I’m still not over the World Vision thing.  

I’m not over 10,000 children losing their sponsorships in a protest against gay marriage.  Not even close. 

When news of World Vision’s decision to reverse the new policy reached me, I was on the road and just minutes away from speaking for something like the 30th time in three months.  I was as tired as I’ve ever been in my life—physically, emotionally, spiritually, and creatively. I slept for a total of one hour that night, before getting up the next morning and flying to Houston, Texas to speak yet again. 

I remember thinking, “How can I justify speaking in a church when today I’m not sure I believe in God? How am I supposed to carry on this work when I’m not sure I can be part of the culture anymore?” 

And in the middle of all that doubt and pain and exhaustion, right when I felt most vulnerable, Christians delivered some swift and focused kicks to my gut. I was publicly mocked and shamed. People called me a heretic and bid me farewell. They took to Twitter to make fun of my appearance and belittle my husband. They called me a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” “unstable,” and “anti-Christ.” 

This wasn’t about me—I knew that—but still, it hurt. At times I wanted nothing more than to hightail it out of this whole “industry” we call Christianity….which is exactly what many of them want. 

But at the same time, Christians called.  Christians sent flowers. Christians sponsored kids. Christians—conservative and liberal, evangelical and otherwise— offered to help. Christians sent notes of encouragement.  Christians prayed with me and cried with me and cussed with me. Christians apologized. Christians loved.  Christians provided wine. Christians who had a lot more invested in this than I confounded me with their capacity to forgive and their commitment to radical, unexplainable grace. 

They loved in ways I couldn’t ignore, ways that unclenched my fists and cracked my armor.  

And so I stood, vulnerable once again, in that most infuriating and miraculous contradiction of the Christian life: that the Church wounds and the Church heals. 

I’m still not sure what to do with that. 

***

How do I hate the term “celebrity Christian?” Let me count the ways! 

I hate that it reflects a culture that idolizes success. 

I hate that it exposes my own dark desires and unhealthy fixations. 

I hate that once someone decides you’re a “celebrity Christian,”  they use that as an excuse to treat you as something other than a human being. 

I hate that I’ve used it as an excuse to do the same. 

I hate that it comes with the pressure to speak more definitively (even when you’re not sure) and lead more decisively (even when you have no idea where you’re going).  

I hate that it reduces people to “fans” or “haters” when God only gave us neighbors. 

I don't want to live in a world of fans and haters.

***

At the Festival of Faith and Writing I got “enneagramed” by my friend Leigh Kramer who confirmed my suspicion that I’m a solid 3 on the chart, meaning, basically, I have the type of personality that has to WIN ALL THE THINGS.  (If you’ve read Faith Unraveled, you know this goes all the way back to The Best Christian Attitude Award…which I fought like hell to win four times in a row.)  

When I’m healthy, I take my ambition and drive and channel it into being creative, getting stuff done, helping other people, and working on the projects and causes I care most about. When I’m unhealthy, I get fixated on image, approval, and pounding "the competition" into the dirt in ongoing quest to WIN ALL THE THINGS. 

This affects my activism so that, if I’m not careful, I make it less about partnering with people and more about beating people. I make it less about making a good argument and more about proving myself to the skeptics for the sake of improving my status. 

And so, whenever I used my writing to advocate for things like gender equality in the Church, acceptance of LGBT people, ending systemic abuse, creating space for questions and doubts, etc., I found myself asking, what does winning look like?, when what I should have been asking , is, what does faithfulness look like? 

Faithfulness to Christ. 

Faithfulness to Scripture. 

Faithfulness to myself.  

Faithfulness to my family and community. 

Faithfulness to my work and calling. 

Faithfulness to you, my readers. 

Faithfulness to the people whose stories shape the content of this space. 

What I’ve realized over these past few weeks is that God didn’t call us to win, God called us to be faithful. God doesn't call us to change the world, God calls us to serve the world. 

(This doesn't mean you don't make the argument or address a destructive idea. You do. But you do it for the sake of liberation and healing, not for the sake of putting people in their place.) 

So the next time someone asks me about the future of evangelical Christianity or whether I belong in that “camp,” or who’s got the upper-hand, I’m just going to tell them the truth: hell if I know. 

I can’t see the big picture right now. I’m not interested in being prophetic or reading trends or figuring it all out. 

All I can see is the next word, the next post, the next prayer, the next Sunday, the next bit of wafer and wine, the next story, the next need, the next comment, the next baby bird to jump out of that nest in our carport, the next nudge of the Spirit, the next puzzle, the next question, the next random thing that nettles my brain and screams WRITE! 

My job is to be faithful to that. No more, no less. 

And there’s no other way to take it but a day at a time. 

***

I suspect I’m not the only one who forgets that the assignment is faithfulness—not winning, not fixing, not changing other people, not changing the world. 

What’s the idol that distracts you from faithfulness? 

***

Special thanks to Mom & Dad, Dan, Brian McLaren, Shauna Niequist, Ann Voskamp, Mary Kassian, Sarah Bessey, Kristen Howerton, Glennon Melton, Jen Hatmaker, Jamie Wright, Tara Livesay, South Main Baptist Church in Houston, Chris & Tiffany Hoose, and so many others for providing the aforementioned prayers, support, flowers, advice, and booze.

***

Note: Since several of you mentioned it, I'm cutting back on speaking. Taking the summer off and then moving to a pace of one trip per month. 

Our “Ask a…” series is back! And today we return with an installment I’ve been looking forward to for some time: Ask a pastor's wife and a pastor's husband. 

The image of the pastor’s wife has long been entangled with stereotypes involving baking, singing, and piano-playing, but in reality, spouses of clergy--both men and women--are as diverse as any other members of the Body. 

So I thought we might benefit from “Ask a pastor’s wife…” and “Ask a pastor’s husband…” to learn how we church folk can love our pastors and their families better. 

Our guests: 

Jodie Howerton is a freelance writer and communications consultant who has been married to her pastor husband, Mike, for 18 years. She has 3 children and is the founder of the Redefine Positive Project, an initiative that is working to reform HIV/AIDS education in public schools across the nation. 

(I’m a huge fan of Jodie’s work. When I asked if she’d be interested in participating in this, she agreed enthusiastically, but added, “I should let you know that I’m not a very traditional pastor’s wife."  I told her that’s exactly why I asked her!) 

Jim Kast-Keat is married to Jes, the Associate Minister at West End Collegiate Church in New York City. (You may remember we featured Jes in "Ask a Reformed pastor...") Along with being a pastor's husband, Jim is also a pastor, serving as the Associate Minister for Education at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village. He is a divergent thinker, an ideation specialist, and an aspiring minimalist. Prior to working at Middle he helped lead ikonNYC in New York, NY, worked as a Product Designer with Sparkhouse in Minneapolis, MN and was a pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. He is the creator and curator of ThirtySecondsOrLess.net. To find out more about Jim go to www.jimkastkeat.com or follow him on twitter. 

You know the drill. If you have a question for Jodie or Jim, leave it in the comment section. (Please specify the person to whom your question is directed.) At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top 6-7 questions and send them to Jim and Jodie. Use the “like” feature to vote on your favorite questions from other readers. Jodie and Jim's responses will be featured on the blog in the next few weeks. 

Check out the rest of our "Ask a..." series here. 

I'm interested to see where this one goes! Ask away! 

Today's post comes to us from the talented and delightful Michelle DeRusha, who is a longtime participant in our little online community.

A Massachusetts native, Michelle moved to Nebraska in 2001, where she discovered the Great Plains, grasshoppers the size of Cornish hens … and God. Michelle writes about finding and keeping faith in the everyday at michellederusha.com, as well as for the Lincoln Journal Star and The High Calling. She’s mom to two bug-loving boys, Noah and Rowan, and is married to Brad, an English professor who reads Moby Dick for fun.

Her first book, Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith, is excellent, and was published in April by Convergent Books. I highly recommend it, especially for those who love the spiritual memoir genre. 

Enjoy! 

***

“So how did you go from Pentecostal to Lutheran?” I lobbed the question at James one evening as our small group members sat in a circle around my living room. James nodded toward his wife, who was tucked next to him on the couch, Bible open on her lap. “I married her,” he said, and the whole group laughed because we all knew, sometimes that’s exactly how such a journey unfolds. 

“But to tell you the truth,” he said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees, “I miss the intensity of my old church. It’s different there; you feel an energy, an aliveness. You really feel the Spirit’s presence.” 

The rest of us nodded, intrigued. Most of us in our small group are long-time or even lifelong Lutherans; we don’t have much experience in the Pentecostal church. 

James settled back into his chair, paused a moment, and then suddenly leaned forward again, looking me straight in the eye. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just think if you’re not getting off the pew and on your feet, if you’re not physically in the moment, you’re not truly experiencing the Holy Spirit.” 

I know James didn’t intend his comment to be inflammatory or judgmental; he didn’t intend to start down the “my religion versus your religion” road. In fact, the moment I cleared my throat, planted my feet on the floor and leaned forward in my chair to object to his statement, James immediately backpedaled. He undoubtedly realized he’d crossed the line in a living room full of stoic, Midwestern Lutherans whose idea of exuberant worship is timidly repeating, “He is risen indeed!” once a year on Easter Sunday.

Yet I also suspect James is not alone in his thoughts on the Holy Spirit. Somewhere along the line it seems our understanding of where and how the Holy Spirit is accessible has become synonymous with a certain brand of worship – expressive, demonstrative, emotional and physical. We’ve focused exclusively on the wind and fire and tongue-speaking of Pentecost and dismissed the still, small voice Elijah heard in the cave on Mount Sinai. We’ve deemed one experience powerful and authentic and the other less-than. 

It was clear from the way James lit up when he talked about his former church that he prefers a more emotionally expressive, physical worship experience to the formal, liturgical format of the Lutheran service. He comes alive and is energized by Pentecostal worship; it’s where he most often meets and experiences God. James likes to be on his feet, voice raised, arms uplifted, surrounded by the cacophony of tongues. I get that, and I don’t have a problem with it. My defensiveness was sparked not by James’ personal preference, but by his suggestion that my preferred worship style is less Spirit-filled and a less authentic way to experience God. 

The temptation to privilege a physical, demonstrative faith is understandable. If we can create a script for belief, we can measure adherence to or deviation from it. Perhaps that's why we spend so much time fixated on the physical motes in the eyes of others (sexual sin, for example) and neglect the spiritual logs – like pride and hypocrisy – in our own. 

The fact is, what James perceived as a lack of the Holy Spirit is simply a difference in worship personality. James is praise band, wind and fire and tongues. I’m old-school hymnal, contemplation and still, small voice. James would thrive at a 10,000-person worship service in a stadium; I’d prefer a Benedictine monastery with twelve monks in brown robes. Our preferences couldn’t be more different, but neither is wrong, and neither is more Spirit-filled than the other. 

I think sometimes we Christians allow our passion to cloud our perception. We conflate what’s best for us personally, as individuals, with what’s best for everyone else. So enamored are we with our own brand of worship and our own denomination, we are blind to the beauty and uniqueness of those that differ. So passionate are we about our own personal experiences with the living God, we fail to understand that others experience the Spirit in wildly different ways – experiences that may not look and sound like ours, but are no less God-filled and good. 

***
 

Be sure to check out Michelle's beautiful book, Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith.

This presentation from Shauna Niequist at Q Nashville is absolutely fantastic—one of the best reflections on mutuality in marriage and calling I’ve seen in years, and a lovely tribute to Shauna’s mother, Lynne Hybels. Enjoy! 

Somewhere in Colorado, circa 1983

IRL…

Best Mom in the Whole World: 
Robin Held, who made every day of my childhood an educational adventure, who taught me to ask questions, laugh easily, and love words, and whose tender heart always exemplified the compassion of Christ. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! You’re the best! 

Online…

Best Story: 
Richard Beck with “In Prison with Ann Voskamp” 

“Why hadn't I read One Thousand Gifts? Jana loved it and said I would like it. It's been a hugely influential book with many at my church. But I judged a book by its cover. I had stereotyped the book, concluding that it was primarily for and speaking into the experiences of women.  And yet, here I was standing in a maximum security prison talking to a male inmate about how profoundly he'd been impacted by the writing of Ann Voskamp.”

Best Perspective: 
Andrea Levendusky with“Parenting in Neverland” 

“The truth? 90% of the time, I am completely unaware that I’m doing this alone. I’m convinced it’s because parenting is beauty and magic, wonder and independence, slamming doors and weepy conversations. Single parenting is not hard because I’m single. It’s hard because it’s parenting. The same way it’s hard for my sister who has eight kids and a loving, doting, present husband. When we talk, our conversations are not comparing my single parenting to her married parenting. When we talk, we are talking about how to get five year olds to eat the food you put in front of them. Parenting is not measured in the amount of hands and bodies, but in the depth of heart and presence.”
 

Best Response: 
Kristen Howerton with “White Privilege Doesn’t Mean What You Think it Means” 

“Being told to check your privilege has nothing to do with apologizing for being white. It has to do with being insensitive to the life experiences of others. ‘Check your empathy skills’ might be a better phrase, but nonetheless, it’s not an attempt to shame someone’s race, but rather to point out that someone is refusing to acknowledge privilege differentials.”

[Related: Listen to Christena Cleveland at 30 Seconds or Less with “Privilege Says...”]

Best Report: 
Kathryn Joyce with“By Grace Alone”

“For years, Protestants have assumed they were immune to the abuses perpetrated by celibate Catholic priests. But Tchividjian believes that Protestant churches, groups, and schools have been worse than Catholics in their response. Mission fields, he says, are “magnets” for would-be molesters; ministries and schools do not understand the dynamics of abuse; and “good ol’ boy” networks routinely cover up victims’ stories to protect their reputations. He fears it is only a matter of time before it all blows up in their faces and threatens the survival of powerful Protestant institutions.” 

