Category Archives: Christianese

You are loved

Posted by Amy in Christianese, Life, Love, Sin and tagged with , ,

In case anyone missed it, many of us have been participating in an ongoing conversation about sexuality and sexual ethics.  There have been so many brave people sharing their stories with honesty and dignity.  Collectively, we all seem to need to move away from the shame and fear that have permeated conservative evangelical teaching.  This is an incredibly beautiful, brave venture and I’m proud to be part of it.

But.

After one of the first posts went up, Sarah Bessey’s wonderful I am damaged goods, I began to notice something that disturbed me.  Rather than understanding Sarah’s use of the phrase “damaged goods” for what it was in the context of her post, others were appropriating the term and using it to mean something very different.  I lost count of the number of times I saw someone post or tweet something like this:

We are all damaged goods.

I understand what they meant.  I, too, am a product of the doctrine of total depravity (that we are born without any goodness in us and our only worth comes from God).  While I no longer hold that view, I certainly respect those who do.  I also understand the sentiment to be a paraphrase of “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  That isn’t my primary concern here.

The phrase “damaged goods” breaks my heart not only for women like Sarah Bessey who have been told that their sexual histories have ruined them but for all of us.  We are not “damaged goods.”  Not one of us.

Words mean things.  “Damaged goods” is something we should use to describe a bruised banana or a dented can of tomatoes or a package of frozen peas that split open.  Damaged goods are unsaleable throw-aways.

Call us sinners, if you believe we are.  Say we make mistakes or that we sometimes hurt each other or that we need forgiveness (from people or God).

But don’t call us damaged goods.  Human beings are not ever damaged goods.

We are not spoiled, ruined, useless, or worthless.

We are beautiful.

We are precious.

We are valuable.

We are loved.

You are loved.  I am loved.  Let us reflect that love that no one will ever again believe he or she is damaged goods.

Notable News, week of July 7-13, 2012

Posted by Amy in Christianese, News, Parenting, Women and tagged with , , ,

Ah, it’s good to be back.  I have read a whole boatload of fantastic blog posts this week.  It was hard to pick my favorites!  So here we go, in no particular order:

1. Christian Piatt gives us the scoop on what Christians should stop saying.

Seriously, if you are not subscribed to Piatt’s blog, you should be.  You can read about the clichés he says Christians should never use here, here, and here.  And because Piatt is so awesome, he gives great advice on what we can do instead.

2. Avital Norman Nathman on handling the sexualization of young girls.

Another favorite writer, I appreciate that she tells it like it is, but she’s never heavy-handed.  In this article, she explains what sexualization is and talks about how we can give our daughters tools to protect themselves.  There’s a great list of resources at the end.

3. Daniel Tosh rape joke controversy.

This shouldn’t be a controversy at all.  Controversy implies that there is a defense for the action, even if some people were offended.  There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for what he said.  Dude claimed rape jokes are funny, woman objected, and he suggested it would be funny if 5 guys raped her right then.  He gave a somewhat back-handed apology, in which he said that all he meant was that bad things happen and we can joke about them.  Except the problem is, rape isn’t something that can be joked about.  So he’s either malicious or stupid, but either way, it’s indefensible.  Yet somehow, a lot of people did exactly that.  I refuse to post links to their idiocy, but I will link to some great responses:

Dear Daniel Tosh: You Know What’s Even Less Funny than Rape Jokes? Rape Threats

For Daniel Tosh, Actually Assaulting Women Is Comedy

Daniel Tosh and Rape

On a related note, this blog post isn’t specifically about Tosh, but it is about the way that some men believe that harassment is something women want and how decent men can respond to that.

4. Something that’s actually funny.

Because Daniel Tosh apparently can’t think of something funny that’s less crass than rape jokes, I’m providing it here.  Because you know what’s always funny? Phineas and Ferb.  Yeah, I know this isn’t news, and yeah, I know it’s not recent.  I don’t care.  It’s funny anyway.

You can enjoy the whole episode here.

Why I’m not a fundamentalist

Posted by Amy in Christianese, Doctrine, Faith, Questions, Religion and tagged with , ,

There is a somewhat negative connotation to the word “fundamentalist” (in my opinion, with good reason and a measure of accuracy).  But the kind of black-and-white thinking associated with fundamentalism is actually present in the majority of conservative Christianity (“evangelical” or not) to at least some extent.  Most churches teach a variation on exactly the same theme.  The sad part about it is that this theme isn’t “ancient.”  It isn’t a Jewish theme, and it isn’t even present in the oldest forms of Christianity.  Not the way it’s taught now, anyway.  This excerpt sums it up nicely:

The overarching story of fundamentalism, based on a highly literal and selective interpretation of the story of the Bible itself, goes something like this: God created the world; man was created good; Adam and Eve sinned; man was corrupted, and came under God’s condemnation, specifically the judgment of eternal punishment, i.e. hell; God sent Jesus to take the punishment for us; if we become (properly born-again) Christians, we will go to heaven and be saved from hell. It is a story about good versus evil, God versus Satan. It is a story in which the world is a battleground between the two.

