You Can Have Your Hell: John Piper and the Brokenness of a Hell-based Gospel

[trigger warning: death of children]

I’m sure by now you’ve heard all about John Piper’s “missteps” this week. This post is not about him, not really, though we have plenty of reason to be wary of his “Gospel.”

This post is about the Church - the churches I grew up in, the places that granted me my theology degree, the conferences I attended, and the way we view other people.

When I was in college, I was involved in the evangelism ministry of Campus Crusade For Christ. For my first two years of college, over Christmas break, I attended a big conference in downtown Minneapolis called TCX. It was at TCX that I was taught how to evangelize, how to make sharing the Gospel a priority, and how to see people not as people but as receptacles for my speeches.

One year, we were all given little pieces of red or green construction paper and told to hold them against our foreheads. We were told that “green” means “saved” and therefore that person was fine and we could move on. “Red” meant “unsaved” or “unbeliever,” and therefore it was our goal to turn that red into green – like a stoplight. We were literally taught to see the people around us emblematic of a category and to prioritize “getting them saved” over any level of comfort they may have.

Another year, we were shown a video that featured a large man tackling people – painfully! – in his effort to evangelize. The “funny” of the video was that, if you didn’t evangelize, you were going to get painfully knocked to the ground and yelled at by a large black man. No one literally thought this would happen, of course, but the message was clear – evangelism and “saving souls” was the most important thing you can do, because Hell is a bad, bad place and we want to make sure Heaven is populated.

These are the sermons I grew up with – Hell is real and we need to save people from it.

In high school, I had an atheist best friend. I remember one awful night where I was “convicted” of my “lack of witness” for her soul. The next morning, I showed up to school and immediately started badgering her about Jesus and how much Jesus loves her, paying no attention to her comfort level. It was more important that she just heard the message because that would assuage my conscience.

The conversation ended when she screamed “FUCK YOU, DIANNA, I DON’T CARE,” and walked away. Even then, I was more hurt that I’d been told to fuck off than that I’d hurt my best friend by seeing her as a soul, not a person.

That’s why it didn’t surprise that John Piper put forward yet another insensitive call to repent following the Oklahoma tornado that smashed through Moore – and did so on the very night they were still searching for children in the rubble of the school. And it didn’t surprise me further when followers of Piper and other evangelicals defended his tweet with arguments about how the timing doesn’t matter as long as the Gospel gets said.

I've encountered a lot people who literally could not see a problem with delivering a “turn and repent for the brokenness of the world” message in the wake of a disaster. They literally thought it was justified to instruct parents and spectators to repent because their sin is what caused this disaster – before it was even known which children had died, before the parents knew whether they’d spend their week planning a funeral or sitting by a hospital bedside.

There’s a reason for this. We have given the specter of Hell such primacy in our Gospel that it has turned us into unsympathetic robots. We have made Hell necessary in a way that distorts, twists, and destroys the Gospel. We have made Hell greater than Heaven.

We tell people to turn and repent because we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, dangling like spiders over a pit. At the same moment, we insinuate that God is the creator of the pit because a righteous punishment is needed and necessary and he is righteous. We give Hell such centrality in our Gospel message that we can’t describe what Heaven may look like – we are so busy saving souls from Hell that we forget real people exist.

And what are we saving them to? A god who, but for a few words in a prayer, would have cast the lot of us into fiery torment? A god with such a temper than he kills children? A god who needs an evil Hell to exist in order to contrast his Heaven?

What if we gave up on Hell? What if we stopped being so concerned about what we’re saving people FROM and instead focused on what we are bringing them TO?

How do we enact the Kingdom of God, on Earth as it is in Heaven, if we are so focused on Hell and torment? How do we bring about Kingdom justice and Kingdom mercy when we are so focused on making sure people are “right with God so they don’t receive His wrath?” How do we sustain a life with Christ when we are so focused on Good Friday and not Resurrection Sunday?

The Gospel is not about saving people from Hell. The Gospel is not about turning and repenting. The Gospel is not about a God with a magnifying glass and us as the ants, hoping not to burn. The Gospel is not about Hell.

The Gospel is, instead, a community of life, a way of living that enacts justice and mercy in today’s world, regardless of whether Hell exists or not. The Gospel is, instead, a gracious, life giving story in which people are called to play their parts fully, to their full giftedness. The Gospel is one in which people are allowed to be fully human, fully who God created them to be, and fully in communion with others in peace and grace and justice and mercy.

The Gospel of the Jesus I know is one which does not blame the victims for the tragedies they suffered, but instead understands that weeping with those who weep and mourning with those who mourn is a better display of love than any message of “turn and repent.”

The Gospel of the Jesus I know proclaims that love and understanding and seeing the full humanity of our fellow human beings is part of living within the Trinitarian reality of the Image of God.

The Gospel of the Jesus I know contains a Holy Spirit, who begs us to “shut the fuck up and listen” more often than She asks us to open our mouths and speak of repentance. Indeed, when She requests that we speak, it is more often of liberty, of liberation, of justice than it is of wrath and pain.

