAILS = 4GVN." Lest you think bumpersticker writers are merely derivative and dated, think again. New offerings include CSI: Christ Saves Individuals and FBI: Firm Believer in Christ.
Four minutes later, and three hours left to go, I laid into the Zondervan catalog with the intensity of a graduate student doing content analysis on her dissertation data. It seems to me that people write books for numerous reasons, none of which I'm criticizing wholesale. Some have a single, tremendous life story that they want to tell. Don Piper has hardly been home since mid-2004- he's out telling his story and selling his book (550,000 copies so far). Pieces of Glass is a new one of this type that I want to read. Others wrote an initial strong sell, and now are writing more quickly and also going on the road. Others are 'branding' themselves, and books are just one part of multi-level offerings including CDs, workbooks, seminars, retreats, and the like. Some were famous before they wrote books, and need/want books to support their expanding work, and have ghost writers or heavy editors help them crank out tens of books. Then, some may find that their ghost writer became an outspoken religious gay activist, and this probably makes them sort of uncomfortable.
I have an impulse to brand myself, take my show on the road, write quickly, and get famous. The Zondervan catalog showed me how. Find your market, offer them stuff to buy, and keep the stuff coming before they forget you. Have something to offer that is solid, well-written, and personally helpful, and let people see your face at a signing or a seminar from time to time. [Question: Can authenticity and honesty be relayed through these kinds of venues? Does art lose its artiness when it is popularized?] All week I've been struggling with post-tour letdown (after last week's three day world tour). I feel isolated in my house, and worry that if I don't have any speaking gigs coming up, then I've been totally forgotten or despised or left behind. I also have my publishing projects finished and off to their editors, and so my current writing is either non- or pre-publishing.
I've just lost my grounding. During the world tour, I gave away my words, my ideas, my time, and my energy. I externalized so much, I feel like there's little left inside. The temptations, then, to write for wrong reasons, feel stronger. When I center down, I know who I am and what I have to offer. When I live from my limbs instead of from my core, I flounder.
But life is long, and hard much of the time, and I've only been at it for, oh, about five minutes. Maybe I'm doing fine -- just great, even. After all, everybody has to start somewhere.
7 Comments:
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I love this blog.
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As an editor/author working in the Christian publishing industry, I can confirm that you've identified two of the main trends that dominate Christian retail - Christian versions of contemporary phenomena (since evangelical Christianity is more prone to copy culture than create its own culture), and brand extension. The first is nothing new, but the second has really ramped up in recent years. At many Christian publishers, authors are "brand properties" complete with "brand managers" who work on extending the property's reach into various lines of "product." I cringe whenever folks talk about content providers, products and consumers . . . they used to be known as authors, books and readers.
The whole brand marketing enterprise works to deliver the same kind of book to the same kind of readers year after year. Which means that there is little room for creativity or originality. I can think of several authors that had some great first few books, but once they became a brand identity and were made to crank out a book every year, all of their books started to sound the same. Often it's the same subject matter, repackaged over and over. Branding leads to being safe, not prophetic.
So authors who are interested in lots of different things can get steered away from areas that are outside their niche demographic if it's counter to their existing brand identity. My first book was about singleness, the second on suicide, and my next book is on suburbia. The only thing they have in common is that the topics begin with the letter S. That's not good for creating a brand identity and author loyalty if readers of the first book are not likely to be interested in the second or third. Oh, well.
At any rate, thanks for this post, especially the last part. I'm rather ambivalent about the whole personal branding thing - there's such pressure to get your name out there and establish your rep and brand name, etc. It's something of a necessary evil, I guess, the way the game is played. But I'm hopeful that in spite of it all, we'll be able to connect with people who really need to hear the things that God is calling us to say. -
I'm with Al. I remember being in a marketing meeting with a CBA publisher to talk about ideas for Bibles--like a couples Bible or a mom's Bible, etc. And it struck me that the conversation was all about what we could add to the Bible to make it more interesting/relevant to people. The longer I have been in Christian publishing, the more I worry about my motivations for wanting to write another book coming out of pride or a desire to be known for something rather than from a feeling that I have something worth saying. It's easy to become a big fish in the CBA pond but for all the wrong reasons.
