Artist Profile: Anna Kocher

Anna Kocher is an artist in the greater Philadelphia area whose work has been displayed at her alma mater, Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, the Center Art Gallery at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Church of the Good Samaritan, where she and her family attend.

In this interview with Elrena Evans, Anna talks about what it means to be a Christian and an artist, and how motherhood has impacted her work.

Where do your faith and your art intersect?

My faith and my art have both been a part of who I am as far back as I can remember. I always believed; I always drew. Both have changed and matured and gone through times of drought and times of abundance.

In high school and early college, I had this feeling that I should do something practical. . . . But when I decided to pursue art in college, I had this rare moment of clarity and knew that it was the right thing for me to do. I've been grateful for that moment of insight and find myself clinging to the memory when I start to feel like maybe I should have been an accountant or something. (For anyone who knows me, the idea of me as an accountant is laughable.)

You write on your website, "We live in a society obsessed with the material and ideal but terrified of true, gritty physicality." It strikes me that motherhood - pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, and just the day-to-day experience of raising small children - is steeped in "gritty physicality."

[M]otherhood . . . strips away the facade in so many different areas. I always had a sense that life was fragile, though I don't think I dwelt on it much. People always talk about how miraculous infants are, which I always took to mean something about how amazing and precious they are. After actually having an infant (two, as a matter of fact), I would say that the miracle is that they stay alive at all. It seems to defy reason that this tiny, helpless creature with sporadic, phlegmy breathing who spews up strange substances and seems, at times, intent on refusing everything that would help it sustain itself (sleep, milk, socks) would grow and flourish and become an individual with thoughts and opinions (strong, strong opinions).

Motherhood also strips away illusions you hold about yourself. Physically, you get to know your own body in a very different way. And, not to put too fine a point on it, it's not always pretty. It is also very revealing in less tangible ways. You find yourself coming face to face with the deepest parts of yourself, which, again, are not always pleasant. . . . Somehow being a mother manages to be so much more joyful and beautiful than I could have imagined before, but also more painful and difficult than I could have anticipated. It's humbling to realize how one-dimensional my understanding of motherhood was before having children, and instructive to apply that insight to issues of faith and truth.

What is the role of a Christian artist? One of your paintings, for instance, shows a man sitting on a toilet - is there anything fundamentally Christian about that piece?

I think the role of the Christian artist is the same as that of a secular artist: to make the best artwork possible. . . . My work is inherently Christian because I am a Christian and my work comes out of who I am. I don't think the highest calling for the Christian artist is to use his or her art as a platform for opinions, convictions, or beliefs. If art is to be anything other than preaching, illustrating, decorating (all of which have their place), it has to transcend what you, as an artist, are trying to say and actually become a living thing in its own right.

My Awakening series (of which the infamous man-on-toilet painting is one) was actually one of my more intentionally Christian projects. I might even call it allegorical. In doing those seven paintings, I was thinking about spiritual transformation and how you expect it to happen in the blink of an eye but it often happens incrementally. For me, going from being asleep to being awake and ready to face the day is a process . . . and involves lots of elaborate routines (revolving mostly around hot beverages). This relates to the process of going from spiritual deadness, stagnation, and denial to being spiritually awake and ready to face life or whatever you are presented with. . . . Discipline, or routine even, plays a role in this. You go through these small, seemingly insignificant processes and find yourself changed at the end without being able to see the exact moment when the change occurred.

Much of your work feels very intimate. There's an intimacy to a painting of people sleeping, and an intimacy to your depictions of the Stations of the Cross, but very different sorts of intimacy.

We have these bodies that are beautiful, miraculous, luminous, but are also teeming with bacteria, so fragile that they can be destroyed in a moment, and capable of moments of such embarrassing ungainliness. We have a tendency to want to idealize, to airbrush over the blemishes and wrinkles, both literally and figuratively.

But the truth has to encompass both sides of the dichotomy, not just the parts that are pleasant to look at. My tendency to gravitate toward this sometimes uncomfortable intimacy is motivated by my pursuit of truth.

What's your advice for Christian women (and men) aspiring to be artists?

The biggest thing I would say, based on my experience to date, is that you have to work. It's easy to decide to be an artist, to have art-related conversations and think a lot about other people's art, to spend a lot of time planning your next project and amassing all of the necessary supplies. But actually sitting down, facing that daunting blank canvas over and over, and making something out of it will eventually allow you to find your artistic voice.

As far as being a Christian artist, I would just say that if you pursue your faith and your art wholeheartedly, but independently of one another, they will naturally come together in a more organic, authentic way than if you just say to yourself, "How could I go about making art that is 'Christian'?" Be an authentic, passionate Christian, and make good art.

Elizabeth Lev Defends Mom's Decision to Turn Down Notre Dame

Politics Daily contributor Elizabeth Lev fired a smart defense this morning of Mary Ann Glendon's refusal to accept Notre Dame's Laetare Medal and to speak alongside President Obama at the school's May 17 commencement ceremony. Glendon sent a letter Monday saying she could not accept the medal because of Notre Dame's decision to give an honorary degree to someone whose pro-choice policies sharply contradict Catholic teaching. Lev, based in Rome, summarizes Glendon's consistent life ethic nicely:

Professor Glendon was to have been honored for not only for her scholarship, but for her second career, her pro-bono work - ranging from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the great civil rights issues of the present day - namely, the defense of human life from conception to natural death. Her concerns range from the aging and dying population to the unborn to the well-being and dignity of every life, regardless of race, religion, or economic status. Her outstanding work in this field has earned her the respect of the most brilliant minds of the international community, regardless of whether they agree with her position. So again, to see her merely as "strongly anti-abortion" instead of as a tireless defender of the dignity of life, is to reveal not only a lack of understanding of the subject's work, but also the writer's real interest in this question.

The person labeling Glendon "strongly anti-abortion" was Lev's Politics Daily colleague Kaitlynn Riely, whose Monday column criticized Glendon for not being more diplomatic and "engaging someone of an opposing view . . . [Glendon's] diplomatic style seems to be less suited for U.S.-Vatican relations and more for U.S.-Cuba relations," Riely quipped.

Lev helpfully explains why "diplomacy" is not the appropriate response to Obama's presence at Notre Dame or his policies on abortion:

[D]uring his first 100 days in office, President Obama has worked tirelessly to undermine Professor Glendon's lifetime of work; he is funding abortion out of the bailout package and planning to suppress the protection of conscience for health care workers.