Best Quote: 
Peter Enns found this gem from Oswald Chambers 

“Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one true liberty— the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.”

Best Sentence: 
Nicholas Kristof with “Bring Back Our Girls”

“The greatest threat to militancy in the long run comes not from drones but from girls with schoolbooks.”
 

Funniest:
Jenny Lawson with“Pinterest Moms: I don’t get it, but I support it” 

“In the last few years there’s been a lot of criticism about “Pinterest moms.” I think the term refers to those parents who do everything so over-the-top that they create mind-boggling Pinterest pages that seem like they should be titled “Dressing For The First Day of Preschool For Under $800” or “101 Things I Had the Governess Do” or “How I was able to retain my white, minimalistic decor by burning all of my children’s things and then finally giving them away.” And I’m not judging.  (Unless you really did give your child away because they didn’t match the decor. I would judge that.)” 

Sweetest: 
Chairs for Charlie 

Truest: 
Kate Wallace at The Junia Project with “Jesus and a Woman’s Place”

“Jesus told a woman to spread the Good News of His resurrection, but we won’t let a woman preach it from the pulpit. Jesus engaged in cross-gender discipleship, but we teach that this is somehow dangerous or overly tempting. Jesus depended on the financial provision of women for the welfare of his ministry, but we teach that men are to be the sole providers in Christian communities. Jesus used female examples in his teaching and spoke about women in his stories, but we teach that Christianity is supposed to have a “masculine feel”.
 

Most Prophetic: 
Nadia Bolz-Weber with “Stop Saying the Church is Dying” 

“…People of God, maybe now is the time for us to take a hard look at the ways in which the church has tended to judge our success on a set of values that perhaps we had no business buying into in the first place.” 
 

Most Powerful: 
Ellen Painter Dollar with “Resemblances”

“That Sunday morning, I understood that Leah’s inheritance is not merely a faulty gene and fragile skeleton, but also the truest kind of compassion—the kind that arises when you recognize your own pain in another, and vice versa.”
 

Most Fascinating: 
“Why Do We Abandon Reading Certain Books?”

Most Gracious (and Wise and Thoughtful, as always): 
 Brian McLaren responds to Tim Challies' declaration that he is a “false teacher”  

“So if my only option were to be a Christian in the way you are, I simply could not be a Christian. My conscience wouldn’t allow it. My understanding of the Bible wouldn’t allow it. My devotion to Christ wouldn’t allow it. If you want to define me as a false teacher, not a true Christian, etc., etc., you are certainly free to do that, and I don’t hold it against you. I honor you for speaking your mind, and for doing so with far more decency and kindness than some of your colleagues. You are a good man with a good heart, trying to do the right thing.”
 

So, what caught your eye online this week? What’s happening on your blog? 

It never fails. Every year, on the Monday after Mother’s Day I receive a flood of messages from women who spent yesterday morning grimacing through yet another Proverbs 31 sermon.

The pastors usually mean well. They want to honor women on Mother’s Day, so they turn to the biblical passage most associated with femininity, the one that culminates with what may be the most cross-stitched Bible verse of all time: “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” 

But for women like me who grew up thinking of the domestic super-heronie of Proverbs 31 as just another impossible standard by which to mark my shortcomings as a woman, the passage can come with some…baggage. 

That’s because, too often, we focus on the Proverbs 31 Woman’s  roles as a way of reducing womanhood to marriage, motherhood, and domesticity, when really, this passage is about character that transcends both gender and circumstance. 

3 Things You Might Not Know About Proverbs 31 

Our confusion around Proverbs 31, like most misinterpreted Bible passages, centers around issues related to genre, audience, and language. With that in mind, here are three things you might not know: 

1. Proverbs 31 is a poem. 

The subject of a twenty-two-line poem found in the last chapter of the book of Proverbs, the “woman of noble character” is meant to be a tangible expression of the book’s celebrated virtue of wisdom. The author is essentially showing us what wisdom looks like in action. (The astute reader will immediately make a connection between the Proverbs 31 Woman and "Woman Wisdom," found in earlier chapters of Proverbs.) 

Packed with hyperbolic, militaristic imagery, the poem is an acrostic, so the first word of each verse begins with a letter from the Hebrew alphabet in succession. This communicates a sense of totality as the poet praises the everyday achievements of an upper-class Jewish wife, a woman who keeps her household functioning day and night by buying, trading, investing, planting, sewing, spindling, managing servants, extending charity, providing food for the family, and preparing for each season.  Like any good poem, the purpose of this one is to draw attention to the often-overlooked glory of the everyday.

As a poem, Proverbs 31 should not be interpreted prescriptively as a job description for all women. Its purpose is to celebrate wisdom-in-action, not to instruct women everywhere to get married, have children, and take up the loom. 

Good News: You don't have to know how this works to be a Proverbs 31 Woman. 

2. The “Target Audience” of Proverbs 31 is Men 

If you’ve read A Year of Biblical Womanhood, you’ll know I first learned this from my Jewish friend Ahava who told me that in her culture, it’s not the women who memorize Proverbs 31, but the men. (What I wouldn’t pay to see a Christian MEN’S conference in which the central text is Proverbs 31!)  They memorize it, Ahava said, to sing it as a song of praise to the women in their lives—their wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends. Ahava’s husband sings Proverbs 31 to her at every Sabbath meal.  

As I did more research, I learned that indeed the only instructive language in the poem is directed at the poem’s intended male audience: “Praise her for all her hands have done.”  And yet many Christians interpret this passage prescriptively, as a command to women rather than an ode to women, with the home-based endeavors of the Proverbs 31 woman cast as the ideal lifestyle for all women of faith. An empire of books, conferences, products, and media has evolved from a subtle repositioning the poem’s intended audience from that of men to that of women. One of the more popular books is titled Becoming the Woman God Wants Me to Be: A 90 Day Guide to Living the Proverbs 31 Life.

No longer presented as a song through which a man offers a woman praise, Proverbs 31 is presented as a task list through which a woman earns it.  This, I believe, misses the point of the text entirely. 

3. Proverbs 31 Celebrates Valor 

Ahava repeated a finding I’d discovered in my research, that the first line of the Proverbs 31 poem—“a virtuous woman who can find?”—is best translated, “a woman of valor who can find?” (The Hebrew is eshet chayil, “woman of valor”; the male equivalent is gibor chayil,“man of valor.”)  To make this fact even more fun, Ahava explained to me that she and her friends cheer one another on with the blessing, celebrating everything from promotions, to pregnancies, to acts of mercy and justice, to battles with cancer with a hearty “eshet chayil”! (Think of it as something like the Jewish “you go girl.”)

This discovery led me to declare “woman of valor!” when a good friend finished seminary, when my mom beat breast cancer, when my sister ran a half marathon. It also led us to launch our Women of Valor series here on the blog.  According to Ahava, valor isn’t about what you do, but how you do it. If you are a stay-at-home mom, be a stay-at-home mom of valor. If you are a nurse, be a nurse of valor. If you are a CEO, a pastor, or a barista at Starbucks, if you are rich or poor, single or married—do it all with valor. That’s what makes you a Proverbs 31 Woman, not creating a life worthy of a Pinterest board. 

It’s been a joy to hear from women who read A Year of Biblical Womanhood and report that where they once hated Proverbs 31, it’s now one of their favorite passages because it provides a fun way to celebrate all those daily acts of faithfulness exhibited by the women in their lives.  This, I believe, better reflects the original intent of Proverbs 31, and therefore honors Scripture well. 

The “Other” Proverbs 31 Woman

The poetic figure found in Proverbs 31 is not the only woman in the Bible to receive the high praise of, “eshet chayil!” or “woman of valor!” 

So did Ruth. 

Ruth was a destitute foreigner whose daily work involved gathering, threshing, and winnowing wheat. For most of her story, she is neither a wife nor a mother. Circumstantially, her life looked nothing like the life of the woman depicted in Proverbs 31. 

Ruth didn’t spend her days making clothes for her husband. She had no husband; she was widowed. 

Ruth's children didn’t rise up and call her blessed. She was childless. 

Ruth didn’t spend her days  exchanging fine linens with the merchants and keeping an immaculate home.  She worked all day in the sun, gleaning leftovers from other people's fields, which was a provision made for the poorest of the poor in Israel.  

And yet guess what Boaz says of Ruth before she gets married, before she has a child, before she becomes a wealthy and influential woman:  

“All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character” (Ruth 3:11). 

The Hebrew that's used there is “eshet chayil" - woman of valor. 

Ruth is identified as a woman of valor, not because checked off some Proverbs 31 to-do list by getting married, keeping a clean house and producing children, but because she lived her life with incredible bravery, wisdom, and strength.  She lived her life with valor. 

So pastors, don’t be afraid of looking to Scripture for examples of strong and capable women. But be careful of focusing on marriage, motherhood, and domesticity, when it is not our roles that define us, but the integrity and bravery we bring to those roles. 

You don’t have to turn to Proverbs 31 to find women of valor. You can turn to Sarah, Deborah, Esther, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, Mary of Nazareth, Martha, the Apostle Junia, Priscilla, Phoebe, and Tabitha too. And you can turn to the women of valor in your life and around the world who are bringing their unique gifts, insights, passions, and callings to bring hope and healing to the world. 

That’s what it really means to honor Proverbs 31. 

***

See also: Women of Valor: It's About Character, Not Roles,  / Enough: Or, Why We Should Be Laughing Hysterically in the Magazine Aisle 

For a much more in-depth look at this passage and others in Wisdom literature, see Bruce Waltke's The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15-31 and Ellen F. Davis' Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. 

You can also read more in my book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood. 

“These so-called ‘progressive evangelicals’ believe the Church must conform to the world or die. They tell us millennials will leave if we don’t get with the program and imitate the culture when it comes to gender, sexuality, and science. But we must remain faithful to the Gospel and to God’s Word in the face of this pressure or else risk losing our identity. We can’t just give in to the world because of pressure to be cool.” 

I hear some version of this argument at least once a week—most recently from Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention—and I believe it is common enough (and reasonable enough) to warrant a brief response here, extended with nothing but grace, peace, and goodwill for my brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I respectfully disagree. 

There is an understandable assumption among many conservative Christians that those of us advocating for change in how the Church approaches things like gender, sexuality, and science are taking our cues from the culture, with no regard for Scripture or tradition, in an effort to "make the Church more cool.”  Basically,they seem to assume we caught a few episodes of "Modern Family" and then decided to challenge traditional views on marriage. 

While this may be the case with some, it is certainly not the case with me or with most of the people whose stories I have the privilege of hearing each day. Most of the people I meet as I travel around the country are people who grew up in Church and who long, with every ounce of their being, to remain faithful to the Church and to Scripture as they work through these difficult issues. 

In light of that, I have two points of clarification that I hope will be received with the grace with which I offer them: 

First, you certainly won’t find me screaming “adapt or die!” when it comes to the Church. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to survive the Internet Age! I agree with my more conservative brothers and sisters that there’s no need to water down the Gospel in an effort to make it more relevant. The Gospel—the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord—will always be relevant. So long as there are Christians baptizing one another, confessing to one another, breaking bread, and preaching the Word, the Church shall endure. I suspect we can all agree on that. 

Second, when it comes to challenging common narratives around gender, sexuality, and science (among other things), it’s not about rejecting Scripture and conforming to the world, it’s about trying to make sense of Scripture in light of new information, lived experience, and often Scripture itself. 

I’m not taking my cues on what to write about from the secular culture; I’m taking my cues on what to write about from fellow Christians. I’m taking them from men and women whose study of Scripture led them to support gender equality in the Church and mutual submission in marriage. I’m taking them from gay and lesbian Christians who are more likely to be seen sitting in the pews than marching in a parade. I’m taking them from people who are leaving the Church, not because of the cost of discipleship, but because of the cost of false fundamentals—man-made impediments created out of non-essential doctrines and legalistic rules. 

It’s not about “conforming to the world.” It’s about confronting the truth. 

It’s about the Christian kid who lies awake each night pleading with God to “cure” him of his sexual orientation because his youth pastor denounced homosexuality as a sin requiring repentance. 

It’s about the woman with a PhD in Hebrew who is prohibited from speaking to her church from the pulpit—not because she’s unqualified, and not because she isn’t called, but because she is a woman. 

It’s about the young man who grew up loving both the Bible and science, but who was told faithfulness to Scripture required a literalist interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 and a rejection of the scientific consensus surrounding evolutionary theory.  One college-level biology class revealed that the well-meaning teachers at his Christian high school had not told him the whole truth about the evidence. Reeling from a sense of betrayal, he believed the lie that he had to choose between his intellectual integrity and his faith and so he walked away from the Church for good. 

It’s about the teenager contemplating suicide because she had sex with her boyfriend and her church told her that once she lost her virginity, she was “damaged goods,” that no good Christian boy would ever want her. 

It’s about the stay-at-home dad who is called a “man fail” by Christian leaders who measure masculinity by earning power. 

It’s about the girl who was told by her elder board that she needed to forgive her abuser and not report his crimes to the police because it might “damage the reputation of Christ.”

….And if you think these stories are exaggerations, then you need only look at my inbox to know that every last one of them is true. 

It’s not the “outside world” driving many of us to re-think things; it’s the “inside world” of the Church. It is Christ himself who compels us to respond to these stories with compassion, repentance, and a commitment to change. 

I agree that the Church shouldn’t sacrifice the Gospel in an effort to gain acceptance in our culture, but it is my contention that any gospel presentation that leads hungry, searching people to believe that they must ignore their calling, or choose between science and faith, or lie to themselves and others about their sexual orientation, or keep silent about their abuse is not, in fact, the Gospel.  

We may disagree on how to respond to the various situations I’ve described, but please know that I don’t speak out about this stuff because I want the Church to be more like the world. I speak out about this stuff because I want the Church to be more like Christ. 

