Tag Archives: culture

Confessions of an accidental feminist

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Go read Rachel Held Evans’ Confessions of an accidental feminist. Very good stuff.

I always laugh a little to myself when I receive a Google Alert informing me that someone on the internet has criticized me as a “bitter, angry woman” intent on destroying the Church with my “radical feminist agenda.” I laugh because if these bloggers actually knew me, they would know that I’m more goofy than angry, more hopeful than bitter, and far too disorganized to lead a movement. If they knew me, they would know that I don’t fit into their distorted stereotype of what a feminist looks like, that I don’t hate men or burn bras or crave power, that I—like most feminist—simply believe that women are human and should be treated as such.

Most of all, if these critics knew me, they would know that it isn’t feminism that inspires me to advocate gender equality in the Church and in the world; it is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Belief v. Action

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In church circles there is a lot of exercise around the idea that there is dichotomous relationship between our beliefs and our actions. This is particularly evident between the groups Phyllis Tickle refers to as the Social Justice Christians (ie. the Mainliners) and the Conservative Christians (conservative evangelicals and Southern Baptists). In this paradigm, one group is overly focused on what we do to bring about the Kingdom of God and the other is overly focused on believing the right things so that we can get to heaven. It is a self-conscious tug-of-war between Christians who see almost nothing in common between their belief systems. Of course, this is all fabricated ridiculousness to divide us.

One of my favorite analogies is whenever people talk about men and women being totally different I trot out the one biological fact I know: chimpanzees and bonobo apes have 99% identical DNA to humans. So if we are 99% the same chimps and bonobos, then how out of proportion are we blowing up that 1%? Clearly the same case could be made for Christians, but that isn’t my purpose precisely. It is this: the dichotomy is false and intentionally so.

I came across this picture on Facebook yesterday that I found compelling. Personally compelling. It was also compelling in light of that false understanding of human belief and behavior.

substitute "Christian" for "person"

Jesus’s method was to encourage action that demonstrates active belief. He really did seem to make the proverbial case of being what we eat. Our actions are an outpouring of our internal thinking. This is why He was so concerned with not only the lust we express, but the lust we don’t. The lust in our hearts is as corrupting as anything. But this isn’t solved by restricting behavior or simply adopting the right creed. The lust in our hearts and the lust we express aren’t changed by adopting our church’s statement of belief and just thinking harder. Human psychology doesn’t work that way. That is why it is statistically true that dieters gain weight rather than lose it. We cannot will ourselves to be different simply by adopting either a new external belief system or changing our expected behavior. It comes from having internal and external transformation. We have to get that better eating is good for us, not simply understand it.

In directing us to see sin as not simply outward action, but internal struggles that are beyond our intellectual debates, but operate in our base, human urges, we can come to see that there is no difference or separation between our beliefs and our actions. They are, in fact, the same. They are also inseparable. And ironically, both Social Justice and Conservative Christians make that very case.

The difference between how we perceive these two (belief and action), however, and how they function is significant. Just as they are inseparable, they are also (together) demonstrable, in both positive and negative action. We demonstrate our belief at the soup kitchen and when we cut funding for food stamps and Head Start. We demonstrate our belief when we discourage rape in Africa and when we encourage the killing of LGBT in those same countries. Our belief is on display when we advocate for The Other and when we sit on our hands.

The sole difference between the two is a belief that our actions should be prioritized in any way other than Spirit-filled Kingdom building. Giving preference to evangelism over justice, or vice versa. Giving preference to worship over politics. Giving preference to internal community-building and preservation at the expense of the outside world. We can intellectualize our faith to be solely about our own stuff and our own prejudice. We can compartmentalize it to be something that exists only in our heads or only in our hands. We can pretend that Christianity can be boiled down to a simple theological statement, or worse, a single verse, or worst, the verse’s very name: John 3:16. As if making a public declaration of that, and only that, is what constitutes belief and action.