Your notion that her "training in diplomacy" might somehow ease this situation does not take into account that she has a five-minute acceptance speech and he will have a lengthy commencement speech. There is no "engaging" here. Diplomacy generally teaches that if you have a rapier and your opponent has a missile launcher, try not to engage.

Notre Dame president John F. Jenkins released a statement Monday saying he intends to award the Laetare Medal to someone else quickly. Meanwhile, look for more from Elizabeth Lev at Politics Daily's own (and newly launched) women's blog, Woman Up.

Humans in Creation: Another View

Earth Day came and went last week, represented on Her.meneutics with a flurry of commenters responding to Kay Warren's piece, "Puppies Aren't People." On the same day, DisneyNature released Earth, a film blending spectacular beauty, heart-warming scenes of animal families, the realities of life and death, and the impact of change. According to Variety, Earth is the highest-grossing documentary for an opening weekend. As my husband, Mark, and I stood in line to buy our tickets, we learned that Disney is planting a tree for every ticket purchased in the first week of the film's release. So far over 500,000 trees will be planted in the fragile Atlantic Rainforest of northern Brazil.

Embedded in Earth's beauty and narration are reminders that ecosystems have been altered in ways that make flourishing difficult. We witness a polar bear struggling to survive, and while we don't see him die, it appears that he does. As the summer ice melts, he loses his platform for hunting and his ability to feed after hibernating all winter. But on the upside, we see mama polar bear introducing her cubs to the world, a bird teaching her young to fly, a whale migrating with her calf, and elephants with their cadre of babies trekking across deserts in search of water. Earth shows mamas at every turn - nurturing, teaching, chastising, carrying, and nudging. (Watch the trailer and get a two-minute sample.)

Earth and films like it serve to remind viewers that we are only one part of creation, and are given the task to bear God's image, which includes being steward caretakers of Earth. We are interdependent with all of creation and need a healthy Earth to flourish. We love others - both human and non-human - as we care for ecosystems that sustain life. What is good for forests and polar bears ends up being good for people, too. Earth reminds us, for instance, that God created trees not primarily for humans to turn into houses or fuel, but to help keep the atmosphere in balance by absorbing CO2 and releasing oxygen. And trees are home to a myriad of birds and insects that God delights in and loves. God designed creation so that all its inhabitants could flourish; humans are just one species, with the unique responsibility to see that others flourish.

It's a challenge to think of creation this way. Mostly, we think of it in terms of what we need from it to survive. I would suggest that we have lost sight of a bigger picture held more clearly by Christians before the Industrial Revolution. Hear C. S. Lewis's wisdom, from Mere Christianity:

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the [man] who turns back soonest is the most progressive. . . . And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.

Lewis wasn't talking about creation care in particular, but the principle fits. And evangelicals are turning around. One example is Flourish, a national conference of leaders on creation care to be held in Duluth, Georgia, next month. It's the first national gathering of its kind, seeking to help the church help all Christians move forward. We are turning, and representing something of God's image as we do.

Going Undercover to Expose Planned Parenthood

The Los Angeles Times recently profiled a college student who videotapes counseling sessions at Planned Parenthood clinics to expose potential wrongdoings.

Lila Rose, a 20-year-old UCLA history major, has led her group Live Action to videotape clinics in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Bloomington, Tucson, Phoenix, and Memphis. In the following video, she poses as a 13-year-old impregnated by an older man.

"OK," the aide says, "I didn't hear the age. I don't want to know the age. It could be reported as rape. And that's child abuse."

"So if I just say I don't know who the father was, but he's one of the guys at school or something?" asks the girl.

"Right," says the aide.

Robin Abcarian writes that the nurse's aide seen on the tape was fired and a second staffer resigned.

The videos are also making an impact in other states, according to United Press International:

In Tennessee, legislators said Wednesday that they will try to cut off a $721,000 contract with Planned Parenthood, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The legislators were inspired by a video made by Lila Rose, 20, a student at UCLA who posed as a minor seeking an abortion at a clinic in Memphis. Orange County, Calif., supervisors last month rescinded a $300,000 grant for sex education. A conservative businessman who had met Rose raised objections to the grant.

The UPI story is unclear, however, whether Rose was breaking state laws while she was video taping.

In May 2007, Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles accused Rose of breaking state privacy laws when she secretly taped her interactions. It demanded she remove the videos from her website, which she did, though they are still easily found on YouTube. (Arizona, Indiana and Tennessee, where she went next, have less restrictive privacy laws.)

Fellow conservative activist James O'Keefe told The Times that he and Rose have received criticism for using deception. "It's a pretty complicated ethical issue," he said, "but we believe there is a genocide and nobody cares, and you can use these tactics and it's justified."

What do you think? In Rose's case, do the ends (uncovering wrongdoing at Planned Parenthood) justify the means (deception)?

A Campaign for (Kind of) Real Beauty

Over the past week, I have mentioned the April issue of French Elle - whose cover features European celebrities without makeup or Photoshop retouching - to nearly every woman I know. Each of them has echoed the sentiments ringing from every corner of the fem-blogosphere: "What a refreshing response," they say, "to the airbrush culture that has become synonymous with American fashion magazines." "How great it is," they gush, "that we can celebrate natural beauty and provide a healthier standard for women."

But Matthew Yglesias of The Atlantic questions the assumption that the "Stars Sans Fards" (translation: "without rouge") on Elle's cover are somehow more "real" or even more "empowering" than the typical fare. He even considers this a step back:

A lot of people have done a lot of work over the years to get people to understand that images you see on magazine covers are not images of actual human beings. They're complicated collaborations between photographers, hairstylists, makeup people, and digital image-retouchers that use real people as an important element of source material. The results have an extremely vivid hyperreal quality to them that we intuitively respond to as if we're just looking at pictures of people, but we can come to understand what's really happening and that nobody ought to beat themselves up over not looking like a computer-retouched image.

So, now that we have "real" models to compare ourselves to - models who are still abnormally beautiful, professionally styled, and photographed in flattering light - might this standard of beauty be just as harmful as its hyper-stylized counterpart?

I think it is. We too often throw praise at the first thing that challenges a negative reality without stopping to think that the response might present its own set of problems. It reminds me of the celebration of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" ads, in which the company celebrated "natural" beauty but ended in allegations of airbrushing. Perhaps this fits with Yglesias's hypothesis: To look to fashion magazines for "real beauty" is to further distort the blur the lines between fantasy and reality the medium has taught us to create.