The Gospel of the Jesus I know frees us to see people as they are, humans, created by God, worthy of justice and mercy simply because they exist as God’s creation, and our brothers and sisters in grace.

This is the only Gospel I am interested in, because this is the Gospel that requires more of me than any other. This is the Gospel that doesn’t provide me with answers, that doesn’t give me an easy out like “turn and repent” when evil happens. This is the Gospel that requires I sit with the hurting for seven days and seven nights, that I wear sackcloth with the mourning, and that I remain silent except to cry out in empathy with the suffering.

This is the Gospel I believe. You can have your Hell. I’d rather have humanity.

Guest Post: The Elusive God

The Account and Countenance series continues with a guest post today from Anna Kaye Gilbreath. She is a Tennessee Native, currently living in Orlando, Florida. She is an aspiring writer, photographer, lover of nature and caffeine. She blogs here and tweets here. If you're interested in contributing to this yearlong, biweekly series, send me an email on the contact page.

I think everyone can attribute their first concepts of God through the perspective of their childhood; at least that’s how it started out for me. If God was a loving and omnipresent at the scriptures claimed, why would he not fix my situation? It was a hard concept for a little girl to understand. I remember flinging myself on my bed and praying with every single fiber of my 6 year old self asking God to make it stop, please make it stop…but it never happened.

From then on, I viewed God as a passive and uncaring observer in this whirl wind spiral called life. I never doubted that God existed, but I did doubt whether or not he cared for me.  I always pictured him sitting on his golden throne in the sky watching the world’s devastation and its broken people in an elusive manor.  He was the judge who had our names on a list and kept score of each person’s walk with him and whether they were on the right track.

Growing up I’ve been subjected to many versions and descriptions of God.  Throughout church sermons and Sunday school lessons, God had multiple identifies: The Father, The Miracle Worker, The Provider, The Romancer, and The Omnipotent.  Each one of these words described God’s character and disposition, all powerful and awe inducing but which one of these gods was the one who saw and loved Anna Kaye?

During High School, I remember reading a book by Leslie Ludy called Authentic Beauty; she called God, her white knight, her prince charming and the author of Romance. She seemed to have an incredibly intimate connection with God. I wanted my life to be like that but I had made a lot of mistakes in my life and it didn’t’ look anything like Leslie’s. So why would God even want to pursue something like that with me?

It all seemed utterly unattainable or only available to those who had spotlessly clean Christian records and only committed minor sins. I felt God had a check list of my sins, number from 1-10 and this secret tally that I believed he kept, was hindering my ability to have favor with him.

Sometimes I would feel like a fraudulent follower of God. How could I call myself a Christian when I was struggling to pray or struggling to believe the truth presented to me? Would doubt always scream so loud? I would be afraid for anyone to see me and my struggles that would mean I wasn’t the strong Christian I made myself out to be.

I’m still working at processing God’s character and what it means to me.  I don’t have it all together and I don’t have the answers all tied up nicely. If you’re struggling in this area of your walk with God, you’re not alone. It doesn’t make you any less of a follower of God if you have doubts. It makes you human. Try and keep the perspective that you’re going to have days when the doubts aren’t so loud and your identity not so fragile. You doubts don’t define or discount your value.  All I can do is keep hoping that God isn’t done with me yet.

Everybody's a Little Bit Racist: Why Being Called Racist Is Not The Issue

Oh Tony Jones. We remember him, right? He of the “why aren’t women participating in my discussions?!” fame. He’s back. This time, it’s to announce that he’s “tired of being called racist.” And, apparently, we can expect a future article in which he talks about how he’s tired of being called “misogynist” (bonus bingo points if he comments about how much he loves the womenfolk).

Sigh. But this post is not about Tony. This post is about me.

I’m afraid I have a confession to make: I’m racist.

I know, I know, for those of you who have known me for years, this is probably a bit of a shock. I mean, I have friends of all different races! I spent time on Twitter this morning calling out the South Dakota government for its racist treatment of Native Americans! Surely I, of all people, could win awards declaring me Least Racist of All the White People?

I may not march about in a KKK robe or call people of color slurs, but if that’s the sole marker for “racism,” then the definition of racism is sorely lacking. I am white. I grew up in America. Because of that, I am racist and I benefit from racist structures.

Back during the turn of the Chinese New Year, the Chinese ministry team at my former workplace hosted a luncheon of food and celebrations for us. It was a fun time, and I ended up seated next to one of the younger Chinese staff. During the meal, I turned to him and asked him when it’s appropriate to eat the fortune cookie. He pointed out that fortune cookies aren't even really Chinese and he had no idea what the custom would even be, as he was raised in America.

That was a pretty racist thing for me to do.

I grew up in a very white city in a very white state. As much as I am socially aware and knowledgeable about the struggles of people of color in America, I still find myself running into my own racist thinking and racist ideas, which I then have to recalibrate.

I am a white person living in a system where white people and white opinions are often privileged as more legitimate over the opinions of people of color.

I can rest assured that if I go missing, as a single white woman in a rich suburb of Chicago, the police will not be asking my parents if I was into drugs or involved with gangs – at least not right away. My disappearance might even be a national story.

