Mark Driscoll, Violence Against Women, and Missing the Point

Mark Driscoll published a post about violence against women. I’ll be honest, when I saw the post, I rolled my eyes a little because I really don’t trust the word of a man who was able to make his wife cry with just a look, yells “God hates you!” from the pulpit, and runs a church that has resulted in support groups for “survivors.”* But, since violence against women is, y’know, part of my purview, I read through the post to see where he is at on the idea. These are my thoughts. My apologies that this post is long - I couldn't find a good place to chop it. The Good Stuff

I was pleasantly surprised by a few things that seem to indicate growth on his part. He acknowledges, for example, that rape can and does happen within marriage. There’s no nuance beyond the two sentences he dedicates to it, but the fact that he said it is progress.

He also, at one point, acknowledges that men and women are not essentially different when it comes to human emotions. This, too, is good, especially as one of the most grating things about people who insist on gender roles is their repetition of the falsehood that men and women are different on an emotional level. Again, progress.

I like that he affirms a woman’s fear and distrust of men as a thing that exists. Sometimes, getting men to understand that women often live in a world of heightened fear is quite the battle, so I thank him for affirming, in his own way, that this battle exists.

I also appreciate that he does not address his article toward wives – “how you can deal with abuse” or whatever. This could have very easily been much more horrific than what it is.

For what good there is in the article and what progressive statements are made, however, they are entirely overshadowed by gender essentialist, paternalistic muck.

The Bad Stuff

For an article on violence against women, it seems to spend a lot of time not talking about violence against women – not talking about the church’s duty when confronted with an abusive relationships, how to resolve and understand what happens in an abusive relationships, etc. You know, things that would be useful in a conversation about violence against women – there’s not even a link to the domestic violence hotline/signs of an abusive relationship on the page, which would have been useful.

But this isn’t about how I think the article should look. After all, I come at such a thing from a framework of talking with abuse victims (through my blog) on a daily basis, though not a professional one. I’m by no means an expert, but I’m quite familiar with tactics that abusers use, what abuse does to people, and ways women in an abusive relationship can break free from it. And as it stands, many of the “ways to honor your wife” that Driscoll recommends are either abusive tactics in of themselves or encourage abusive thinking.

First, he seems to think that fidelity is the solution for abusive relationships: men must stop their wandering eyes and remain faithful in order to honor their wives and prevent abuse. I wonder that this is listed first, because men who are faithful to their wives are not necessarily ruled out as abusers. Many men who abuse never, ever stray from their marriage and look like perfect, faithful husbands on the outside. This is what makes abuse so hard to spot and to stop. Fidelity, while a good thing, is not a balm or a cure-all for an abusive relationship.

His second point, on honoring her physically, is the only place in the article where we get anything about a physically abusive relationship. But it lacks depth and merely gives us a checklist of types of physical abuse (including rape). This section’s okay, except for the fact that, because of who it is coming from, I have a lot of trouble seeing it as sincere. This is the man who, remember, wrote in a book about marriage that one look from him caused his wife to burst into tears. I am having a lot of trouble not seeing this section as hypocritical, for that reason alone.

Additionally, in this section is an odd assertion that a man who hits his daughter is committing the vilest of abuses. That is problematic because of the gender specificity. Now, I do a lot of talking about violence against women and rape and abuse. I do this because women are vastly more likely to be victims of abuse, but their womanhood is not what makes the abuse innately wrong. The abuse is wrong because it is abuse, not because of who the victim is. Gendering abuse in this manner runs dangerously close to normalizing violence against men – “it’s worse because it’s a girl” is highly problematic compared to “abuse of a child is bad under all circumstances.”

This paternalistic gendering, too, is why it’s very hard to get anyone to care about prison rape or rape that happens to men. It creates a culture in which abuse against a man is viewed as lesser, or somehow less damaging, because the victim is a male. This is highly problematic and functions to silence male victims of abuse because they sense that they will not be affirmed or understood in their testimonies of abuse.

The REALLY Bad Stuff

Because of his simplistic narratives about gender, it becomes impossible for him to affirm strictly conservative complementarian gender roles and avoid recommending things that are abusive in themselves. We’ll see this in a minute.

But first, his third point, about emotion. Now, above, I affirmed Driscoll’s acknowledgement that men and women both experience emotions. This is great! …if you ignore the rest of the paragraph. He affirms the emotional life of men, and then basically says that men need to provide emotional intimacy to their wives because their wives crave it, which completely erases that men need to be emotionally intimate because they are emotional creatures. It devolves into gender essentialist narratives yet again.

And it is here that the article begins to take a dive. With point five, Driscoll declares that it is the man’s duty to provide, and even that the proper family should be a one-income family. He also states that the reason to be a one income family is because the wife should be staying at home with children, which she “naturally” wants to have. This is a complicated mess.

It’s important to know that making a woman have children is a classic way to make her stay in an abusive relationship. This sort of theology that creates opportunities for abuse, even if it not outright abusive in itself. This sort of advice (have kids!) takes away the agency of the woman to have control over her reproduction in a not-so-subtle way – “God says that to honor you we need to have kids.” Because it is gender essentialist in assuming that every woman WANTS kids (regardless of concerns about financial stability, health, or other factors), it easily hands fuel to abusers to guilt their victims into having children, further trapping them in an abusive relationship.