What do you think about the Stars Sans Fards approach? What does it mean to embrace a healthy standard of physical beauty? It is okay for Christians to celebrate physical beauty alongside the inner beauty that the Father looks for?

Lynne Hybels: Beware! Dangerous Women

I'm not a numbers person, but I keep on my desk a list of percentages that shakes me every time I read it. Did you know that
? Seventy percent of the world's extremely poor are women?
? Almost 80 percent of all refugees are women and their kids?
? Every year, as many as 4 million women and children are sold for the sex trade or to work as slaves?

And consider this all-too-common scenario in the developing world. An unfaithful husband infects his wife with HIV. He leaves, and the young mother becomes sick with AIDS. While her sons continue going to school, her daughters stay home to care for the family. When the mother dies, her property is taken over by male relatives, and her children are taken in by some woman - often a grandmother so poor she can't provide necessities for her grandkids. Many such orphaned girls, uneducated and desperate, become prey for sugar daddies who promise food or education in exchange for sex. Many of these girls become infected with HIV, and the cycle continues. This helps explain another sad statistic: that worldwide, 60 percent of those infected with HIV are women.

I have been shocked to discover how many of the world's injustices disproportionately impact women and girls. Is there anything we can do about this? Is there any hope?

Let me answer with a true story. Barb, a young mother in my church, receives a letter from an organization caring for AIDS orphans in Zambia. She reads the letter to her grade-school son and daughter, and the kids decide they want to raise money for the orphans. Barb comes up with the idea of having a used toy sale, and she helps her kids organize it. All the children in the neighborhood drop off their gently used toys in Barb's garage and help put up signs throughout the community. On the appointed day, kids buy each other's toys, parents buy toys, strangers who saw the signs buy toys. By the day's end, the kids have raised $1,300 for orphans. The next year, they have another sale and raise even more.

Here's another story. The women's fellowship at a poor Nigerian church has an active membership of about 175 women, 90 of whom are widows. So the fellowship starts a "widow's bucket" project. Every time a woman prepares the main meal of the day, she measures out what her family would normally use, then removes a handful of the main ingredient, like rice, beans, or corn, and puts it in her widow's bucket. At the end of the month, she has a full bucket of grain to contribute to the widow's committee at church.

And here's a story I love. My friend Laurie, a real-estate agent, began volunteering for an group that helps African refugees resettle in the Chicago area. As Laurie became acquainted with many Muslim families from Somalia, she discovered how hard it was for the children to succeed in school because they had to make so many adjustments so quickly. So Laurie retooled her schedule so she could work a four-day week and devote her free time to starting a summer-school program to help these kids catch up in school. Staffed with volunteers, the school has transformed the experience of hundreds of children - and their families.

Each of these stories is about a woman who looked at the pain of the world and said, "God, how can I be your hands and feet in this situation? How can I meet this need that breaks your heart?" Then they pondered, got creative, came up with a plan, and took action.

I call women like these dangerous women. They are women who know they are loved by God and want to share that love. They know who they are and what they have to offer, and they don't let fear deter them. Then they radically engage with the needs of the world and make a positive difference.

If it's true that women are disproportionately victimized - and it is true - then I believe we also need to be disproportionately engaged on the solution side. We need to do what Proverbs 31:8-9 commands: "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." I think that's a great motto for dangerous women.

I keep a file of dangerous women I read about in magazines or the newspaper. What they do inspires me to keep thinking creatively and taking action. Consider these stories:

? With welfare reform legislation pending, a Denver social worker realized that
many recipients of public aid would lose all aid unless they found jobs within two years. But most of them lacked skills that would help them move successfully from welfare to work. She reasoned that the food industry was one area where people with limited skills could find work and move up gradually as skills increase. Working with a local restaurant owner and chef, she designed a 16-week, hands-on course that covers everything from knife skills, food preparation, and restaurant service to punching a time clock and kitchen sanitation. After completing the course, women are placed in jobs that provide benefits, medical coverage, and a living wage. Ninety-five percent of the graduates have stayed off welfare by retaining jobs for more than a year. How cool is that?

? While on vacation, a 30-year-old woman read an article about the plight of women in the Congo. When she returned home, she tried to rally her friends to sponsor job training for these women, but nobody listened. She decided she had to do something to get her friends' attention. Despite the fact that she was not an athlete, she began training for a 30-mile trail run in Portland. Her goal was to raise enough money to sponsor one woman for each mile she ran, but she raised three times as much. The following year, she organized similar events in Ireland, Berlin, London, and all across the U.S., raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Congolese women.

? The Red Glove Riders, a group of female motorcycle riders, minister to incarcerated teenage girls. Driving their motorcycles into the gymnasium in a prison youth center, the Riders let the girls sit on their bikes and try on "their leather." The teens are intrigued that women could be Christians and still be cool. The Red Glove Riders are also using their Friday night meetings to learn about HIV/AIDS, and hope to raise funds for orphaned or infected children.

I am convinced that women are the greatest untapped resource in the world. We have gifts, talents, skills, and education. In many cases, we have financial resources that women in the past didn't even dream of having. And beyond all this, we have the tremendous power of Christlike compassion.

One of my passions is to mobilize women on behalf of other women. For some, that may mean responding to the loneliness or grief of the woman next door, while for others it may mean providing food and medicine for women halfway across the world. It may mean offering 40 hours a week for a cause, or scattered hours here and there. But whenever we let God break our hearts with the brokenness of the world, make ourselves available, and think and pray creatively, then God can move us into action and form us into dangerous women.

Read more stories of dangerous women at LynneHybels.com.

The Other Miss California Controversy

By the time a story like Miss California's has been covered on blogs and in tweets for three days, it seems like old news. On Tuesday, the editors at Her.meneutics discussed how to cover 21-year-old Carrie Prejean's answer to celebrity blogger Perez Hilton's question about same-sex marriage in the Miss USA pageant Sunday. At first the story seemed to offer too much hype and not enough meat. But of course, the mere fact that Prejean's answer - which more or less conveyed what many U.S. citizens still believe about marriage and family - got so much attention is the story.

