"Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple; who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms. And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, 'Look at us.' So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. Then Peter said, 'Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.' And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them - walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him."
In a very short while, I will return to a place I once knew. I loved this place dearly and most often remember it with nostalgia. But when I am honest with my feelings, I remember primarily that this was the place where I learned about suffering. I learned about suffering there in many ways. I suffered in relationships. I suffered in pride. Mostly, I suffered physically as the billowing pollution squeezed my lungs and besmirched my face. But in addition to these personal sacrifices, I witnessed the painful, blatant, and twisted suffering of others. This was in itself its own kind of suffering. The suffering of others was visibly present every day, from the elderly trash collectors who had been pushed off their land to the mangy dogs who scrounged for food until they wound up dead in the streets. These things, however, were commonplace. These were the things that after the first few weeks ceased to cause me inner turmoil or distress. They wove their way into the fabric of society the way many of Dickens' most pathetic characters find their own important places within the narrative. These things were wrong and broken, but they seemed to have their place. But there was one place where the suffering was so great and so visible that it continues to haunt me. If I used the bus to make my way downtown, I had to get off at a particular stop and cross a bridge to enter into the shiny wealth of the city's finest shopping mall. Upon exiting the bus, I would start to walk quickly, holding my breath, trying to mentally prepare for the sights that awaited me. The bridge always contained beggars, and it always contained some of the most pitiful the city had to offer. All were maimed, most with their eyes gauged out. Some had been burned so wretchedly that they looked like living mummies. They sat in silence, often perfectly still, simply waiting for benevolence to find them. I was told early on that most of them had a pimp, Slumdog Millionaire style, and that giving them money would be fruitless. One day, I passed a man kowtowing violently against the sidewalk. A mixture of drool, sweat, and blood flowed from his head as he methodically beat, beat, beat his brow against the cement pavement. A crowd had gathered around him to watch, but no one acted to stop him. No one moved, they simply just gazed in silence as he begged for their assistance. In the power of such ensnaring suffering, I felt completely powerless. I didn't speak the language, and I couldn't cause disturbances of the "peace." For the duration of my walk across the bridge, I shared physical space with these people, but the chasm that spanned my plenty and their need seemed as big as the whole earth. The barriers which separate people are often larger than space; the languages, systems, governments, alienation, gender, and myriad other issues stared me in the face and pointed at my inadequacy to bless, to heal, to comfort, to bring justice. The more frequently I walked across the bridge, the more my soul screamed at God. I started to pray when I passed them by - internally mournful, screaming prayers. It was the only thing my mind could latch onto as the panic arose within my soul. One day I remembered the above passage from Acts. There was no way for me to do anything for the beggars - or was there? I started to consider whether I truly thought prayer was "doing something." When I, a child of God, am in the presence of suffering and pray, do I understand that I am actively at work? Is my understanding of prayer, of God, of myself as joined to Christ full enough to believe that when I pray, I am not being passive? According to scripture, is prayer not the most aggressive thing I could do? Like Peter and John, I looked at these humans living in terrible suffering and I understood that my hands were tied. But, my status before the Redeemer is not hindered by the evils of the world and so I prayed. These are the reflection that regularly got me across the bridge, but now, as I contemplate returning, I've begun having doubts. Yes, prayer is the primary weapon against evil, and yes, it was a good response to what I witnessed. But to my sorrow, I have realized that I never looked these people in the eye. In my rush to get across the bridge and in my desperation to deal with the turmoil in my soul, I really was still primarily focused on myself. I prayed for their deliverance because I felt uncomfortable. I rushed across the bridge because I didn't want to feel the pain. I never made eye contact because the possibility of making a connection was a degree of terrifying my mind couldn't hold. One of the most striking phrases in the above passage is the sentence, "And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, 'Look at us.'" This description of the connection between Peter and the beggar is terrifying. Who has this kind of confidence when dealing with the brokenness of the world? Who dares to look suffering in the eyes and request that it look back? I can't image what results would ensue from consistent interactions such as this one. I shrink from asking myself what might have come about if I had truly looked at the suffering on the bridge. I don't know what would have happened. But I know it would have challenged both me and those begging. Right now, I am afraid of returning. I am really afraid of being confronted once again with the degree of suffering found in the world. But mostly, I think I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid of how I respond. Will I rush across the bridge or will I look into the eyes of those who live a life I cannot fathom? Am I more afraid of the first, or of the unknown answer to the latter? I do not know. ~Hannah
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I've read a couple of great posts recently and thought I would share. It's always exciting to find people either saying the things you want to say or saying things your mind simply isn't smart enough to think of. So here are some borrowed words on topics we love to discuss at Carved to Adorn. First, Ruthie found an amazing article over at First Things on Lena Dunham's Girls, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, and the sacred stories we tell. Alan Jacobs's thoughts are chewy, but every bite is fantastic. "What we need is not condemnation of Adam, or condemnation of Hannah for liking Adam, but better art and better stories, better fictional worlds, by which I mean fictional worlds that rhyme with what is the case, with what is true yesterday, today, and forever. Not the abolition of mythic sandboxes but the making of sandboxes in which to play with true, or truer, myths: fictive spaces in which Hannah can do better than Adam, and Adam can be better than what he is, a bitter prisoner of past angers and resentments." Read it here. Second, in order to help keep the conversation about female sexuality going, I recommend Jordan Monge's post yesterday on Her.meneutics titled The Real Problem with Female Masturbation, Call It What It Is: Ladies Who Lust. I'm not sure that I agree with everything in it, but it is an honest discussion and a good place to start. Please add any thoughts you have about it to our comments! Lastly, since I'm sure we could all use a good laugh after reading the first two articles, I give you this to end on a lighter note. If you're like me and secretly wish you lived in an Anthropologie storefront, you will identify with these 87 thoughts. ~ Hannah Quoting Ruthie’s intro to her post last week:
“This is the kind of post that is addressed explicitly to Christians, and will be confusing and strange for many of my friends who are not Christians. So, secular friends, if you keep reading, you are about to get an intimate glimpse into one aspect of Christianity. And Christian friends: grace. Grace all around.” "Men enjoy sex more than women." Of all the conversations I had about sex during my adolescence, this phrase was the most important. Spoken by a trusted and authoritative source during a conversation about how a young teenage girl with a blossoming bosom should conduct herself, this comment shaped and formed much of my views on sex. It’s important to understand that the person making this statement was not in any way trying to denigrate sex. Actually, it was quite the opposite. As typical of orthodox Christian beliefs, he was speaking quite eloquently on the beauty of sex and how good a part of creation it is. The goodness of sex was the key reason why this man wanted his listeners to know that it should be protected and not treated carelessly. He made the above comment upon noticing the discomfort his female audience displayed, proceeding to explain that while women may not see certain issues concerning sex as a big deal, all men did. The tenor of this conversation is very familiar to most women my age who grew up in conservative Christian homes. We grew up with the idea that all men we encountered were loosely reigned-in hormonal torpedoes possible of being set off at a moment’s notice should we give any false encouragement. Now that I look back on adolescents, I actually think this very well may be true of most lads between the ages of twelve and twenty. I do not believe it was damaging to be told as a young woman about how much men are wired for sex or that how I act and dress can communicate certain unintended things. What I do lament as I look back upon my sexual awakening was the constant and pervasive idea that somehow keeping male sexuality in mind meant women do not like sex as much as men or that women do not struggle sexually as much as men. Because here was the problem - by the time I heard the above statement, I was already struggling greatly with my sexuality. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I think I was about fourteen or fifteen. The reason I didn't feel comfortable with discussing the topic was not because I didn't like the idea of sex, but rather that I was terrified of how much my body did seem to like the idea of it. I truly believe many young women's reticence to talk about sex in our teenage years was not because weren’t interested in it. It was because sex seemed like a daunting and awe-some thing and we couldn't find the courage to speak up concerning the questions we had or the hormone induced feelings we were feeling. As I let the idea of men liking sex more than women sink further and further into my teenage psyche, the more and more confused I started to feel. I liked the idea of sex and I liked the sexual feelings I was feeling. Did that mean I was some kind of outlier of femininity? Was I somehow a dirty, over-sexualized woman because the idea of intercourse sounded great? I was convinced that I must have been way more sexually wired than every other good Christian woman I knew, and within my world, this did not seem like a positive thing. For me as a woman, ideas of sexual purity were somehow closely linked with sexlessness. Teenage male sexuality was recognized and addressed as a good and natural drive; male purity seemed to be defined as Christian restraint. For us young women, though, our own blossoming sex drives were mostly unacknowledged. Purity for us was about helping keep male sex drives in check rather than learning how to address our own rising desires. Male lust and masturbation were seen as natural inclinations out of place of what God intended. The idea of female lust and masturbation did not even exist. I saw these things play out with even more intensity at my small Christian college. The idea that women did not enjoy sex as much as men and therefore were more naturally pure continued to cause major confusion as young women entered and went through college. Sex was the primary topic that we all wanted to talk about, that we were all obsessed with, but hardly ever got to really engage on. When I look back on life in the female dorms, it seems like the sexual tension was so thick, it could have been cut with a knife. Though it may have looked different from the struggles of our male co-eds, I do not believe we women struggled any less with sexual issues. Porn was not an open problem at the time (though I'm guessing it would be more of one in today’s generation, at least statistically), but there were hardly any limits on what movies or tv shows girls felt they could watch. They had so imbibed the idea that they were more naturally pure that girlfriends frequently told me they didn’t think it mattered what they watched. I frequently and commonly heard women talk about men in ways that if the genders had been reversed would have been immediately called out as sinful lust. Young women, including myself, got away with this kind of openly sexual talk, again, because of our Christian culture's assumption that women do not struggle with lust as much as men. Female masturbation has been the absolute taboo topic of recent Christianity, (most people, male and female, simply do not want to believe that women have the type of sex drives that would be tempted by it), but I know it was very present within our dorms. Yet, even with all of these very real ways in which we young women were struggling with our sexuality during college, we never once stopped believing that we might not actually like sex itself. I'll never forget the time there was a panel discussion on the topic of sex at the college. I didn't attend it myself, but something was said by one of the panel members that threw all of my female friends into a tizzy worrying about whether or not they would like sex after getting married. One of my friends was engaged and I can still see the panic-stricken look on her face as she worried about what her future would hold. A few days later, a recently graduated and married friend visited campus and many of my friends fell upon her with questions about whether or not she liked sex. An open and unassuming person, she simply smiled widely with a glint in her eyes and said, "Yes. Very much. You have nothing to worry about." A loud collective sigh echoed throughout campus. Somehow, despite everything that almost every fiber of our bodies was telling us about our sexual desires, we needed convincing that it was possible for women to like sex. I never needed convincing that I would like sex, but I did need to understand that my sex drive did not make me less pure as a woman. I had many fears about sex going into marriage, but figuring out how to want sex was not one of them. It's sad to me now that I ever feared I was too sexual. How can that even be a thing? I and many of my dear friends often talked with each other about wanting to get married simply so we could have sex, but these conversations were always quiet and in private so that we would not seem like “those” type of women. It is a common idea within the Christian community that it’s good for men to get married so that they do not burn in lust, but who has ever heard women openly talk about the goodness of getting married for their own sexual needs? During the first few months of my marriage, I had a recurring experience after having sex with my husband. We would have a glorious experience, full of love and adventure, but when we finished, I would go and sit in the bathroom by myself. A few times I cried, but mostly I just sat as a certain wave of emotion rolled over me. I still can't name the emotion specifically, but there was a sense of emptiness and loneliness to it, along with a profound recognition of loss. It was similar to homesickness, but wasn't the same. I was not unhappy; I had just been exuberant. I was not ashamed; I have never been more sure and confident of my body. I was not really lonely; my husband is my best friend. The feeling stopped after a few months and the farther away from it I’ve come, the more I think it stemmed from the perceived loss of my sexual identity. Before marriage, Christian women have a certain and particular identity - sexless and pure. And now, all of the sudden, in the throws of marital passion, I was experiencing a profound and fundamental shift of identity. I was now a fully recognized sexual being in the eyes of my Christian subculture. During my times sitting in the bathroom, my soul was mourning the passage of my perceived purity. But how was I at all any less pure than before I was married? How was I any more a sexual being than before I was married? It seems to me that in our Christian views concerning sex, men simply go from being inactive sexually to active. Why is the change for women so much more fundamentally deep and dramatic? Because the Christian community tends to falsely believe that sexual purity for men is a matter keeping in check something that is already present, while for women, marriage is the turning on of a sex drive that shouldn’t have previously exist. Like men, women are sexual agents and the Christian community has got to start talking and acting like this is true. In a culture as saturated with sex as our is, we need our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and dearest friends to be showing the younger generations that they are sexual beings who have something to say to us. Of course there are tasteful and dignified ways to do this, but there is nothing healthy about us pretending that sex is not an issue for women. Women want sex and we can either keeping telling them to deny their identities as sexual beings or we can start an ongoing conversation about the glories of female sexuality as God created it. So... let's talk about sex. ~Hannah Addendum: This post was getting really long, so I’m leaving it here for now. But this is a conversation we want to keep having at Carved to Adorn. I’m listing a few points below that I think would be beneficial for anyone to consider when taking up this topic and hopefully Ruthie and I can attempt to write about them in the coming months. First, Christian purity does not equal female sexlessness. Second, women and men may experience sex differently and prefer different aspects of it, BUT women do indeed love sex. Third, in most cases, good sex takes work, so if a woman does not enjoy it right away, it doesn’t say anything about her (or the gender as a whole’s) natural capacity to enjoy sex. The wisest and best women (and men!) know there are ways to increase your pleasure during sex. Fourth, women are not limited to liking sex when they are young, but rather they can and do love sex throughout the many different stages of life. If these points can start to be more a part of the general conversation concerning female sexuality, we will make long strides in helping women, young and old, embrace all that God made them to be. "Who shall give me the gift of resting in you? Who will grant me this, that you come into my heart and make it drunk, so that I forget my evil deeds (Jer. 44.9) and embrace you, my only Good? What are you to me? Have mercy on me, and let me speak. What, for that matter, am I to you? Why do you command me to love you? And if I do not, why are you moved to anger and threaten me with utter misery? But is my misery any less, if I fail to love you? Have pity, O Lord! For your own mercies' sake, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me! Tell my soul: I am your salvation (Ps. 35.3 [Ps. 34.3]). Speak, and let me hear your voice. Bend down to my soul's ear, O Lord; open it, and tell my soul: I am your salvation. I shall run after your voice, and catch you (Phil 3.12). Do not hide your face from me. Let me die to see it; for if I do not see it, I shall die."