What matters, in the end, is who we are. And that word “are” is a verb. It isn’t the most active verb there ever was, but there you go. Who we are. We aren’t our beliefs. We are who we are to the world. It isn’t an intellectual exercise, but an engaging, Spirit-led experience of our community and our struggles. Who we are is what we do with others and what drove us there.

Trying to split the hairs at the 1% difference masks the reality that our beliefs and actions are misaligned. And we like it that way. That’s how we recruit people to our camp. How destructive are we?

Beyond Empire: giving to the emperor

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Today’s gospel: Matthew 22:15-22

This is one of my favorite moments for Jesus. He has just been hammering at the Jewish leadership and attacking the relationship between the religious leaders and the empire. He chased the moneychangers and now they have all had enough. They’re coming to get him. So they bring a trap. A trap that seems to be about how we accommodate empire.

We shouldn’t blame them, really. Jesus seems to be on his way to screw this whole thing up for everybody. His prophetic voice could make the emperor angry, enough to put the whole lot in trouble.

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan describe this passage in their book The Last Week (actually the parallel text in Mark) as depicting something much more profound. Jesus tells a visual parable by inviting that very leadership that seems intent on trapping him to demonstrate their hypocrisy visually by revealing a coin they should not have on them.

I wonder if it is our own linguistic bias, our own preference for theological adherence to words used in precise patterns we name as orthodoxy, and our own reference to Christ as The Word that makes us so entranced with what Jesus says and so indifferent to His actions. It clearly reveals our intellectual bias as well as our educational bias–obsessed as we are with words and speech and definitions and memorization. And yet, Jesus, in a short exchange shows us

You try to trap me with deference to human authority, but you yourself have no standing!

Of course, his argument points out that it is all about authority and that God is the authority; that we own nothing while God owns everything. And that is what is hard for us to deal with in this gospel: that our stuff isn’t really ours and the powers of the world really have no power. Therefore we have compromised ourselves, not through sin or compromise to culture in the abstract, but to humans that claim power over us. We allow the wealthy to rule and determine what is good.

Question
As we ask ourselves how best to balance our faithfulness with culture, doesn’t Jesus remind us that we are making the same mistake as the Pharisees? So how can we make the world around us more reflect that faithfulness?

 

© 2011 Drew Downs.  All rights reserved

playing cards

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The fives of all four suits in playing cards

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As I climbed into the car, my daughter told me that she and her Nana were “playing cards” in the backseat.  After a minute, I realized it was a modified version of “Go Fish”.

“Do you have some 2’s?” she asks her Nana as I pull out of the parking lot.

“Sophia, do you have any 3’s?  Oh, you have a few…and some 5’s!”

At three, my daughter is interested in games and rules.  She is also very imaginative and generous.  And apparently, she has given her Nana more cards than she needed to.

—-

One of her favorite games is “Silly Socks”.  It is a cute game in which you reach into a cardboard clothes dryer to find matching socks.  The player that matches three pairs of socks wins.  From the first time we played, she would get excited when she would make a match and she certainly enjoyed making three matches and winning.  But one of her most favorite things is to match one of her socks to one of mine so that I can have a match.  As much as she likes to win, she likes it when I win, too.

Just this morning, she wanted to race me to get our shoes on.  It is pretty fair, since she got a head start, but I was putting on sandals.  She beat me by a matter of seconds.  She ran into the kitchen and said “I won!”

“Oh, man!  You just beat me!”

“Daddy won, too!” she shouts.

We gave each other two high fives.

—-

Rose, my wife, is much more linear than I.  She doesn’t like it when Sophia messes with the rules of the game, and is afraid of raising a child that doesn’t know how to win or lose.  I remind her that I’ve interacted with thousands of people in my life and virtually none of them had any trouble with knowing what it means to win and lose, in fact, they are pretty obsessed with their winning and others losing.  Very few know how to be so generous and interested in watching someone else win as my daughter already is.  Isn’t that something worth preserving?

It makes me wonder about our games and our very understanding of winning as a solitary activity.  Sharing in the spoils of victory is much sweeter than the bragging rights of being the greatest.  And our governments and businesses and churches all trying to be better at the expense of all the rest; it seems so petty and juvenile.