When Hilton, who is gay, asked the politically charged question, "Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or not?" Prejean answered, "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite [marriage]. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

After Hilton went on a slandering blogging and Twitter rant, and Prejean told several media sources that her answer had cost her the crown, many Christian media lionized Prejean for standing up for biblical convictions in the face of public scrutiny. The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins released a statement Wednesday saying, "Put simply, Miss Prejean is right: Marriage can only occur between one man and one woman. Mr. Hilton absurdly wants to translate his opposition to this truth into a standard for beauty pageants." Gary Bauer, president of American Values, apparently sent an e-mail blast Monday saying, "The backlash to Prejean's commonsense comments demonstrates the naked intolerance of the militant homosexual movement . . . And if it gets its way in Congress, comments like [hers] may someday be considered a ?hate crime.' " Even State Rep. Jay Love, R-Montgomery, a Christian, has drafted a resolution supporting Prejean. It states, "Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the Legislature of Alabama that Carrie Prejean . . . is honored for affirming her faith and standing true to her beliefs . . .".

What has surprised me about the Christian media's response is a seemingly inconsistent sexual ethic at play: Celebrating Prejean as the lone voice for biblical convictions in a public square where it's now bigoted to oppose same-sex marriage, while never questioning if a Christian woman like Prejean should be participating in the Miss USA pageant in the first place.

It doesn't take much time on the official Miss USA website to see how much the competition is shaped by prurient interests. Unlike the rival Miss America competition, Miss USA doesn't feature a talent category, where contestants play the piano, sing, or orate. No, the Donald Trump?owned Miss USA pageant only features evening gown, interview, and the ever-popular swimsuit category, in which contestants are judged on how "well-proportioned" their bodies are (i.e., bust and waist size) and how well they can strut in high heels on national television. Maybe some Christian women feel like the ministry opportunities that could come from winning far outweigh the troubling sexual implications of the swimsuit category. Maybe I'm na?ve - maybe some Christians don't see anything particularly troubling about a swimsuit competition. But I'm hard pressed to reconcile a swimsuit competition with Scripture's wisdom about real self-worth and female beauty (Prov. 31:10?31, 1 Sam. 16:7, 1 Pet. 3:3, to name a few).

Therein lies the troubling inconsistency: Conservative Christians are willing to speak up about biblical sexual ethics in the public square when the issue is same-sex marriage, but are neglectfully silent when the issue is objectifying women's bodies to spike TV ratings. Would Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer really have no problem with their daughter or granddaughter competing in the Miss USA pageant?

In an interview with the SBC-affiliated San Diego Christian College, where she attends, Prejean talks about the wonderful things she is already doing for Christ: serving women in the adult entertainment industry, volunteering at the local International Ministry Center to help refugees learn English, and working with a mentoring program to foster-care children. She says, "I especially have a heart for helping young girls with low self-esteem." At this point, I would encourage Prejean to skip the beauty pageants, which set up the very standards of beauty that lead many young girls to devalue themselves, and focus on the far more lasting work she is already doing in the kingdom.

FDA Accepts Ruling, Minors to Have Access to Morning-After Pill

The Obama administration further sealed the deal that girls 17 and older will be able to purchase the "morning-after pill" without a prescription.

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it would accept a federal judge's ruling that lifts the Bush administration's restrictions that limited sales of the pill to women 18 and older. The judge also told the agency to evaluate whether all age restrictions should be lifted.

"The morning after pill," or Plan B, reduces the chance of pregnancy by preventing fertilization or implantation of a fertilized egg.

Progressive activists hailed it as a victory for women's rights while conservative groups argued that it removes the parents' rights or doctors' oversight. "Parents should be furious at the FDA's complete disregard of parental rights and the safety of minors," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

Meanwhile, in Britain, groups are fighting over the country's first television ad for Britain's version of the morning-after pill, which is available to girls ages 16 and up. The commercial was set to begin to air last night. Viewers will see a woman waking up next to her partner and later asking for Levonelle One Step at a pharmacy, according to the The Belfast Telegraph.

Promise Keepers Invites Women to 2009 Gathering

Promise Keepers (PK), the evangelical ministry known for its focus on making men better fathers and husbands, is inviting women for the first time to its main 2009 conference, the ministry announced this week.

"This year we are calling men to bring the women in their lives," founder and chairman Bill McCartney announced Monday. "To celebrate our 20th year of ministry, we are called to do three things: honor our wives, daughters, and sisters, be a tangible blessing to the poor and oppressed, and embrace our Messianic Jewish brothers as our spiritual fathers in the faith."

"The time for Proverbs 31:31 is long overdue!" PK's website announces. "It's time to bring our wives and daughters so that we can honor them together. They need to stand side by side with us as warriors of the faith. Coach will issue a two-minute warning. Like the men of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32), we must understand our times and know what to do. It's time to get ready!"

At its height, PK held more than a dozen large conferences a year across the country and gathered hundreds of thousands of men on the National Mall in a 1997 event, but it has diminished in size and staff in recent years. The lone 2009 event will be held in Boulder, Colorado.

McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach, returned to the helm of the ministry in 2008 after resigning in 2003 to care for his ill wife. After he left Promise Keepers, he started "The Road to Jerusalem" ministry that focuses on Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Kay Warren: Puppies Aren't People

Recently, Rick was trimming a vine around our patio cover and accidentally dislodged a bird's nest with two blue speckled eggs. He brought it to me to see if I thought our grandkids would like to have it. Instead of experiencing pleasure at seeing a beautifully crafted nest, I was distressed. "Oh, that poor mama bird!," I immediately cried. "She's probably frantically searching for her babies!"

Later that week I babysat my grandkids, who are on a strict gluten- and dairy-free diet, and it's hard to find anything decent to eat. I rummaged through the cupboard for lunch fixings and came across a cereal box featuring a cute gorilla. The back of the box featured the story of endangered East African mountain gorillas, and ended with a plea for "sponsorship of a gorilla."

It reminded me of an experience I had at Christmas. Late one night, I was channel surfing while wrapping presents. I normally skip commercials, but on one station, the lovely sounds of Silent Night began playing, and pictures of abandoned dogs and cats filled the screen. A famous singer, her voice thick with emotion, pleaded with viewers to "sponsor" these helpless, abandoned animals with a monthly donation. I felt tears forming as my emotions reacted to the seeming pleas for help in the big, beautiful eyes of these animals. Our family dog had died not too long ago, and I saw her reflected in the faces of the puppies. They had me.

Almost as quickly, I was outraged. Some really sharp people had copied a page from the playbook of relief agencies for orphans and vulnerable children and reframed it around animals. The minds behind the slick campaign knew that combining the familiar, comforting Christmas carol with pictures of discarded animals would create a Pavlovian response in the emotions of caring people. I almost pulled out my credit card! I thought angrily to myself.