- Augustine, Confessions, 1.5.5 I first heard someone call God "Mother" in 2005 when I was studying in Washington, DC, during my junior year of college. What shocked me most was not the word itself, but the context. Growing up in university settings, my social circles were pretty diverse and concepts of the divine feminine were not new to me thanks to Hindu playmates and a neighbor who constructed a giant, papermache Mother Earth statue in the back yard for her high school graduation. No, what was shocking that year in DC was that the context was not the already familiar pagan one; rather, the word came from a classmate at an evangelical Christian study program. When it came to her turn to say a prayer before class one afternoon, my classmate started her prayer with "Father, Mother God..." After her address of God is such a manner, I can't remember another single word she said because I was so stunned at what I heard. To whom did she think she was praying?
Well, as usually happens, life kept on going, papers were still due, and I didn't give too much time to either thinking about what had happened or to getting to know this classmate whom I only occasionally saw. I returned from DC to my college outside of Chattanooga and forgot about it even further. But not for long. For my senior thesis in history, I decided to study early 20th century feminist sexual philosophy. It fascinated me and I loved delving into topics about which I had long been curious. Funnily enough, I also found myself in a theology class and the intersection of studying historic Christian doctrine while reading DeBeauvior and the Heterodites left me asking a slew of questions about where and how women fit into God's eternal plan. Why was my faith so male-centric? (This is a topic of vast width and depth, but for some of my initial thoughts on it from a while back, see here). Thankfully I had very wise professors who, rather than dismissing my questions, kindly pointed me in the direction of better questions and I was able to come to a place of peace and faith about having a Heavenly Father. But I still continue to think about and mull over these questions. Ultimately, the question that I have come to is this: Since God has chosen to reveal himself as our Father, what is the significance of this choice? But before coming to this question what I recognized, and what many other women will have to recognize, is simply that God has revealed himself using masculine language rather than feminine. And it is his prerogative. Before any conversation about where and how women fit into God's design and plan, we must first understand God's choice of language for himself. Now I am in seminary and finding plenty more opportunities to think about these questions. They are complex and they are wonderful questions. And they are challenging. Our God is not simple and he is not mild. Even in the midst of serious wrongs against and problems with women in the church, God's character does not alter and he is awesome in his beauty. Anyways, I wrote the following paper for a class and since I found the topic to be really interesting, I thought you all might find it interesting, too. I am not going to tout it as a great piece of research, but hopefully it can be a source of thought as we strive to know and love the God who created male and female and revealed himself as Father. ~Hannah P.S. I took out the footnotes for ease of reading on the blog, but left the bibliography. _______________________________________________________________________________ Naming the Divine: God’s Gender, Feminist Theology, and the Doctrine of Revelation 1. Introduction – Who Are We Talking About? In the last fifty years, feminist theologians have raised a number of fundamental questions about the nature of God. What started as an exploration of and outcry against the church’s history of misogyny led to efforts to see justice done by introducing feminine language for God. The feminist theologians have faced strong criticism from evangelical theologians. At stake within the debate is Christianity’s very understanding of God and his divine right of revelation. More fundamental to the debate are questions about God’s personhood. Whether they are content to maintain the label of Christianity or intent on wrecking the religion as a whole, the feminist theologians examined in this paper all take issue with the traditional orthodox understanding of who God is. This paper will discuss two of the most prominent feminist writers and the disregard for God’s right to reveal himself that underpins their writing. There are many different aspects to feminist arguments for gender inclusive language, but in this paper we will be analyzing the underlying views of God, particularly in the works of Virginia Mollenkott and Mary Daly. Rather than interacting with God according to the language he has chosen, these theologians’ take the right of naming God for themselves, either reducing God to a concept or claiming that the need for female inclusion outweighs God’s communication. The reclamation of the power to name was central to the feminist movement philosophically and these theologians openly talked of the need for renaming God. In response, we will consider how Christian doctrine has held for thousands of years that it is God who reveals himself to us. We do not create him, change him, or name him. As with any person, but especially with the eternal Person, it is not within our power, ability, or rights to alter what God has told us about himself. In response to the feminist theologians, we need to look to one of our most foundational doctrines and carefully consider its application. The starting point of our response must be God’s rightful revelation of himself – that God tells us about himself, names himself, and directs our language towards him. 2. Radical and Evangelical – The Feminist Theologians Feminism’s history with Christianity is long and complex. Feminism and Christianity have not always been oppositional, in contrast to the typical portrayal: many Christian denominations and organizations from the mid 19th century onward provided a home and support structure for various feminist movements. Serious feminist theology, however, did not begin until the late 1960s and started to take significant shape in the 1970s and 1980s. Though a simplified statement, the feminist theologians were initially divided into two groups – radical and evangelical feminists. Both groups believed in the importance and necessity of religion for the further good of women; however, they had very different ideas about what that meant. The evangelical feminists believed the gospel held the power necessary for female transformation and strove to find Biblical support and answers for their causes. The radical feminists were more diverse in their relationship with Christianity. As exemplified in Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow’s popular anthology of radical feminist theology, Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, the radical feminists either desired to completely transform and alter the core of the Judeo-Christian tradition by looking back to what they claimed to be its roots, which incorporated goddess worship, or they considered themselves “post-Christian” and breaking beyond the boundaries of the Christian faith. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott initially found herself within the evangelical feminist movement and, though perhaps an unlikely candidate, was one of its leading voices. Mollenkott was raised in a strict fundamentalist setting and attended Bob Jones University for her undergraduate degree. She married straight out of school, but went on to complete a Masters and Doctorate in English while raising a family, not a small feat for a woman in the 1950s and 60s. After chairing the English department in a religiously affiliated college, Mollenkott quit her job and found a position at a secular institution in order to clear the way for what she felt to be an inevitable divorce. Shortly thereafter, Mollenkott started to become involved with the Evangelical Women’s Caucus, the center of evangelical feminism, and though Mollenkott’s relationship with evangelicalism eventually completely broke down due to dramatic shifts in her theology and personal life, her first two books on the topic of Biblical feminism had a huge impact. Mary Daly, who held a doctorate in each of the areas of religion, sacred theology, and philosophy, taught at Boston College and sat squarely within the radical feminist camp, if not at its head. One of the first feminist theologians to have a major impact, Daly came from the Catholic tradition, but openly rejected most, if not all, church doctrines. 3. Constructing the Feminine within the Divine A. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Mollenkott’s arguments are marked as much by what they leave out as by that for which they argue. Apart from certain odd hermeneutical arguments concerning Paul’s writings on women, Mollenkott’s arguments for feminine language for God in Women, Men, & the Bible and The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female rely on her understanding of metaphor. The starting point of Mollenkott’s argument for using feminine language for God is that since God is neither male nor female, all language used for him is metaphorical in nature. She writes, “It is vital that we remind ourselves constantly that our speech about God, including the biblical metaphors of God as our Father and all the masculine pronouns concerning God, are figures of speech and are not the full truth about God’s ultimate nature.” From this point, she goes on to assume that because these Biblical metaphors do not capture God’s full nature, they can therefore be changed or altered. Mollenkott further argues that since the cultural context of the Bible should not be absolutized, the presence of feminine imagery for God shows us that the authors intended to encourage their listeners to conceive of God in feminine terms. Mollenkott argues in Men, Women, and the Bible that since the cultural setting of the Bible was strictly patriarchal, any presence of feminine imagery for God would have been a challenge to masculine conceptions of God and a statement on the acceptability of feminine language. She applauds the daring of the Biblical writers for referring to God in the feminine as much as they were able to, since given their cultural context they could not refer to God in feminine language more than they did. This idea forms the basis of her later book, The Divine Feminine, where she looks at a variety of passages with such images as birth pangs (Isaiah 42:14), Lady Wisdom (Proverbs 1-9), and a mother hen (Matthew 23:27) used in connection with God. Mollenkott’s underlying assumption is that it is humanity that names God. She correctly argues that all of the images used for God are inspired; yet she fails to recognize or acknowledge God’s revelation of himself. Mollenkott writes, “The Bible certainly utilizes male imagery concerning God, and Jesus encourages us to call God our Father, so there cannot be anything wrong with that. The problem arises when we ignore, as we have, the feminine imagery concerning God, so that gradually we forget that God-as-Father is a metaphor, a figure or speech, an implied comparison intended to help us relate to God in a personal and intimate way.” Mollenkott is very intentional to say that in interpreting the Bible, we must look for the author’s original intent; however, she does not seem to talk as if God is author behind those humanly involved. In Mollenkott language, primary Biblical authorship lies with the human author and as such, we have the freedom, and even responsibility, to change our language for God based upon current needs. B. Mary Daly In reading Daly’s groundbreaking works, The Church and the Second Sex and Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation, it is hard to escape the influence existentialist philosophy had on her view of God and religion. In The Church and the Second Sex, Daly directly credits Simone de Beauvoir with influencing much, if not all, of her arguments. In The Church and the Second Sex, de Beauvoir’s philosophy is a more direct influence and source for much of Daly’s criticism, but in Beyond God the Father, we see existentialist philosophy more fully thought out and applied to her deconstruction of Christianity. In these two books, we see Daly develop and bring to fullness her arguments for God as Verb and her ideas that transcendence for humanity lies in female liberation. By the end, Daly has taken away any possibility of God’s self-revelation. In The Church and the Second Sex, Daly starts her arguments with pretty traditional feminist criticisms of Christianity, such as skewering its misogynistic history, but she quickly moves on to interlace discussion of de Beauviour’s own criticisms and philosophy of gender. She integrates de Beauvior’s arguments that as an instrument of women’s oppression, the church has kept women in passive roles, prevented them from full participation, and taught them to focus on the after-life as compensation. Daly states, “…the Church by its doctrine implicitly conveys the idea that women are naturally inferior.” Daly then goes on to argue this can be most clearly seen in the doctrines of Mary. Women within the church were forced to abandon the mother-goddess of antiquity and in substitute were given the virgin Mother of God who continually exists in a role subordination. She criticizes what she sees as Greek influence in Christian thought which led to ideas of fixed natures and Jewish influence towards antifeminism. Daly’s most significant issue is with that of fixed natures. Echoing the existentialists, Daly writes in the The Church and the Second Sex that for woman to have her own personhood and freedom, she must be able to develop and define her own nature. Any idea of scripture informing or defining the nature of femininity or womanhood is abhorrent to Daly. She writes, “The characteristics of the Eternal Woman are opposed to those of a developing, authentic person, who will be unique, self-critical, active and searching…” and later “…on all fronts the Eternal Woman is the enemy of the individual woman looking for self-realization and creative expansion of her own unique personhood.” Because the church has argued the nature of gender is immutable and God revealed himself as male, woman cannot enter fully into personhood, so the source of immutable gender must be challenged. To do this, Daly offers a number of solutions. No one really believes God belongs to the male sex, but we continue to speak as such, so “conceptualizations, images, and attributes” of God must be altered. To do so, Christianity must first be de-Hellenized, or moved beyond ideas of omnipotence, immutability, and providence. Second, ideas of biological nature or Natural Law must be ridden as part of the larger need to do away with a static worldview. Third, Christianity must move beyond institutionalism and fourth, beyond ideas of sin. But most importantly for our discussion, Daly calls for the end of the idea of a closed and authoritative revelation. Daly develops her ideas further in her follow up Beyond God the Father. Because of Daly’s views on revelation and scripture, she sees no separation between what the church has been or said and what the Christian view on women is. She says, “The symbol of the Father God, spawned in the human imagination and sustained as a plausible by patriarchy, has in turn rendered service to this type of society by making its mechanisms for the oppression of women appear right and fitting.” God is not above or separate from his people, therefore what the church has said and what the scriptures say are not separated in their implications for women. This is the heart behind Daly’s infamous statement, “…if God is male, then the male is God.” From this point, Daly has very few pretenses of staying within the bounds of Christianity or of relating to the God who reveals himself. Her purpose is to find transcendence and “the search for ultimate meaning and reality, which some would call God.” Key to her argument is the rejection of God as a person to be known. In her view, religion no longer has a relational nature to it and as such there is no God who tells us anything about himself. Without the concept of revelation, the concept of God can be dismantled and rebuilt according to a person or group’s needs. She says, “The various theologies that hypostatize transcendence, that is, those which one way or another objectify ‘God’ as a being, thereby attempt in a self-contradictory way to envisage transcendent reality as finite. ‘God’ then functions to legitimate the existing social, economic, and political status quo, in which women and other victimized groups are subordinate.” And, “I will begin my description with some indications of what my method is not. First of all it obviously is not that of a ‘kerygmatic theology,’ which supposes some unique and changeless revelation peculiar to Christianity or to any religion. Neither is my approach that of a disinterested observer who claims to have an ‘objective knowledge about’ reality. Nor is it an attempt to correlate with the existing cultural situation certain ‘eternal truths’ which are presumed to have been captured as adequately as possible in a fixed and limited set of symbols. None of these approaches can express the revolutionary potential of women’s liberation for challenging the forms in which consciousness incarnates itself and for changing consciousness.” Daly goes on to argue that we should no longer conceive of God as a noun, but rather as a verb, or rather God as Verb. She believes all ideas of God as a person are anthropomorphic, and that hope for women lies in beginning to see God as “Be-ing” in which we can and should participate. She writes, “Women now who are experiencing the shock of nonbeing and the surge of self-affirmation against this are inclined to perceive transcendence as the Verb in which we participate – live, move, and have our being.” Furthermore, the power of naming must be restored to women in addition to participation in the transcendence, or being, of God. This includes the power of naming God. Daly writes, “To exist humanly is to name the self, the world, and God. The ‘method’ of the evolving spiritual consciousness of women is nothing less than this beginning to speak humanly – a reclaiming of the right to name. The liberation of language is rooted in the liberation of ourselves.” Along with God’s being, his name is no longer something revealed, but rather something constructed and reclaimed by womanhood. 