—-

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive thekingdomofGodas a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:13-15, NRSV)

I’m pretty confident that this little child is just such a one.  The games we all play serve to make us more subservient to rules in the world and the order of our society, encouraging greed and our own desire to win out, blind to the needs of others.  So wouldn’t my imposing such a paradigm onto her be an example of “stopping” her and keeping her from the kingdom, where she belongs?

Hasn’t she been put here to help me?  And you?

Flying: how change came before you noticed it

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Remember the old image of flying in an airplane?  The smoky cabin, everyone dressed in suits, the stewardesses pretty and amiable.  Everything with the nostalgic sheen of an episode of Mad Men.  Flying was the purview of the wealthy and the hardworking.  It wasn’t for the common man.

Of course, those that fly routinely know today’s feeling is something like a cattle-car; each person squeezed together, after the indignity of choosing to be patted-down or walking through a giant X-Ray in which you “assume the position” of guilt (hands up and legs spread).  Nothing says high-class and good times like bearing all that you are—and of course, removing your shoes and belt.

A recent flight brought this all to my consciousness because for the first time, I was on a flight with three male flight attendants and only one woman.  This is not significant by itself, of course; and it is clearly a common occurrence for the frequent flyers among us.

What it reminded me of was the subtle shift in not only priority, but in operations in the airline industry.  The old way glorified youth, beauty and service.  It was an expensive luxury for those that could afford to participate and fully represented the cultured-class.  From the onboard meals, to the serving of alcohol, the very nature of flying was decadent and pampering.

It isn’t that way anymore, is it?  Now the planes are designed to offer the least amount of space for you as they can get away with, nothing is free, and the entire process is something of a challenge to each passenger’s will power.  But I don’t long for the old days, by any means.  The priorities have changed.  Look at the difference in the flight attendants and you can see how:

  • Before: youth/beauty/service
  • Now: experience/access/safety

In the old way, the passenger is supposed to feel comfortable; now she is meant to feel safe.  Instead of beautiful waitresses, we have experienced professionals.

The funny thing is that this happened without fanfare and without the public throwing any kind of fit.  There was no political battle over it and no claims of some evil political correctness police daring to try and make people (gasp!) just and considerate.  We went to sleep in the 70’s and woke in the 10’s to find the world is different.  And that old way seems archaic, doesn’t it?  A little unseemly.  Perhaps a tad creepy, actually; the image of old men staring at 20 year-old women is no longer “expected” is it?  The old way doesn’t fit.  And at the same time, the new way makes sense and feels right, if not with a whiff of “new plane smell”.

I wonder what this means for society and for church?  I wonder if our patterns and practices from the 1960s and 70’s feel as stale as that old image of the stewardess.  And what of transforming our witness for the 10’s—transforming to something that is less about youth, beauty, and service, but about real experience, access, and safety.  I wonder if we wouldn’t be more comfortable in a church like that.  And for those that are stuck in the 1970s, I have only one question: why?

Enough Cuts: it’s time to invest

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Corporation for Public Broadcasting logo.

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Conversations about proposed funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and recent incidents with leadership, including high-profile resignations has brought a surprising amount of attention to PBS and NPR, the television and radio components of the Corporation.  One of the central topics is whether or not the organization could survive any funding cut (not to mention the entire zeroing-out proposed in the House).  On a recent episode of the Diane Rehm Show, one caller even suggested the CPB should “cut the umbilical cord,” apparently suggesting that the CPB is an overfed baby that needs to live on its own.

What is lost in these discussions is something profoundly American: that we actually ought to support innovation and excellence.

A sterling example of this can be found in the lightning pace of internet expansion.  The United States can rightly take credit for the development of the internet (thanks in large part to government funding), the development of internet technology, and the spread of portable internet usage.  Unfortunately, after pioneering broadband, in just a few years, the U.S. is now sitting in the basement of the industrialized world with some of the lowest access to broadband anywhere.  How did this happen?  We arrogantly assumed the so-called “invisible hand” would magically bring broadband into every house without any investment on our part.  In other words, we allowed the big telecom companies to determine the entire fate of broadband for the country.  At the same time, the rest of the world raced to get its citizens broadband access as if it were a utility; so broadband swept the globe faster than any of us could imagine, while leaving the U.S. looking like a nation of luddites.