I can walk safely in any number of places and not have to worry about being seen as a shoplifter or thief when I go into a store.

I can also safely position my Baptist, Midwestern, White, Evangelical upbringing as the “normal,” “neutral” theology without most of academia even so much as batting an eye. Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters of color who support liberation theology have a continued fight to even be seen as orthodox, much less “normal.”

This is what racism is: it is the slurs, the outright proclamations, AND it is the subtle, micro-aggressive, “white-as-normative objective reasoning” that people don’t even necessarily notice unless it’s pointed out to them. And you know how it’s pointed out to them?

“Hey, that’s kind of racist.”

There’s a lot more to be said about the reception and inclusion of people of color within the modern post-evangelical/evangelical/”Incarnational” spheres, but this needs to be the baseline starting point: if you are a white person, you are going to do and say things that are racist. It is a fact of existence. And you are not the arbiter of whether or not something you did was racist (or sexist or homophobic or transphobic or ableist) – the people from those marginalized groups on that privilege are. This feels bad, I know. It's supposed to.

This understanding of one's own privilege is the baseline for communicating about race, sexuality, gender, and everything surrounding marginalization. Your privilege will give you blind spots. And you don’t get to determine the lengths of that privilege.

Calling something racist doesn’t halt discussion. Being unwilling and unable to accept it does.

Housekeeping Notes

Hello!

I apologize for my silence over the past week and a half. It's been a rollercoaster of events, and I'm just now hitting an even keel and getting back into a position where writing seems like a reasonable prospect.

You'll notice a couple of changes with the site - I've had some recent shifts in my life that I prefer not to talk about, but as a result I have added a "Donate" page up at the top. That's part of my goal to keep the site advertisement free, though you'll notice some ads appearing below the Disqus comments. I thought those would be able to make me a little extra cash while being as unobtrusive as possible.

Because the Disqus thing is random, though, I can't guarantee that what appears is always appropriate or content I'd necessarily agree with, so I'm asking you to help me with the policing of that - if you see an article being promo'd there that is wildly inappropriate or inconsistent with site ideals, tell me the parent site (for example, eHow) and I can blacklist it.

Thank you for your understanding and your grace with me during this time. Rest assured, I do have some very happy things happening, and am going full-steam ahead in the book-writing process. I hope to be able to post some sample sections from chapters over the summer months, so you can get a taste for the direction the book is going.

I appreciate your readership and your patience with me during this time. I plan to have new posts up starting on Monday again. Thank you.

Guest Post: God as an Old White Dude on Jeopardy

Amy Mitchell is a homeschooling mom blogging about church, culture, and spirituality at http://unchainedfaith.com/  In her spare time, she dabbles in cheesy fiction, which you can read at http://lovewhineandcheese.wordpress.com/

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I’ve called myself a Christian for more than twenty years.  For the better part of that, the image in my head when I thought of God looked very much like this:

[image description: a cartoon from Gary Larson's Far Side comic. God and a man are on the game show Jeopardy. God is a large, white man with a flowing beard and long white hair. God's score is 1065. The man's score is 0. The caption reads: "Yes, that's right! The answer is Wisconsin! Another 50 points for God! And ... uh-oh, looks like Norman, our current champion, hasn't even scored yet!"]

Regarding this cartoon, Gary Larson wrote,

“First, I made God look the way I think most of us are pretty sure he looks.  Secondly, I made sure he was really winning hands down.  Even if Norman had only ten points it would have meant that he beat God to the buzzer at least once, and someone would have gotten mad.”*

God didn’t start out looking that way to me.  When I was around eight years old, I began to develop a concept of God.  Somehow, I had decided that God must be more than some nebulous cloud or an energy force—God must be a Someone.  I remember sitting in my mother’s sewing room, the whir of the machine and my mother’s soft humming in the background while I stretched out on the floor reading.  I looked up from my book long enough to ask, “What’s God like?”

My mother gave some wholly unsatisfying answer about God being everywhere and in everything.  Even at that age I thought that was stupid.  I decided she must be wrong, but I filed it away for later contemplation.

By the time I was fourteen, I was attending a Presbyterian church.  Somewhere around then, God became the image above.  I’m sure this must be at least in some way due to the language used to describe God: He, Father, Lord.  I also had a sense of God as Cosmic Know-It-All, and that He was reading my every thought (often disapprovingly).

It didn’t help matters that in college, I met many people for whom that picture of God was deeply meaningful.  My roommate had never had a father in her life—she had been adopted by a single woman.  She used to refer to God as “Daddy,” and for her, the idea that God was, in some way, a replacement for the earthly father she lacked was important.  I, on the other hand, couldn’t relate to that at all, no matter how hard I tried.

For a long time, I thought of God as Someone who cared very deeply about whether or not I was committing particular sins.  He was interested in things like how much money I gave to church and what I was doing with my genitals, but He couldn’t be bothered with whether or not I was carrying out the commands for peace, justice, and love.  Partly because of that and partly because I tend toward an intellectual view of spirituality anyway, I could talk about God, but I felt very little connection.