Please don't misunderstand me: God put animals under the care of human beings, and we are responsible to treat them with love and kindness (Gen. 1:28). He holds us accountable for his creation - I mean, he's the one who thought up puppies and gorillas in the first place, and we will answer to him for how we cared for and nurtured his planet and his animals. But how did we get to the place where animals - even ones in need - are considered equal to or more important than vulnerable or orphaned children? Animals and people are two different classes of created beings and they will never be equal in their worth. As precious as animals are to our daily existence, they operate from instinct, not volition. Only people have a spiritual dimension. We are the ones created in the image of the Creator, the only ones with a soul. Ultimately, people matter most. Jesus didn't die for animals; he gave his all for human beings.

Because people matter most, the next time you are offered the opportunity to sponsor a puppy or a gorilla, consider the 132,000,000 orphans in our world who would give anything to have a sponsor. But I have to tell you: As great as having a sponsor would be, these boys and girls dream daily of more; they yearn for a mom and a dad, a family - and a home.

Puppies? Gorillas? No . . . children.

Kay Warren is author of Dangerous Surrender, and head of the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church. She wrote a bimonthly column for Christianity Today magazine in 2008.

Blog Comments and Christian Courtesy

When my children learned to talk, they began evaluating my cooking. Their commentary involved words like "I hate fish," "Don't make me eat that," and the all-purpose "Yuck." After a year or two of this, we decided it was time to give lessons in civil discourse.

"If I serve something you don't like," I explained, "you may politely refuse it. A simple ?No, thank you' will do. But if you say you say bad things about the food or about the cook, or if you make unpleasant retching noises, you will have to eat it."

Intelligent children, they decided not to risk a simple, "No, thank you." Perhaps I would take offense at their tone of voice and they would be forced to ingest - heaven forbid - fish sticks! mushrooms! avocado! To guard against such evils, they developed an elaborate approach to food avoidance: "Oh, Mother dear, those mushrooms look scrumptious, but I fear I must decline . . . ".

Several years ago, in an article for the Los Angeles Times, Richard J. Mouw - president of Fuller Theological Seminary and one of the most civil people I know - noted that "the family meal is the primary workshop in civility." Perhaps churches should arrange remedial family meals for people who leave comments on blogs.

I love it when polite, well-brought-up people of opposing viewpoints disagree vigorously. Iron sharpens iron, and let the sparks fly! Mature people know how to do this respectfully. They treat their opponents with courtesy, as they would wish to be treated themselves.

According to Mouw, civility

requires us to show tact, moderation, refinement and good manners toward people who are different from us. But civility also has an inner side - the struggle to get beyond our own perceptions, to see fellow human beings as creatures made in God's image, no matter how defaced and damaged they may appear.

"Every human being is a work of divine art," he says. "I can learn a lot about how to treat an unlikable person with reverence if I keep reminding myself of the value the person has in the eyes of God."

I do not usually like to read comments on blogs, and that includes Christian blogs such as this one. I feel slimed by the name-calling, ridicule, assumptions of bad faith, and general incivility that so often appear among the comments, even from people who are defending me. I don't want that kind of defense.

Honesty is important. Disagreement is unavoidable. Discussion is healthy. But when we discuss controversial issues, can we do so calmly, kindly, and politely, as we would surely do if we were disagreeing with a close friend, at the dinner table?

Is There Such a Thing as Too Many Children?

The last of Nadya Suleman's octuplets has been discharged from the hospital and is now at home with his family. Following a three-month stay at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower, California, Jonah Angel Suleman - who weighed only a pound and a half at birth - now weighs just over four and a half pounds and has been deemed strong enough to survive outside the hospital.

The Suleman babies' hospital stay may be over, but the many questions raised by their birth - questions about in-vitro fertilization, medical ethics, single parenting, and welfare, just to name a few - are still raging.

Nadya Suleman, 33, has become a familiar face online as the single mother of 14 children, the oldest of whom is seven. All of her children were conceived, Suleman states, through in-vitro fertilization. Amid talk that Suleman will soon be starring in her own reality show, is trademarking the name Octomom, and has cost the La Habra police department $4,000 in overtime fees for watching over her family since their move to the neighborhood in March, it's hard to sort out my feelings from the furor.

Suleman didn't ask me for my opinion before she chose to have six frozen embryos implanted simultaneously (purportedly to avoid their being destroyed), but I have to wonder: If she had asked me, what would I have said? The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has established guidelines for the implantation of frozen embryos, guidelines that were not followed in Suelman's case. But who really should get the final say in the matter? The ASRM? The expectant mother? Friends, family, society, the culture at large?

"Fourteen children is too many" is a reoccurring sentiment on chat sites and blogs - especially when the mother is single and a welfare recipient. But how many children is "too many"? And for whom? Can we put a limit on the acceptable number of children to have, and still claim to be pro-life? What would a godly response be to the reproductive choices of others?

"We are gifted with children, rather than entitled to them," Cynthia Cohen says in a recent article for Episcopal Life, "Being Fruitful But Responsible." Cohen, of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, served on the Canadian Stem Cell Oversight Committee for three years. She writes:

Is it possible for us to cherish and nurture children as creatures with their own uniqueness and integrity if we deliberately have more than a dozen of them who are very young? What are the limits to God's call to us to be fruitful and multiply? The Christian tradition teaches that we are to refrain from using our children as mere instruments to fulfill our own desires. They are not our possessions, products or projects; they are our trusts. . . . Children are ends in themselves whom we are to cherish and care for as God's creatures in light of our capabilities and circumstances.

In all the questions raised by the Suleman octuplets' birth, Cohen's thoughts seem like a good place to start our own response.

Re: Evangelical Women in Public Life

Alisa Harris, editor at Patrol magazine, responded to the question we posed last Thursday, "Where are all the evangelical women in public life?" by pointing to prevalent beliefs about women and spirituality. Here's her helpful analysis:

That's what's interesting -- women have more influence inside the church than outside it. Why is this? My guess is that the evangelical church accepts women in the role of spiritual counselors because of the lingering Victorian idea that women are gentler, more spiritual and just all around more naturally virtuous than men. They're good at Bible studies and exhorting people to live good lives. . . . But (so the idea goes) they should do it privately, not publicly since women's sphere is in the home. Not in the pulpit and not in the public square. Also (so they say) women deal with emotions and not reason. It's a way of putting women on a pedestal but also limiting their role, their development, and especially men's development, too.