Then we get to what is likely the most problematic section of the piece:

Many men are not generous with their wives. I know one guy who makes decent money, and he’s totally chintzy with his wife. She gets no spending money, can’t go out to coffee with the girls because he’s a total control freak and a tightwad. Honor your wife financially. I’m not saying you have to live a lavish lifestyle. Live within your means, tithe, save, invest, make a spending budget—and include some margin for your wife. I know it’s hard to live on one income. I know it’s particularly difficult in this economic climate, but that's no excuse to be irresponsible, selfish, or stingy. [emphasis original]

I’m going to give Driscoll the benefit of the doubt here and assume he’s never actually researched abusive tactics. Because if he has, and he still gave this advice, that is a horrifically misguided and evil thing to do. In almost every single tale from abuse survivors, an “allowance” of money is the beginning of the abuse and a tactic for keeping the abused person in the relationship. “Allowances,” “letting the wife have a margin of income” is a means of putting control of the money into the hands of the abuser, making it harder for the abused person to separate from a relationship because they do not have means to support themselves. Advising this as a way to honor your wife is well beyond the pale of human decency.

This paragraph alone drowns out any good things in the article. I would rather Driscoll had not written anything at all. And for that reason, my opinion on him has not changed – he is overzealous, misogynist, and unable to recognize abuse because he is an abuser himself (certainly of his congregation and staff).

Gender essentialism is not going to solve abuse. Men aren’t going to be magically better if they follow Driscoll’s steps to “honor their wives.” Indeed, it needs to be recognized that many of the views espoused here open the doors for abuse by painting women as weaker vessels that need to be protected, which encourages isolationism, lack of openness, and an inability to express emotion in healthy ways on the part of men. What is needed is to assure women that they are not alone, that they have the power to leave, that they are not weak. In this way, Driscoll's brand of complementarian theology fails miserably.

____________________

*Pro-tip: If people leaving your church call themselves “survivors,” your church has a problem.

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Church Outside the Walls

This is why I haven’t been to a local church in over a year. This is why I am finding my own understanding. This is why I call myself an agnostic theist more often than outright “Christian,” because if these men are the allies we women are supposed to have, then I am unsure I want to align myself with their institutions and their theologies and their research. This is the bombshell, to some.

No, I’m not announcing a turn to atheism or a rejection of the church universal. Nothing so bold. Instead, I am granting voice to merely a disillusionment with the entire theological process. As I wrote when Roger Olson first issued his non-sequitir point about feminism and being anti-male, “with friends like these, who needs enemies?”

Many, in their lack of generosity toward my writing, will interpret that as “men are the enemy.” Anyone who bothers to talk to me for more than five seconds will understand that this is not the case. And yet, even with men who are supposedly my allies within the church – the outspoken egalitarians, the men who have no problem with women being preachers – I am suspicious. I regard such allies with caution – because I have been betrayed far too often.

This is, as Melissa McEwan at Shakesville says, the terrible bargain we have regretfully struck. Within the church, pressures to forgive, to remember that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, to be a big happy family, mean that my terrible bargain becomes an untenable burden. If I challenge, I must do so nicely, whilst my brothers write off my identities and labels and personhood. I must never remember abuse, because if I do, I am bitter and will not let go – rather than protecting myself and others more vulnerable. If I call someone out on their privilege, I ought to be perfectly recognizing my privilege myself, or I will be undermined, undercut, and misunderstood.

This is how the church has trained me. This is how my brothers and sisters in Christ have trained me to understand my world – challenges, pushes to be better, claims to the label of feminism, are to be regarded with skepticism, while displays of privilege, oppression and abuse are to be “forgiven.”

I’m tired of functioning that way. I stopped going to church because I was tired of the search – finding a church where I didn’t feel like I had to be on guard during every sermon, waiting for the joke about “what women are like,” or the instruction about marriage based on June Cleaver.

Perhaps I, like Roger Olson, could be accused of looking for a way out, looking for a reason to reject the American Church. And perhaps I am. But, this is not without warrant.

When the man with a history of domestic abuse is given speaking gigs to talk about boundaries in the church (the man whose name we must change to a euphemism so he does not discover our Twitter conversations and butt in where we do not want him), I have trouble understanding how I am to be a part of this church.

When men who are egalitarians can say, without irony, that their home church has not a trace of patriarchy, I have trouble understanding how I can have allies.

When it is proclaimed that Christians are not perfect, just forgiven, by those who hold me to an unachievable standard of perfection, I have doubts.

When the question posed to me is not “How can we come to an understanding” but “What more do you want,” I get cautious, suspicious, distrustful.

Church is supposed to be a safe space, but I find, more and more, that feminist Christians are forced to make our own church, to worship in ways that are comprehensible to us, to go outside the brick and mortar to find ways to enact the radical equality and intersectionality that is our embodying Christ and loving our neighbor. This is our church, outside the walls, outside the faux-allies who betray us, outside the demands for forgiveness that denies the agency of the abused, outside the gender roles that deny the identity of all those to whom a gender binary is inadequate, outside (inasmuch as we can escape the system that pervades every fiber of us) the patriarchy.

This is what keeps me going. The hope and love of Jesus I see displayed in those whom the church rejects. The glory that comes from working to be diverse not for the sake of numbers but because the contributions far outweigh a monochromatic and monotheological perspective. The beauty of seeing people whom the church long rejected find a place of peace and safety where they can recover from their pain without having to open that wound again to “forgive” their abusers.