It took involvement with a much more conservative evangelical church to jar me out of complacency.

The strange thing about it was that if I believed even half of what I heard at that church, I would have come away with an image of God that was far less grandfatherly than what Gary Larson had in mind.  Week after week, the message was, “God loves you, but he has Expectations for how you live your life—and you’re failing.”  It was a more extreme version of what I’d always heard in church.  There was the usual droning about sex and who puts what were and when and the constant finger-wagging about tithing and supporting the church’s financial needs.  On top of that, however, was an overlay about who I am as a woman and what my role should be in and out of the church.

“God is male. Jesus is male. We don’t know about the Holy Spirit, but probably male.  The Church is female.  Therefore, in a perfect parallel, God made men first and women to submit to them.”

Officially, of course, the church claimed that God wasn’t male or female.  But every last bit of the theology pertaining to women indicated otherwise.  For the first time, I began to see what was wrong with the picture of God I carried around with me.  I thought, If God is really an old, white man, then everything I hear about the limitations on women must be correct.  Since those things are not true, God can’t possibly be male.  I had already given up on a good bit of the conservative evangelical theology, so it wasn’t hard to let go of my image of God.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of guidance at church in sorting this out.  The world is wide, though, and I began to read.  I read books that didn’t include gendered pronouns for God.  I read books in which God was not staring down at me from Heaven, arms crossed and a scowl on His face, disapproving of my actions.  I “met” people online who had vastly different ideas about God than the ones I’d held for so long.

I stopped being sure there was such a thing as God.  It felt like a dark, dank cave, cold and lonely.  It was in that space that I begged God to be real again.

The very first spark of believing again came in a strange form.  I was at our local science museum with my kids, and we watched this multimedia presentation there.  In it, the museum’s paleontologist said that our region was once under a tropical sea—the evidence of which is our vast rock salt reserves.  It may not sound beautiful to you, but it absolutely amazed me.  My first thought was, How would that even be possible if not for the power of God?

We all find beauty, meaning, grace, and love in different ways.  For my daughter, it’s in the natural world and our furry, feathery, and scaly friends.  For my son it’s in music, movement, and the relationships he forms with others.  For me, it’s in the wonder of creation—all of it, from whatever started the Universe to the geological history of this planet, from the outer reaches of the galaxy to the possibility that We Are Not Alone.  Like my children, I also find holiness (and perhaps an imprint of God) in nature, art, and people.

Today, I’m not sure what my image of God is, but I know I sense God’s essence in so many things, and I believe that’s enough for now.

*Larson, Gary.  The Prehistory of the Far Side. Universal Press, 1989.

White Lady Feminism, Christian Blogging, and the Worst of Both Possible Worlds

Meta discussions about discussions are the worst. I know. So I’m warning you ahead of time, this is kind of one of those posts. But I think there’s also something more important here, so, please, bear with me.

My hypothesis: Much of modern, online feminism suffers from the same pathologies and problematic issues that plague modern day evangelicalism.

As someone who straddles both the worlds of feminist activism and the evangelical/post-evangelical/churchy sphere, I’ve been put in a unique position of trying to work out two ideologies at once and reconcile them to each other.

When I can get the two to reconcile and work together well, I find a vibrant, healthy, awesome community of support that pushes me to be a better person while simultaneously loving me as I am. I don’t view “you can do better” and “you are a person worthy of love” as contradictory messages, due in large part to this reconciliation between two schools of thoughts previously believed disparate. There’s a lot to love in both feminism and Christian theology. The first helps me to fight for my rights, to see myself as a person, to understand the world and the socializations within which I function. The second helps me with the why of things, gives me a steady hope for deeper change, and grounds my love within a theology of community.

But, when either of these two goes wrong, they go really, really wrong. And, remarkably, I’ve noticed that they tend to go wrong in almost exactly the same ways. It’s a disturbing confluence of the problematic nature of ideology embraced above hearing opposition and it is, in many ways, a perpetuation of marginalization and oppression.

It goes like this: prominent person says something controversial or promotes a problematic idea. Criticism comes in – some just downright mean, some hard to hear, and some spot on. Flurries of typing, tweets, and comments result in a sometimes overwhelming response. People post blogs in response, in defense of, in offense of. After about a week, or maybe longer, the meta discussions begin, and almost all of them have the same tune: “We’re broken, we’re bickering, the infighting is killing us, why can’t we all just get aloooong.”

See, for example, Jill Filipovic’s response to criticism of both Sheryl Sandberg and the #femfuture report, in which she accuses critics of going forth in “kneejerk critic” mode, and admonishes them for attacking “successful feminists.”

See, for example, Matt Appling’s post in defense of Emily Wierenga after she posted an “open letter to feminist sisters” and Wierenga’s own posts portraying herself as a persecuted martyr.