Peter Enns recently shared this quote from Oswald Chambers which rings with the truth of Jesus’ message in Matthew 11:28-30: 

Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ.

I am concerned that we are placing yokes on other people that are not of Jesus Christ. I am concerned that we are slamming the door of the Kingdom in people’s faces and tying up heavy burdens and placing them on their backs. I am concerned we are straining gnats and swallowing camels. I am concerned that we are kicking out the very people Jesus welcomed in—the poor, the marginalized, the misfits, the heartbroken, the “rejects,” the “sinners,” the troublemakers, the merciful, the peacemakers. 

And I am concerned that the Church is indeed conforming to the world—every time it preaches violence as a way to achieve justice, every time it glorifies celebrity and success, every time it reduces womanhood to subordination and manhood to power, every time it justifies cruelty or unkindness in the name of proving a point. 

If millennials leave Christianity, let it be because of the cost of discipleship or because of sincere unbelief, not because we put unnecessary stumbling blocks in their way. 

In conclusion, I hope this post will not be used as another wedge driven between Christians who disagree on the difficult and complex issues involved. My aim is not to attack, but simply to clarify my own motivations, muddied as they are by my sin, in an effort to find some common ground.

I suspect we agree on more than we realize. And that's good news. 

We’ll be discussing Matthew’s excellent book, God and the Gay Christian, today (May 14) at 12 p.m. EST at Patheos. We plan to interact with participants as well, so come with your questions and ideas. You can register here. 

(Note: There won't actually be food. You're on your own for that! But if there were, it would be mac and cheese because it matches the book cover and...mmmm....mac and cheese.) 

So last fall, I was asked to speak on a Sunday morning at an Episcopal church in Louisville, Kentucky. And like most Episcopal churches, this one joined hundreds of thousands of Protestant churches from around the world in following the Revised Common Lectionary as a general guide for which passages of Scripture would be read, preached on, and reflected upon that week. 

Since I was a guest, (and not ordained), the rector told me I should feel free to speak on anything I liked. But when I looked up the gospel passage from the lectionary for that week—Luke 17:5-10—my interest was piqued. What’s this whole thing about a mulberry tree getting uprooted and planted in the ocean? That’s kinda weird. 

Suddenly, I liked the idea of having an “assignment,” a sort of spiritual and creative challenge that kept the focus on the text and not on me. Furthermore, as I began preparing for that sermon, I discovered this whole world of online collaboration happening among clergy from Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, and Lutheran churches (and more!) all working through the same few passages in preparation for their services that week.  And they weren’t just thinking about their sermons. They were joining with artists and musicians and liturgists and Sunday school teachers and writers and laypeople to think about how Luke 17:5-10 might translate into art, worship, poetry, children’s messages, even bulletin designs. (Even after the sermon was finished, I loved checking the blogs and sermon podcasts of some of my favorite pastors to see their “take” on the passage.) 

And it struck me: This is exactly how the Bible is meant to be engaged—collaboratively, in community, with a diversity of people and perspectives represented. 

It also struck me that the internet has given us the opportunity to do that like never before, bringing even more laypeople (like myself) into the conversation. 

With that in mind, beginning tomorrow—Lord willing—I’ll be dedicating Thursdays to blogging with the lectionary. (Posts will look ahead, focusing on the upcoming Sunday’s texts.) Sometimes I’ll write a reflection, almost like a sermon. Sometimes I’ll write a poem or just a few brief thoughts. Sometimes I’ll merely pose a few questions and invite you to tackle the text in the comment section. Sometimes I’ll just share a photo or some art or someone else’s sermon, quote, or devotional on the topic. The format and style will likely evolve over time, and I hope you will help me shape it.  I'm aware of the fact that I'm not a biblical scholar or trained teacher, so I'll be relying on (and sharing) a variety of sources and will certainly welcome input and challenges. 

I’d also like to invite you to blog through the lectionary along with me. You can check out each week’s texts here. And you can find a whole host of resources to get you started here. Feel free to share links to your blog posts in the common section on Thursdays. 

Here are this week’s texts: 

First reading: Acts 7:55-60
Psalm: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
Second reading: 1 Peter 2:2-10
Gospel: John 14:1-14

(Note: At first, I’ll probably lean toward the gospel readings,  but occasionally we’ll jump into the first and second readings or the psalms.) 

I love the Bible. I love reading it, wrestling with it, asking questions about it, writing about it, and talking about it with other people. And I hope this new series will be a fun, collaborative way to engage the Bible together. 

***

Let me know if you have ideas, questions, additional resources, or suggestions. (I’m new to this, and open to learning more.) Pastors, I'm especially interested in hearing about any resources you find particularly helpful. 

I'm blogging with the lectionary this year, and this week's Gospel reading comes from John 14:1-14:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (NIV)

Sometimes we give the disciples a hard time. 

We chuckle with incredulity at their petty disputes over who will be greatest in the kingdom. We smile at their perpetual confusion over Jesus’ parables and roll our eyes at their requests to call down fire on their enemies.  We’ve forever enshrined poor Thomas as “Doubting Thomas,” Peter as the denier, James and John as the guys who slept through the transfiguration.  We’d like to think that, had we walked with Jesus in the flesh, we would have gotten it the first time. We would have understood. We would have known. 

It’s tempting to have the same reaction to the portion of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse we find in John 14.  After many months of serving alongside Jesus, the disciples are sharing an intimate meal with their Teacher who, to their dismay, is hinting about his impending death.  

When Jesus tries to comfort them, they demand more revelation.  Thomas wants to know the way to the Father's house. Philip asks to see God.

“After all this time,” Jesus responds, “you still don’t know who I am?”

It seems preposterous to us that people could be in the presence of Jesus day in and day out, for three years, and not recognize their experience as a God-encounter, as a brush with the almighty. 

But is it? 

How often do we ignore God when God is right under our noses? How often do we miss God’s presence in the very places Jesus said we would find it—in bread, in wine, in water, in the Word, where two are three are gathered in his name, among the least of these? How often do we let our preconceptions about what God ought to look like and what God ought to do keep us from getting involved in where God is actually moving? 

Like the disciples, we have a bad habit of getting so bogged down in our esoteric quests to know all about God that we miss God’s very self when God shows up in ordinary things like water and wafers, the sick and the poor, the Church and even the incarnation. 

Here, Jesus offers a corrective. He reminds Thomas that faith isn’t knowing about the way; faith is knowing the Way. He reminds Phillip that faith isn’t knowing about God; faith is knowing God. Truth is not a proposition. Truth is a Person.  And that Person doesn’t always show up in the ways we expect—in our lives or in the lives of other people— so we best keep our hearts open. 

Now, John 14 has become a go-to text for discussions around salvation, exclusivism, and religious pluralism, which are worthy discussion to have, but that tend to pull verse six out of its context. I won’t say much about that today, except to mention that it’s worth keeping in mind that these words were spoken in an intimate setting among Jesus’ closest disciples, so we should be careful of interpreting them as applicable only to those who believe differently than we do.  

After all, when Jesus describes judgment, he doesn’t give us the image of himself standing, arms folded, in front of the gates to the kingdom declaring, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.” 

No, when Jesus describes judgment, he says,“I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick an din prison and you did not look after me…”

In other words: “I was right under your nose and you missed it.” 

Yikes.

Let those with eyes see. Let those with ears hear. 

So, with this in mind, it’s a relief to see how patient Jesus was with his disciples. Even after they missed out and misunderstood over and over again, Jesus kept showing up, offering grace and giving them another chance. 

I suppose I'll be smirking a little less next time I read of their misadventures. 

***

Resources: 

D. Mark Davis with "Incarnational Truth vs. Propositional Truth" 

Emily Heitzman with "Jesus as The Way of Life" 

***

Questions for discussion and reflection: 

This is a lengthy passage with more angles than could be covered in a single blog post, sermon, or even a book. (We didn't even talk about the house with many rooms!) What stood out to you? What imagery resonated with you? What words or phrases gave rise to questions, ideas, convictions, or insights? 

What do you think Jesus meant when he said to Thomas, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"? 

And if you too are blogging with the lectionary, or have written about this passage in the past, please leave a link to your post in the comment section. 

So a few years ago, my friends Aric Clark, Doug Hagler, and Nick Larson of Two Friars and a Fool told me about a book they were writing together called Never Pray Again. I admit I was a little skeptical - heck, I'm still a little skeptical - but as they explained the questions and ideas behind their of their provocatively-titled project, I knew it would make for a great conversation-starter. (And far be it from me to challenge a book idea on a provocative premise!) 

Anyway, the book has finally been released and Aric has given us a little glimpse of its content with a guest post today. Aric is a Presbyterian minister from Fort Morgan, Colorado, who you may remember from his pervious guest post on "the passionate Mainline." You can find Aric, Doug, and Nick at http://twofriarsandafool.com/ and @TwoFriars. 

***

Along with my partners in crime, Doug Hagler and Nick Larson, I recently published a book entitledNever Pray Again.

The book began as a thought experiment: What if we took the word “prayer” out of a variety of public and private forms of prayer? What would be left?Instead of prayers of confession, we'd just have an imperative to confess. Instead of prayers for intercession, we'd have an imperative to intercede. We noticed that in almost every case, there was an interesting spiritual practice rooted in neighbor-centered activity instead of the predominantly passive mode of prayer.

With this in mind we structure our book to follow the ordo of liturgical worship. We begin with types of prayer designed to call us to attention, move through praise, confession, intercession, thanks, and so on. We also threw in a couple unusual styles of prayer, such as exorcism...because exorcism is rad.

But one type of prayer absolutely didn’t get included. It wasn’t even considered, and that is imprecatory prayer. Imprecatory prayer is when you beseech God to harm or punish someone you think deserves it, either as an act of vengeance for something they did to you, or generally because their behavior or lifestyle offends you. It’s found in scripture, notably in the psalms (eg: “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” - psalm 109:9), and some Christians argue it is an appropriate way for faithful people to respond to sin in the world through prayer.

If you applied our thought experiment to this type of prayer the results would be unthinkable. Imagine if someone tried to turn psalm 137 into lived action: “A blessing on the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock!”

The obvious barbarity of this serves, in my opinion, as the exception which proves our thesis that prayer as a surrogate for direct action is detrimental to our spiritual life. Everyone would be instantly appalled if Christians started acting out vengeful fantasies, even if the victim was broadly agreed to have deserved punishment. And yet some Christians don't see a problem with calling upon a divine intercessory power they fervently believe to be capable of enacting their petition to mete out bloody judgment. 

Maybe what this reveals is that people don’t actually believe what they claim. They know that God isn’t going to be bringing any columns of flame down on anyone’s head just because they said “pretty please.” In the same way that most Christians will take you to the doctor if you break your leg no matter how much they insist that prayer is what actually cured their cousin’s cancer and “it will cure your depression too if you just have enough faith.”

But I think an even more important lesson here is that  we’re pretty comfortable with the idea that our beliefs expressed through prayer don’t impact the world very much. Part of the reason we pray is to avoid doing something that carries a greater risk of succeeding.

When I recently met with students at DePauw University in Indiana to discuss Never Pray Again one of the things I said to them was, “If your spiritual practice is such that it is possible to have a good relationship with God while having a terrible relationship with your neighbor then you are deceiving yourself about your relationship with God.”  What if a major function of prayer is to numb us to this dissonance in our lives,  to make us feel like we’re working on our relationship with God the whole time our relationship with our neighbors is deteriorating?

After all, some of the most pious and fervent prayer warriors out there feel perfectly at ease praying for their enemies to be struck down. If that makes you even a little uncomfortable, you might consider replacing some of your prayers with more concrete, neighbor-centered action.

***

So...questions? challenges? 

Do you think we use prayer as an excuse for not taking more action toward loving our neighbors as ourselves? Why or why not? 

"You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air…”

 - Deuteronomy 4:15-17

Back in 2012, I wrote a post for Holy Week about Mary’s experience during the crucifixion.  At the end of the post, I refer to God as She. I believe it’s the only time in any of my published writing I have done so, as I typically avoid gendered pronouns when writing about God or simply refer to God as He. 

Well today Owen Strachan, president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, took to twitter to declare the post heresy. (It’s unclear to me why it’s only just now coming up.)  It’s no small thing to be named a heretic by someone in a position of Christian leadership, and the tweet has already given rise to all sorts of crazy rumors, so I figured a brief response might be warranted. 

First, I wholeheartedly affirm the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds and I believe Scripture to be inspired by God and authoritative in the Christian life. Like Owen, I believe in the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord and would gladly join him in proclaiming the great mystery of the faith—that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.  I disagree with Owen that differences in theology regarding gender are matters of orthodoxy, particularly given the number of faithful Christians who have disagreed on these issues through the centuries, and I’m disappointed he resorted to charges of heresy when we should be able to discuss these differences with gentleness and respect. (As luck would have it, next week we’re slated to host an interview with Justin Holcomb who has written a whole book on heresy, so this conversation should get even more interesting!) 

Second, I believe Scripture teaches that both men and women are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), which means both masculinity and femininity are - at some level - part of God’s nature.  Scripture often uses feminine imagery to describe God as a mother, nurse, seamstress, midwife, etc. (Ruth 2:12, Ps. 17:8, Matt. 23:37, Isa. 46: 3-4, Job 38: 29, Hos. 11:3-4, Ps. 22:9, Luke 13:20–21, Luke 15:8-9), and while God is often referred to as Father, and Jesus was certainly a man, the Hebrew word for Holy Spirit is a feminine noun frequently connected with images of childbirth and nursing (John 3:5; cf. John 1:13, 1 John 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18).  

Mimi Haddad of Christians for Biblical Equality does a really fine job unpacking these images in her article on the topic, “Is God Male?” 