Harris then links to the recently published Pew Forum survey about women and spirituality, where women self-report that they are more likely than men to pray daily, have "absolutely certain belief in God or a universal spirit," say that religion is "very important" in daily life, have "absolutely certain belief in a personal God," and attend church regularly.

My only quibble with applying the Pew study to explain the prevalence of women leaders inside the church (but not outside of it) is that the study is trying to measure generalized spiritual beliefs, not distinctly Christian teachings. Many female Bible teachers in the church are hardly "lite" or "soft" in their tone, but can pack as much of a punch in their biblical exegesis as the next Reformed pastor. Anne Graham Lotz and Beth Moore come to mind as women who take doctrinal precision seriously. They stand as refreshingly counter-intuitive examples of those who are equally concerned with loving the Lord with their minds as they are with their hearts.

An Apologetic for Ink

A 2008 Harris poll found that men and women get tattooed at nearly identical rates (15 percent vs. 13 percent respectively), but women report saying they feel sexier afterward (42 percent vs. 25 percent). Conversely, 42 percent of non-tattooed respondents said tattooed individuals are less attractive, less sexy (36 percent), less intelligent (31 percent), and more rebellious (57 percent).

This is the crux of my disdain, if not its visceral source: self-perception vs. communal perception. Those 30-60 percent of respondents with negative views may be biased, but they are also potential influencers whose opinions have the power to either limit or expand opportunities. With the barriers women face, why add unnecessary obstacles?

I got a tattoo on my ankle when I was 16. I wanted something small and feminine, but ended up with an unsightly four-inch mess. Over the past 20 years, I've covered the deformed spider lily with thick scar makeup, bandages, and slacks. When I've ignored it, others often haven't, wondering aloud what it's supposed to be. On my 40th birthday, my husband offered to pay for laser removal treatments. I gratefully accepted. After four $300 treatments, I'm left with a faded pastel skeleton of the original design, and an unwillingness to invest any further.

Why then would I get another tattoo?

I did so in honor of my son Gabriel, who died on March 28, 2008. As the first anniversary of his death approached, a friend e-mailed with the news that he had gotten one of Gabriel's cartoon characters tattooed on his chest. This and another character were featured in a series of comics Gabriel created about racial reconciliation. One character is brown; the other is white. One is dressed in a bunny costume; the other in a bear costume. To me, they represent my two sons: one brown and one white. The images are both whimsical and provocative. I now carry them on my right hip, where I once carried my boys.

The new tattoo doesn't make me feel sexier, thank you very much. Slightly embarrassed, if truth be told. I couldn't even articulate why I did it, until I read something from Andy Crouch's Culture Making website. After learning that someone had gotten a tattoo in response to one of his lectures, Andy wrote:

"Somehow it's appropriate that a tattoo embodies, so very literally, play and pain itself," because art is "an exploration of beauty, fruitfulness and wonder . . . yet art also inevitably brings us into pain, confronting the mystery of our suffering and brokenness. . . . We need artists who are willing to do both at once, neither to play without pain (escapist entertainment) or inflict pain without play (which ends up as masochism and cynicism)."

These thoughts sum up well both Gabriel's art and the way I feel about having it etched into my body. The difference between this tattoo and the first is that one is a fashion statement gone wrong, while the other is an embodied act of love. It communicates, if only to me, the indelible mark my son's life and death has left on me.

I would never advise someone to get a tattoo, but I would offer these tips to those considering it: Use discretion, avoid color if possible, and don't make a statement that's bound to be fleeting.

Now, tell me what you think.

See Christine's second tattoo here.

Why Do We Love Susan Boyle?

If you haven't seen the viral video of Susan Boyle yet, take a few minutes to watch it.
It's worth it.

When Boyle appears on the American-Idolish Britain's Got Talent, she admits that she's never been kissed, tells the audience she's 47, and then shakes her hips playfully. The crowd snickers, the judges raise their eyebrows. Within moments of her performance, the crowd rises to their feet to cheer her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream," from Les Miserables. Here are the lyrics from the classic piece:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

Several news outlets have referred to her as the church volunteer, and we know a little bit more from Mary Jordan's Washington Post article:

She always wanted to sing in front of a large audience, but mostly she just sings in church. On Easter Sunday, the day after her television debut, Boyle - dubbed "The Woman Who Shut Up Simon Cowell" in one headline - received a standing ovation when she went to Mass.

"We let out a wee bit of a cheer for her. We are quite proud of her," Boyle's parish priest, the Rev. Ryszard Holuka, said in a telephone interview. He added that Boyle is a "quiet soul."

"At gatherings and anniversary parties, she'd stand up and give a song," he said. "She never flaunted her voice; this is the first time it's been publicly recognized."

As Jordan writes, "Many have said it was a poor reflection on both the live audience and others watching that they were surprised when a 'frumpy woman' turned out to have the 'voice of an angel.' "

Here are some other reactions to Boyle's performance from across the Web:

Lisa Schwarzbaum

In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging - the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts - the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective from time to time.

Andy Crouch

It offers a picture of our age's ?bercynical critics surprised by joy. It gives a glimpse of the creative capacity latent in who knows how many lives. And perhaps therefore it gives us a glimpse of the embodied glories that await us, the grace that waits just around the corner of our hopes and fears.

Mary Elizabeth Williams

What a weight off our shoulders it is to not mock her. What a pleasure it is to see someone do well. How happy we feel, to feel happy for someone else, as the audience leaps to its feet and the judges unanimously praise her. She stands before us all, vulnerable and strong, joyful and clearly moved, and then we stand with her.

Sadie at Jezebel, "Susan Boyle Has Come To Save Us From Our Shallowness!"

To attempt this sort of show, but not to buy into the accepted mold, was an act of impunity that seemed to disregard of all the rules of the game, and made one fear that here was another deluded, oblivious person being exploited for laughs. Our joy was as much relief as surprise. And that joy is very real.

Brett McCracken

Susan Boyle appears to be totally sincere, unpretentious, and joyful. Her countenance - even while singing a very sad song - was constantly ebullient. She was also modest. Most contestants on these shows have a skewed sense of self-importance. Susan Boyle had the opposite - humility where she deserved pride. And it's reassuring to know that people like that still exist.

She's become a YouTube sensation, but why do we love her so much? She walks out on stage, and you expect to cringe when she fails and eventually laugh at her naivete. But you end up laughing in relief as she stuns the crowd - even Simon Cowell.

