Monthly Archives: May 2014

The Church of the Perpetual Misogyny

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This shooting in California has my heart breaking.index

Still.

The fall out has sparked some intense conversation, and it’s just heartbreaking to see some of the comments coming from the dusty corners of society where misogyny still lives and breathes.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think misogyny lives everywhere in our society.  But it has a hard time breathing in some places…and I thank God for that.

Unfortunately, one place it doesn’t have a hard time breathing is in the church.

People are pointing to misogynist video games, misogynist movies, and all other cultural points as contributing to this young man’s delusion that just because he has a sexual desire for women they should appease it willingly (or, even, unwillingly).

But, for my part, I’m going to let Hollywood alone.  I’m going to let video games alone, too.  They have their blame.  But, see: I’ve come to expect that from them.  Hollywood and the video game industry and marketing and the like have all used sex for gain, to force submission, to put sex on a pedestal.

But me?  I’m going to point to the church.

I’m going to point to churches who still refuse to ordain women, despite the fact that, while Paul (inconsistently) makes misogynist comments, Jesus (consistently) treated women as part of his inner circle and, indeed, entrusted them first with the news of the resurrection, the “gospel,” the “good news.”

Explain that rationale for me, please?  The men were all too chicken in their hiding places, and when the women told them about the resurrection, they didn’t trust their testimony (after all, in a court of law, women couldn’t be trusted, so why would God entrust this good news to them?).  And we look at this and wink and laugh as if it’s some sort of Laurel and Hardy episode, where the one who was supposed to “get it” doesn’t.

But I don’t think that’s it at all.  I think the women were supposed to get it.  Intentionally. Purposefully.

I’m going to point to churches who still refuse to let women vote, as if somehow their opinions are less important than the opinions of human beings with a Y chromosome.

I’m going to point to churches who still refuse to acknowledge the presence of feminine examples for God in the scripture, yet who claim to take the Bible literally.  If God is male, then God is also a hen (at least, according to Isaiah). And, for that matter, a rock.

What?  Those are metaphors?  Personifications? Which one(s)? All?  Or only the ones without male anatomy?

I’m going to point to churches who allow women preachers, but who won’t allow women preachers to lead churches by themselves.  Or who allow women preachers, but won’t allow them to preach primarily to men.  Or who allow them to preach, but as long as they tell their fellow sisters to “submit” to their male partners.

By the way, don’t ask me to preach at your wedding on any “submission” text.  Not going to happen…

But just before you mainline Protestants think you’re off the hook; no way.  I’m pointing at you, too (and, therefore, to myself).  We think that just because we ordain women that we’re free of blame?  Because I know more female pastors across all the mainline Protestant denominations without churches then I do male pastors without churches.  I know of situations where churches have rejected every female candidate received in the hopes that they would receive a male candidate eventually.  I know of churches who still feel as if their pastor is inferior or that they “weren’t good enough” for a male pastor, just because their pastor is a female.

The church should be the place where misogyny comes to die, not where it comes to life.

And, this is the thing: while I don’t hold Hollywood or the video game industry or politics or any of that fluff to a very high standard when it comes to gender stereotypes and discrimination, I do hold the church to a high standard.

I wish all the former could be held to a higher standard.  I expect the latter to be.   It’s sad, but not surprising.

And while this individual who shot up these innocent people may not have been religious (I haven’t heard either way), it doesn’t really matter.  If religion isn’t able to critique culture, to model for the wider culture a way of living that embraces the life of Jesus rather than the hate of any “ism,” we’re useless.  We can say that it’s sad that this man was violent, but on Sunday mornings many churches preach a violent, male god.  We can say that this man shouldn’t have thought of women that way, but until we acknowledge that we at least had a hand in that education, we’re speaking out of both sides of our mouths.

If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves; the truth is not in us.

It may be interesting to think about how Mario always saving the Princess has contributed to this misogyny that resulted in such violence.  But that narrative is just part of a much larger narrative of men saving the day, tracing it’s way back through the centuries.

The church has the ability, the call, to break off from that narrative and live a different one.

If only it had a good example to follow…

“Donald Sterling Should Be an Insulation Salesman” or “Cultic Christianity is Deadly Due to Insulation”

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Donald Sterling is a one-man study in insulation.fiberglass-insulation

He should be an insulation salesman; he’s his own best example.