Feminism, indeed, offered me affirmation of my questioning that I hadn’t found in evangelicalism. But then I started to notice the same, uncomfortable pattern. “Successful” feminists – including both male and female feminists – would respond to criticism of their movements by appealing to their marginalization, saying that “we need to present a united front! Stop dragging down successful women! No wonder we can’t get anything done.” It didn’t matter what the criticism was – legitimate or not – the criticism itself was a problem. Christians, likewise, play this card, picturing themselves a persecuted minority in a world unfriendly to Christians, and that we therefore must be united as much as possible. It feels, in many ways, like I’ve traded one bad system of thought for another.

This is a problem for feminism in the exact same way it is for evangelicalism – critiquing the tenets or the output of popular persons within the faith is infighting, bickering, failure to present a united front to The World Out There Because They Are Watching.

This rhetoric was incredibly useful for shutting up dissenters when I was a conservative Christian. After all, if I’m a perpetual witness for the faith and I’m not getting along with my Christian brothers and sisters, what impression does that leave of the faith itself? How will we get converts?

But the same thing happens in feminism – we need to be united as sisters because if we don’t, we show the world that Feminists Are Catty and Eat Their Own and Look at Those Terrible Women. If we cannot be a good witness and keep our disagreements quiet, how are we going to get converts?

It’s no coincidence that the person who first made big-f Feminism okay for me was a woman who self-describes as a “feminist evangelist.” The rhetoric of such a movement is remarkably similar to the right-wing Christian rhetoric within which I was raised – it’s all about winning people to the cause, changing hearts and minds, and presenting the best image of feminism we can.

And, in a way, I’m all for that. Making feminism palatable for people who have grown up with distaste for it is part of my motivation in blogging.

BUT, when we prioritize being witnesses for the ideology over being good feminists (or Christians), we end up in a place where we quash discourse, where the appearance of presenting a united front is more important than actually sorting out what it means to be alive. We end up prizing conversion to the ideology over and above a discussion of what that ideology looks like. We end up prioritizing the appearance of being good people over being actual good people.

And these calls for unity tend to follow lines of power. Those spouting these ideologies tend to match the status quo of capitalist power; they end up supporting (even unknowingly) white institutionalized power structures and patriarchy. These calls also tend to flatten all criticism into one furious strain, as though all people offering criticism are simply “haters.” They contain within them a sense of martyrdom, of persecution, of marginalization within a marginalized movement, despite being the one who either started the discussion or who benefits most from the promotion of existing power structures.

Take, for example, the reaction to critiques of Sheryl Sandberg’s ”Lean In” campaign. Many feminist women of color have pointed out that Sandberg’s Lean In really only works for white feminists who work well within masculinized power structures. For Latina feminists, for example, Sandberg’s advice does not quite work as it does nothing to disabuse people of stereotypes of Latina women. It is also only applicable to middle class women who have the means and access to a job that has a corporate ladder. This is an important intersectional critique, because a feminism that is only applicable to women willing to work within white male power structures is a very limited feminism.

Filipovic, however, characterizes the criticism this way:

No one would be expected to speak for all of womankind. Sheryl Sandberg could write a book about gender in the business world without facing attacks from other feminists, criticizing her for having a nanny, for talking to male CEOs more than female domestic laborers, or for not representing working-class women – the takeaway being that Sandberg isn't enough of a caretaker, and therefore not sufficiently feminine. And in a more perfect world (or movement), a feminist book written by a female domestic laborer would get as much traction as one penned by the COO of Facebook.

The solution to those imperfections, though, is not to attack the women who do succeed or stand out. That only creates a movement of knee-jerk critics, who, when presented with a piece of feminist work, engage the "find what's wrong with it" mode.

Similarly, almost any time something problematic by Mark Driscoll or John Piper gets bandied about in the evangelical/post-evangelical blogging world, we get told that we’re ignoring the good things this Man of God does in favor of nitpicking, and that we shouldn’t criticize our brothers. Criticism that is legitimate is conflated “bashing” and “divisiveness.”

The similarities between the two spheres are remarkable. The similarities also mean that a solution is similar: stop caring about unity.

A good movement isn’t built from making sure that marginalized voices wait their turn while the successful white men and women move on and through. A good space for exploring what we think isn’t built from everyone either agreeing or shutting up or even phrasing their criticism in the nicest way possible. You aren’t going to win people over simply by being nice or by getting dissenters to play nice.

Embrace the questioning, embrace the criticism, embrace the messy. The messiness of discussion in both feminism and the Church is important. It is life changing. And trying to quell that by playing the martyr or implying critics are simply jealous simply perpetuates the movements of power we claim to be fighting. Quashing criticism – especially criticism from marginalized voices – in the name of “unity” is just another way to reinforce existing kyriarchy.

Every Christian and every feminist needs to be wary of perpetuating power structures which marginalize. Every Christian and every feminist does not need to agree on every little thing – the spaces between, the gaps and disagreements: that’s where life is.

If our feminism, if our theology, is not going to be bullshit, we need to understand that disagreement, criticism, discussions, and getting called to the carpet are all part of the growing pains that will help us be better. Better as feminists, better as Christians, better as people. But only if we don't throw up our hands and cry "persecution" at the first sign of dissent.