When you become a fundamentalist Christian, typically by being “born again”, you become a part of that story. A distant and alien story about God and a group of people thousands of years ago becomes the story of how you yourself, two millennia after the cross, crossed over onto the right path and became destined for heaven.

You will join a community where the big story will be told over and over again, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the songs you sing, the sermons you hear, the conversations you have, the language you use and the rituals in which you participate. Present-day fundamentalists may well see themselves as part of a story about how society is getting worse and worse as standards decline and the ungodly have their wicked way, a story about how people have overcome by resisting this decline and how you too can overcome. Within the big story are smaller stories, whether hypothetical or attached to actual events, about how accepting this, that and the other is the beginning of the slippery slope into heresy and apostasy.

As in all good stories, there is a cast of characters, of heroes and villains. The world is divided up unambiguously into Believers and Unbelievers, the Saved and the Unsaved. The Believers are faithful, Bible-believing, valiant defenders of eternal truth, heavenbound. Unbelievers are godless, blinded, hellbound. There are the Liberals, pretend Christians, attackers of the truth, rebellious against God. Everyone falls into one category or another. Fundamentalism presents a very black-and-white world. And if all this looks like a caricature of fundamentalism, perhaps that’s because the fundamentalist worldview is a caricature of the world itself?  -from Why Leaving Fundamentalism Hurts, by David L. Rattigan

Right now, a lot of people are reading this and thinking, “Exactly.  What’s wrong with that?”  Let me explain.

The problem with this kind of either/or mentality is that it ignores stark reality and lived experience.  Lumping all people into the binary categories of “saved = good” and “unsaved = bad” turns a blind eye to the fact that a lot of people exist outside those labels.  The assumption seems to be that the rest of the world is going down, but we real, true Christians aren’t going with it.  And if you’re not for us, you’re against us (a faulty paraphrase of Jesus’ actual words).  Which might be true.

Except that it isn’t.

This dichotomy ignores the Christians who spend a good chunk of time posting rude, ignorant things on social media sites.  It pays no attention to the pastors who spew hate from the pulpit.  It allows people to appear to be “good” Christians by attending every Sunday, wearing the correct modest clothing, and avoiding the Big Evil Things that No One Should Ever Do (like swearing, getting drunk, having premarital sex, and being gay) while simultaneously failing to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned.  You know why?  Because they can claim the slogan, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.”

Meanwhile, the Cops and Robbers theme successfully pretends that there are no decent people outside of Christian faith.  It pays no heed to the atheists who have strong moral convictions; the people of other religions who have deep, abiding, personal faith; the thousands of gay people who love Jesus with all their hearts, souls, minds, and wills.  It assumes that “the world” is the way it is because of people who aren’t Real True Christians™.

This, right here, is why I’m not a fundamentalist.  I don’t really think I consider myself a liberal Christian either.  I tend to think that “liberal Christian” is the term for someone who operates on the same basic assumptions as a fundamentalist but has a different set of beliefs regarding what constitutes sinful behaviors.  For example, a liberal Christian may still believe that sin is deserving of punishment or consequences, but would not agree that premarital sex falls in the category of sin.  I often think it’s just a cover for “I can be a Christian and still largely do what I want, as long as it doesn’t appear to be hurting anyone.”  (For the record, I don’t think all liberal Christians act this way, but it describes the majority of what I’ve seen.)

I don’t fit that description.

I don’t know how to categorize myself.  Maybe I don’t need a label at all, outside “Christian.”  I don’t need to define the kind of Christian I am.  Being neither here nor there makes me feel uncomfortable among both conservative and liberal Christians, but perhaps that’s okay.  It might even be exactly what Jesus intended.  When we become comfortable, we stop following Jesus and begin to coast.  We become obedient to humans and ideas rather than God.

Dear Lord, may I never grow complacent.  Amen.