Finally, (and as Mimi points out), the self-naming of God in Scripture is “I AM WHO I AM”—a name without gender. I suspect that’s because, though God is a person, God is not a human being like us. The people of Israel received a strong warning from God about this in Deuteronomy 4:15-17: “You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air…”

I believe that when we declare God to be exclusively male, we flirt with idolatry, for we re-create God in a human image. And the fact that some people find the notion of a feminine God so repulsive reveals the degree to which this type of idolatry has snuck into the Church and the degree to which women in our society are still seen as lesser beings than men. 

That said, I use the feminine pronoun for God very sparingly in my writing. Usually, I either avoid using a gendered pronoun altogether or I use the word He to avert unnecessary controversy (much to the chagrin of my more progressive readers!). I don’t have a problem referring to God as Father, or as He. Scripture does this often. To insist on referring to God only as She would be to commit the same error.  As Mimi puts it: 

“God is self-revealed in terms we can understand through our own experiences, using metaphors which are, at times, feminine. We should not, however, make these metaphors—these implicit comparisons—absolutes. When we do, we are making God in our image, whether male or female. God is not limited by gender because God is Spirit. It is idolatry to make God male or female. God is no more female or goddess than God is male, and males have no priority over women in the New Covenant community because of gender (Gal 3:27-29).” 

On the very rare occasion that I refer to God as She, I do it with a lot of intentionality and with the goal of reminding myself and my readers that God is not merely some elevated, deified version of ourselves. God is not a man. God is not white. God is not American. God might not even be a Bama fan. (Too far?)

And as a woman, referring to God as She or as Mother serves as an important, liberating reminder that I am indeed created in the image of God, not as some lesser being who exists in perpetual subordination to men, but as an expression of God’s very self. 

If that makes me a heretic, you can string up the rope. 

Online… 

Coolest:
Alex Chacon with “Around the World in 360° Degrees - 3 Year Epic Selfie”

Bravest: 
Michael Gungor with “Lucette” 

“So I took out my phone and googled Psalm 139.  I placed my hand on Lisa’s belly and read:  “You created her inmost being.” That phrase unearthed a new reservoir of tears for both Lisa and I.  It took a long time before I could gain composure to continue reading.  But eventually the words washed over us like a waterfall.”

Wisest: 
Jamie Wright with  “Not all pastor’s kids are Christian. Sorry.”

“We are so incredibly proud of the bright, thoughtful, courageous heathens we're raising. And while, as Christian parents, we cling to certain hopes and dreams for our children's faith and future, we trust that the God we believe in is near to them, fully present, and doing His thing.”

Most Powerful: 
Sarah Bessey and Work of the People with “You Are Not Forgotten” 

Most Profound: 
Daniel José Camacho quoting Brian Bantum in “Institutions need to be Born Again (a theology of institutional inclusion)”

“…In this baptismal moment there also lies the profound transformation of the community, for with every new member comes the possibility of transformation, change, and adaptation in its inclusion not only for the one welcomed, but for those who welcome. The body of Christ shifts and moves and learns new languages as it adds new members. Its body becomes new as the person becomes new. This transformation is not without shape or purpose. It is a body that recognizes it exists within that in which all difference is found.”

Most Surprising:
Dale Best wtih "My Experience at the First Taping of the Rob Bell Show"

“In the first two episode of his new show on OWN, Bell is challenging the audience to see the divine spark that God wired within each human being and to consider the Cross of Jesus. Think about that for a second.”

Most Enlightening: 
Shawna at Not the Former Things with “When Church Hurts” 

“For my son, the sensory experience of going to church is something similar to torture (I wish I was exaggerating to make a point). He enters the crowded lobby with wall to wall people, everyone talking at the same time, various smells of babies and coffee and muffins and perfume, getting bumped here and there because it’s not time for the service to start, people  still talking and welcoming and trying to hang on to their children as they run for the donuts and other children…”

Most Informative: 
Bob Smietana at On Faith with “Are Millennials Really Leaving the Church? Yes – but Mostly White Millennials” 

 “About a third of young (18-29 year old) Americans — and more than half of younger Christians — are people of color, according to data from the Public Religion Research Institute. White Christians, on the other hand, make up only a quarter of younger Americans. In fact there are more Nones — those with no religion — than white Christians in this age group.  ‘What you have in American religion today are the nonwhite Christians and the Nones,’  says Mark Silk, professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.”

Most Inspiring: 
Zadie Smith with “Storytelling is a Magical, Ruthless Discipline” 

“Sometimes I think my whole professional life has been based on this hunch I had, early on, that many people feel just as muddled as I do, and might be happy to tag along with me on this search for clarity, for precision.” 

Most Beautiful: 
God Our Mother by the Liturgists
 

Most Challenging: 
Ruthie Johnson with “Diversity in the Church is Essential to God’s Mission”

“Because of division, we forget that God’s heart is inclusive. We forget that God’s identity is expressed in diversity. When we start to look for God’s identity, we can start to ask, ‘Who’s not in the room?’ When we pursue diversity, we start to understand that God calls us into a ‘belonging’- a restoration of this division. God does this through an expression of his fullness.”

Best Response: 
Mimi Haddad with “Bait and Switch Complementarians” 

“Please do not tell girls or women that they share equally in God’s image; that they are equal at the foot of the cross; that they are equal in the kingdom of God, that they should cultivate their minds equally, unless you are prepared to give them equal authority to use the gifts God has given them. To do otherwise is to bait girls and women with the truth of Scripture as it points to their inheritance in Christ, and then to switch—to deny them the opportunities to walk in newness of life—in using their God-given gifts with equality authority.” 

Best Perspective: 
Pamela Erens with“The Joys of Trimming” 

“I rarely find getting rid of my words to be an emotional trial. On the contrary, when I can remove a limp adjective or superfluous sentence from a novel chapter or essay, I feel a rush that is a bit like being airborne. For every word I cut, I seem to have more space between my ribs, more lung capacity. I feel simpler and calmer, my head pleasantly lighter. And later, when I turn my work over to an editor, he or she is bound to make some more deletions. I love editors who get rid of things.”

Best Observation: 
John Hawthorne with “Testimony Evangelicalism” 

“The most powerful pieces we read on the internet are not systematic explications of how this and such worked together. They are painful moments of real life: the miscarriage experienced by a young couple, the struggle another couple had with infertility, the sometimes crippling nature of depression, the happy couple in their first apartment, the birth of a grandchild, the completion of a doctorate. And in the midst of all that is faith. Not a blind faith that says “God has a plan” but one that says that God is present in the struggle and the joy and the accomplishment. Testimony of that sort can change the world. Testimonial Evangelicalism is trying to Bear Witness.” 
 

On the Blog…

Most Popular Post: 
3 Things You Might Not Know About Proverbs 31

“Too often, we focus on the Proverbs 31 Woman’s  roles as a way of reducing womanhood to marriage, motherhood, and domesticity, when really, this passage is about character that transcends both gender and circumstance.” 

Most Popular Comments: 
In response to “It’s Not About Conforming to the World,” Billy wrote: 

Thank you for this. I must confess (sadly) that I find myself often reading your posts hoping that you will change your mind on some things while neglecting my own areas of confusion or uncertainty regarding some issues within the church. While I am not the type to publicly argue or slander, I have often (in my mind) devalued you and others as brothers and sisters as well as image bearers solely because I disagree. I am sincerely sorry for that. I can only hope that all of us who love Jesus and seek to make him known will come to a place of agreement on the things that matter, and hold those things up together, while letting the other things be left up for discussions that are filled with grace and humility. Thanks again.

And in response to “Is God a Man? (a brief response to CBMW’s heresy accusation)”, Paul wrote:

“Disputes like this make me think we need to retire the word "heresy" from contemporary discourse, reserving it strictly for historical descriptions of beliefs that the church formally condemned (rightly or wrongly) as actual heresies. The word is overused and freighted with such baggage that it no longer carries any real meaning. For example, what is Strachan intending by using the "h-word" here? None of the creeds or councils describe the gender of God, nor does the Bible reject the use of feminine imagery in describing God. So it seems he misapplies it, thus robbing it of the meaning he presumably would like it to have and making it less likely that future use of the word will carry much, if any, weight.

That's assuming it has any weight anymore. I hear "heresy" used in a joking manner more than a serious one, as most younger Christians have been so inundated by the word to refer to any deviation from "traditional" (read: conservative) Christianity that they are inoculated from the possibility that heresy is a real and dangerous thing to avoid. It is certainly an effective power play to describe someone as a heretic; the church has done it now for thousands of years. Unfortunately, as with most power plays, the word is here being used by the powerful (a man) against the traditionally marginalized (a woman), defending a "doctrine" that perpetuates patriarchal oppression. One could look at the Bible and perhaps reach the conclusion that using one's religious beliefs as a cudgel with which to hammer the marginalized is ... well, somewhat heretical.” 

Paul will be happy to know that tomorrow I’ll be featuring an interview with Justin Holcomb, who has written a book on this very topic! So stay tuned!

***

So, what caught your eye online this week? What’s happening on your blog? 

Heretics are everywhere!  Or at least that’s what you would guess from reading the internet these days. 

Just last week I was accused of heresy by Owen Strachan of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and I often get “farewelled” on Twitter  (or “excommunitweeted”) for the supposed heresies of egalitarianism and theistic evolution.  Conversely, I know a lot of people who brag about how they’re heretics, in a “I’m a loner, Dottie, a rebel” sort of way.  This seems to me to be a classic case of, “You keep using that word…” 

To help us sort this out from an historical and theological perspective today, we’re talking to Justin Holcomb. Justin is an Episcopal priest and professor of theology and Christian thought at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Reformed Theological Seminary. He is the author of the recently-released, Know the Creedsand CouncilsandKnow the Heretics. Justin and his wife Lindsey have also co-written a book on domestic violence calledIs it My Fault? 

***

RHE: Thanks, Justin, for joining us! Tell us what inspired you to write Know the Heretics.

JH: Thank you for taking the time to do the interview with me. I read your blog regularly and I’m thankful to be included in the mix.

There are a few inspirations to write this book. My goal was to provide overviews that walk readers through the most important expressions and denials of Christian faith—not with a dry focus on dates and places, but with an emphasis on the living tradition of Christian belief and why it matters for our lives today.

These books on Christian history were born out of very important personal experiences. I’ve been interested in heretics since I was 17 (23 years ago) and was encouraged to leave my church by the pastors. It was like a charismatic, non-denominational version of being excommunicated. The church leaders were influenced by the United Pentecostal denomination.  United Pentecostals do not believe in the classical understanding of the Trinity. They believe in modalism, which claims that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simply different modes, or forms, of God rather than distinct persons.

At 17, I was having intense theological discussions with some of the pastors at this church. Leaders I respected and admired were calling me a heretic, which both hurt a lot and riled me up. By the end of it, we were lobbing the “heresy bomb” left and right.

But I was convinced that what I was teaching at the church study group was considered orthodox since basically the beginning of Christianity. I had to study lots of church history, and particularly the history of creeds, councils, confessions, and heresies.

Additionally, now I serve an Episcopal priest. In the Anglican tradition, the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, and Thirty-nine Articles are very important.  So, these statement have shaped me in profound ways, some of which I am aware of and probably in many more ways I’m not aware of.

RHE: How does the word “heresy” get overused in contemporary Christian culture and why is that a problem? 

JH: The word “heresy” is overused and misused. The current climate of the church shows that Christians need to relearn the ability to care about right doctrine and have earnest doctrinal disagreements without shouting “heresy!” when we disagree.

Recently, I’ve also been called a heretic for two reasons. One reason is because in my preaching, teaching, and writing, I emphasize the unconditional grace and love of God because of the work of Jesus Christ. For that, I’ve been called a heretic.  They incorrectly think being an antinomian, (which I’m not), is a heresy. Antinomianism is a wrong understanding of what the bible teaches about the law of God, but it is not heresy.

The other reason is because I’m an Episcopal priest. Some have written off the entire worldwide Anglican Communion as heretical. Specifically, because I recruit both men and women for leadership and ministry in the church, some have argued that I “don’t take the bible seriously” and am therefore a heretic.

A heretic is someone who has compromised an essential doctrine and lost sight of who God really is, usually by oversimplification. Literally, heresy means “choice”—that is, a choice to deviate from traditional teaching in favor of one’s own insights.  

Heresy is not located in one’s beliefs about baptism, the continuation of certain spiritual gifts, women in ministry, or political issues. It is a specific and direct denial of any of the central beliefs of the Christian church about the deity and identity of the triune God and about the person and work of Jesus Christ.

There are those who think that heresy is anything that does not agree with their own interpretation of Holy Scripture. These people fail to differentiate between the primary and secondary elements of the Christian faith and make every belief they have into a pillar of Christianity. So, on this view, if someone disagrees with them about the millennium, about infant baptism, about the role of women in ministry, they are quickly labeled a heretic. While such impulses can be well intentioned, the church of the New Testament walked the line between holding fast to some convictions and being flexible about others.

Though this group of heresy-hunters often say they’re motivated by concern for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, their practice of labeling every diverging belief as heresy has the opposite effect. Rather than making much of right belief, they minimize its importance by making, for example, the mode of baptism as important as the divinity of Christ. When everything is central, nothing is.

RHE: Do the words “heretic” or “heresy” appear in Scripture? What is the context? 

JH: The Bible uses the word “heresy,” and even when the word is not used, the concept is clearly there. The Bible presupposes a right and a wrong interpretation of Jesus’ coming and the nature and character of God, as it uses strong language against false teachers who promote doctrines that undermine the gospel. Historical theologian Bruce Demarest is helpful here: “The New Testament expresses serious concern for ‘false doctrines’ (1 Tim. 1:3; 6:3) and places the highest priority on maintaining ‘the pattern of sound teaching’ (2 Tim. 1:13; cf. 1 Tim. 6:3). Scripture urges Christians to be alert to doctrinal deception (Mt. 24:4) and to avoid heresy by carefully guarding the pure content of the gospel (1 Cor. 11:2; Gal. 1:8).”