Not a Prize: The Language of Pursuit in Dating

(Many thanks to Emily Maynard, Antonia Terrazas, and Preston Yancey for the discussion that led to this post)

My brothers and me with Aladdin and Jasmine in Disney World.

If you follow me on twitter (and please do, even though I tweet a lot!), you know that I'm actively dating right now. In the past 20 months, I've had my first boyfriend, got dumped, gone out on multiple dates with other guys, kissed a few of them, been stood up, canceled dates, had dates cancel, joined meet up groups (and gotten hit on because I was the only single woman there, subsequently leaving said meet up groups) and shamelessly flirted my way into more than one movie-based make out session.

All that say, I have had a year and a half of "yeah, sure!," agreeing to many dates to see what was out there, to meet new people in this new city, to try and make a connection. I've done everything short of speed-dating and signing up for Christian Mingle. I'm what you might call "actively looking."

But, in the process, I have also refused to let my career or my education fall to the side - I have a Master's degree, I've traveled a lot, and I've got a book contract. The fact that I am looking does not detract from the fact that I am living life to the fullest while I am single. Marriage, for me, is not a prize, it is not a crown jewel, it is not something I can call into existence by being "good enough" or "having the right interest." The very language I use to discuss marriage is at odds with much of the way the Christian world discusses it.

I have heard, since I hit puberty, of pursuit, of chase, of tracking down a spouse. The very language we use to describe a relationship of marriage, especially within the Christian world, is often quite violent. John Eldredge takes of men pursuing women, of true manliness being caught up in rescuing a damsel in distress. And his wife, Stasi, discusses the flip side of that coin in the book Captivating, how it is our duty as women to be rescued.

Gary Thomas, on Ally Vesterfelt's blog this week, attempts to redeem some of that language by - I'm guessing this is the intended meaning - giving women license to pursue. He talks of pursuing a spouse as one would a job, putting as much effort into it as one would a post-college job or even a college degree. He also brings forward shopping analogies, talking about how shopping for a spouse and shopping for the right dress are similar.

But all of that still buys into the pursuit and prize, hunter and hunted language. And that very language is problematic. That language sets up marriage as a race, with a spouse, a partner bound to you for life, as your prize. It praises the value of marriage but functions to commodify it in the same breath. If I do the right work, I'll get a man as a prize - it doesn't matter which man, just a man.

I don't like that metaphor. I don't like that language. In the words of Jasmine, one of my favorite Disney princesses: "I am not a prize to be won!" When we turn marriage into a pursuit, into a life goal, into an achievement, a stepping stone to happiness, we set ourselves up for objectification of our spouse, for a poor understanding of what a life together means, and for many, many problems. Because when you're pursuing a spouse, it doesn't matter who it is as long as it is a spouse.

I'm not here for that. I'm not dating around for that. I'm looking, but I'm not looking in pursuit of some prize. I'm not interested in being married simply for the sake of being married.

I don't think it's idolatry to say that I would like to be married. I also don't think we should swing the pendulum the other direction and uproot ourselves and our lives in pursuit of an ethereal other that we don't even know how to find them or even, really, what we're looking for. We can actively look without pursuing blindly; we can date around without shame; and we can be still and know that time will come when and if it is supposed to.

In the meantime, I am not some prize for some dudebro looking for a knighthood. I'm just a person, enjoying my life, hoping that one day, I'll have a partner - the right partner - to join me.

Elephant in the Dock: The White Male As Neutral and Objective

“I don’t know anything about truth but I know falsehood when I see it and it looks like this whole world you’ve made.” – “Elephant in the Dock”* by mewithoutYou

When I first registered for college classes, I declared a political science and communication studies double major. I had a dream of being a political pundit on CNN, which, for some reason, I thought was based out of Chicago. Then I went to church camp. During that time, I felt like God was calling me to do something different, to change lives not by becoming a pundit on CNN, but by delving into theology and learning all I could from it. I knew, then, that I should change my major to theology/philosophy.**

I called the school the Monday after I got home and switched my major.

Later that week, I was talking to a friend from high school – the son of the local Southern Baptist pastor (we only had one Southern Baptist church in the city at the time). He replied that I couldn’t go into ministry with that degree because I’m a woman.

As a woman inclined toward philosophy, theology, and social justice issues, I’ve had my share of being dismissed or questioned within those spheres. I’m expected to exist apart from and without my womanhood in order to participate in those abstract discussions.

Let me explain.

If I point out that we need to talk about Jesus’ maleness when we discuss theories of the Incarnation because his maleness has an impact on the time and place in which he became incarnate, I’m told that such theology is niche identity politics, too specialized to be applicable to general, abstract, objective discussions. By my very existence as a woman in theological studies, I insert gender into a discussion that has been previously dominated by a homogenous group of straight, white, cisgender men – men for whom questions of gender and patriarchy were not relevant or pressing in their lives. I, by the very act of being a woman existing in the theological realm, frequently bring to the table a different perspective that is colored by my gendered existence.

Unfortunately, by allowing this experience to play a part in how I approach theology, I am told that I am playing identity politics, that I am failing to participate in the abstract, that I am inserting subjectivity into a previously objective realm.