The Very Best Wifey in the World

Posted by Amy in Christianese, Family, Gender Roles, Parenting, Relationships, Uncategorized and tagged with , ,

Yesterday in church, our pastor read this to us:

The Good Wife’s Guide
Image collected from http://j-walk.com/other/goodwife/images/goodwifeguide.gif

The text reads:

  • Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
  • Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
  • Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
  • Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a  dust cloth over the tables.
  • During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
  • Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
  • Be happy to see him.
  • Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
  • Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
  • Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.
  • Don’t complain if he’s late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
  • Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
  • Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
  • Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
  • A good wife always knows her place.

I get it.  I get the point that this is supposed to be humor, and that we’re supposed to realize how far we’ve come in the nearly 60 years since this “article” was published.  Leaving aside the fact that this is probably a hoax, the problem I have is that for a lot of Christians, this is how they see men and women.  Oh, I don’t mean that anyone really thinks that a woman should follow these steps to the letter.  I mean that we have roughly the same expectations, just dressed up a little differently.

When women are challenged to be “godly, Biblical wives,” there is a certain reading of the text that leads some people to conclude that a good wife’s duty is to “manage the home.”  To be honest, I’m not even sure that anyone knows what that means.  I’ve heard it all—everything from being a stay-at-home mom to keeping things neat and clean to making sure that everyone’s relational needs are met.  Time and again, we’re told that these are the things women are good at, because we are “different” from men.  Being in possession of a vagina somehow magically makes us better at cooking, cleaning, and applying band-aids to scraped knees.

And never mind working wives and mothers.  Work isn’t seen as something women should want to do.  We’re not supposed to be powerful or have careers and try to advance them or feel passionate about our jobs.  Working is just something some women do because they’re single parents or their families are financially insecure or they need something to pass the time while the kids are at school.

On top of that, we are supposed to be superwomen.  We get compared to the Proverbs 31 wife all the time.  She’s held up as some kind of ideal, the woman we’re supposed to admire and emulate.  She feeds everyone, even the servants!  She works!  Her kids think she’s awesome!  She does it all with a smile, in her pearls and high heels! (Okay, I made that last one up.)  Even if we have jobs, even if we do volunteer work in the community (and maybe especially then, since it isn’t “real” work), we’re still supposed to make sure that the house runs smoothly, the kids get to bed on time, and everyone is taken care of.  Sure, men can be asked to do some basic chores, or maybe make sure the lawn is mown and the trash is taken out to the curb.  But it’s wifey’s job to make sure she stays on top of what needs to be done.  After all, we can’t expect her powerful, manly husband to come home from his powerful, manly job and do it.  If a woman works, it had better never interfere with her ability to care for her family.

What a lot of people don’t understand is that this isn’t just a problem for women.  This hurts men, too.  What if a woman is a corporate CEO, and her husband is a stay-at-home dad?  What if both parents work, and both enjoy their jobs?  What if a man is the one who is better at taking care of little one’s boo-boos and sniffles?  What if mom is a slob and dad is a neat freak, so he takes care of the tidying and cleaning?  What if the wife is good with power tools and the husband is a master chef?  And what if it’s because she’s a mechanic and he’s a cook in a restaurant?  Are they supposed to suddenly reverse roles in the home?  And do any of those things make him less of a man?

I know that some people will say, “Well, of course there are exceptions.  These are general principles.”  But when the message we hear, week after week, is that a woman is good at _____ and a man is good at _____, it’s hard not to believe something may be wrong with you if it isn’t true.  It’s especially upsetting when it’s treated as though these are things we can find in the Bible regarding proper male/female roles.  When we don’t fit those roles, we wonder if it’s some kind of sin in our lives that we need to address.

My husband and I chose to have me stay home with our kids.  But the reason we did it this way is that his salary was higher.  We believed that one of us should stay home, at least while the kids were little.  It could just as easily have been my husband taking care of the kids while I worked.  Because I’m home, I tend to do more of the chores, although I certainly don’t do everything.  My husband is usually the one to help with homework, partly because he’s a teacher and partly because the help required is usually with math (which I can do just fine, but I struggle to teach it).  And he’s certainly the more sympathetic and nurturing parent.  (Example:  One of our kids falls down.  Me: “Are you bleeding?  No?  Good.  Go play.”  My husband: “Oh no!  Are you okay?  Do you need a hug?”)  So are we “traditional” or not?

The whole thing stems from the basic idea that our differing biology somehow makes us unequal to each other.  Over and over and over we’re taught that we have societal roles to fill and that we should not deviate, because it’s not how we were made.  We’re told that the Bible “clearly” says this.  In fact, the Bible has far more to say about hospitality, social justice, mercy, brotherly love, forgiveness, kindness, and caring for one another than it does about male and female roles within society or the church.  Yet we dwell on the latter rather than the former.