For me, what is profound about this example is not that we could be so arrogant as to believe that public investment would not be necessary, but that we have so convinced ourselves about the magic elves that guide the market that we cannot even hear the nature of our problems.  The rest of the world is streaming from their bedrooms and 75% of Americans go to Starbucks or libraries because Comcast charges $60 per month.

The market can’t solve the internet access issue any more than it can serve the CPB.  As it is, NPR is one of the few news outlets in the West that is actually growing.  It is adding bureaus and reporters while the rest of the journalism establishment keeps cutting more and more every year.

We don’t have to believe that the Market is full of magic fairy dust and run by a paternal god-figure making everyone happy that does right by the market.  We can say that we need good news that we can trust that isn’t in the market so that they can be honest about the market.  We can say that we want broadband everywhere—it doesn’t have to be driven by the market.  The “information superhighway” from the 1990s never came to be because we let it become a toll road with speed inhibitors keeping us at 45 mph.  That was the work of those little gremlins in the mythical Marketland.

Let’s actually invest in innovation and excellence.  Enough cutting.

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Why I like Wikileaks

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Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard something about Wikileaks.  And chances are just as good that you’ve formed an opinion about the website.  Whether it is a beacon of hope or a traitorous organization, the public, and especially the media, has made its opinions known widely and swiftly, with each new unveiling of U.S. security documents.  I trust for most of us, the subject may be getting a little old.  But before you stop discussing it or file it away as yesterday’s news, take a brief moment to contemplate what is actually going on: it is pure media evolution—one that is as inevitable as the powerful people’s own rejection of the old ways.

If we take for granted that the Free Press—the only industry enshrined in the Bill of Rights—is the Fourth Estate and is required for a free society (as most constitutional scholars believe it is), then we recognize the role, scope, and importance of the press as a check, not so much on government itself, but on the form, style, and openness of government.  Its role, perhaps at its most obvious, may be understood best from Watergate, in which President Nixon’s corruption and participation in illegal tampering with the Democratic Party was brought to light and forced his resignation.  We can say with great certainty that the only way Nixon resigns from office is because of the press.

So here’s the rub: the dramatic shift toward globalization in the last twenty years was the inevitable response to the steady drumbeat of deregulation and corporate infatuation that has dominated the Western world since the 19th Century.  So we have economic entities operating on a global scale, wholly unregulated and unrestricted by individual countries and local communities, because we have not only allowed them to, but we have actually encouraged them to.  Every time a corporation relocates its “headquarters” to the Caymans, we say: “Buy their stock!  It’s about to soar!”

And despite the conspiracy fears about the United Nations and the European Union from the fringe, globalization isn’t happening in that same way politically, or in the form of governments.  Where we do see it, is the relative impunity many countries are now able to act throughout the world, most especially the United States.  Political globalization isn’t found in the creation of a single government, but in military excursions in countries on the other side of the globe.  It is titanically different for the United States to send soldiers and munitions to Europe in the World Wars than it is to actually wage war on a different continent or to hold multiple conflicts simultaneously.  And when we take into the shear volume of wars, taking place on five different continents in that time—3 in the last half century—it is impossible for us to suggest that the United States is not operating as a globalized military.

And yet, there is no globalized news organization; at least according to our traditional standards.  The Associated Press and the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) may well be considered that way.  And yet, they still lock themselves and the very way they operate to the nation-states they come from.  The Associated Press still brings American news, or world news to America.  It is filtered through an American lens.