This is precisely what happened in the comment section of Jennifer Luitwieler’s post on male theology bloggers and the lack of women in their theology circles. The comments turned into a benevolently sexist discussion (and I quote the man, Alastair Roberts, directly here):

“…women just don’t participate as much in the sort of conversations that dominate male blogs, conversations that aren’t so firmly rooted in a particular context or identity. We don’t purposefully exclude women from our blog rolls at all: they just aren’t participating in the general conversation to the same degree. By not including them, we aren’t denying that they have value in their own place, just that they aren’t speaking into the conversations with which we are engaged.”

I don’t fault Alastair for repeating an argument that seems quite reasonable to him. But he is also blinded by his privilege as a white male person. Notice, first, his use of the word “we.” “We” is meant to be theology bloggers, but within the context, “we” quite clearly means white male theologians who speak about “abstractions.” There is no way for I, as a feminist theologian, to be included within his “we” because “abstract” here is a moving goal post. Inserting gendered ideas into a discussion means I am no longer functioning within the abstract. If I do not sublimate my womanhood so that I may talk as a man, I will forever be the Other in this discussion.

This is benevolent sexism. It is the sexism that says “it’s not that we don’t listen to women! It’s just that they don’t write the stuff we’re interested in!” It becomes dangerous when “the stuff we’re interested in” is labeled as “objective,” and “abstract” and that this objectivity and abstractness are held up as “good." We see this over and over again in media and in excuses given for why women aren't CEOs of more Fortune 500 companies or visibly participating in the sciences. Because minority groups are somehow, as a monolith, disinterested in "objectivity," white males pawn off the blame for lack of inclusiveness on the excluded groups.

We really like to think, especially in America, the country built on Enlightenment philosophy, that “objectivity” is a thing that can be grasped and held. But we do humanity a disservice when we believe that this means the discussions we have are rooted in some world of “abstract objectivity.”

Here’s the rub: “objectivity” isn’t a thing. It doesn’t exist.

No one – not even white men – can fully separate their identity from what they are talking about. So when a white man tells me that women are not participating in the “abstract” conversation that white men are having, what I hear is that women are not willing to set aside their womanliness in order to behave as men (and people say that’s what feminists want!).

Take this for an example: what does a heart attack look like?

If you said pain radiating in the left arm, constriction in the chest, rapid or irregular heartbeat, fainting, you’re basically right...if you're describing the symptoms for heart attacks in cis men. Women experience nausea, back and jaw pain, shortness of breath, and vomiting.

You would think heart attack symptoms would be an objective science. That’s the narrative we’ve received for years and years – because the narrative has been dominated by supposedly “objective” white men. And because women were kept out of the sciences for centuries, and only relatively recently started becoming specialized doctors, study of female heart attack symptoms never really mattered because the men in charge of the studying didn’t think of how it might be different.

This is the danger – literal and figurative – of equating a white, male dominated discourse with “objectivity” and “abstractness,” even if you’re not trying to set it up as a hierarchy. Because of the patriarchal strictures within which we live and move, equating maleness with objectivity (or implying so by saying that women simply aren’t “attracted” to these “objective” discussions) demands that minorities drop their identities at the door and learn how to converse and discuss as white men in order to participate in “objective” discussion.

It is not that white men are magically more interested in objectivity, but that white men seem interested in sharing ideas with those who look and act like them, with those who share the identifiers of “white” and “male.” If a woman refuses to drop her identification and take a new one upon herself, she is dismissed as “subjective” and “uninteresting” – because she doesn’t look, act, or talk like a white male.***

We are all speaking within cultural contexts. We are all speaking from specific life experiences. No one is capable of being “objective” or participating in the “abstract.” Not even white men. If you notice, white guys, that your “abstract, objective” discussion is lacking the opinions of women, it’s not because women are somehow uninterested or incapable of abstraction. It’s because women aren’t interested in hearing the dominating white male perspective again. Come to our table. Don’t ask us to lose our selves in order to join yours.

*This song is based on the story of Mary the Elephant, a circus elephant who was hanged after killing her trainer. Disturbing image at the link, just so you know.

**I realize for many of my readers think this is silly, and I don’t know that I believe God has such specific callings for people anymore, but at the time, this is what I was convinced of.

***Note that this is referring to cisgender men. Trans* people encounter this "burden" of proving objectivity as well.

On Entitlement, Privilege and Feeling Bad: The Importance of the Icky Feelings

[Last week was a lot, and I’m still recovering, so my apologies that posting is light this week. That said, let’s dive into the issue of the week.]

Creative Commons.

I want to talk to you about entitlement. No, not “entitlement programs” that are actually necessary social safety nets, but rather the sense of entitlement to another’s person space, time, breathing room, conversation. And specifically, male entitlement to female social spaces.

An example of this recently surfaced in my regular blog reading. Over on the Green State blog, Lauren explicated a Facebook discussion she had with a few men who objected to the idea of women’s only hours at a gym.