This is my church and this is my Jesus. If men like Roger Olson refuse to accept me as I am – bell hooks quoting, intersectionality promoting, privilege checking me – then I don’t need to keep grappling for a place at their table. If God is where two or more are gathered, then God is with the chorus of feminists, the oppressed, the ones who distrust the institution because the institution refuses to trust them.

I refuse to let my church be co-opted by those who refuse to exercise grace and charity and restraint in judgment. I refuse to let my faith be overrun by men who consistently refuse me and others with deeper oppressions that myself space and dignity to be seen as human. I refuse to let my worship be co-opted by those who would remind me that “wife-beaters are forgiven too” on a day dedicated to fighting violence against women.

I don’t have space for men whose theologies leave room for abuse. I don’t have space for “radical forgiveness” that demands I pretend everything is okay.

My Christ, my Church, and my love is bigger than that. I pray that, someday, they see it.

But until then, do not demand of me forgiveness without repentance, grace without love, or church within your boundaries. That, I cannot give.

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A Year of Biblical Womanhood: Understanding and Openness in One Woman's Journey

I’m writing this amongst stacks of papers, research, and a ticking clock and pile of work at my day job. My coffee has grown cold and was replaced by a mug of Earl Grey tea about half an hour ago, which is itself growing cold. I’m busy.

Reading Rachel Held Evans’ newest book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, I was relieved to find a woman busier than I, figuring out how to make a Proverbs 31 life work amongst all the normal trappings of a modern American woman’s life. The honesty with which Evans confronts the burden of simply existing as a woman in today’s church is refreshing and poignant.

And yet, in many ways, I both identify and do not identify with her story. You see, though I’m only a few years younger than Evans, I am far removed from her experience. Indeed, my ability to imitate Biblical Womanhood is short-circuited by the fact that I have no one to be in a complementarian relationship with. I have no husband to praise at the city gates, no man to call Master, and I don’t live with my parents any longer (though I’m fairly sure it would creep out my egalitarian minded father if I started calling him Master).

I am not the audience of Evans' book – which is not her fault and is no detriment to the book itself. There are still things I could glean from her words – the discussions of how women were expected to be everything to everyone at all times during the Proverbs 31 chapter struck me like a knife. Single or married, every woman raised in the evangelical church can identify with that sentiment.

As a single woman with a career of my own, financially independent of my parents and living 450 miles away from any family, I am the literalist complementarian’s nightmare. Add in being far too the left politically, willingly and happily childfree, educated well beyond most of the men in my dating pool, and (shockingly!) self-identified as feminist, and you have a recipe for disaster when presented with complementarianism. So much has been axiomatic in my life for so long that many of the tasks in Rachel’s book seemed antiquated and outdated…though not surprisingly so.

And I suppose that’s the point. Though Evans' experiment was an extreme example, many of the elements of womanhood she was expected to emulate are things I could easily identify as things I was taught growing up and norms that I run up against now. The gentle and quiet spirit, the multi-tasking to get everything done, being modest in both clothing and attitude, and being told it’s my duty to have children. While I may not be Evans' audience as a person already breaking the mold of womanhood, reading the book buoyed my spirits in that woman in the church are seeking ways to break out of the mold too.

Numerous criticisms have been levied against the book –as a mockery of Scripture, as gimmicky, as irreverent – and if you go into the book with that hostile mindset, you may find those things. But that is simply the worldview you bring to the text, not evidenced in the text itself – which, ironically, is the exact same accusation many have leveled on Evans herself.

If you approach the text with the understanding that this is one woman’s spiritual, one woman’s experience within the world, then you come away with a completely different result. Sure, I’m delving into reader response theory here, but I think it’s necessary. The book must be approached as it is – a story of the hardships women face, an examination of where “following Scripture to the letter” can lead, and a treatise what being a “woman” means.

This book is not for those who have already made up their minds. This book is not for the ones who think they have all the answers. This book is not even a point-by-point breakdown of complementarianism and why it is a broken system. This book is for the questioning, for the women in between, for the ones feeling more judged by God and scripture than buoyed and loved. This book – and Evans' journey – do not provide exact, pat answers to the numerous theological questions that a literal complementarianism raises. Instead, it tells us that questions are okay. Wrestling is okay. The Scripture can take it. God can take it. Being everything to everyone is not a burden you have to carry.

And for that, it is worth your time.

________

Note: I received an Advance Reader's Copy of this book but was not in any way compensated for this review.

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The Damage We Do: Labels of Others

I wasn’t planning on addressing the Denny Burk issue, but then a discussion about labels with a friend led me to re-examine Burk’s issues in a new light. For those unfamiliar with the situation, here’s a primer: Denny Burk, conservative evangelical complementarian (his labels) blogger put up a post about Christianity Today’s recent issue featuring “Top 50 Women to Watch.” The list contains a range of people from Rachel Held Evans to Michele Bachmann. Burk apparently didn’t like this list.

Burk’s post was a bit unclear, but he made his point explicit in the comments: his problem was that we should not be celebrating women who succeeding in fields outside of (what he feels is) the woman’s role. He writes:

In some cases I would and in other cases I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t celebrate those that I believe are serving in roles that scripture forbids. I would celebrate with those excelling in roles that scripture commends. I know that you as an egalitarian don’t acknowledge such distinctions, but for those of us who do, it’s pretty important.