In his interview last night with Anderson Cooper, which I only was able to see part of (but a telling part), he convincingly argues for his own ineptitude without meaning to.

To him, he’s not hated by players.  To him, he’s not hated by fans.  And while he knows that he has done wrong and has “hurt many people,” he then proceeds to prove that he does not, in fact, know this in any way that might lead to behavior change because he starts berating Magic Johnson, the black community, and basic sensibility all in one fell swoop (see link above for the spectacularly terrible soundbite).

This shows me that either he is a) going slightly mad (not out of the realm of possibility) or b) absolutely insulated from the general public.

My hunch is “b”.

There are many insulators.  I think money is probably one of his greatest insulators.  With the ability to be taken everywhere by hired car, what need do you have to interact with anyone who you don’t hire or choose to spend time with?  When you can buy anything you want, including sexual partners, why bother with real relationships (like, say, the legal wife you have)?

One of the greatest things someone who wants to live an uninsulated life can do is take public transportation.  It is grounding.  In a good way.  In a way that makes me want to raise my kids in the city and have them do it.

Another one of his insulators he has is that he’s white.  It absolutely insulates him from a whole variety of perspectives and, wrongly, gives him the appearance that he’s one of many voices.  He is in fact a privileged voice among other voices.  This is the same mistake that poor college kid made when Time magazine picked up his article.  If you haven’t run across that news tidbit yet, please check it out.  It’s a perfect example of what self-righteousness will do to the young mind if given a platform. I suspect he’ll repent of that article in five years, if his education is worth anything and he lives vulnerably enough to see how asinine he is…

To be fair to that guy, no one should have any of their Freshman papers/thoughts published.  Ever.  His thoughts aren’t fully developed (I hope).

But back to Sterling.

Sterling suffers from insulation in a way that I see cultic Christianity suffering from insulation, too.  For an example, check out your local cinema. This abhorrent move God is Not Dead is just one example of the insulation problem that much of the church has.  A philosophy professor that throws down an ultimatum to stifle thought?  A Muslim girl who gets beat up by her father for conversion?  A last-ditch confession of said professor when it comes out that he doesn’t believe in God because of personal tragedy?

It’s the same reason that I stopped believing in Santa Claus: you don’t get that G.I. Joe action figure enough Christmases in a row, and you kind of get wise…

Except that those are all straw men.  They aren’t real people.  They’re fake elaborations on attributes that might be part of the make-up of a person.  But they’re not real.  It’s the same problem I have with Christopher Hitchens’ writings.  He writes of straw men.  Insulated Christianity and insulated atheism are two sides of the same coin.

But the delusion of these things being real can continue if a person is in isolation.  That’s what I worry about. Kind of like the delusion that Sterling has of himself.  Kind of like the delusion of homosexuality being a “choice.”  Much like I choose my heterosexuality, I guess…

All of these ideas can persist in a world where you don’t actually interact with anyone outside of your insulation zone.  Sterling’s problem isn’t one of bad publicity, it’s one of insulated publicity.  And it’s a cycle that perpetuates itself.  He never sees himself clearly because he doesn’t really have anyone of worth to reflect him back on himself, and because he can’t see himself clearly he becomes more and more the monster that he is.

Cultic Christianity is the same way.  Except with Christianity it has to do with interacting with others outside of the “Christian worldview” (whatever that means).  And it’s deadly because of this.  Deadly in that it creates a spirituality that is dead to it’s own self-righteousness.

And it’s a problem.  Not just because it results in crappy movies…that has been going on for years (looking at you Kirk Cameron).  It’s mostly a problem because it prevents the abundant life, the limitless life, that Christ talks about.  It’s dead life.

It’s why I encourage people to have friends across faith lines, cultural lines, all sorts of lines.  And not in an effort to convert them; that’s disingenuous.

Can’t you just experience the other where they are and *gasp* learn from that?

Part of the problem with insulation is that it gives the appearance of certitude.  Sterling is willing to admit he made a mistake, but he can’t see that he’s messed up.  He’s messed up as a human being, as part of a larger system of affluence and influence.

Christianity is messed up.  It’s made mistakes, but it really has to come out and say “We’re messed up.”  And not in the superficial way we say, “We’re a broken vessel just like everything in this world.”  But in a legitimate way that allows it to let go of the influence grip it has over people’s hearts and minds to open hearts to the greater world and greater life that God invites us to experience as Christ-followers.