If we take for a moment, my previous description of the Press and applied it to the notion of globalization, then we recognize the place Wikileaks is operating: as the only true globalized Press.  Puritans and purists will quibble about the subject matter and its general lack of traditional reporting and use these as arguments against it—to discredit it or dismiss it; just as a tyrannical king would do so to the pamphleteer or a cunning president would to a libelous media baron.  And yet, because there are no longer any checks to balance our mega-corporations and government, short of the threat of total economic collapse or nuclear annihilation, a new globalized press has surfaced.  Its headquarters is in a country with little press and media regulation (as corporations seek out similar financial and environmental “stewards”) and its participants, contributors, and readers/viewers are all over the world.  Even the legal troubles of the site and the site’s founder, Julian Assange, regardless of their truth, serve more as an attack on a news source that reveals secrets that governments don’t like, than they are actively seeking justice.

Wikileaks is the next evolution of media.  If you ideologically support globalization, then get behind it and encourage others to make the same step.  If you still want national control, or fear an unfettered press, then get behind more corporate regulations, anti-trust lawsuits against hundreds of mega-corporations, and labor unions, because we need a check to this kind of power.  The playing field is now a whole lot bigger.

NOTE: don’t forget to check out #Wikileaks on twitter

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A pretty good picture of the Kingdom

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[The following is a book review of Colors of God by Randall Mark Peters, Dave Phillips, and Quentin Steen.  For more information on the book or for other reviews, please check out Viralbloggers.]

I’ve had countless conversations about preaching and it seems that people see only two methods: with a script and without; or perhaps in the pulpit vs. walking around.  For many, there is a distinct dividing line between these two seemingly opposing methods.  Those of us that have a ministry that includes preaching within the context of a congregation can tell you that there are many more methods and methodologies than those two.  It is in this context that Colors of God opens up and talks about the way preaching is done at the authors’ church.  Preaching is shared simultaneously as a dialogue.  Both preachers prepare and have a conversation in the midst of the liturgy, wrestling with the Scripture, sometimes together, and sometimes in opposition.  It is a strangely kinetic and visual environment that is both radically different from the current practice most of us are used to, while also theologically consistent with how we actually think of Scripture and how we actually describe our liturgy: as a response.

Though I did want more literary punch, I did get into the conversational tone and felt like I could hang out with them and talk about Jesus.

As I read this book, I felt an interesting tension: that it defied my ability to define it, not in the normal way that refers to our own inability to place a book in a genre, but in that as easily as it slips into a genre, it rejects its labels and presuppositions.  It is a strange little book that can truly best be described as the result of three guys sitting in a coffee shop with a tape recorder.  Who then take that tape recorder home and have someone type it up.  This may be seen as positive or negative, depending on whether or not you find this idea compelling and the book is at times both.  But it is earnest and believable, and that goes a long way.

The premise of the book is pretty simple, these three leaders (former capital-E evangelicals, but abiding by the small-e moniker), struck out on their own and formed an emerging church called neXus.  And in their ministry, they have found four important components of faith, which they describe with colors.  They seem to intend the colors as a gnomonic device for referring to each of these components, while also demonstrating that the presence of each color brings vibrancy to a picture.

The authors use the colors, however, not as a congregational creed or as a simple Rorschach test, but as a means of describing the most important elements to their church, in some ways basing an entire book on what a church might try to put on its webpage.  But instead of sounding like a pitch, it does sound mostly right.  They begin with Blue, saying the Gospel and historic faith is central to their identity, and the other three serve to demonstrate what is unique about neXus.  They are about healthy living (which is in intentional contrast to sin-avoidance), creating a community that truly welcomes all people (as opposed to claiming this and then marginalizing different groups as greater sinners), and fully engaging the culture, especially pop culture.

Though this is the format of the book, the most compelling, and at times difficult part of the book, is something living within and without that structure: their eagerness to share of themselves constructively and precisely.  This isn’t to say that they don’t wander or that this book couldn’t be summed up in 25 pages instead of 225 (which it easily could).  But that they are very adept at stating and describing the gospel message that they profess.  This was difficult for me at times because I really do think that they are much more Protestant than I am.  However, the consistency and compassion of their message always won me over, sometimes leaving me struggling to think of a better way of putting it and failing.