Burk’s adherence to complementarianism has made it impossible for him to celebrate the spread of the message of Christ. This is wholly and completely tragic – any time a pastor negates the ministry of others merely because it does not jive with their view of “how things should be,” they have made an idol out of their own theology and their own interpretation. God is so much bigger than Denny Burk’s box for Them.

And human beings, too, are so much bigger than Burk’s labels for them. The comments on the post went on a rabbit trail of attempting to determine whether or not Rachel Held Evans actually is an evangelical, versus whether or not she identifies as one. When Rachel herself entered the fray to explain that yes, she identifies as evangelical, Burk rejected that identification because they disagree on what that word means.

That, too, is tragic.

It is not our responsibility to place other people in neatly labeled boxes and put them on a shelf never to be removed or changed. That is how hearts harden and people become shells of themselves.

When we place labels upon others – especially if these labels are wrong - or if we reject a person's label for themselves, we put boundaries around understanding our fellow humans. We say that we will only understand the other person insofar as they live up to the label we have determined for them. Burk refuses to attempt to understand or listen to Rachel because she doesn’t fit his definition for his exclusive club. And it is extremely dangerous for members of the Body of Christ to do this because it is refusing to meet people where they are.

Throughout our lives, we meet a lot of people who cross over and intersect between a lot of different labels and identities. If we allow our prejudices about what these labels mean to override the individual person in front of us, we have failed in the practice of love. For example, I am a woman. I am white. I am Christian (most days). I am a feminist. I am a daughter and a sister. I am single. I am a Whovian. And on and on and on.

Any one of these labels has a different meaning for each of the different people I encounter throughout the day, multiplying into a massive collage of meaning, contributing the massive centuries old conversation about what it means to be a human being – what that ultimate label is understood to be. Without my ability to define these words – imperfect as they are – in my understanding of them and to have those labels for myself, I am robbed of part of my agency and choice; I am robbed of the ability to understand myself. When we tell others that the labels they have for themselves (their identities) are not legitimate and that we have a better understanding of their identity than they do, we tell them that they are only able to contribute to the mass of human symphony in a narrowly defined, often inauthentic manner.

When we in the Body of Christ choose to make a determination as to who is in or out of our “exclusive club,” we deny the humanity, diversity, brokenness, and grace that is the Church universal. We take the place of God. We allow our love of being right in our theology and our love of being exclusive to sully the name of that which should be grace personified. When we say, “I do not accept your definition of what Christ’s love looks like in your life,” we make rightful heirs to the kingdom into bastards begging for food on the temple steps.

And oh what damage we do when we take it upon ourselves to determine another person's identity for them. It is not ours to decide. The Grace of God is not ours to divvy up or withhold at the whim of our definitions and interpretations and exegeses. It is our job to meet people where they are, to understand what their labels mean for them, and to love them within that space. If your labels prevent you from celebrating the love and grace of Jesus simply because it comes through means your theology says is wrong, then it is not the means that must be tossed, but your theology.

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Disparaging the Feminine

On Thursday and Friday of last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Story conference at a large church in Downtown Chicago. It’s a conference aimed at Christian creatives, and while I don’t know that I got much out of the actual talks I heard, it was absolutely wonderful to connect again with Rachel Held Evans and Alise Wright, and meet for the first time Matthew Paul Turner (after nearly 2 whole years of being friends!), Danielle of From Two To One, Ed Cyzewski, Sonny Lemmons, and Caris Adel. (Not name dropping, just attempting to acknowledge everyone I met and spent time with). I heard some great talks by Rachel and Anne Lamott, and music video director Isaac Rentz. But the talk that sticks with me is one by Erwin McManus, whom I was unfamiliar with prior to his address on Thursday morning. Unfortunately, the speech stuck with me for the wrong reasons.

You see, McManus did have some good stuff to say, about how creativity is about making the invisible visible, and God as the source of creation and so on. But I don’t remember much of that, even though I was taking notes. What I do remember, word for word, were his comments that subtly disparaged the feminine. He did so multiple times throughout his speech/sermon, and every time, the group of bloggers sitting around me turned to look at me as we feminists went, “Did he REALLY just say that?”

The first comment came when he was talking about this encounter he had with God. He “heard” God speak to him and it broke him – it was this intense spiritual encounter. It made him “feel like a girl.” It was clear from McManus’s tone and context that “feeling like a girl” was not something he liked to associate with God. He wanted to run from that feminine feeling as much as he possibly could.

Strike one.

The second comment came when he was telling a story about learning to let go of the old and embrace the new. He’d be raised drinking coffee swill – stuff full of caffeine but not actually good tasting. And he describes his first ever cappuccino, and the barista apparently did “a feminine thing with the milk.” Again, the tone and context signaled that this wasn’t good, this was a challenge to his manhood, that by drinking this “feminized” drink, he was giving something up.

But I’m nitpicking, right? These aren’t that big of a deal, right?

Not really.

You see, when McManus said those things, I lost track of the rest of his story. All I could hear was him asserting – however subtly – the fact that he is a man and does manly things and the idea that he may have to connect with some sort of feminine side wasn’t good and he should figure out how to stay a man.

By the end of the speech, my friends and I were counting his comments about the feminine – there were only three total, but they were spread out throughout the speech and distracted us every time. And what bothered me most is that they were completely unnecessary - the comments about "feeling like a girl" and "the feminine thing with milk" were rhetorically superfluous. There was utterly no need for them to exist within the speech, but their presence distracted and detracted from his main point.