4. The Doctrine of Revelation After looking at these arguments, one may ask what an orthodox response should be. Of course, there are many more aspects to these women’s arguments that are not covered in this paper. But I have chosen to look closely at views on revelation because the fundamental question we need to ask is if we are talking about the same God. Who are Daly and Mollenkott talking about? I would propose that unless they are talking about a God who has revealed himself on his own terms, the discussion is about a false god. It is a basic tenant of Christianity that God’s transcendence sets the precedence for our relating to him. In Knowing God, J.I. Packer starts his book with a wonderful observation on the nature of relating to God. He writes, “… the quality of extent of our knowledge of other people depends more on them than on us. Our knowing them is more directly the result of their allowing us to know them than of our attempting to get to know them… Imagine, now, that we are going to be introduced to someone whom we feel to be ‘above’ us… The more conscious we are of our own inferiority, the more we shall feel that our part is simply to attend to this person respectfully and let him take the initiative in the conversation.” If we really believe there is a transcendent God, then we must rely upon what he tells us about himself. We may not understand or like it, or we may see grave misinterpretation by the church of what he has told us, but we are completely dependent on God’s communication of himself to us. In his book on the topic called The Revelation of God, Peter Jensen ties our ability to pray to God to the name by which he reveals himself. Apart from God’s revelation of how we should call upon him, all spiritual relationships are sinister and deceitful. He writes, “Throughout the Bible, our speech directed towards God is understood to be an essential part of this friendship with God. Prayer is virtually a universal human phenomenon, but Christian prayer takes its nature from what we know about God, including the invitations to prayer that he gives us. The prayers of the Bible, including those of Jesus, show that prayer responds to the revelation of God in his word. Its scope, content, and assurance are based on the character of God as he reveals himself. Confident prayer is based on knowing God’s name. As far as Christians are concerned, God is characteristically addressed as Father, in the name of the Son and in the power of the Spirit. This trinitarian intimacy arises from an encounter with the words God has spoken. The Bible does not regard those who are ignorant of God as lacking spiritual relationships, but considers that those relationships are sinister rather than helpful. What Israel in particular has been given is the name of God, by which God’s people may address him with success, in that they may be confident of being heard. Without the name, relationship is impossible. Prayer moves within the ambit of revelation…” In prayer, our most intimate interaction with God, we are told to call God our Father and it is not within our rights or abilities to change this fundamental requirement for relating to God. If it is up to God to reveal himself to us, then we must assume that though the feminist theologians were correct in arguing that God is neither male nor female, they were incorrect in arguing male language for God is optional. In his Christian Theology, Millard J. Erickson says, “Humans cannot reach up to investigate God and would not understand even if they could. So God has revealed himself by a revelation in anthropic form. This should not be thought of as an anthropomorphism as such, but as simply a revelation coming in human language and human categories of thought and action.” If we accept that even God’s anthropic language about himself is revealed, then we do not have the liberty to change the gender of the language used. Erickson also says of God, “The particular names that the personal God assumes refer primarily to his relationship with persons rather than with nature.” We may believe that God is Spirit, and therefore neither masculine nor feminine, but we must believe that his choice to use masculine language and teach us to call him Father was for a relational purpose with his people. 5. Conclusion – Why Should Revelation Matter for Feminism? As the feminist theologians accurately assessed, naming is power. It is not something one does to another unless they have the right to do so and hold a significant degree of authority over the other. The right to name belongs to only a select group of people in this world, parents and the self, and the latter only in renaming. For a disenfranchised group to be empowered, the ability to name is an important right to establish. In Daly’s aggressive linguistic arguments to erase God’s personhood and Mollonkott’s more seemingly benign arguments using various Biblical imagery to refer to God in feminine language, both of these women recognize and lay claim for women to the primal power there is in naming the divine. What the feminist theologians disregard is the fact that it is not their right to rename the transcendent God. By doing so, as Jensen implies, both Daly and Mollenkott break the “friendship with God” that he forges with humanity through his name. God will not be wrestled into a new identity because of the very real injustice done to women; rather, he first demands relationship according to his will, and then promises freedom and restoration. The issues addressed by the feminist theologians are real ones and as such, Christians should participate in the conversations surrounding feminism; however, we must remember in doing so that God is not a concept to be changed for the benefit of humanity. God is the transcendent, triune Person about whom we can know nothing unless he reveals himself. In this, we should find hope because this Person who tells us about himself is all-powerful and just. The God who Is tells us about himself and he tells us that he will put to right all that has been wrong. Bibliography: Christ, Carol P., and Judith Plaskow, ed. Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1979. Cochran, Pamela D.H. Evangelical Feminism: A History. New York: New York University Press, 2005. Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973. Daly, Mary. The Church and the Second Sex. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968. Erickson, Millard J. “God’s Particular Revelation.” In Christian Theology, 200-223. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1983. Erickson, Millard J. “The Greatness of God.” In Christian Theology, 289-308. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1983. Jensen, Peter. The Revelation of God. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2002. Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey. The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female. New York: Crossroad, 1983. Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey. Women, Men, and the Bible. Nashville: Abingdon, 1977. Mossman, Jennifer, ed. Reference Library of American Women, Volume I. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Research, 1999. Packer, J.I. Knowing God. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1973. I've recently been taking a class at the seminary where my husband studies. It's a pretty basic survey of theology and to be honest, I often have a hard time paying attention. The other day, though, I found myself pausing for thought as I was faced with the very basic question, "Why does theology matter?" After some reflection, I came up with my answer, but only to then further ponder the question, "Why does theology matter... for women?"