Though I liked this book and would encourage many people to read it, I can’t give it an enthusiastic blanket recommendation.  I want to give it caveats, depending on to whom I am talking.  I’m thinking something like this:

Q: Are you an evangelical that is struggling with your church’s stance on issue X?
R:Then you should read this, noticing how faithful they are being to the Scripture.

Q:Are you a cradle Episcopalian or other mainliner?
R: Maybe; observe how comfortable they are in communicating their message and with dealing with the messiness of life.

Q: Are you a lapsed ______ and looking for a reason to go back to church?
R: Skip it and find something more akin to your place, like Brian McLaren or Marcus Borg.

Q: Are you looking to enhance diversity in your congregation?
R: Sure, but only if by diversity, you are using the term broadly or generationally, not so much in terms of race.

I don’t give these caveats because I think the book is bad or difficult  or insufficient; far from it.  I do this because I wanted the book to shout at me or drive me or motivate me or shake me up in some way, and what I received was a very readable, engaging, and occasionally intriguing book that fits within the paradigm it hoped to.  In other words, it rarely surprised me.  And yet, I read it all, pretty quickly, and found myself liking these guys, even though I had some issues with the way the describe the connection between the “Old Covenant” and “New Covenant”.  Though I did want more literary punch, I did get into the conversational tone and felt like I could hang out with them and talk about Jesus.

I did have an interesting experience when reading this and I’m not sure what to make of it.  Twice, while reading the book in public, I had an African American Christian make note of the book and ask me what I thought of it.  Not something that happened when I was reading John Caputo or Philip Clayton in the last couple of months.  I trust that they were taken by the title, and cover image, which does give the impression of a book about our ‘traditional’ use of the term diversity.  The authors, however, don’t really engage racial diversity, but a more universal diversity (Kingdom of GOD diversity, perhaps) through the atonement.

My bottom line: 3 stars (out of 5)

Pros: I like the book for its readability and its earnestness.  My personal learning from the book is in the clarity of voice and keeping to the message.  The diversity in their theology and placing their emphasis on health is pretty unique and is relatively easy for anyone (outside of hardcore fundamentalists) to go along with.

Cons: Not as snappy as the stuff to which I am normally drawn.  I have some trouble with their theology with regards to the covenants and the atonement.

First comes before Second

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The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments t...

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Earlier, I wrote a piece about the Islamic Center being built two blocks from the former site of The World Trade Center (I erroneously referred to it as a mosque–notice the influence of misinformation in the media!) which you can find here.  I recently came across a great, similar  response by Anglican Minimalist.  A statement in it caught my eye:

It is fascinating watching and listening to all these protectors of the Second Amendment suggesting that we should curtail the First!

There is something sort of zen about this statement and aproppot.  It is the kind of zinger that goes back and forth across the aisle and we might be tempted to see it in that light (aside from the fact that it was really, really good!).  But think about these two amendments for a moment.

It is probably true and fair to say that the political left cares more about the 1st Amendment than the 2nd and the politcal right cares more about the 2nd than the 1st–even the religious right (strangely).  The popular understanding is that the First deals with the right to free speech, assembly, and religion; the Second deals with the right to bear arms (ostensibly to protect the country from threats without and within its borders).  The Second’s place in that equation has been heavily pounded and pushed and demanded of us in our culture: that we all bear witness to the impact of a military salvation.  But the same isn’t made of what happens to us when the first is abridged: when the very purpose of fighting for freedom is thrown under the bus so we can “feel” free.

None of this is new, I know.  And I feel as if I am rambling a bit.  But I made an interesting connection that any student of the Constitution has already noticed (though perhaps forgotten).  There is a good reason that these Amendments go in that order.  The First is first because of what it means, and therefore all the rest are subbordinate to it, even the Second.  The very claim that the Second is important requires the exercise of the First.

If you are paranoid, I don’t have a problem with you.  I’m a little bit paranoid, too.  But let’s show a little bit of restraint and a little bit more compassion!