Even if I wasn’t a feminist, I would have noticed them. They not only seemed out of place and random, but made me, personally, feel out of place for, y’know, feeling like a girl all the time. The audience was a pretty good mix of men and women from all different backgrounds, and those sexist comments served as a subtle reminder that, to some men, aspects of my gender are things to be avoided. I spoke with coworkers and bloggers afterward, and those comments were the center of discussion, not the thesis of his speech – even though he had good ideas!

This is why pastors – especially male pastors– have to be careful about their speech. This is why speakers have to take extra care with their words. Not so they don’t “offend,” but so they do not distract entirely from their larger point. It is rhetorically counterproductive to insult a good chunk of your audience in the process of making a point.

I’m sure Erwin McManus is a fine gentlemen, and there are all sorts of excuses for why he would say the things he did. But all I had to go on was that speech in those moments, and I came away knowing that the fight for women in the church was far from over, especially when “feeling like a girl” is still seen as a bad thing, as proclaimed from the virtual pulpit.

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Quit Your Job

Because of my recent bout of being internetless, I’ve missed a lot of important news – I didn’t hear about the attack in Libya until this morning, and had to do a lot of reading back over things to gain context. The attack was a tragedy and not just because an American state official died. The inevitable and heavily disappointing part of any such tragedy is, of course, the immediate jumps toward politicization and spin. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is currently taking a lot of heat for tone deaf and politicized comments in the wake of the tragedy, as is to be expected.

But I’m not here to write about that. I honestly don’t know enough context for what happened or for Romney’s remarks to comment adequately on that particular situation. What I am here to comment on is the layperson’s assessment, particularly that of people in the church.

There is a disturbing, intensely vocal portion of the American evangelical church that seems to take its cue for Godliness and Christian service much more from nationalism than from Biblical precedent. And this is no more apparent than when engaged in a discussion about “the Muslims” and issues in the Middle East. All too often, Islam – a religion comprised of literally millions of people across the globe – will be first discussed as a monolith, and then railed against as “violent” and “savage.” There is a faction of the American church will react with little surprise to attacks like the ones in Libya, saying things like, “Well, what did you expect from such people?”

For some reason unbeknownst to even myself, I usually react to such comments with a sigh and a resignation of “Okay, never talking to that person.” I think, quite often, it has been easier for me to write off this section of the American Christian population as “fringe,” as those whom it is better to ignore than attempt to engage in good faith.

But then, today, my friend Alan Noble who writes for Christ and Pop Culture posted a link on Facebook to an analysis of the Libya attacks, prompting the following comment from a person on his friend list:

I say...bring ALL our troops home and let those savage people do what they do best. KILL one another. There are not a million Muslims worth the life of one American soldier.

Upon clicking on this person’s profile, one discovers that he is the pastor of a Baptist church in Arkansas.

Something within me broke.

Up until this point, I could reasonably (though unjustifiably) go on in pretending ignorance that the anti-Muslim sector of Christians in America were just laypeople, uneducated and fringe. But no, here was irrefutable proof that some pastors – shepherds of the flock, people who are supposed to be held to higher standard – were espousing the same racist, Islamophobic trash that I was seeing from commenters on The National Review Online. I suppose that this tripe had to be coming from somewhere, but now I had a pastor saying, directly, in a public forum, that some lives are worth more than others.

And that makes me angry. Very angry.

I have a message to every pastor and pastor-in-training out there: if you think that some lives are worth more than others, you need to quit your job. Immediately.

Don’t take a day to pray about it; don’t spend time waffling about whether or not it’s God’s will. If you, in any inkling in the back of your brain, can possibly think that some lives in this world are worth more than others – because of their skin color, religious beliefs, clothing, or country of origin – you are not fit to be leading God’s flock.

Quit. Now.

You are the malignant tumor on the Body of Christ. If you can possibly say that God cares about some people more than others – which is what you are saying when you say that someone’s life is “worth more” – you are not fit for the role you are in. Take your severance pay, contact your deacons, and turn in your resignation.

In orthodox Christianity, we preach a Jesus who died for ALL. We preach a Jesus who spoke to the lowest of society and welcomed them in before those who most “deserved” his attention – the Pharisees and religious leaders. We worship a Jesus who preached about the goodness of those outside his religious traditions – the Good Samaritan, for example.

If you as a pastor can claim that Jesus with one breath on a Sunday morning, and then say that Muslims are not worth the life of an American soldier on Wednesday, you have failed, utterly and completely to fulfill your duty as a Christian leader. There is no grace and mercy in the claim that some lives are worth more than others; there is no love there, and love, grace, and mercy are essential to Christian leadership. You are damaging people and  you are damaging the Word of God if you can possibly say what this pastor said.

I have hope that you will learn and change and see that the grace, love and mercy of God extends beyond your circle of "people who look like you." But I refuse to tolerate this possible change and growth as a reason to allow you to keep a pastorate. This is a change and growth that must be done away and outside of a leadership position. Asking you to step down is the most gracious thing I can think of right now, as I believe your views can change. But I will not have you wreaking havoc on the trusting people of your church and spreading malignant, terrible lies in the process.

So here is your pink slip. You're done.