I don't think it's a ground-breaking statement when I say most women within Christianity don't devote a lot of time to thinking about theology. In a place and age where the average Christian, male or female, struggles to spend significant time in scripture and prayer, reading or studying theology often seems obscure and unnecessary. Throw into that an average women's ministry which focuses primarily on devotionals, family life, and maybe a little counseling, and we start to see why there is a significant dearth of women who put much time or energy towards picking up classic theological works on such daunting topics as revelation or providence. Trust me, I too would much rather pick up a devotional study on hospitality or reconciliation than a stodgy tome on the different views of imputation. So then, what's the big deal with theology? As the professor stated at the beginning of my course, theology has to do with the great truths and mysteries of life, all of which center around the knowledge of God. And this knowledge has much to do with our spiritual being and existence. It is the backbone for the process of salvation, the center of our relationship with the Creator, and the foundation of the spiritual comfort he offers. Theology is the cognitive expression of the saints’ collective knowledge of their Father making it an important task if we claim to be his daughters. The question of theology is not one of whether we like it or even of whether we completely understand it, but one of whether we are striving know to our God. In any relationship, systematic analysis and contemplation of the information provided by the beloved is vital. For example, I cannot know my husband apart from what he reveals to me; I must rely on his desire to communicate about himself for our relationship to be established. Nothing can happen unless he makes himself known to me. However, I also am responsible with what he reveals. If I do not carefully consider what my husband tells me about himself or reflect upon what it says about him, then I am making a truly poor attempt to know and love him. It is my relational responsibility as a wife to have thought about the truths of my husband to such an extent that should somebody ask me about him, I might be able to provide an accurate answer. It would be a shame if when asked about my husband, I answered, “I can’t tell you anything about him. The only way for you to know of him is to have a direct experiential knowledge of him yourself.” Not only would this make no sense at all, it would raise doubts concerning whether I care enough about my husband to have my own understanding of him. And the analogy goes further. If I never asked or listened to my husband's family or close friends about their understanding of who my husband is, I would be considered an egotistical (insert your word of choice...)! Unless I think they are just absolutely wrong, I am obliged to find out what my beloved's family knows of him. (And even if I think they are completely wrong, I probably need to hear what they have to say if for no better reason than an accurate education on my new family.) I have no right in any relationship to develop my knowledge of the person I love in exclusion from what others have to tell me about their knowledge of the person. I must get to know my husband myself, and I can even have the expectation that I know him better than others, but my relationship to him is not unilateral. Similarly, if we, the bride of Christ, cannot give answers about God according to what he has revealed about himself in scripture and in recognition of what the saints through the ages have said about him, then we have paid no more attention to him than a wife who cannot clearly answer questions about her husband and has never listened to the stories told by her in-laws. Theology is something integral to what we do as human beings in our desire to know the God who first knew us. Everyone theologizes; the issue is how we do so. Every wife has an opinion about her husband, but that does not necessarily mean it is an accurate opinion. If we truly love Christ, the question is not “if” we should study theology, but “how.” All Christians will have opinions about their God, but will those opinions be according to what our Lord has actually revealed about himself? And that's just the point. As women, we should be making just as much an effort to know our God as any one else in our life. I was personally deeply convicted when I asked myself the question, "How much effort do I make through the course of my day to know and understand my husband, best friends, parents, siblings, and every other person who is significant to me?" And I don't just flippantly get to know them - I (at least try) to seriously give them my attention and invest in knowing them. I pride myself on being an authority on them in ways others aren't. Can I honestly expect my relationship with the Creator to be any less? God has brought us into his family and told us about himself. As women, let us sit together with our brothers and sisters throughout the ages and learn about Him in order that we may be daughters who know their Father well. ~Hannah "(An) ...observation is this: Man and woman together are the image of God. We have already made the point... that man's having been created male and female is an essential aspect of the image of God. Karl Barth, as we saw, lays great stress on this point: man's existence as male and female is not something secondary to the image, but is at the very heart of the image of God. This is so not just because of the difference in sex between man and woman - since this distinction is found also among the animals - but because of far-reaching differences in personality between the two. Man's existence as male and female means that man as a masculine being has been created for partnership with another being who is essentially like him but yet mysteriously unlike him. It means that woman is the completion of man's own humanity, and that man is wholly himself only in his relationship with woman.
This implies that man is not the image of God by himself, and that woman cannot be the image of God by herself. Man and woman can only image God through fellowship with each other - a fellowship that is an analogy of the fellowship God has within himself. The New Testament teaches that God exists as a Trinity of "Persons" - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Human fellowship, as between man and woman, reflects or images the fellowship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And yet there is a difference. For persons as we know them are separate beings or entities, whereas God is three "Persons" in one Divine Being. Human fellowship, therefore, is only a partial analogy of divine fellowship - yet it is an analogy. It is there unfortunate that the English language has no word like the German Mensch or the Dutch word mens, both of which mean "human being, whether male or female." The English word man has to serve a double purpose: it may mean either (1) "male or female human being" (the generic sense) or (2) "male human being." This double use of the word man seems to betray a typical masculine kind of arrogance, as if the male is the carrier of all that is involved in being human. But man can only be fully human in fellowship and partnership with woman; woman complements and completes man, as man complements and completes woman. When we use the word man in the generic sense, therefore... we must always keep this in mind. The fact that man and woman together image God will still be true in the life to come. Jesus once said, "When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven" (Mark 12:25). The similarity to angels, however, means only that there will be no marriage at that time; it does not mean that the differences between men and women will no longer exist. In the final resurrection we shall not loose our individuality; that individuality will be not only retained but enriched, and our maleness or femaleness is the essence of that individual existence. In the life to come, therefore, not only shall we continue to image God as men and women together, but we shall then be able to do this perfectly. We do not know how such fellowship and partnership between men and women will be carried out in a situation where there will be no marriage. But we do know this: Only then shall we see what the relationship between men and women can be like in its richest, fullest, and most beautiful sense." - Created in God's Image, by Anthony A. Hoekema Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust.