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, at 11:16 AM
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NAEGSA thinks we should write a book together.
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Great post!
I wonder: is the Christian workout video "Firm Believers" still in circulation? -
I was hoping for the Al Hsu evangelistic bobblehead, or the teapot set adorned with Carla's image, but I guess I'll be disappointed.
I don't see Firm Believers on amazon, nor Stormie Omartin's workout, which I did used to do. She doesn't even sell it on her own website - perhaps 80s lo-impact aerobics doesn't fit her brand niche anymore. -
No bobbleheads here, though I heard about a Lutheran company that has Martin Luther bobbleheads. And socks that say "Here I Stand."
One of the most egregious examples of Christian junk I ever saw was a few years ago at the height of the Jabez craze. It was a Jesus fish that said not Jesus, not Ichthus, but "JABEZ." A Jabez fish. I kid you not.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
In other words, I didn't get to pilates. The boys woke up at 10:45, which means they'd need another nap by 1, and pilates was 12:30-1:30. But if I fed them right at the health club, maybe they'd last until 1:30, so I called, but the child center was full and I couldn't even work out at all. So we took sandwiches to James' worksite and had lunch together. Best part of the day.
We took two walks today, so exercise was had. And if I start timing their naps and meals tomorrow, maybe I can make it to pilates next Wednesday. But probably not.
And too bad for Mandisa. I just don't get it - how is she more worthy of leaving than Bucky or Ace? At least she can sing.
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At least you left the house and got spend time with Dad. I know it's the best part of my day when my family comes to have lunch with me! Oh, and you exercised more yesterday than I have in about a month! You are honestly an inspiration to me on so many levels.
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I just bought a pilates tape on amazon. It isn't realistic for me to try to get to a class - just makes me frustrated with the boys, which is something I avoid at all costs.
And, to satisfy my inner Voice of Cheap, let me tell you that I got two pilates tapes for 5.50 on amazon, and I chose VHS b/c it's cheaper than DVD, though I did spend .50 extra to get two tapes instead of 5.00 for one - seemed like a deal. And I earned some extra money teaching a class for a friend last night, and even after taxes are deducted, that leaves me with more than $5, so the tape was even sort of free, lest you think I waste money. Or lest I think I waste money. -
I've checked out a bunch of pilates & yoga DVDs through the library. Just an option, if you get bored with the ones you bought. I also have a DVD I'd be happy to loan you.
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Why don't I ever think of the library for something like a dvd? If I like the one I bought, I'll borrow yours when I get bored. Thanks!
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Jenell-
You should check the schedule at the MG Lifetime- boys could nap and play here...we're right across the street now!
colleenBy
, at 9:17 AM
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Colleen,
I thought you were across from Northwest? I used to go to Northwest, but not anymore. -
The MG Northwest has become Lifetime!
colleenBy
, at 12:06 PM
American Idol: Chris and Elliott were good. Everyone else hurt either my ears, my eyes, or both. Who even cares who gets voted off - whoever it is, the show will be better for it. A certain someone e-mailed me and says Mandisa goes tonight (feel free to out yourself in comments if you like). I would prefer to see no more of Ace especially, and then Kellie, but I suspect they're both going to persist as hangers-on for a few more weeks.
James and I are wondering about Paula Abdul's inability to sit upright in a chair and her tendency to slur words.
The Lord Didn't Give Me a Parking Space, but How About This?
At Messiah, I was complaining to a woman about my lack of core strength (she was talking about how she's noncomittally training for a triathlon). She said pilates are the answer to my problems. I went to the health club Monday to find out there's a new class starting today at 12:30 - pilates. I believe I'm supposed to go to the class, but for the last nine months, Oliver and Wesley have thwarted almost every attempt I've made to get somewhere at a certain time. I can get to the health club sometime between 12-1:30, but right at 12:30? Well, I'm speaking my intention into the universe, in hopes that intention matters.
Will pilates hurt me? I don't even know what it is.
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i've discovered that my ire for kellie dissapates when she sings. she was made for country night, and although "fancy" by reba mcentire sucks, she did a good job.