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Of Gods and Godheads

In discussing Mutuality and Patriarchy over on Rachel Held Evans’ blog, I’ve been doing a lot of close reading and thinking this week about patriarchal structures. The Gospel Coalition and Dennis Burk were glad to help me out this week, each with an article that came straight out and stated: Yes, complementarianism  is patriarchy. And both of those arguments went a step further to claim something I’d never heard in this debate before: that the patriarchy is modeled on the Trinitarian structure of the Godhead himself. The Gospel Coalition, in the midst of their poorly structured and ultimately straw-manning piece “Debatable: Is Complementarianism Another Word for Patriarchy?”, had this fascinating sentence that should draw the eye of anyone who has spent time studying the Trinity – which frankly should be every member of the Church. It reads:

Evans claims that complementarianism is patriarchy, and here she stumbles upon the truth. She doesn't appear to recognize, however, that the patriarchy of marriage models the patriarchy of the Godhead. In contrast, the "functional egalitarianism" that Evans prefers models our culture's obsession with autonomy and disdain for authority. It is an ideology particularly suited to fulfill the masculine desire---first exhibited by Adam---to shirk our responsibility as servant-leaders and transfer our God-mandated role to our wives. (emphasis mine)

It’s a simple claim that's easy to glance over, but it contains a big wallop. I know that they meant to imply that Evans wants to upset the structure of the church and the Godhead – therefore committing heresy on her part – but the assumptions upon which this claim functions are, in themselves, heretical.

I’m confident in the intelligence of my readers, so don’t be scared: I’m going to get a little academic on your asses right now.

First, in order to understand what GC is telling us, we have to decide one of two things about this sentence – are they referring, when they say “the patriarchy of the Godhead,” to the idea that God – in the form of the Trinity – rules over all creation? Or are they saying that the Trinity/Godhead itself contains a patriarchal structure?

If it is the first, why, then, do we need the gendered language of “patriarchy”? Wouldn’t “hierarchy” be a more apt term, especially as the Godhead is three persons, two of which are not gendered, functioning equally?

And in the second, what does that imply about the supposedly egalitarian functions of the three person that compose the Trinity of the Godhead?

Let me back up a tidge and discuss a little of Trinitarian theology. You’ll find more information on my understanding of Trinitarian theology in the first chapter of my thesis, which can be found in PDF form here. For space, though, I’ll have to give you a very brief overview.

The Trinity is composed of three persons – The Holy Spirit, God “the Father,” and Jesus the Son.*

God the Father is the first member of the Trinity (though not created – do not make that mistake).

John 1 tells us that “In the beginning was God, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.” This Word – Logos – is Jesus, a second member of the Trinity. Though Jesus did not appear on earth as a corporeal being until years after creation, John 1 tells us that he is always with God and always a part of the Godhead.

And the last member of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit, which makes its appearance amongst the believers at Pentecost, but appears throughout the Old Testament as well.

So now we have the Trinity. It’s a mystery, and it’s hard to grasp, so forgive me if I elide or skip over some of the messier parts. But what is generally accepted in orthodox theology is this (as found in the Nicene Creed of 381):

  1. The Trinity consists of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
  2. The members of the Trinity are coequal and of the same substance though they are also three distinct persons.
  3. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, but is not made by him. This same goes for the Son. This procession does not imply hierarchy or even created order (the member of the Trinity did not create one another).
  4. Each of these members function in coequal community, sharing one will and one purpose.

So where does this leave us with the complementarian argument that patriarchal male leadership – in marriages and in pulpits – stems from the Trinity?

Well, it certainly pulls us away from orthodoxy. Let’s circle back around to those initial questions about the GC’s statement, eh?

First, does this claim mean that marriage is formed after the relationship between the Trinity and the human church (or humanity in general)?

Fundamentally: No. In order to argue that specifically patriarchal structure on earth is modeled after God’s specifically patriarchal relationship to man, one would have to argue that the Godhead, in of itself, is male. This is a hard argument to make from Scripture because it would require maleness to be an element intrinsic to the Godhead, which is simply not a winnable argument. God the Father is referred to in both masculine and feminine terms. The Holy Spirit is referred to in almost completely feminine ways. Jesus is the only truly gendered member of the Trinity, and it is unclear whether that gendering was a part of his full humanity in the Incarnation, or intrinsic to his being as a member of the Trinity (I would argue much more for the former).

It is far more likely that the GC was making the argument that the patriarchy exists within the Godhead itself – in that the relationship of the Trinitarian members to each other is, in itself, a male-based hierarchy.

This is where things get dicey.

To put it bluntly, stating that hierarchy exists within the Trinity is to commit the heresy of Arianism. Arianism proposes that the Jesus, the Son of God, is created by and functions as a secondary subject to God the Father. Rather than being equal to God, Jesus is submissive and ruled by God. Jesus is, rather than a fully-functioning member of the Trinity in himself, a secondary, created creature. This runs into the problem of basically making Jesus a second, lower demi-god, rather than a fully functioning, fully integrated member of the one Trinity (in opposition to an orthodox monotheistic understanding of the Trinity).

But what of Jesus “submitting” to God in the garden on the night before his crucifixion?

This is far from simple, but my answer is to remember that Jesus, being God incarnate, is fully God and fully man (another mystery). I would posit that the scene of submission we see in the garden was evidence of his full humanity, rather that evidence of a patriarchal structure within the Godhead.

To say that patriarchal complementarian theology is modeled on the Godhead is to slant and twist an orthodox understanding of the Godhead itself. It is to place members of the Godhead into a hierarchy, when orthodox theological tradition dictates that this is not and cannot be the case.