In Galatians 1:9, Paul uses the strongest words possible against those who distort the gospel, writing, “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” 

The apostle Peter warns against “false teachers among you [who] will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves” (2 Peter 2:1). These heresies will be contrary to what Christ and the apostles laid down as foundational doctrines. The resulting is spiritual ruin.

As is clear from the New Testament, the apostles were not afraid to call out heresy when they saw it. If a teaching or practice threatened the integrity of the gospel, it was strongly condemned, as in the case of Peter and the circumcision party described in Galatians 2. However, heresy was a weighty charge that was not made lightly, nor was it used whenever there was theological inaccuracy or imprecision. (I’m thinking of the response to Apollos in Acts 18:24-28.)

The New Testament speaks frequently about false teachings and doctrines. For the early church, heresy was merely teaching that stood in contrast to the right belief received from the prophets and the apostles in the Scriptures and put into written formulas in the rule of faith and the creeds. The early church formed an accepted and received statement of what is true and essential to the Christian faith. The rule of faith gave birth to more precise statements of the essentials of the faith, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. These widely accepted formulations of the essential “right doctrine” (orthodoxy) handed down from the apostles were crucial for combating heresy.

RHE:   In your book, you essentially define orthodoxy as adherence to the Nicene Creed.  It strikes me, though, that the Nicene Creed was developed in a complex historical context as a way of addressing some very specific questions about Christ’s nature. Why do you consider that creed so important? What gives it its “staying power”? 

JH: I went with the Nicene Creed because of my ecumenical impulse. For Christianity, the Nicene Creed is a historic, globally accepted creed that encapsulates the Christian faith in a short and rich summary. It covers the basic essentials of 1) who God is, 2) what God is like, and 3) how God saves.

I think its “staying power” is connected to that fact that the Council of Nicaea in 325 was a watershed for the Christian church. Shortly after Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313, he convened the first ecumenical, fully representative, universally recognized council of the Christian church.

Another reason it is so important is because the council dealt with one of the most important questions that Christianity would ever have to face—what was the status of Jesus in relation to God? Everyone there agreed that Jesus was a divine being, but the Arians could not reconcile the idea that he was the same being as God the Father.

After a long and heated debate, the council decided that the evidence from the Bible and tradition lent itself much better to the belief that Jesus was God rather than a lesser being. Later, at the Council of Constantinople in 381, the bishops added a section to include the Holy Spirit as God as well.

RHE: You make a distinction between theological error and heresy. Can you explain that? 

JH: Because there is always some room for mystery and speculation, both the Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions have been careful to distinguish three “zones” between strict orthodoxy and outright heresy.

In Catholicism, to bluntly deny an explicitly defined church doctrine is heresy in the first degree. It has to be a severe contradiction, like saying that Christ is not God. A doctrine that has not been explicitly defined by one of the church’s articles of faith but diverges from the received majority view is considered an opinion approaching heresy (sententia haeresi proxima) — for instance, to say that Christ can be found in other religions. One who holds a position that does not directly contradict received tradition but logically denies an explicitly defined truth is said to be erroneous in theology (propositio theologice erronea). Finally, a belief that cannot be definitively shown to be in opposition to an article of faith of the church is said to be suspected or savoring of heresy (sententia de haeresi suspecta, haeresim sapiens).

Similarly, the Reformed tradition has traditionally distinguished three kinds of doctrinal error related to fundamental articles of the faith: (1) errors directly against a fundamental article (contra fundamentum); (2) errors around a fundamental or in indirect contradiction to it (circa fundamentum); (3) errors beyond a fundamental article (praeter fundamentum).

The point is that, historically, both the Roman Catholic tradition and the Reformed tradition have understood that not all theological errors are equally serious. Theological historian David Christie-Murray distinguishes between orthodoxy, the body of Christian belief which has emerged as a consensus through time as the church reflects on Scripture; heterodoxy, Christian belief which differs from orthodoxy but not to the point of being so erroneous to be heresy; and heresy, belief that deviates and diverges from orthodoxy beyond a certain point on essential teachings.

RHE: Do you also make a distinction between orthodoxy and salvation? Might a person hold unorthodox (perhaps even heretical) views and still be saved? And how do those who value the historic Christian creeds as parameters for orthodoxy avoid slipping into a saved-by-correct-theology mentality, which isn’t all that different than a saved-by-good-works mentality?

JH: I don't discuss a distinction between orthodoxy and salvation. I do believe that someone can hold heterodox views and still be saved. Also, I believe that if one is made alive by God and saved, that one of the fruits of regeneration is holding truthful beliefs about God and what God reveals.

I think a person can hold unorthodox and erroneous views and still be saved. However, I think holding a heretical view, as I defined it as denial of an essential doctrine, is to deny the Savior and his salvation.  Salvation is robustly Trinitarian and Christocentric.

I agree that we don’t want to slip in a salvation-by-correct-theology mentality. We are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ. The issue is—In what version of Christ are people putting their faith?Most of the heresies about Christ being either fully God or fully human were not just about abstract metaphysics but were ultimately about salvation. The Christian tradition stated clearly that for Jesus Christ to be the savior means that he must be truly God and truly human.

I also don't want to add to the Bible’s answer (Acts 16:30-31) to the question—What must I do to be saved? The answer is “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” This sounds to me like “Have faith in the Jesus as he revealed himself as savior, Lord, and fulfillment of God’s promise to save.”

To paraphrase Philip Schaff, the point of the orthodox creeds is not that we are saved by memorizing a set of statements, but that we are saved by trusting in the one who has revealed himself. Trusting in him, as far as he has told us about himself, is what saves, while straying from him is what condemns.

Studying the heresies has driven home to me the need for humility. Christians should agree that there exists a perfect orthodoxy in the mind of God; however, the proliferation of schisms, disagreements, and divisions throughout church history points to the fact that we as sinful and fallible humans are imperfect at agreeing precisely on that orthodoxy. The general overview of the heresies and the church’s orthodox responses in Know the Heretics and Know the Creeds and Councils should make it clear how messy the pursuit for theological truth can be.

However, there is room for mystery in Christian belief. We must remember that the entirety of what we think Christians should believe is not identical to what a person must believe to be saved. We believe in justification by faith in Christ, not justification by accuracy of doctrine. My dear friend, Burk Parsons, recently put it this way:“Believing the doctrine of justification by faith alone does not justify you. What justifies you is having faith in Jesus, and in him alone.”

We are not saved by our intellectual precision; we are saved by the grace of Jesus. That does not diminish the importance of correct doctrine, but rather allows it its proper place in glorifying the triune God, who graciously saves sinners because of the person and work of Christ.

The line between orthodoxy and heresy has developed over time and through theological conflict, and the line between heterodoxy and heresy is blurry. That means we need lots of wisdom, discernment, and humility before we declare that someone has departed into full-blown heresy. At the same time, we should be clear in our minds on the non-negotiables of Christian doctrine and belief.

RHE: While the Nicene Creed references Scripture, its focus is on the person and nature of Jesus Christ, not the nature of Scripture. And yet so many debates among Christians today center around questions about the nature of, interpretation of, and application of Scripture. (And, at least in my world, this is the context in which most accusations of heresy arise.) I suspect you will agree that two Christians can dispute various interpretations of Scripture and, so long as they affirm the creeds, remain within the parameters of orthodoxy. But would you say that two Nicene-affirming Christians could disagree on the nature of Scripture—like, one uses the term “inerrant” while the other finds that unhelpful —and remain within the parameters of orthodoxy? And doesn’t a creedal understanding of orthodoxy, in a sense, place ultimate authority on the tradition of the Church rather than on Scripture? Or does the degree to which Scripture informed the creeds make this a non sequitur? 

JH: I do think two Nicene-affirming Christians could disagree on the doctrine of scripture and remaining within the parameters of orthodoxy.  That was a question I had when I worked on an academic volume of edited essays called Christian Theologies of Scripture.

I referred to “theologies of scripture” to include the diverse discussions about the nature, authority, interpretation, and uses (liturgical, political, corporate, personal, etc.) of scripture, as well as the relationship between scripture and tradition. 

Christians recognize the Bible as authoritative, although the nature and extent of that authority is a matter of debate. Christians agree that the Bible bears witness to the drama of redemption in both the history of Israel and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Within this basic agreement on the importance of scripture, however, various theologies of scripture have emerged.  Different theologies of scripture exist not because the Christian tradition is inherently contentious and cannot reach a consensus, but because each moment, era, and epoch raises different questions about the nature, authority, and interpretation of scripture, and about how scripture relates to tradition, reason, and experience.

To your question about authority, I do think the degree to which the scriptures informed the creeds is the key. The creeds emerged from scripture and where depending on scripture.  If one sees the creeds as extensions of the apostles’ teaching and writing of scripture, there is less conflict between competing authorities.

Following the apostles, early church creedal statements codified orthodoxy into a widely accepted form. Even before important Christian beliefs such as the canon of Scripture (list of books in the Bible) and the Trinity had been carefully articulated, the mainstream of Christian believers and leaders had a sense of the essential truths that had been handed down from the apostles and the prophets, and passed along to each generation of Christians through Scripture, sermons, and baptismal creeds. Before the developments at Nicaea and Chalcedon regarding he proper beliefs about the Trinity and the dual natures of Christ, the early church possessed what is known as the “rule of faith.”

Demarest explains, “The early church defended itself against heretical teaching by appealing to ‘the rule of faith’ or ‘the rule of truth’, which were brief summaries of essential Christian truths ... The fluid ‘rule of faith’ gave way to more precise instruments for refuting heresies and defining faith, namely, creedal formulations such as the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon and the Athanasian Creed.”

The New Testament speaks frequently about true and false teaching and doctrine. For the early church, heresy was merely teaching that stood in contrast to the right belief (orthodoxy) received from the prophets and the apostles in the Scriptures and put into written formulas in the rule of faith and the creeds. The early church formed an accepted and received statement of what is true and essential to the Christian faith. The rule of faith gave birth to more precise statements of the essentials of the faith, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. These widely accepted formulations of the essential “right doctrine” (orthodoxy) handed down from the apostles were crucial for combating heresy and for the life of the church

RHE: Okay, Justin, I can affirm the Nicene Creed “without my fingers crossed” and believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, but unlike a lot of evangelicals, I support women in ministry and full inclusion of LGBT people in the Church. Am I a heretic? 

JH: You might be a heretic :-) … but not for holding those views. One approach, which I don't think is helpful, makes every single belief equally important. I don't think it is correct for others to make the views you hold on those issues equal to your Christology. As you know, views on these issues are very important and have serious theological implications.

Another approach to avoid is to flatten things out and lower one’s doctrine of God to the level of someone’s view on women’s ordination. My complementarian friends have had some pretty cruel things said about them and have been anathematized as if they are heretics challenging the nature of God.

You may be wrong on those issues, but I don’t think holding those positions makes you a heretic. I’m not trying to “let you off on a technicality.” Here’s the deal: We both think we are correct in the views we hold. If I thought I was wrong I’d change my mind and hold a different belief. So, let’s all be honest that we each think we are right.  But we also know that there are places where we are wrong; we just aren’t sure where those places are. And we may be wrong either as a matter of fact (maybe God doesn’t want women ordained or infants baptized) or as a matter of emphasis (perhaps we over emphasize the sovereignty of God in salvation).

This goes for both progressive and conservative types. If a believer holds to the Nicene Creed, we should not call them a heretic, no matter how strongly we believe they are in error on the details or on other non-essential doctrines. They may still be wrong, and they may be heterodox, but we cannot call them heretics, because they fit within the bounds of historic Christianity.

from our Rally to Restore Unity

Even with my more narrow definition of heresy, we should still discuss and debate with those whose beliefs are wrong. We can still say that their teachings are not a good application of Scripture to life and doctrine. But don’t treat them as heretics. Treat them as brothers and sisters with whom we lovingly disagree. As the famous saying goes, “In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, and in all things love.”

Rather than either of the extremes—nothing is heresy on the one hand, and everything that I disagree with is heresy on the other—the church has continually confessed that heresy is that which deviates from the central teachings of the Christian faith, as expressed in the rule of faith and subsequently in the church’s confessions. As such, Christians today would do well to recover the doctrinal precision of the early church before judging any belief as heretical.

Perhaps the best way to construct an opposite of “heresy” is not simply “right belief”—though, technically speaking, orthodoxy is the opposite of heresy. The category of “confession” is much more positive. Since even the demons have “right belief,” it is appropriate to see confession as a joyful dependence on the gospel of Jesus Christ. John Webster writes, “To confess is to cry out in acknowledgement of the sheer gratuity of what the gospel declares, that in and as the man Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, God’s glory is the glory of his self-giving, his radiant generosity. Very simply, to confess is to indicate ‘the glory of Christ’ (2 Cor. 8.23).”

An attitude of humble, charitable engagement stands in stark contrast to the spirit of some caustic theological conflict today. Rather than turning disagreement into division, we should contend for the truth with humility and grace. That’s how Jesus treated us.

***

Thank you, Justin. Be sure to check out Know the Creeds and Councils and Know the Heretics.  (And for another interesting perspective on this, see Tony Jones’ post, “What Heresy Is: A Post for Rachel Held Evans") 

Alright, people, DISCUSS! 

You submitted hundreds of fantastic questions for the latest installment of our “Ask…” series— Ask a Pastor’s Wife and a Pastor’s Husband. It was also really cool to hear from those of you who are married to pastors who had insights and stories to share in the comment section. So I’d like to extend a special invitation to pastor spouses/partners to join Jim and Jodie by responding to one more of these questions yourselves, from your experience. 