Church, is it any wonder that young people are leaving in droves?

The 5 Things I Never Want to Hear at Church Again

Posted by Amy in Christianese, Doctrine and tagged with

5. “The Bible, says it, I believe it, that settles it.”

Well, gee.  That’s very humble of you.

The problem with this one is, which interpretation?  I recently had someone tell me the Bible is “clear” on matters of doctrine.  No, actually, that’s why it’s doctrine.  If it were so clear, there would only be one branch of Christianity and no denominations.  And the whole time we’re congratulating ourselves on having the “correct” interpretation of Scripture, so is someone else…with an entirely different view.

4. “The Bible is God’s little instruction book.”

I don’t know where to start on this one.  I was listening to a sermon online in which the speaker said that the Bible offers guidance for every aspect of our lives.  That reminded me of the old Saturday Night Live sketch with Sally Field playing a woman who consulted God for everything, literally.  The idea that the Bible has something personal for us in every verse is a really self-centered perspective.  (And kind of stupid, too: “Of Zattu, 945.” -Ezra 2:8.)  Not only that, it reduces the Bible from the story of God’s love for humanity to nothing more than something we’d keep in the car in case that funny little light appears on the dashboard.  What a depressing way to interact with Scripture.

3. “Lost people.”

Yeah, I hate this phrase.  When I think of my family and friends who are not Christians, I don’t think of them as “lost people.”  If I must think of them collectively, they are non-Christians.  Individually, they are atheists, agnostic, Jewish, Buddhists, Unitarians, and so on.  I know how frustrating it is as a Christian to have people assume things about me because of my faith.  I wouldn’t appreciate it if my friends and family privately referred to me as “one of those super-religious idiots.”  I also remember well enough what it was like to be a non-Christian.  If I’d found out back then that people were calling me “lost,” I would never have wanted to set foot in that church again.  Whether or not a Christian believes that someone is “lost” without faith in Jesus is not a reason to call them that.  I think the phrase is intended to communicate the urgency of evangelism.  Instead, it communicates that we like to categorize people and are more concerned with converting them than with actually knowing them.

2. “Radically inclusive.”

This one’s touchy, because in theory, I agree with the concept.  However, I think it’s often misused and misapplied.  Jesus practiced radical inclusion.  He touched the sick, he interacted with Samaritans, he gathered tax collectors and sinners and called them friends.  It doesn’t count in the same category when we exclude people because there is something we don’t like or because we’ve interpreted Scripture to enable us to leave some people out.

1. “It’s all part of God’s plan.”

Oh, dear.  Well, when we think of the Bible as an instruction manual and we claim that it’s clear on doctrine, it’s not hard to understand this one.  It’s very easy to believe that the ordinary annoyances and difficulties of life are part of God’s plan to make us better people.  But this is far to simple an answer to the grief of parents who have lost their infant to birth defects or their child to cancer.  It’s hard to swallow when that drunk driver hits your car.  It doesn’t make sense when you watch your neighbor’s house go up in flames because of faulty wiring.  It certainly doesn’t seem clear when we live in a country where most of us have enough food and clean water, but whole communities in other places have neither.  Putting it down to “God’s plan” is a way to distance ourselves from having to do anything.  After all, if God orchestrated it, who am I to get involved?  Surely God will take care of it?  Please listen to me: Those are not words of comfort.  If you know someone who is going through something, let that be the absolute last thing that comes out of your mouth in response.

What Christianese have you heard at church that you’d like to chuck out the window?

Sunshine, Happiness and Gum*

Posted by Amy in Christianese, Emergent Thought, Evangelism, Faith, Life, Outreach and tagged with ,

The youth at our church are going through a series called “Happy,” on the Beatitudes.  In yesterday’s message, the youth pastor asked what culture says they should chase after to find happiness.  The answers weren’t surprising: Looks, relationships, money, popularity, possessions.

Not much changes between adolescence and adulthood.

It set me thinking about a couple of things.  First, it occurred to me that we don’t just tell people that they will be happy once they beautify themselves skinny, meet Mr./Ms Right, and settle down in their McMansion with their 2.4 children.  We also tell them that if they don’t have all that and a side salad of career power, they should actually be unhappy.  It goes beyond conveying the message that having it all makes your life good, but that your life simply cannot be good unless and until you do.

The second thing I realized is that Christians are just as guilty of this.**  We like to tell ourselves we aren’t.  After all, aren’t we so counter-culture in our insistence that life isn’t about money, sex, and power?  We’re all about Jesus!  And Love!  And Following God!  I don’t even mean that in a self-righteous way.  I mean in the sense that we define ourselves by being people who have relationship with the Living God, and what could be better than that?