(This, of course, says nothing about the idea that, if the Godhead is patriarchal, then we are once again gendering a genderless being, and leaving the Holy Spirit high and dry.)

This, I find, is the scariest implication of complementarian theology. Not only does it affect and change individual relationships between men and women here on earth, but it also changes our view of the Godhead itself. It leaves little room for the Holy Spirit, forces a sinful hierarchy onto the relationship between Father and Son (words that are more semantic devices than prescriptive elements), and makes God something that is unorthodox and unbiblical.

Instead, I’d like to propose an alternate understanding of the Church as it reflects the Trinitarian nature of God. This understanding is a spin off from the Baptist theologian Stanley Grenz, who some of you may recognize. It is also an position about which I go into greater detail in my aforementioned thesis chapter.

Here it is: The Trinity is the ultimate understanding of community, and to be the imago dei (the image of God) means to be in community – real, true, giving community – with each other.

Back when I was a young whippersnapper of a theology major in college (and far, far more conservative than I am now), the Trinity was explained to me thus: God the Father and Jesus the Son are engaged in a fully perfect, fully divine, fully loving relationship, and the Holy Spirit is the love, the bond, between the two.

It’s an imperfect analogy (as every Trinitarian analogy is), but it is that structure of community, that idea of the image of God that I have carried with me through my adult life. It is a perfectly equal, perfectly loving relationship that is the image of God, and we are that image of God most perfectly when we are engaged in the act of loving our neighbor. This image doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship, though romantic relationships can themselves take on an image of God. But it is also the man who takes in a hurting neighbor. It is also the friend who prays for you every day. It is also a dinner - a communion - with friends.

The image of God is reflected most clearly when we come together in community, not when we engage in a patriarchal marriage relationship. The image of God that we get from orthodox understanding of the Godhead is fundamentally egalitarian; it is fundamentally based in the love of equal partners, not in one part taking leadership over the other. All lead, and all are saved. Together.

_______

*I put the label for God the Father in quotes as this gendered language – though common Christian tradition – is debatable. While the God of “in the beginning, God,” is frequently referred to as God the Father, he is also referred to in gendered female terms as well. There is an entire academic debate [PDF] surrounding the concept of “God the Father” as a gendered being, but for the sake of this argument, I’m going to simply say that God, as an incorporeal (except in the form of the Incarnation) being, is genderless. Thus the quotes. For simplicity’s sake, "God the Father" and "he" will do for shorthand for now.

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We are the megaphone

I come to you, my audience, today with a heavy heart. The brother of a friend of mine was recently ousted from his church, and his story is only just beginning to be told. As these are events that happened VERY recently, this young man is still struggling with a massive amount of hurt, pain, and heartache. The story is over on my friend Matthew Paul Turner’s blog, in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2.

This week, we learned Andrew’s story. Andrew was a member in good standing at Mars Hill church in Seattle, Mark Driscoll’s domain. He was engaged to the daughter of one of the elders. He cheated on her with an old friend, and almost immediately (within the week) confessed his sin to her. Needless to say, this ended their relationship, which was blow number one.

Blow number two came when the church became involved. Andrew (of his own free will) admitted that his relationship with his ex-fiance was also sexual. This was seen as a sin worthy of “church discipline.” After a month of meeting after uncomfortable meeting with an increasing amount of people in the church (exposing his “sin” FAR beyond just the people directly involved), he was given a contract of church discipline. I strongly urge you to go over to MPT’s blog and read this contract (and come back, of course, because I’m not finished). The “contract” detailed a plan for repentance. It involved banning Andrew from dating (for an unspecified amount of time), required that he write out “in detail” his sexual exploits, and that he have meetings with a church pastor for an unspecified period of time.

Andrew, rightly, thought this was voyeuristic, controlling, and ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that he had confessed his sin, and was already working to make amends. So he refused to sign it and told the church that he would be leaving.

They responded by saying that the discipline would therefore be “escalated.” “Escalation” entailed sending other members of the church (it is a church of 10,000 people, mind), a letter explaining that Andrew had left the church as a "member under discipline," and detailing how people should interact with him should they run into him out and about. These instructions included specific things to say and specific ways to react to him – including refusing to go to social events with him. Basically, “stop being his friend” was the instruction. Again, I urge you to go read the letter over on MPT’s site.

When I read the story, I didn’t know what to do or even how to respond. I told MPT that it made literally sick to my stomach. Forming a coherent response was the furthest thing from my mind. All I wanted to do was give Andrew a hug. As he’s in Seattle and I’m in Chicago, that’s not possible, so, Andrew, if you’re reading this, I want you to know this first and foremost:

You. Are. Loved.

What Mars Hill sees as church discipline is not love.

What Mars Hill did to you is not loving.

It is abusive. And it is wrong.

It is spiritual, verbal, and emotional abuse. It is far worse than any sin you committed.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite lines from the movie Hairspray, spoken by the ineffable Queen Latifah: “Brace yourself for a whole lotta ugly comin' at you from a neverending parade of stupid.” And Andrew, there has been and there will be a whole lotta ugly coming at you for this, both from Mars Hill members and Mark Driscoll sycophants.

But I’m also reminded of another piece of literature, a quote from the wonderful John Green, who writes in his debut novel Looking For Alaska: “We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken.” Andrew, Mars Hill has tried to break you. You said it yourself – they beat you down into spiritual submission. They try to break your spirit.