Our guests: Jodie Howerton is a freelance writer and communications consultant who has been married to her pastor husband, Mike, for 18 years. She has 3 children and is the founder of the Redefine Positive Project, an initiative that is working to reform HIV/AIDS education in public schools across the nation. Jim Kast-Keat is married to Jes, the Associate Minister at West End Collegiate Church in New York City. Along with being a pastor's husband, Jim is also a pastor, serving as the Associate Minister for Education at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village. He is the creator and curator of ThirtySecondsOrLess.net.

From Katie: Do you feel any kind of pressure to always be putting on the "best face" for any situation? I know that the preacher's wife in my church growing up was very constrained; she didn't feel free to express any negative opinions at all, even just to talk about her kids being a handful, because the pastor's family is supposed to be the "example". I assume the preacher felt similarly, though I never talked to him about it. I wondered if you two feel that pressure to always be the best marriage in your church, the happiest, the glowiest, the everything-is-wonderful-even-when-it's-not “example.” If you do, how do you deal with the added stress? If not, was it something you did deal with and have sort of gone through and come out the other side?

Jodie: 

Katie, to a certain extent, I think that all families in ministry do feel pressured to pretend sometimes. When I attend church or drop my children off in their Sunday school classes, I definitely have a sense that we are being watched. Actually, we are frequently watched at grocery stores, restaurants, airports – even on vacation. It’s not that people are being rude; it’s just that there is a natural fascination with leaders and their families. I’m not sure that pastors and their families will ever be completely out of the spotlight. With leadership, comes exposure, for better and for worse. 

However, what I’ve learned over the years is that you cannot allow other people’s expectations to dictate how you live, love, and serve. A wide variety of spoken and unspoken expectations will always be there for pastors and their families. The problem with these expectations is that they are absolutely impossible to meet. Expectations can often be suffocating, all consuming, and guilt producing. If we try to meet them all, we will burn out. When families in ministry pretend to have perfect lives, they become lonely, isolated, and flat out miserable. 

The truth is that my kids are a handful sometimes, that my husband and I fight sometimes, and that everything is not always wonderful. Our family experiences the same struggles that “normal” families do. We have been honest about that – from the pulpit and in private conversations with those in our church. In many ways, we have refused to step up onto the proverbial pedestal that those in ministry are often placed on. I’m not saying I tell everyone I meet at church about the private struggles we are facing, but I do feel free to let people know that I do not have all the answers and that the “example” we are trying to set is one of authenticity. 

There is absolutely no way I can live up to the expectations imposed on me by other people. Instead of asking, “is the congregation happy with my performance as a pastor’s wife?”, I ask myself, “Am I living how God is calling me to live? What are my own passions in ministry? Do I need a break?”

Dealing with impossible expectations is stressful, even when I’m asking myself the right questions and setting firm boundaries. So, self-care is really important in my life. It sounds cliché, but regular exercise, an occasional therapy appointment, and date nights with my husband help keep my stress level and anxiety manageable. When those things are absent, I’m not very fun to be around. :-) 

Jim: 

Short answer: Yes. And it sucks.

Long(er) answer: Yes. And it really sucks.

Actual answer: Much of this "best face syndrome" is a result of a projected identity. When I find myself putting on this "best face" as a pastor's husband I am often living in to the identity that is being projected on me. A pastor can't have any doubts, and therefore their partner must be perfect too, not to mention their conflict and blemish free relationship. This is why going to church as a pastor's husband is never just "going to church." People will inevitably read into the dark circles under my eyes, my tone of voice, and my posture, assuming it all says something about what's happening behind the scenes. They don't want to see me (let alone my partner) as human; we must be all things super human, a glimpse and hope for the Übermensch. 

So yes, this pressure exists. It can't not exist. But what do we do about it? Jes is excellent about articulating what it means to be human. It does not mean we are perfect and pristine but messy and real. We both try and be authentic people when we are in her congregation, recognizing the necessary role/function boundaries that must exist (sermons should be authentic but they aren't the pastor's therapy session). I can't control how someone perceives me but I can control my posture. I can choose an authentic posture rather than feeling like I must become the perceived and projected identity and "best face" imposed upon me. And we give ourselves space to take off this projected "best face" when we are with close friends or alone together. We recognize that the "best face" imposed on us will never be who we are, but simply who others want us to be.

 From Rachel: Jodie, I spoke with a youth pastor once who said there were girls in his youth group who, when asked what they wanted to do for a career, said they wanted to be pastors wives when they grew up. He was a bit surprised by this and, as he prodded, found what they really wanted was to be in ministry, but because they had seen so few women in those roles, they thought they had to essentially “marry in” to pastoral ministry.

This struck me on a lot of levels—one of which was the degree to which the Pastor’s Wife is often seen as an official ministry position in a church…even when the pastor’s wife isn’t usually on the church payroll and often has a job and responsibilities of her own. So my question is: How do you manage that expectation? How do you partner with your husband (as any couple should) without assuming the role of a full-time minister when that’s not your calling? And any thoughts on what you would say to a young woman who aspires to the role of pastor's wife someday?

Jodie: 

Rachel, the story you tell of your friend is one that I have also heard. In fact, when I was in junior high, I remember being at a Christian youth conference where the speaker did an altar call of sorts for “young men called to be pastors” and “young women called to be pastors’ wives.” Many young women stepped boldly onto the stage and I’ve often thought that these women were actually being stirred by the call to ministry, not matrimony. The church has historically placed a very low ceiling on female leadership, but God has not. I am thrilled to be in a church that encourages women to be leaders and simultaneously validates their call with the title, “pastor.” 

I have often found it interesting and sad that the church bestows leadership and authority on women simply because they are married to the guy in charge. I happen to be married to the guy in charge at our church, am a strong leader, and passionately pursue my relationship with Christ, but my degrees are in English and Spanish Literature. I’m not a pastor. By contrast, one of the female pastors at our church has her doctorate in Biblical Studies. She’s more than qualified for the job and I am incredibly fortunate to worship under her leadership. Pastoral ministry is the only profession that automatically qualifies spouses for the profession; if I were married to a surgeon, it would not be automatically assumed that I could perform an appendectomy. 

I’m not saying that pastors’ wives can’t be effective, authoritative, compassionate, leaders. Quite the opposite. In many churches the pastor and his/her spouse are the only leaders and called by God to be exactly where they are. I’m just arguing that the system of assigning leadership and authority to pastors’ spouses is not always based on their gifting. 

To answer your first question, I do work and have many other responsibilities outside the church. There is often pressure to be more involved in church life, but I really do my best to serve where God calls me to instead of out of obligation. Over the years, I have learned to set pretty firm boundaries. When we serve out of obligation, we become jaded, bitter, and lonely. And, I really strive to put my family first. I’ve learned that just because people want me to serve in certain ways doesn’t mean that’s where God is calling me to serve. Most of the “ministry” I do is actually in the community at large outside of the church building. 

Now, to your second question. My husband and I are partners in everything. We process and discuss just about every issue that pops up in both our jobs. What he needs more than my physical presence at every church event is my emotional support and belief in him. And, that’s what I need from him. 

Finally, to young women who aspire to be pastors’ wives, I want to applaud and honor your desire to serve God. “Marrying in” to ministry is one way to serve, but by no means the only way. I would challenge you to fully explore and evaluate what God’s call is on your life and pursue with your whole heart. 

From Corey: Jim, I too am a pastor's husband. I was wondering how you would handle congregants or other folks who harass, start fights or otherwise try to start drama with your wife? My instinct when people try to start stuff is to jump to her defense, but I always have to weigh that against the fact that some might see it as "Oh, the little girl can't fight her own fights." I mean, she's my wife, I love her, and I never want anyone to mess with her, but I also can't do anything that might make it harder for her to do her job, even if my instinct is to stick up for her while fully acknowledging she can fend for herself. My personality is one that lends itself toward a fierce protective instinct toward those about whom I care the most (which obviously includes my wife). Just curious to get another pastor's husband perspective.

Jim: 

I'll answer this question three ways: triangles, shadow boxing, and a shoulder.

By triangles I am referring to the far-too-common practice of triangulation in relationships. And when drama queens and kings emerge, I am intentional about standing with my wife but never creating a triangulated relational dynamic. If someone from the congregation takes issue with something Jes said or did, I direct them to Jes.  And if someone from the congregation is overflowing with love and praise from something Jes said or did, I direct them to Jes. While everything in me often wants to raise a shield or unleash an arrow that will strike down whatever opposition comes her way, I am Jes' squire more than I am her knight. I don't fight her battles for her but support her as she fights them herself. (This is especially important with the implicit gender roles and expectations that can too easily be projected on us.)

And to continue an unintentionally violent metaphor: shadowboxing. By this I mean that sometimes Jes needs a safe place to throw some practice punches and try out her footwork. I'm not a punching bag - she doesn't come at me swinging - but I am a sounding board, giving her the necessary space to practice her response and anticipate the next round that will inevitably emerge.

And in the midst of this anti-triangulation and shadow boxing, my shoulder plays plays perhaps the most important part in my role with Jes in these situations. I am a shoulder to lean on when someone causes her to limp, a shoulder to cry on when someone goes too far, and a shoulder that nudges her forward when she needs the reminder to be the brave and bold pastor God has called her to be.

From Bethany: Do you experience any pressure to agree with your spouse on theological issues in order to present a 'united front' to the congregation?

Jodie: 

Bethany, the answer to this question is a resounding yes! Now, agreeing with and supporting my husband are two very different things. I do often sense that people believe that my husband and I either do agree on all theological issues or should agree. Like many couples, we have vibrant discussions about faith, politics, family, and just about everything else. Sometimes we land on opposite sides of certain issues. But, in our disagreement, we maintain respect for one another’s viewpoints. While we certainly do not always broadcast our private discussions and differences to the congregation, we give one another space and permission to wrestle with issues and arrive at different conclusions. We are each wrestling with our own complex relationship with God and through this wrestling, sharpen one another. 

So, how does this agree to disagree thing play out in front of the congregation? In short, I support my husband in public without agreeing with him 100% of the time. I don’t contradict him from the stage, but I do feel free to engage in open theological discussions via private conversation. It is important to present a “united” front to the congregation. But, to me “united” doesn’t mean that I’m a theological carbon copy of my husband. “United” means that we model mutual support and respect for one another’s viewpoints – even if they differ. 

Jim: 

While we do strive to present a "united front," this does not mean we have to agree on every theological issue. We see a "united front" as the posture rather than the position we hold. It's not so much whether or not we agree or disagree, but the way in which we do so. We don't agree about everything, privately and publicly, but we are united on the things that shape our lives most (feminist theology, queer theology, liberation theology, etc.).

I don't think a congregation needs an airtight "united front" regarding what their leaders (and their leader's partners) believe so much as they way in which they believe. Jes and I both value dialogue and collaboration, diversity and multi-vocality. To be clear, Jes and I don't agree about everything (just say the word "ontotheology" to both of us and you will see two very different expressions). But we are united in the way that we go about exploring and articulating our beliefs.

Sadly, this "posture over position" approach is not always a reality for everyone, especially when a congregation rallies around their position on issues rather than the posture they take. There is a lot of "position police" in the Christian world (thank you twitter). I'm not sure if this stems from position-paranoid pastors and seeps into congregations or if it starts with the congregation and moves to the pastor for fear of their job security (it's an unanswerable chicken/egg scenario). But I do know that for Jes and me, posture trumps position. While what we believe matters, how we believe it matters more. Regardless of the congregations we find ourselves in, this will always be the rule of life in our home.

From Sherie: Our struggle has always been the "fish bowl" that our children lived in. How many times they had to take a back seat in activities, or not be defended as another parent probably would have because it would be seen as "the pastor" is playing favorites with his kid, rather than a father is defending/supporting his child. How to encourage them to grow up not worrying about what every one thinks, but, all the while, knowing that they know everyone is watching them and often judging their parents based on their actions. It is one of the hardest parts of ministry to me. I feel like our kids were often short-changed. Any wisdom shed here would be awesome.

Jodie: 

Sherie, this is a great question. Pastors’ kids can have such a tough road. Unfortunately, the reality is that the fish bowl is not going away. Rather than resenting it and shaking our fists at it (I still shake my fists at it sometimes), I think we parents of PK’s need to figure out how to parent through it. Pure and simple, our kids cannot take a back seat to ministry. I understand that there are inevitable emergencies in ministry that take us away from our kids, but not every ministry crisis is an emergency. Setting boundaries is crucial. We need to communicate to our kids that their needs are valid, that we hear their struggles, that they have the first rights to our time and attention. In the church context, our kids need to know that we, as pastors and pastors’ spouses, are not relying on them to help maintain or benefit our reputation with congregants. Their spiritual lives must be completely separate from their parents’ job as church leaders. They need to be free to have bad days, to not know the answers, and to not feel the pressure to be perfect. 

Over the years, I have pulled many of the Sunday school teachers and youth workers in my children’s lives aside to ask them to treat my children like any other kid in the youth group. I desperately want my kids to be able to question, doubt, and wrestle with their faith without being judged and without feeling like they have to have the correct answers to all Bible trivia questions and the solution to every theological quandary. Having these conversations with other leaders in my children’s lives has helped my kids have a more “normal” church experience. I have also not ever required my children to be at every single church event and have tried to not have them attend every single service. They spend a lot of time in the church building, but not so much that they feel chained to it. In our family, we’ve tried to create a separation between dad’s job and our family life. I’m not claiming that we have struck a perfect balance, but I’m a big fan of trying to set those boundaries. 

From Becky: Jim, when both you and your spouse are ministry how do you step away from it and not let it consume your whole life? What do you do practically to protect each other and your family from letting it take over?