O my soul, you have said to the Lord, "You are my Lord, My goodness is nothing apart from You." As for the saints who are on the earth, "They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight." Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god; Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, Nor take up their names on my lips. O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel; My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. ~ Psalm 16 I chuckled a couple weeks ago upon opening Facebook and finding Ruthie's post about calling. I've been thinking about writing a post on the same topic for the past month or so and was excited to see that my sister has also been pondering the issue. We must be going through times of transition.
A couple years ago, I was trying to think through how we discern calling in our lives. Life at that point was extremely confusing, feeling flat and directionless. I am convinced moments of enlightenment come at the most inconvenient times and clarity of mind always seemed to come while driving with the radio blaring or while in the shower - times when grabbing a pen to jot down thoughts was nearly impossible. So to remember the thoughts on calling coming to me, I had to tuck them away and quickly internalize beyond the moment. We all struggle with calling, but I think at this time, women especially struggle with it. The paths of our lives are no longer limited, predicted. But with limitless options, comes limitless confusion and angst over what to do. For the first time in the history of the Western world, women can actively choose the things they will pursue in life. But often something so great as the ceiling being lifted feels like the floor being pulled out from under our feet. Most Americans have grown up being told they have the power to accomplish their dreams whatever they might be. Granted, not all Americans actually come from a socio-economic background where this is realistic, but still, we have all grown up hearing it in our media and education. We all want purpose in our lives. We all feel a need to be fulfilled. It surprises me how often the word "calling" is used in a secular context, but this shouldn't be because calling is more than just a Christian catch-word; calling is the idea that something can encompass us, lift us higher, and give us a direction in which to go. Who doesn't want that? And yet, at the end of the day, we feel lost. The problem, I realized, is that I cannot understand calling unless I understand from whence it comes. Calling cannot be created within myself; its very nature implies an origin from outside of me. To be "called" is to heed an authoritative voice not my own. If I have a calling, I must find the caller and I must listen to what the caller instructs. As a Christian, it naturally follows that my caller is my Creator, the God who made me and understands what gives my life definition. Understanding who I am at the hands of the the Creator is the beginning of all explorations in calling. In the lingo of my old alma matter, we all have a "Big C" calling - the calling that trumps all others and defines us to the core. This calling is non-negotiable, essential to our very existence. It's a calling from our origins. For in the beginning, God called us to know him. He is intensely, purely relational and this aspect of his nature spilled over into us as he created the world. He made his creation utterly dependent on him, so much so that should our relationship with him be broken, the central aspect of our existence is lost. Furthermore, God's creative nature was infused in us, his creation. From the beginning, God burst forth with robust and breathtaking activity. He is not a God at repose, but rather a God delighting in exerting his abilities. And he directly tells us to follow in his footsteps. The one who is capable of calling us delights in working to create something good and he fundamentally exists in relationship. Ultimately, our "Big C" calling at all stages in life is to reflect these two essential aspects of the Caller back to him. But understanding these big picture ideas of calling does not necessarily help me understand what job to take or who to marry or how to juggle the complex dynamics of life. It explains the purpose and significance inherent in my life, but it doesn't help explain the paths before me. It doesn't give me a nice list of dos and don'ts concerning normal decisions. We recognize here that after our "big C" calling, we all have "little c" callings, usually multiples of them. These callings are good, important, often necessary, and usually flexible. They may last a lifetime or they may stay for a day, but all are real and worthy of our careful thought and consideration. What are they? Our little callings are particular ways in which we live out the big calling at various times in our lives. They are our work, our family, our friendships, our planet, our communities. They are big all-encompassing missions to further good in this world. And they are minute tasks that we do simply to remain faithful. Our perception, management, and ultimately, appreciation of them are vital to understanding the satisfaction God gives us. And in trying to comprehend them, there are 3 things I've noticed about them. One - God gives us themes. We often start our thinking about calling by asking the question, "If I could do anything, what would it be?" We try to view our lives as a blank page to be filled with steps towards an inflated view of some thing "to do." But nowhere in Scripture is calling described this way. Instead, we are presented with collections of stories that tell us about God’s calling on particular people’s lives. The key to telling a good story is having a grasp on the themes it involves. What kind of story is it? If the universe is God's story, than no matter your place in it God has a role for you. So what are the themes God is weaving into your life, or probably more accurately, what are some of God's themes that he is weaving your life into? Bringing this down to a really practical level - it is important to reflect on what has already been present in your life to help determine what you might be being called to in the future. Have you had success in certain endeavors in the past? Have you often found yourself involved in something? Are there people in your life that have required your focus? Is there a past sin or failure God has redeemed and is using for good in your or others' lives? Do not think about calling in a vacuum. Give yourself time to reflect and consider where these themes might take you. Two - We don’t come to know our calling in isolation from community and relationships. As Americans, we live extremely individualistic lives. We might ask for and receive input from family or mentors concerning large and small decisions, but very rarely is the decision not ours. This is especially true among the younger generations where we are told from a young age that what we want to do in life depends on us and us alone. As mentioned above, though, our Creator is intensely relational and he made us to exist in community. He is not going to ignore the people in our lives in the callings he gives us. Though not without its challenges, this point is often more obvious to married women and mothers. But it is very strange for a single woman to really consider relationships when thinking about calling. But is anyone truly "single"? You might be unmarried, but no one is free from relationships and responsibilities to them. Three - Calling does not equal planning. The bottom line is we have no right to demand clarity from God. There are aspects of calling that will always remain fuzzy. This is not to say we should not plan or organize (a gift to truly be valued!), but rather to constantly ask ourselves: where am I substituting planning for calling? In what ways do I need to listen before I act? In my own life, I do not profess to have all of the answers concerning calling. I cannot predict, force, or plan my way into certain paths for the next five decades of life. But with all of that said, I do feel confident in saying I have some idea of God's calling in my life. I can look back and see the themes of internationality, thought-life, and hospitality that I feel confident will carry on into my future. I am clear on the relationships I need to be committed to. And while I like to plan and strive towards certain goals, I am constantly reminding myself that my planning is not what counts, but my faithfulness to listen. Ultimately though, at the end of the day, I don't have peace for a single one of these reasons. I find peace because I know the God who made me capable of all the above. My true calling, my true sense of self comes from him and the knowledge that it is his image I bear. ~Hannah Living with members of the opposite sex - nothing new in our culture. Whether romantically linked, sexually involved, or just friends, America does not bat an eye at the practice of unmarried men and women sharing domestic living situations.