Christ is our feed box, not our fence.

I am unapologetically Christian (reluctantly).

As part of that identity, though, I feel compelled to meet others where they are.  I feel compelled to tear down the insulation around me (and have it torn down), as best I can, and move out of my comfort zone into the dangerous place outside the walls of security and meet the other.

The church, at her best, can help people do this.  If only she’ll be vulnerable enough to admit she’s part of the system…

 

Your Pastor Dreads Mother’s Day

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depressionMother’s Day is a continual reminder to pastors that they are truly incompetent in the “make everyone happy” department.

A good lesson, I guess.

Except we’re reminded of it every day…it just intensifies on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, when the 4th of July lands on a Sunday, Veteran’s Day, and when 9/11 marks the first day of the week.

Out of all of those, though, Mother’s Day really does take the cake because it is really intimately tied to culture in a deeply personal way.  Mother’s Day is really about sex, sexuality, procreation, choice, marriage, divorce, and choosing to raise/not raise children.

And the pastor’s hands are tied, in this case.  Especially if the pastor is accustomed to preaching with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  You cannot mention current events and not mention the reason why so many women are wearing flowers that morning, I think.

Or maybe you can…I don’t know.  I haven’t figured out a way to do it.

It’s just, well, whatever you choose, be prepared for the emails, anonymous notes, and comments following the service.

A very popular blog post has been making it’s way around this past week.  It’s good. Really good.  It’s been around for a few years.  Like that picture your mom took of you in the bathtub when you were four, it makes it’s rounds about the same time every year just in time to make you feel really awkward.

Yes, the blog post makes me feel awkward.

As a father, it doesn’t make me feel awkward at all.

As a feminist, it makes me shout “yes!”

As someone who wasn’t always sure they wanted children, it makes me feel affirmed.

As a pastor it makes me feel awkward.

Because it’s indicative of a Catch-22 for me.  Mother’s Day isn’t a liturgical holiday, so it really doesn’t need mentioning by the church.  And yet, we lift up Mary as the theotokos, the “God-bearer,” and note her motherly care of the Christ.  We talk a lot about the “womb of creation” as being God’s womb, and make the case hard for feminine pronouns to describe God, especially pointing to God’s work in creation.

And then comes Mother’s Day.

I’m not for honoring Mother’s Day during a Sunday service.  I’m not for pretending it isn’t happening, either.  I’m sure there are ways to straddle the desire to lift up mothering in this world while also not glorifying it as the end-all and be-all of existence.  I truly get that mothers are proud of that role in their life.  I truly get that not all women want to be mothers, and don’t need the church making them feel like they should.  Society does that well enough.  And I truly get that Mother’s Day is painful for some who are grieving their mother, or who have crappy mothers, or who can’t conceive.

Hopefully your pastor isn’t glib.  Hopefully they see all of these realities and try to acknowledge them all. I try to do that…to varying degrees of success.

But it’s just yet another example of why I suck in the department of making people happy.  Pastors truly die from a thousand paper-cuts…not just on this topic.  Which might be why your pastor responded to your email of “concern” or “complaint” in that way that made you feel like they really didn’t hear you.

It’s probably the fifth email of concern they’ve gotten that day…and they’ve stopped being concerned in order to just finish out the day without feeling absolutely dejected.

But I digress. Back to Mother’s Day.

These fights between cultural holidays and Sunday morning worship sometimes make me want to skip out on church altogether.  I don’t blame the women who do on Mother’s Day.  And I don’t blame the women who feel slighted when Mother’s Day isn’t talked about at all at worship, either.  The church of the past was the place to celebrate such things; for many it still is.

But for me?  I’d really just like to say a quiet prayer on Mother’s Day in thanks for God who is mother to us all, call my mom, kiss the mother of my son, greet the young woman who doesn’t want kids where she is, thank the couple who can’t conceive for worshiping God today in our congregation, hug the grandmother who has outlived her children and buried each one with a hug that she won’t get from them, high-five little girls without assuming that they’ll be or want to be mothers, shake the hands of the two fathers who bring their children to church, and not feel like by doing any one of those actions I’m hurting someone else.

Is that too much to ask?