Jim: 

This question is one of the greatest works in progress in the Kast-Keat home. Theology and spirituality, especially from a feminist and constructive point of view, are some of our greatest shared interests, but when it also consumes much of our professional life we have to be intentional and aware about the boundaries we place on our life and relationship. One of our seminary professors was insistent about the way we prioritize our roles and functions in life: person, partner, parent, pastor. And when there are twopastors in the same house, number four can easily sneak up higher on this list than it should.

So practically, what do we do? We make sure there is more to who we are, as individuals and as partners, than our ministries and our shared interest in theology and spirituality. We cultivate shared and individual hobbies that have nothing to do with church. We play tennis. We go to the ballet. We cook dinner. We binge on Netflix. We go to bookstores. We explore new parts of New York City. We take whiskey appreciation classes. And we are intentional about our separate passions and hobbies: Jes loves fashion, I love board games. Jes plants gardens, I build websites. Jes goes out dancing, I go out photographing. (Yes, I realize that I just portrayed Jes' life as absolutely awesome and mine as utterly geeky. It's a fairly accurate portrayal.)

More than anything Jes and I are intentional about guarding our time together. With so much of our lives lived publicly with our congregations and various ministerial contexts, we find ourselves valuing the time we have without a church steeple looming overhead. This is one of the many reasons why our theological podcast (PodKastKeat, the musings of a modern day Priscilla and Aquilla) was so short lived. With so much of our individual lives revolving around theology we did not want to impose more public theology on our private life together.

But like I said, this is a work in progress. We are each other's sounding board. We share sermon ideas, ask each other's advice, and look to each other for confidence and confidentiality. In many ways it is a gift to have a partner who shares a unique empathy for our similar-yet-different work. But at other times we both find ourselves saying, "Ok, enough about church. No more talking about church for the rest of the night." All I know is that I am lucky to have a partner as supportive, strong, wise, and creative as Jes. And I aspire to be the same for her. 

From Hurt & Alone: Jodie, I’ve been a pastor’s wife for a year now and my experience has been terrifying. Because I don’t fit into [the church’s existing] culture, I’ve barely made friends….My husband is great support, but my community cannot consist of just him, and that's what this feels like….I fully supported my husband and had no problem with him accepting his call; however, after experiencing what being a pastor's wife is like (granted, at ONE church, for a very short time thus far), I have told him I wish he would seek out another vocation, or at least dropped pastoring altogether and served in other ways. I want to be his cheerleader without getting tackled in the sideline. I know he wants this, and he feels like this is what God has ordered, but it's hurt me and left me anxious, depressed, and lonely. We had to move and leave our community where I felt we were both thriving spiritually. It's such a hard place to be in: wanting to support your husband, but knowing that this job affects you directly and in a way that's been really negative and exhausting although you yourself are not on payroll. How can we spouses deal with this? How can you deal with your husband having a job that affects you in every way but is something you're not interested in? Thanks so much!

Jodie: 

Hurt and Alone, I’m so glad you have freely expressed your feelings here. So many pastors’ wives share your pain; you are not alone! The very first thing you need to do is find authentic community. The key word here is authentic. It sounds like you aren’t finding that in your current church; it’s not uncommon for pastors and pastors’ spouses to have difficulty finding deep, safe friendships within their ministry setting. I’d recommend calling a pastor’s wife from a neighboring congregation or town. Connecting with other pastors’ spouses will help bring you out of isolation into a validating community that can directly empathize with your feelings. Some of my closest friends are outside of the church. 

Second, I’d recommend getting into therapy. Find a good counselor that you can process your feelings with. Also consider marriage counseling. I honestly believe that every single couple in ministry could benefit from the help of a good therapist. In therapy, you can explore the similarities and differences in your personalities, etc. The emotional demands of ministry are gargantuan; leading can be so depleting. Caring for your own soul and your own marriage need to be non-negotiable tenets of your journey. 

Lastly, I want you to know that experiencing feelings of loneliness and depression do not mean that you are being unsupportive of your husband. It’s not wrong or sinful to ask real, hard questions about your future together in ministry. Ministry isn’t something we should merely survive. You two can thrive, but it’s going to take a concerted effort on both of your parts to communicate honestly and extend grace to one another.  

From The Pink Superhero: What's the one thing you wish you knew before your spouse took their first call?

Jodie: 

I absolutely wish I knew how to set the expectations of others aside. Early in our marriage, when my husband was a newbie pastor, I often felt like a fish out of water. I wanted to be a “good” pastor’s wife, but felt so invisible and alone. I felt permanently cast in the shadow and didn’t know how to find authentic community. Then, I felt simultaneously guilty that I just couldn’t nail down the role. If I could go back and talk to my younger self 18 years ago, I would tell myself to honor that fish out of water feeling and embrace the gifts God had given me instead of the impossible expectations of others. I would tell myself that saying no was an act of worship and that my relationship with Jesus had nothing to do with my performance at church. I knew these truths 18 years ago, but I didn’t feel empowered to live them. I mostly feel empowered now. ☺

Jim: 

With Sundays out of the picture, when is our weekend? In other words, what is our plan to protect and value non-work time together? (Jes and I experienced this most in her first two years when I had a the weekend off and she was working every Saturdayand Sunday, one of the many reasons I switched to a job that allowed our our days off to overlap rather than pass in the night.)

***

A HUGE thank you to Jodie and Jim for responding to these questions with such candor, wisdom, and grace. Be sure to check out the Redefine Positive Project and Thirty Seconds or Less. 

Pastor Spouses/Partners: Do you feel pressure to fit into certain roles or meet unrealistic expectations? How do you and your spouse handle theological disagreements, parenting, church drama, and making a life outside of ministry? What's the one thing you wish you knew before your spouse took their first call? 

Check out the rest of our "Ask a..." series here. 

Sufjan Stevens, "For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti"

I'm blogging with the lectionary this year, and this week's Gospel reading comes from John 14:15-21: 

“If you love me, keep my commands.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” 

After all the controversy of last week, it’s tempting to turn this post into a discussion on gendered language around the Holy Spirit (feminine in Hebrew and Aramaic, typically neuter in Greek, masculine in this particular text), but that’s just not how this passage is “singing” to me today, so instead I’d like to focus on Jesus’ stirring and tender words in verse 18: “I will not leave you as orphans.” 

This strikes me as a fitting and profound way for Jesus to introduce the Holy Spirit as Paraclete—Comforter, Intercessor, Advocate—because it stands in the context of vast biblical testimony regarding the importance of defending orphans and widows. 

In Jesus’ culture, (and indeed in many cultures today), the fatherless were especially vulnerable to poverty, exploitation, and injustice, often left without an advocate in the courts or a protector to guard them against hunger, slavery and trafficking. Throughout Scripture, God shows special concern for orphans (Deut 10:18; Ps 10:14—18; 68:5; Prov 23:10-11), and instructs His people to protect them (Deut 14:28, 29; 16:11, 14; 24:17-22; 26:12-15). The brother of Jesus defined true religion as caring for orphans and widows in their distress (James 1:27), and from the perspective of the prophets, few things stir God’s righteous anger more than neglect of vulnerable children, as Isaiah’s call to repentance reflects: 

Learn to do right; seek justice. 
Defend the oppressed. 
Take up the cause of the fatherless; 
Plead the case of the widow (Isaiah 1:17). 

So when Jesus tells his disciples, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” and then promises them the Paraclete—the Holy Advocate and Comforter— he is both acknowledging their impending vulnerability and reminding them that they are not alone. 
 
Indeed, just as Jesus predicted, the world didn’t recognize the Spirit of Truth, and instead of protecting the disciples, persecuted them. One wonders if in those dark days spent in hiding, the disciples held each other close and whispered to one another, “Remember, we are not orphans. We are not alone.” 

The world does not always advocate for the vulnerable among us, and too often, the Church fails in this regard too.  This week I think especially of abuse survivors who feel they have been orphaned by the Church, their oppression ignored, covered-up, and disbelieved, their cries for justice silenced.  

Words alone just don’t have the power to alleviate so many layers of pain, but I hope in reflecting on this passage, victims of every kind of abuse will be reminded:  

You are not alone. You are not orphans. You have not been forgotten.  

That stubborn voice inside of you that comforts you, that champions you, that is angry on your behalf, that calls you beloved, that tells you not to give up but to name all that ugly shame a lie—that is your Advocate, your Paraclete.  Listen to Him. Believe Him. Obey Him. 

You have not been orphaned—not by the Spirit, and not by those in whom the Spirit has made a home. 

May all of us who feel vulnerable, for one reason or another, be reminded this week that we have an Advocate and Comforter, and that sometimes the hardest, most liberating thing to do is to listen, to obey, and to actually believe He’s in our corner. 

*** 

If you too are blogging with the lectionary, or have written about this passage in the past, please leave a link to your post in the comment section

So I checked Twitter before going to bed last night (never a good idea!) and was surprised to see this tweet from Owen Strachan of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: “It's one thing to disagree with the other side. It's another to have a post reported as ‘unsafe’ & silenced by Facebook! @rachelheldevans” 

It's one thing to disagree with the other side. It's another to have a post reported as "unsafe" & silenced by Facebook! @rachelheldevans

— Owen Strachan (@ostrachan) May 23, 2014

He went on to say:  “My blog on RHE & ‘God as woman,’ barred by Facebook, is reposted. Note the chronology: they come for me first, they'll come for you next...” 

My blog on RHE & "God as woman," barred by Facebook, is reposted. Note the chronology: they come for me first, they'll come for you next...

— Owen Strachan (@ostrachan) May 24, 2014

And then: “My post on @rachelheldevans's views was reported to Fbook & deemed "unsafe." Note this next time someone says complementarians are unfair!”

My post on @rachelheldevans's views was reported to Fbook & deemed "unsafe." Note this next time someone says complementarians are unfair!

— Owen Strachan (@ostrachan) May 23, 2014

I’m not sure what happened with Owen’s post and Facebook—it appears to be an issue with some new ad coding on his Web site—but I can say without equivocation that I had nothing to do with getting it censored or deemed “unsafe.” I’m all about easy access to content, (even when it’s content I don’t like!) so just because Owen and I disagree on gender issues doesn’t mean I’d try to get him blocked or banned or censored. 

While it appears to be a technical glitch, in the unlikely event any readers were somehow involved, please know that censorship is really not my style. I like to engage ideas—even dissenting ideas—and I believe mine are strong enough to stand on their own without silencing opposition.*

Regardless, I think it would be more prudent to withhold judgment/paranoia/ accusations until we know for sure what went wrong. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Zuckerberg and I need to get back to work on our plan to SHUT DOWN PINTEREST! 

BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....

*Update: All signs point to new ad code on Patheos that got automatically flagged by Facebook. Apparently, several other bloggers had the same problem this week, though it looks like the problem's been solved. Owen continues to insist that his "theology was deemed unsafe" by Facebook. 

Note: Sorry I haven’t been taking nominations recently. You always have so many good ones, it takes forever to read through them! I’ll get back to that once I finish writing this book and have a bit more reading time. 

Online…

Best Magazine Cover (maybe ever):
Billy Corgan poses for Paws Chicago  
 

Best Title (followed by some great insights) 
Caryn Rivadeneira with “TULIP-Fueled Ecstasies and other Reformed Defenses of Mysticism” 

“So when Challies claims we cannot experience or know God outside of Scripture and expresses hostility toward not only St. Teresa but all mystics and mysticism, and when he does this in the name of Reformed theology, I gotta pipe up. I have to because I am Reformed–as dyed in the wool as I am washed in the Blood–and I am a mystic. Or, at least, mystically inclined.” 

Best Perspective: 
Lesley Miller with “The Last Day I Walked Away”

“When I think back to that muggy May day in China, and a mama trying so desperately to provide for her child, I no longer experience waves of regret. Instead, I remember that day as the last time I kept walking.”

Best Conversation-Starter
Our friend Danielle Mayfield with the Christianity Today COVER STORY,“Why I gave up alcohol” 

“With every picture, tweet, and event that centers on alcohol, I wonder: Isn't anyone friends with alcoholics?”

Best Analysis:
Scott Lencke with “Fear-Driven Biblical Interpretation” 

“This approach – the italicized question/statement above – is a fallacious argument properly known as the slippery slope. If you believe A, then you’ll believe B. Or, more practically in this regard, if you believe A, then you’ll believe H (something way down the line that is essential to the Christian faith, like Christ’s resurrection). The problem is that slippery slopes can’t be proven. They can be undergirded anecdotally, encompassing stories of folk who have denied the literal resurrection of Jesus (moving from point A to, say, point H). But then you’ve got plenty of theologians, pastors and Christians-in-general that are willing to consider a non-literal, historical journalistic reporting for the early chapters of Genesis or Jonah or the exodus or Job and still truly believe that Jesus, the Son of God, was raised from the dead by the power of God.” 

Best Interview: 
By Their Strange Fruit interviews IVP’s Al Hsu on Christian Publishing and People of Color 

“…That necessarily drives publishers toward who’s got platform, which authors bring a constituency, whether it’s a megachurch or a denominational, or an organizational buy-in of some sort or another. And that can be a challenge for ethnic minority authors that may not have those networks or resources to bring to the table.”

Wisest: 
Kathy Khang at Her.Meneutics with “We Are Not Generic” 

“The Nepali woman grieving the loss of someone close to her is a universal story of loss, but her image is not generic. She is created in God's image (Gen. 1:27), and she is known uniquely. The girl staring right at the camera with a single tear flowing out of her left eye was meant to communicate hope to an audience accustomed mostly to stories of loss and hopelessness in Africa, but her image is not generic. It cannot stand in proxy of just any other girl, especially those who were kidnapped and are missing. The girl and the more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls are also created in God's image, and God knows them not as a generic African girl but by name.”

Sweetest:
A stranger picks up the tab….