The idea behind women’s only hours is simple – it’s much like the women’s only cars on trains in Tokyo. Harassment while at the gym (or on the train) is so bad that the company offered women’s only spaces so as to make it impossible for men to harass women. While this solution is only a bandaid in a culture of entitlement leading to harassment, the marking out of a place that is safe for women and for women only is important.

The men didn’t see it that way. It’s “reverse sexism,” they cried. It’s “punishing all men for the actions of a few!” It “violates my right to use the gym when I want!”

The punishment line struck me.

What, exactly, is the punishment here? How, exactly, are men being punished by women creating a safe space that is only for women* to access?

The only way that creating a safe space is a punishment to those not allowed in the space is if those excluded people feel somehow entitled to it. If you feel that you necessarily have a right to be in women’s spaces and to have conversations with women regardless of women’s feelings or safety, then a space where you are cut off from that would, indeed, seem like punishment.

But it seeming like punishment and it actually being punishment are two different things.

What seems to be happening in the conversation here and in similar discussions when street harassment, creeper behavior and the like are brought up is the distress of the privileged.

Realizing that you are part of a group that participates in oppression sucks. I get it. It’s hard when you’ve spent your entire life feeling happily oblivious to ways you and your group have been quietly or not so quietly oppressing marginalized peoples. Waking up to that hurts.

Sometimes, people manifest their unnamed discomfort by blaming the marginalized group. These are the gym guys – the guys who, rather than asking their fellow men to knock it off with the harassment, cast women as the evil villains in their play, women who simply want to go to the gym without getting approached by strange, sweaty men (seriously, least romantic environment ever, second only to a visit to the gynecologist).

This unabashed entitlement to women’s spaces and to women’s bodies is a symptom of privilege. And it’s hard to talk some folks through that. Many will react poorly when you try to set a boundary around your space and around your body. This, of course, only reinforces that safe spaces are necessary and boundaries are important.

But, sometimes, you get through. They finally realize that “holy crap, [marginalized groups] live in a different world!” And you feel a tiny bit relieved. Finally, they’re trying to get it. They’re willing to listen to you as a human being! As a person! We’re real people! But that relief is often short-lived, as the next hiccup inevitably comes: “Now that I know my privilege, I feel bad about my privilege. Help me to feel better. Make this bad icky go away!”

And there’s the thing: my job as a marginalized person is not to coddle the privileged. Their job (and my job as an intersectionally privileged person) is to steer into the skid, lean in to the icky. Because discomfort over an awareness of the other person’s feelings and how I might make them feel? That’s what living an intersectional existence of privilege creates. I am going to feel bad. You are going to feel bad. We should feel bad.

We want to be coddled through. We want to be told that it’s okay that we accidentally did that racist/sexist/homophobic/cissexist thing, that we’re understood and we are okay!

But here’s the thing: we’re not supposed to feel okay because what we did was not okay.

If recognizing privilege and our own complicity in oppression was easy happy fluffy unicorns and kittens, the world would look way different. But as it is, it does create discomfort. It does create distress. It feels, sometimes, that you’re being punished merely for having these privileges, like you're being told you're a bad person for being male, middle class, and white. You’re supposed to feel bad when you hurt people because that’s what unchecked privilege does.

Keep in mind, I speak of this from experience. As a white, heterosexual, cisgender woman from a middle class background, I mess up a lot. I say/do things that are privileged. And it is my responsibility, when my privilege is called out, to own up to it, to recognize that what I did was Not Okay. And I must also own my feelings of feeling bad about it, because feeling bad when you hurt someone is what happens.

I can make things worse by feeling entitled to a person’s space and feelings and comfort. Requesting that a woman comfort you because realizing that you might make women uncomfortable? That’s still entitlement to our space and our feelings. Portraying attempts to fix the balance and to correct sexist behavior as women punishing men? That’s entitlement and unchecked privilege. Complaining that affirmative action is punishment to white students? Entitlement out the wazoo.

Feeling icky about your privilege is part of being privileged. It is up to us to own that, understand it, experience it. Then we help make things better.

__________

*I’m presuming that men and women here means cisgender men and women, and it’s worth remembering that, often, spaces that are created as safe for cis-men and women are often still unsafe for non-binary people.

This Week, Y'all

Ugh, right?

Here, let's start this right. Have a cat in a shark costume, riding a roomba, chasing a duckling (Gif).

There. Feel better?

It's been an unexpectedly heavy week. Bombings in Boston, plant explosions in West, TX, and yesterday, the road leading out of my apartment complex looked like this:

(And it's much worse elsewhere - apparently the string of suburbs I live in is part of a section that was hardest hit by the flash floods happening Thursday).

And this is just what's happening in America. Elsewhere in the world there are earthquakes, still more bombings, and all sorts of tragedies that make up chunks of the human experience.

When we have weeks like this, I find that it's important to remind ourselves of the good, happy things in life. So, taking a leaf from my friend Jessica Luther's book (or stealing blatantly), I thought it would be good to discuss good things going on in our lives - happy making on Friday instead of Sunday.

So let's concentrate on the good things. What good things are in your life today?