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Pilates is a fantastic way of strengthening your core muscles. It might hurt you in the sense of toning muscle, but it shouldn't hurt otherwise. It's kind of like yoga, on the floor, with the mat, and specific poses. As for Paula Abdul, I'm embarrassed to admit I watched an E!Hollywood story on her a few weeks ago. Apparently, she has a pretty severe neurological disorder that causes lots of pain that she’s dealt with for years and years. She's had multiple back surgeries in the last few years to try and correct the problems. But, maybe it’s all a big story to cover her coke habit, I don’t know.
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Pilates is wonderful, can be done at many different levels of intensity, and will strengthen your core immeasurably.
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3 for 3!
Monday, April 03, 2006
I'm back from this college, at which I carted around a carry-on-size-suitcase, which apparently was unusually large for a guest speaker of such small caliber. After a professor twice commented on the size of my bag, I explained to him my nursing schedule and why I cart around a breast pump in the suitcase. Ha, I thought, when he became quite embarrassed. But then I got a little embarrassed, too.
Guest lecturing. Amusing, intelligent, well-prepared, and reasonably good-looking. And that was just the students. A good time was had by at least me, and perhaps even by all. The "American romantic ideal as present in popular praise and worship music" topic was a better choice than the "Why is this guest speaker ranting about homosexuality" lecture.
Speaking in chapel. Speaking about sacred things in a large public space is damn bold. I made all manner of statements about hope, and said what I believed about God, and no one interrupted or contradicted me. I had the microphone, and I was the only person on the stage, and there was all this open space out there into which I could Make Assertions. Is that why the word "proclamation" exists? There's no room in a public address for much in the way of caveats, footnotes, or evidence. Just wild statements about love, hope, and God. It only flies because of community - the speaker and the audience have different parts in a community of shared presuppositions. Or so the speaker hopes.
Facilitating a spiritual retreat. Even more damn bold. Why would anyone attempt to contribute to the spiritual lives of strangers? The speaker presumably has something to contribute by virtue of age, expertise, experience, or credentials. But wouldn't one's friend have even more to contribute? I need to make some notes about my shortcomings, should I ever be so audacious again (and I probably will be).
I hope a few students asked themselves why the person with the microphone, the doctorate, the invitation, or the stage gets to have say. I hope they trust the living word speaking in their hearts more than they trust the published word or the official word. In the classroom, my role makes sense - I did the research I was talking about, and teaching in a classroom is my job. When it comes to spirituality, however, aren't we all 'experts'? Or, better yet, aren't we all non-experts -- amateurs -- in it just for love?
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l that last paragraph is so lovely. I'm stealing for a sermon sometime, ok? (Speaking of venues in which a person has a role of power that might be a little, I don't know, presumptuous or something)
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PS: Glad your week went well, overall. And glad you stuck it to the man about your breast pump. He's gonna be way more embarrassed than you in the long run...
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I am glad it went well!
All speakers should cart around breast pump equipage. It could be this great symbol.
I imagine you are a great speaker, and if you weren't bold/brash/proclamative you just wouldn't be interesting.
But I do hope that Young-Minds-And-Hearts sitting in the various audiences weren't just passively receiving but were grappling with it all. Jacob wrestling with the angel and all that. The good stuff. -
Indeed, lovely. I very much enjoy proclaiming without footnotes and citations -- my ability to channel the Holy Spirit is severely hampered by the obligation to provide evidence for The Way Things Are! (That was a joke, kind of.)
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"American romantic ideal as present in popular praise and worship music"
I would love to hear this sometime!
Welcome home, you were all missed, breastpump and all!
Colleen W.By
, at 5:42 PM
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Thank you for talking about desire. My experience is that very few Christians talk about it unless it is to condemn it. The book "The Holy Longing" by Ronald Rolheiser, a Catholic priest, has been very helpful for me. He deals with desire pretty fearlessly.
I was adopted during the time between when my mother was pregnant with a daughter and then a son, who both died shortly after birth. Their memory was always very much a part of who my mother was and how she met life.
Dana Ames
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Anonymous, at 7:53 PM
J-
I've been lurking for a long time...like 2 years or something.
Thank you for writing this. I'll reread it many times.
Matt
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Anonymous, at 6:55 PM
What in the world are we doing, as believers, to broadcast our judgemental opinions about ANYTHING unbidden?
By
gloria, at 6:09 PM
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