Bravest:
Nate Pyle with “Into the Wilderness”

“If I am being honest, nothing has shaken my faith – not in Jesus, the cross, or the resurrection, but in my chosen theological system – like this experience. I am still reeling from it. Still trying to figure out how God’s goodness and sovereignty works out in situations where we are so clearly pressed under the weight of a world not as it should be. I spoke my peace in the wilderness, and then stood listening to the silence. No, in that moment it didn’t all begin to make sense. No, I do not know why God did not guide that child into the womb. God did not speak in a way that made me understand the purpose behind our experience. There is no bow tied on the end of this story to make it pretty.”

Most Eye-Opening 
(This is a long but worthwhile read. If you can get your hands on a hard copy, it will be even better)
Ta-Nehisi Coates with “The Case for Reparations”

“Ross had tried to get a legitimate mortgage in another neighborhood, but was told by a loan officer that there was no financing available. The truth was that there was no financing for people like Clyde Ross. From the 1930s through the 1960s, black people across the country were largely cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market through means both legal and extralegal. Chicago whites employed every measure, from ‘restrictive covenants’ to bombings, to keep their neighborhoods segregated.”

See also: 
Ta-Nehisi Coates with “The Case for Reparations: An Intellectual Autopsy” and NPR with “How to Tell if Someone’s Actually Read the Ta-Nehisi Coates Essay” 
 

Most Beautiful:
Glennon Melton with “Dolphins Are Church”

“After the dolphins swam out of our sight- Tish squinted up at me and said, ‘Mom,  God is FLIRTING with us today!’ Oh, yes. YES. Please hold onto that truth, baby. Please, please continue to feel yourself so madly and deeply loved by the God of the Universe that you experience everything beautiful and wonderful as a personal gift from The One determined to win you.” 

Most Heartbreaking (and yet also relatable)  
Samantha Eyler with “Why I Had to Lose My Religion Before I Could Support Gender Equality” 

“So moderate people of faith, those of you who can endure the cognitive dissonance of espousing progressive politics while gleaning support in religious traditions that are thousands of years old -- I ask you to please speak up. There are many of us who need to hear your voices much more loudly.” 

Another de-conversion story (language warning) hit on similar themes: Jessica Misener with “Why I Miss Being a Born-Again Christian” 
 

Most Practical: 
Boz Tchividjian with “7 ways to welcome abuse survivors in our churches”

“We serve survivors best when we are their biggest advocates. Those who have been abused should find their greatest and most vocal supporters inside the church. Shaming, silencing, and judging have no home in a community that loves and advocates on behalf of abuse victims. Unfortunately, there are still many within the walls of the church that don’t see it that way. That is where we step in and speak up. We speak up for these amazing survivors, constantly encouraging them with our words and actions to hold their heads up high and walk away from shame and silence. We speak up because it is these unsung heroes who so often teach us, inspire us, and reflect Jesus. We speak up because Jesus speaks up for all of us. We speak up because it is our privilege.” 
 

Most Profound: 
Michael Wiltshire with “Christus Paradox: The Idolatry of Language & the Balance of Metaphors”

“According to the ancient Israelites, God is not limited to any metaphor, but incorporates each of them. One might say God is neither this nor that metaphor, but is episodically each metaphor while transcending them all. Therefore, while it is certainly not idolatrous to say that God is King, to say that he is King only (or King primarily) gets one into trouble. Walter Brueggemann brilliantly compacts the complexity of this idea into a dense but enlightening few sentences in his book Old Testament Theology: ‘The rich field of metaphors utilized [in the Old Testament] must be taken altogether without being homogenized. The consequence is a self-correcting and deconstructive dynamism that precludes the fixity of a stable image or the finality of any formulation.’”
 

Most Likely to Say Everything You’re Thinking: 
Peter Enns with “Tullian Tchividjian, The Gospel Coalition, and a (rather obvious) theology problem” 

“’Theology is not to blame here.’ Yes it is Tullian. Yes it most definitely is. On two related levels. First, the resurgence of Reformed theology in American evangelicalism and fundamentalism–commonly referred to as the Neo-Reformed movement–is a belligerent movement. This is why it exists–to correct others, not to turn the spotlight inward. There are exceptions within, of course, and I am by no means suggesting everyone who sees him or herself as part of this movement exhibits this tendency. But the “system” is set up to fight. It’s what they do. So don’t be shocked, Tullian, if it happens to you. Yesterday’s heroes can quickly become tomorrow’s vanquished foes. When “contending for the gospel” is your center of gravity, there’s always a foe. There has to be.”

Most Thought-Provoking (as always): 
Richard Beck with “Wearing a Crucifix” and “Search Term Friday: The Prayer of Jabez Made Me Cry” 

“I believe God is found among the victims of the world. God is hanging on crosses all over the world.  And so I wear a crucifix to remind me, to help me see.” 
 

Most Informative: 
Maria Konnikova at the New Yorker with “I Don’t Want to be Right”

“Normally, self-affirmation is reserved for instances in which identity is threatened in direct ways: race, gender, age, weight, and the like. Here, Nyhan decided to apply it in an unrelated context: Could recalling a time when you felt good about yourself make you more broad-minded about highly politicized issues, like the Iraq surge or global warming? As it turns out, it would. On all issues, attitudes became more accurate with self-affirmation, and remained just as inaccurate without. That effect held even when no additional information was presented—that is, when people were simply asked the same questions twice, before and after the self-affirmation.” 

On my nightstand…

Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure by J.R. Briggs
 

This is a really important, honest, and eye-opening book, set to release in July. A must-read for anyone in ministry, but also an important perspective for laypeople to encounter. Will be writing more about this in the future. 

On the Blog…

Most Popular Post:
“What is Heresy? An Interview with Justin Holcomb”

Most Popular Comment: 
In response to “Facebook sabotage?” 

“For some guys, getting "shut down by the MAN / WOMAN / GUBMINT is kind of a wet dream. It's like the preachers who insist that the police are going to "come for them any day now for preaching the truth about homosexuals." They would actually die happy they got arrested behind the pulpit on a Sunday morning and dragged out the door like martyrs. It would confirm their deeply held belief that they are hardcore heroes of their own epic story. That being said, I hope it was coding and not a reader who flagged it." 

 

Don’t forget…

Find me on Facebook and Twitter. And check out my books: Faith Unraveled and A Year of Biblical Womanhood. 

So, what caught your eye online this week? What’s happening on your blog? 

This weekend, the hashtag #YesAllWomen was used more than 1 million times as women across the world shared their experiences with misogyny, rape, harassment, and fear of sexual assault as an act of solidarity with the women who were the target of last week’s mass shooting. The point was to show that while not all men are violent or hostile, nearly all women have been touched, in some way, by the pervasive problem of abuse against women in our culture. 

#yesallwomen because in 9th grade gym class the girls learned self defense while the boys played basketball

— ariel lebeau (@arielhatesyou) May 25, 2014

Because the messages I get from women whose abuse was justified as "biblical submission" stopped surprising me 2 years ago. #YesAllWomen

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) May 25, 2014

"I have a boyfriend" is the easiest way to get a man to leave you alone. Because he respects another man more than you. #yesallwomen

— Rylah (@JBRylah) May 25, 2014

The movement spurred our guest poster today— Teresa K. Pecinovsky—to  share her experience with a broader audience in hopes that it might help others who experiencing abuse at the hands of a pastor.  Teresa has an MEd from the University of Houston and is a second year MDiv student at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is married to her best friend, John Siemssen. Teresa is interested in pastoral theology, religion and the arts, and finding the best latte in town.  

***

When you grow up in a small denomination, the whole church feels like your extended family.  This was especially true for me after attending a denominational college and working overseas with missionaries from my church tradition.  Mentors, professors, ministers, fellow missionaries—they were all part of a web of family ties that eventually connected with each other.  So it was no surprise to me that one of my mentors at college, a well-respected professor and minister, responded to one of my missions e-mails.  He was encouraging and warm and I appreciated hearing from him, being so far away from home and having just graduated from college.  I was 23 years old, ready for the adventure of adulthood and ministry.  

What I didn’t expect was how his relationship with me changed over the next few months.  He started e-mailing me from his personal e-mail address early on.  I didn’t have a computer at the time so I’d send and receive messages with him through my cell phone.  What was once a mentorship quickly turned into a friendship, discussing our lives, interests, music, and so forth.  I was lonely, and because he was a leader in our church I trusted him fully.  When he started to confide in me that his marriage was in bad shape I convinced myself that it was appropriate for him to share because I was now an adult.  As the messages turned into dozens a day and became more intense I still held on to the belief that it was alright, because he was a minister.  He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, right? 

I still remember one of the last e-mails he sent me.  It was very sexually explicit, it involved me, and reading it made me want to throw up.  I texted him back and told him to get help for him, his marriage, and to not contact me anymore.  

After that I sat with shame for a long time. Since I was an adult, I had to have done something to make him act so inappropriately wrong.  Maybe I was responsible for his failed marriage too.  I got used to waking up at 3 in the morning when he would send his first e-mail.  When the messages stopped I still woke up at 3 am and sobbed until the sun came up or I could fall asleep.   

I told several other mentors some of what happened, but nothing changed.  I eventually went to an administrator of the school, and, while that person did provide a spiritual director and therapist for both me and the professor, he was seeking self and institutional preservation, at the cost of my own well-being.  At one point he demanded a list of the names of people who I had told about what happened, so he could make sure they wouldn’t tell anyone else.  

The professor moved to have his PhD paid for by the university.  Even though he was over a thousand miles away, the administrator "strongly advised me" to not apply for seminary there when I returned from overseas.    

What I have described is my story, but it’s the story of so many other women (and men) who have been manipulated and abused by those we trusted most—ministers of God. It took me a long time to realize that sexual abuse was truly the correct term for what happened.

According to the FaithTrust Institute, “Sexual contact or sexualized behavior within the ministerial relationship is a violation of professional ethics. There is a difference in power between a person in a ministerial role and a member of his or her congregation or a counselee. Because of this difference in power, you cannot give meaningful consent to the sexual relationship.”

 I was abused by a minister and professor, and I will not be silent anymore.  

I decided to share my story here because as I told friends and family members I heard more and more stories of clergy abuse and how churches and schools protected abusers and silenced victims.  The more research I did, the more I realized that clergy abuse is a rampant plague within our churches.  And too often, victims do not have the vocabulary to accurately describe what happened to them.  When a minister has a sexual relationship with a member of the church, it’s not an affair—it’s abuse.  When a professor takes advantage of a student and sends sexually suggestive messages, it’s not a gray area in academia—it’s abuse.  If you are reading this and have been abused, you are not alone.  You are not at fault.  You are loved by God.      

Through years of hard, hard work, spiritual mentors, friends, family, therapists, and my wonderful husband, I have found redemption in the darkest season of my life, and freedom in my call to ministry.  Following that call meant finding a new church family, and navigating that new relationship is difficult but worth it.  I have discovered forgiveness for those who perpetuated so much soul-crushing damage.  I have chosen to pursue healing and forgiveness—it is always the way forward.  

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Thanks to Teresa for being brave and sharing her story.  For excellent resources on education, prevention, and consultation about clergy abuse and sexual and domestic violence, see http://www.faithtrustinstitute.org 

You can also learn more from our series, "Into the Light:  A Series on Abuse & The Church"

(Note: Look for my reflection on the lectionary tomorrow. Ascension week is hard; I’m struggling with this one!)

It’s hard to talk about privilege because it’s human nature to focus on the ways in which we are disadvantaged, not the ways in which we are advantaged. 

Let’s face it. Most of us like to think of ourselves as the scrappy, beleaguered underdog for whom success is the result of hard work and a strong will to beat the odds.  But privilege is relative to context, and we forget that to our own peril (or, more likely, the peril of others).

This phenomenon is easy for me to spot in others: It can be frustrating to try and talk about privilege with conservative evangelicals, for example, because many see changes in public opinion regarding things like marriage equality or feminism as indicative of their waning influence, and so they count themselves among the disadvantaged at best and as oppressed minorities at worst. But while a Southern Baptist youth pastor may in fact be in the minority in his opinion on marriage and women’s roles in the broader culture, he is likely in the majority in his more immediate church culture where he has the most influence and where women and LGBT people may be disadvantaged. So he needs to weigh his own privilege with humility and care before speaking to his youth group about things like gender, race, finances or LGBT experiences. Where he may be disadvantaged in one context, he may be advantaged in another. And the very people he perceives to have more influence in the broader culture may in fact be harmfully disadvantaged in his own. 

It’s much more challenging to spot privilege in myself, but I’ve been thinking lately about what you might call my“social media privilege.” It used to be that I could engage in theological discussions, and even a bit of banter, online without bringing thousands of people to the conversation. Not anymore. And while this increased exposure is certainly a gift that I hope to use for good, it can also be used to bully. So when someone with 2,000 followers on Twitter says something unkind or theologically-questionable to me, I can re-tweet it and sit back and watch that person incur the wrath of my 47,000 followers, who are obviously more likely to be favorable to my position. 

I am especially guilty of this when engaging with people I perceive to have more power than me—people with positions in Christian leadership, for example. As important as it is to challenge Christian leaders when what they say is harmful or untrue, I’m realizing that in the context of social media, I may need to be more careful because I have more power than I think. Where I may be forbidden from even speaking at a conservative evangelical pastor’s church, I may have a significantly louder P.A. system than he does online. That shouldn’t stop me from speaking up, of course. But it should give me pause before I start yelling over him. 

For so long, I felt powerless in the church—as a woman and as a questioner. When I spoke, I felt I had to shout to be heard. But now, (thanks in large part to you guys!), I’ve got something of a megaphone. It’s important to continue to speak, but sometimes I need to remind myself that I don’t have to shout anymore. 

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Thoughts? Advice? I’d really love your feedback on this. 

And can you think of ways in which you are both advantaged and disadvantaged, depending on the context?