It’s certainly noble.  The problem is, we make the opposite mistake from “the world.”  We assume that people who are “far from God” are the most unhappy, miserable people who do nothing but run after all the wrong things.  We assume that people of other religions are unhappy because they are too busy making sure they follow all the rules.  We assume atheists are sad because they have no hope.  We assume that people who tick the “none of the above” box on the census are miserable because they have no morals.  We assume that anyone who doesn’t follow Jesus is desperate to have his or her life turned around from the wicked ways of lusting after earthly pleasures.

Not quite.

I don’t know about you, but I know plenty of joy-filled, content non-Christians.  I also know an awful lot of Christians who are unhappy, and it isn’t because they don’t have enough faith or because they are still caught up in pursuit of cultural happiness.  Religion that dictates whether or not we should be happy with our lives is religion gone bad.  It diminishes the real joy and the real pain that people experience.

I see why it happens.  People are reluctant to frighten their friends and neighbors by telling them they will go to Hell if they don’t convert.  (Not that this is bad; scaring people into faith is pretty sick.)  So what can we do, if we don’t just want to turn everyone off to Christ with our fire and brimstone?  Aha!  We can remind them how hopeless and tragic this life is unless they know Jesus.  Unfortunately, that isn’t an improvement.

We need better ways to communicate the Gospel without reducing it to a set of before-and-after pictures (either the Hell kind or the happiness kind).  I suggest we start by living the way Jesus taught, pursuing love, peace, and justice.  The rest will come.

__________________________________________________________________
*For the morbidly curious, the title of this post is a line from a Phineas and Ferb song.
**This isn’t meant as a criticism of the message the youth heard in church on Sunday.

Buzz, Buzz

Posted by Amy in Christianese and tagged with ,

I know that a lot of churches are trying to distance themselves from what they believe to be outdated Christian-ese. If you’ve been in the church long enough, you know exactly what I mean. Nowadays, you don’t hear many people talk about finding the Lord, having a burden, or sins of the flesh. If we’re honest, we realize that changes in church language are neither bad nor good; they are a reflection of the era. In today’s church, we might speak of making a decision to follow Christ, being concerned, or acting against God’s will. They mean the same thing as the older versions, but the language is more plain.

On the flip side, however, is a batch of really, really annoying Christian buzz words and phrases. Here is my Top Ten list of The Most Cringe-Worthy Contemporary Christian Phrases:

10. Christ-Follower. It’s not bad, but what’s wrong with being a Christian? Are we that afraid that what we call ourselves is going to offend someone? Sorry, people, it’s how we act that offends people. And yes, there is research to back that up.

9. What Would Jesus Do? I don’t hate the sentiment. I think it’s great to try to figure out what Jesus would do. However, it’s over-used (yes, still) and often has more to do with personal morality than anything else. If you want to go that route, a better question is, “What would Paul do?” Jesus was a lot more about focusing on others than ourselves.

8. It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. Guess what? Like it or not, Christianity is a religion. And do your homework, it’s not the only religion to promote relationship with our Creator.

7. It’s all part of God’s plan. Arrghhh! No, God did not send your life-threatening illness to teach you some kind of lesson. I do believe God can use our situations, but He doesn’t cause harmful things to happen in order that the Cosmos be set right 5 years in the future.

6. T-shirts with Christian versions of famous products. I know, not a buzz word, but still silly. Ick.

5. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. Oh, really? Well, thank you for that well-reasoned argument.

4. God hates f*gs. Yeah, it’s mostly Westboro Baptist that’s responsible for this little nasty. Still, thanks for sharing. I wasn’t aware of that. Guess I have to revise my image of God. Excuse me while I pray that God gives me the strength not to punch you in the head.

3. I don’t feel led. Maybe not, but I get the impression this one has more to do with what one personally does not want to do than with what one is not being told to do by God. Be honest with me, tell me if you don’t want to do something. It won’t hurt my feelings.

2. “Just…” People say this one in prayer A LOT. It’s annoying. It minimizes the need for which you are praying. “Just” stop it already.

1. Love on. Okay, I saved the worst for last. I hate, hate, hate, HATE this expression. You cannot “love on” someone unless you are sitting on him, which I do not recommend at church. (Um, on second thought, there may be other ways to “love on” someone, but they are not family friendly.) I want to scream every time I hear this phrase. It really is alright to simply love people (not to mention grammatically correct). I have a theory on the origins of this one…hm, I sense another post in the future.

What phrases send you screaming from the room?