MIA: Evangelical Women in Public Life

Yesterday, a couple other CT editors and I were attempting, audaciously, to name the most influential evangelicals in public life today. These are people we were calling "bridgebuilders," those who have an activist impulse to reach beyond the walls of the church to shape the broader culture for Christ.

The ones that came to our minds first:
pastors Rick Warren and Tim Keller
political leaders Joshua DuBois, Richard Land, Jim Wallis, and Frank Page
conservative pundits James Dobson and Chuck Colson
apologists Dinesh D'Souza and Lee Strobel
the hard-to-categorize Richard Mouw and Joel C. Hunter

We then spent several minutes trying to find a woman to add to this list of fine leaders, and we left the conversation fruitless. Sure, we could think of a few who had tremendous influence within the church, writing books and teaching the Bible, such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Anne Graham Lotz. But in terms of women doing influential work in American public life, we came up short.

Perhaps our endeavor was based on a faulty premise, that Christians who appear in The New York Times and FOX News are more worthy of our attention here at CT than are those 'normal' Christians who go about the work of ministry in a down-to-earth, local context. Still, can you help us think of the women we have forgotten who are shaping the broader culture for Christ?

Strip-Searched Girl Heads to Supreme Court

Joan Biskupic of USA Today reports:

"I went into the nurse's office and kept following what they asked me to do," Savana, now 19, recalls of the incident six years ago that she says still leaves her shaken and humiliated. "I thought, 'What could I be in trouble for?' "

That morning, another student had been caught with prescription-strength ibuprofen and had told the assistant principal, Kerry Wilson, that she'd gotten the pills from Savana. The nurse and administrative assistant, both women, were alone with Savana in the nurse's office when they asked the girl to take off her shoes and socks, then her shirt and pants. The two women then asked Savana to pull open her bra and panties so they could see whether she was hiding any pills. None was found.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled 6-5 against the Safford school district, concluding, "At minimum, Assistant Principal Wilson [who ordered the strip search] should have conducted additional investigation to corroborate [the] 'tip' before directing Savana into the nurse's office for disrobing." The school district had portrayed itself as being on the frontlines of fighting student drug use, citing a 2006 report from the Office of National Drug Control Policy that said more than 2 million American teens abused prescription drugs the previous year, and that teens ages 12-17 abused prescription drugs more than any other except marijuana.

While the middle school's efforts to fight drug use are of course worthy, it seemingly failed to consider the traumatizing effects of being commanded to get naked - especially for teenage girls who are already sensitive about their bodies. As Carolyn Polowy, lawyer for the National Association of Social Workers (which sided with Redding in a court filing), put it, "We're sympathetic with the schools, but a strip search is sort of the capital punishment of searches. It should be rare, if at all." If a school has scant reason to put a child through that, it's an even less justifiable decision.

We'll see if the Supreme Court agrees.

Test Tube Ethics

President Obama's March 9 decision to open up federal funding to previously unapproved stem-cell lines has brought the related issue of frozen embryos back into the national conversation. Bob Smietana at The Tennessean recently reported on couples who choose to keep embryos in storage despite increasing pressure to give excess embryos for research purposes. Smietana says an estimated 500,000 embryos are frozen in storage - "leftovers" from in-vitro fertilization. Some are being saved for possible implantation, while some are kept because the donors cannot bear to have them destroyed or given away.

But holding an embryo in storage is no cheap investment, costing anywhere from $200 to $700 per year. Many couples pay because they don't want to give the embryos up for adoption (fewer than 10 percent do) or they hope to have another child in the future (50 percent). A small percentage leave the embryos to die by natural causes, whatever that may look like (no one's quite sure yet), while about 20 percent intend to donate the embryos to research.

Here's where the line gets blurry: What happens when science can, in some sense, give life, but doing so involves a high proportion of lives stuck in a freezer for the foreseeable future? And what are our obligations to those embryos when potentially viable frozen life may have the possibility of improving the life of someone else who is suffering?

Doctors and ethicists have been discussing the gray areas for years. It's even a popular discussion in the movies, notably the 1993 film, Jurassic Park, where armchair philosopher Ian Malcolm takes the park creators to task for "creating" life without considering the consequences.

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should," he warns. "I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it."

Malcolm's fictional tirade was a clear commentary on the ethical murkiness of the future of science - and it has become no clearer as of late. The question still remains: What happens when we have the scientific ability to do things once thought impossible, but our ethical framework hasn't caught up to scientific reality? And meanwhile, what should happen to frozen life when the parents stop paying (or cannot pay) to maintain it?

The Secret Life of Beekeepers

Four students came over yesterday to help "hive" our second package of bees. (That's beekeeper lingo for shaking bees out of a shoe-size box into a book-size box.) I'm learning the lingo fast, hoping it will give me confidence. When we learned last summer that the bee population was in decline, my husband, Mark, and I decided to become beekeepers. We spent the year reading, took a beekeeping class for beginners, built our brood frames and supers, and ordered our bees. Mark was out of town when the gentle but weary travelers arrived in Portland, so I hived Lucy, the first "package," to figure out how to do it. Amy, Hannah, Sara, and Allie, who have their own love affair with bees, came to watch and help hive Emma.

"The bee is more honored than other insects, not because she labors, but because she labors for others," said John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople. For Mark and me, beekeeping is less about the honey (though we will enjoy it), and more about preserving the pollinating labor of bees that yield us food. Hives have been hit with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). No one knows for sure what's causing it, but guesses include pesticides, genetically modified foods, effects from transporting bees across the country, cell phones, mites, and disease. The effect of CCD is being discussed in scientific journals, agricultural circles, on NPR, and in Congress.

One theory says that when the bees die, humans have four more years of life on earth. Another suggests that bees are not actually in decline at all. Neither of those lies close to the truth, so I won't grant either credibility by suggesting the truth falls somewhere in the middle. Bee populations are in decline, and the 100 or so fruits and vegetables that need pollinating (like apples, tomatoes, and broccoli) are threatened, but honeybees are not the only pollinating insects around, even if they are the most industrious. Hopefully we won't have to live without them. The recent rise in backyard beekeepers is a collective effort to help bees to help us all.

Keeping bees keeps me mindful of things I don't want to forget. Like that I need worms (that is, the kind that live in the soil) and trees to turn CO2 back into oxygen and rain fall and healthy ice caps in the North and South Poles. Keeping bees reminds me that I need God's good earth to be healthy so that I, and all human and non-human life, can flourish. Second, bees have a community life that reminds me of my need for others. They give each other directions to the sweet peach nectar two miles north over the hill, to the east three miles, then down into the canyon by the creek. They communicate these directions by dancing. I find that lovely. Bees keep each other warm in winter and cool in summer. They share nectar, and take care of each other.