But what about the growing trend of young Christians in "platonic" co-ed living situations? The decision to do so and justifications for it baffle my parents' generation. My mom and I have recently been talking about the topic and since what used to be a no-brainer (that unmarried male and female Christians do not live with each other before marriage) now is up for debate, she asked me to share with her what I would say to a friend considering such a living arrangement. Here it goes... 1) Grey areas The first issue is that there aren't Biblical proof texts concerning such living arrangements. While scripture speaks in black and whites about adultery and lust, it doesn't say anything specific about this modern problem within the church. So in addressing it, the grayness of the issue needs to be recognized up front. My generation is always defending themselves with the grayness of a situation. So in talking about it, we have to first establish not only that there are Biblical principals connected to such living situations, but that they are relevant and important to consider. I think examples of other times in life when Christians believe something is very clearly right or wrong, not because of a direct command, but because of general Biblical principals are important. Take physical abuse. The Bible does not anywhere give us a direct command not to harm our spouses, children, friends, etc. But because the Bible clearly teaches the value and dignity of humanity and commands to treat others as we would be treated, we do not question the wrongness of abuse. It's a moral decision based not upon command, but upon principal. Could someone find loopholes? Yes, and they do. And we believe they are terribly wrong for it, holding them accountable for their actions. The problem is that living with someone is not a violent physical offense, therefore making it benign to my generation. We have been culturally conditioned to see violence as wrongdoing and anything else as personal preference. Those within the church aren't free from this conditioning. But according to scripture, more than just violent behavior is wrong and bad for us individually and as a community. So people first have to be convinced that they can commit true and real offenses simply by the situations in which they put themselves, regardless of the grayness of those situations or their seemingly passive/nonviolent nature. 2) The divide of body and soul I think the biggest problem with modern American is that we have divided our bodies from our souls (to use generic terms). It's visible everywhere, but nowhere more so than in our sexuality. We see ourselves as a conglomeration of two totally different things - a body and the whatever else is inside. These two things are forced to coexist, but have little else to do with each other. In other words, the average American sees herself as an inside and an outside. What the two do are completely separate so that we are people divorced within ourselves. This is one of the biggest arguments being used against sex before marriage - your acting one way with your body and another way with your soul, but it's awfully hard to divorce the two and if you do succeed, you're living in a fractured world. I think, though, that Christians need to hear that this problem flows both ways. In the same way that you can't divorce your soul from your body while sleeping around, you can't divorce your body from your soul while sharing living space. The totality of our beings include different elements and they are created to work in unison with each other. And that's where the issue of instantaneous significant other comes into play. People find themselves with instant significant others in many different situations, work being a good example. All of the sudden there is another person who is significant in our decisions, space, and time. These things lead to emotional connection and response. Living together goes one step further in creating instant significant others. In living together, people are creating a household. I think that this alone is reason enough not to have roommates of the opposite sex. On an emotional level alone, you are already divorcing yourself. You are putting yourself in a situation that calls for certain emotions and feelings, while at the same time neutering your heart so that those feelings don't arise. Or, if your not emotionally stunted, your heart overwhelms you and the emotions take over. Either way, your living in a situation that requires emotionally fracturing of yourself. But I think it goes one step further. Sex is a natural step in domestic relationships between men and women. It's part of life when men and women live in close and constant relationship with each other. We all know that as Christians, if we're living with someone and sleeping with them, it's sin. But we don't recognize that if we are living with someone of the opposite gender and not sleeping with them, we're not living naturally. We're splitting ourselves from what we are naturally made to do. The platonic co-ed living arrangement divorces sex from the situations in which it should naturally occur. 3) Pop culture The funny thing is that pop culture is actually agrees with this. There isn't one movie or TV show about men and women living with each other that hasn't assumed they will eventually deal with the issue of sex. In fact, it's most often the driving plot line. A man and woman start out in a platonic relationship and then wham! sex gets thrown into the mix and the big question is will they or won't they? Friends, possibly the most culturally informative and defining sitcom of the last twenty some years, is always addressing this question. Every single time living situations become co-ed, sex becomes involved. It's not cast as anything strange or unusual. It's life. Sex is the normal outcome of domestic households. 4) Lust Another thing, though, is that I don't think young Christians really take lust seriously, or even have a working definition of what lust is. The fact is, lust is so commonplace in our culture that we don't even notice it. It's the primary responses between men and women and totally and completely accepted, if not glorified. Desire and desirability are the key lens through which my generation looks at others and themselves. It is important to make sure people actually understand what lust is and what Jesus says about lust, because it is not a gray area. Additionally, though, it is really important to not separate women out from dealing with lust. It's good to talk with women about the issue as the object of male lust and helping their brothers in Christ, but it is just as important, if not more so, to talk with women about their own lust. The church tends to desexualize women, giving it nothing to say to the trends among America's young females. Women lust far more than the church recognizes and our culture is actively encouraging it. A woman's lust will most often look different than a man's, but it will be present. 4) Myth of the "relationship status" The last big thing to understand is my generations inflated view of "relationship status." Contemporary American culture is all about labeling ourselves and our male/female relationships fall especially prey to this. We want to be able to label and define every relationship we have, thereby defining ourselves. Where this connects to roommate situations is that we young Americans tend to believe that these labels actually mean something. I think young Christians going into co-ed living situations really think that because they all label themselves as single and platonic, this label will somehow magically hold true. We don't tend to understand the organic nature of relationships. Cooking dinner, doing laundry, watching TV together defines a relationship far more than whatever label might be given to it. I think it would be helpful for people to start actually thinking about the actions they do together and what they mean and produce, rather than the superficial status they've given a relationship. 5) Authority, convenience, and rebellion In the end, though, I really think a lot of the problem comes down to three things. 1) Americans don't believe in any authority in their lives. 2) Americans are controlled by what is convenient. 3) Americans are infatuated with rebelling. You can talk about the above points with someone till your blue in the face, but unless the Spirit is leading them to let go of these three big things guiding all American youth, there is no reason for them not to live together before marriage. ~Hannah |
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