But your spirit, the part of you that is YOU, can never be broken. They have tried to turn you into a pariah. They’ve tried to make an example of you. But all they have done is made themselves look like asses. And you, the wonderful human being that is Andrew, can never be broken by such people. You proved it when you chose to walk away.

But it with a heavy heart that I know there are so many more in that church experiencing this and feeling alone. And it is with a heavy heart that I realize that Driscoll has been running this church, training these elders and pastors (all without formal training himself, it should be noted and highlighted and underlined and bolded), and developing this church discipline system for the past ten years. Ten years of abused members. Ten years of people being told that they are unlovable unless they obey the church, which has taken the place of God. Ten years of people being made to feel like complete and utter shit.

When Rachel Held Evans posted a call last year to call Driscoll out as a bully, I supported it. Driscoll’s views on women are despicable, and his treatment of those unlike him is far from Christlike, and he is a bully.

And now, we have more proof that he not only is a bully himself, but that he trains his leaders in the church to be bullies. He actively prepares people to abuse others.

But there is hope in this darkest of days.

With the information that is coming out about Mars Hill, the rest of God's Church is speaking up. I see hope in the reactions from the Reformed sphere about Driscoll’s new book. I see hope in the reaction from the UK when Driscoll insulted them by calling them cowards. And I see hope in the internet’s reaction to this story.

Because here’s the thing: it’s all very easy to have an abstract disagreement on theology. I understand that Driscoll and I disagree on, well, everything. And I’ve no problem debating with his ideas and talking about how they’re bad. And debating ideas is fine and healthy, but it admittedly gets us nowhere (Driscoll won't listen to the voice of a woman, for one).

But this? This is indefensible. It is much harder to continue on with approval of a particular theology when you have a hurting, bleeding, broken person staring you in the face, asking you to hear their story. There is such power in listening to these stories, in understanding how someone has been hurt.

After all, Christians proclaim Christ as “the Greatest Story Ever Told.” Narrative is interweaved with our lives as Christ-followers.

So, the breaking of this story gives me a heavy heart, but it also gives me hope. Because theological arguments can be shoved aside, they can be ignored as a “different belief.” But when someone comes to you and tells you their story of brokenness, of hurt, of pain, it is impossible to walk away unchanged.

We never were going to take down Driscoll with theological arguments and debates over Biblical interpretation. That’s not how transformative change happens. Change happens when we hear stories like Andrew’s and we respond with a righteous anger and a radical love. Change happens when we refuse to let pain and anger and voyeuristic legalism win the day.

Love and hope may just be whispers at times, but goddammit, they refuse to be silenced.

And we are the megaphone.

_______________

(photo from Todd Metcalfe, of an organization from London called "Love Police.")

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The Burden of Proof

Biblical maturity sufficient to lead at some level in the church.  

A close look at many churches will reveal that a central problem is the lack of biblical maturity among the men of the congregation and a lack of biblical knowledge that leaves men ill equipped and completely unprepared to exercise spiritual leadership.

 

Boys must know their way around the biblical text, and feel at home in the study of God's Word. They must stand ready to take their place as leaders in the local church.

 

While God has appointed specific officers for his church — men who are specially gifted and publicly called — every man should fulfill some leadership responsibility within the life of the congregation. For some men, this may mean a less public role of leadership than is the case with others. In any event, a man should be able to teach someone, and to lead in some ministry, translating his personal discipleship into the fulfillment of a godly call.

 

There is a role of leadership for every man in every church, whether that role is public or private, large or small, official or unofficial. A man should know how to pray before others, to present the Gospel, and to stand in the gap where a leadership need is apparent.

 

 

When I read this, I have but one question: Why?

 

Seriously: What about having external genitals makes a man more qualified or more suited to be a leader, so much so that it becomes a necessary part of his development as a person?

 

This is the one question no one who espouses gender roles has ever been able to answer.

 

Of course, there’s the “God made us this way and we’re fulfilling that role in an ideal world,” but there are enough counterexamples (Deborah, Esther, Phoebe, the women at the tomb) and cultural context to argue that God-given gender roles are vague at best and mistakenly and dangerously applied at worst.

 

I always try to err on the side of grace, especially when it comes to traditional church issues that people I love have been hurt by. To me, it simply makes much more sense for Christians to step back and say “Okay, I don’t necessarily think this is true, and I can see, from the way that this theology has been implemented, that it does not pull people (on the whole) toward a loving relationship with Christ. And so I’m going to stop harping on it, and let people come to Christ as they are, not as I think they should be.”

 

We seem to forget the role that the Church has played in oppressing and harming marginalized groups in society, and when we subsequently take this oppression as a God-given role for the marginalized to play, we wander into very dangerous territory. We err on the side of “being right” rather than on the side of mercy and grace, which should make us very uncomfortable, as people who claim to have been afforded much mercy.

 

I will be covering this more fully in a blog post tomorrow, but this must be noted: I have never once been given a suitable response as to why having a certain form of anatomy makes my boyfriend more qualified to be a voice in the church than me, even if it is “is public or private, large or small, official or unofficial …  to stand in the gap where a leadership need is apparent.” And until I do, well, my dear, it appears we are at an impasse.

 

[caption id="attachment_506" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="It's a battle of wits. Let's begin."][/caption]

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