I'll be drawing on bee metaphors for a long time. Here's my final one for now: Like bees, we, especially women, live life in chapters. Bees start working in the nursery the day they hatch out. They become housecleaners (keeping their homes extraordinarily clean), guards, and finally, when they are mature and ready, the pollinating nectar gatherers. Their life cycle grants grace for mine. We, especially women, live life in chapters. Embracing my current chapter as a full-time professor, part-time beekeeper, mother of adult children, and wannabe farmer renews and restores my sense of purpose in this season.

Bible Translated into LOLcat

We've probably all seen them floating around the Internet: those cat pictures, the ones ranging from morbidly obese felines to noxiously cute kittens, captioned with phrases like "Iz mah house!" and "I can has cheezburger?" They're LOLcats, an Internet meme that's become something of a phenomenon.

And apparently, now they have their own translation of the Bible.

The LOLcat Bible Translation Project, begun in July 2007, is nearing completion according to the website. It's a user-edited site — much like Wikipedia — so anyone can contribute translations. There's even a link to learn LOLcat, for those of us not in the know.

The LOLcat Bible is the latest to join the ranks of interesting Bible translations available online, oddly reminiscent of the first few pages of a Gideon Bible, where John 3:16 is printed in several different languages. Online, we can now read John 3:16

* in Klingon: vaD joH'a' vaj loved the qo', vetlh ghaH nobta' Daj wa' je neH puqloD, vetlh 'Iv HartaH Daq ghaH should ghobe' chIlqu', 'ach ghaj eternal yIn

* in Pig Latin: Or-fay Od-gay o-say oved-lay e-thay orld-way, at-thay e-hay ave-gay is-hay only-ay egotten-bay On-say, at-thay osoever-whay elieveth-bay in-ay im-hay ould-shay ot-nay erish-pay, ut-bay ave-hay everlasting-ay ife-lay

* in Quenya: An Eru si' mellero i ambar, i antan' Yondorya nostaina, si' aiquen i s'ver quetierya 'mer qual', mal haryaner cuil' oia

* and, of course, in LOLcat: So liek teh Ceiling Kitteh lieks teh ppl lots and he sez 'Oh hai I givez u me only kitteh and ifs u purrz wit him u wont evr diez no moar, k?'

Fun as the novelty may be of quoting verses in Tolkien's ancient elvish language, at the same time that folks are working on translating the Bible into LOLcat, millions of people around the world still have no access to Scripture in their own tongue.

According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, some 200 million people worldwide have never seen a Bible in their own language. Wycliffe's ongoing mission is to bring Bibles to these people, Bibles translated into their native languages. Vision 2025, an initiative launched by Wycliffe U.K. to begin a translation program for every language that needs one by the year 2025, states that over 2,000 languages are waiting for this Bible translation work to begin. And launching translation programs is just the beginning of the process. Considering that translation of the New Testament alone can take up to 20 years, bringing God's Word to "every tribe and language and people and nation" is quite the daunting project.

And it kind of makes you rethink the humor value of the LOLcat Bible.

Breast-feed, If You Can Afford To

Judith Warner's April 2 New York Times op-ed piece, "Ban the Breast Pump," is sure to stir up a hornet's nest: Warner comments favorably on Hanna Rosin's "The Case Against Breast-Feeding" in the April Atlantic.

A La Leche League enthusiast in the early 1970s, I expected to disagree with Warner. I nursed my two babies for a year apiece, and I was a lot like Rosin's Mama-Nazi playground pals even though I'm at least as old as their mothers. So I was surprised at how much I appreciated Warner's viewpoint, especially this insightful question:

Why, as a society, have we privileged the magic elixir of maternal milk over actual maternal contact, denying the vast, vast majority of mothers the kind of extended maternity leave that would make them physically present for their babies?

As both authors point out, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months - that is, no water, no supplements, no formula, no additional food - and breastfeeding with other foods for the next six months, or longer.

That's easy for the pediatricians to say.

Trouble is, more than half of American mothers of infants work outside the home, and America is one of only five countries in the world that do not guarantee new mothers any paid leave (the others are Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea).

Right now the European Union is pressing member countries to extend fully paid leave from 14 to 18 weeks. By contrast, as the Institute for Women's Policy Research reported in August 2007, "only 8 percent of workers [in the United States] have paid family leave to care for newborns and other family members." Even the companies ranked among the 100 best by Working Mother magazine offer considerably less leave than needed by nursing mothers: over half allow six weeks or less.

Is anyone wondering why so many mothers feel guilty most of the time? When they're not too tired to feel anything at all?

Warner and Rosin, who both breast-fed their children, are pleading for common sense. A woman can only do what she can do. She can't single-handedly compensate for a system that's stacked against her, though she can work to change it. Warner asks,

Why do we keep sticking our heads in the sand, putting all the burdens of our half-changed society on women - their "choices," their "priorities," their bodies - instead of figuring out reasonable ways to make our new family lives work?

To be fair, most companies - especially smaller ones - simply can't afford to give employees paid time off. A good maternity-leave policy requires government assistance. But back in 1993, when Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act, the majority of Republican members of Congress - the ones mostly likely to support "family values" - voted against it, even though it mandated only 12 weeks of unpaid leave and exempted small businesses. It will be interesting to see if President Obama's reform-minded administration will champion maternity leave - and if so, how family values proponents will respond.

Why Melissa Rogers Signed the Health Care Workers Document

Dozens of religious leaders met in Washington with members of Obama's administration last week to go over policy issues. Right before the meetings began, the White House also announced the full Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. One of those members included Melissa Rogers, director of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity Center for Religion and Public Affairs, who joined the council to make sure partnerships between faith-based groups and the government would be constitutionally sound. I recently asked her about the council and why she signed the statement on conscience protections that Katelyn wrote about last week.

Why did you sign the statement urging the Obama administration on conscience protections for health workers? Do you think it will be effective?

First, a bit of background. There are specific conscience protections for health-care workers in federal statutory law. These statutes will continue to exist no matter the outcome of the administrative process - an administrative agency cannot undo federal statutes. The administrative process asked whether a Bush regulation dealing with these issues should be rescinded or retained.

Our statement did not ask the Obama administration to retain or rescind the Bush regulation because we could not agree on that issue. What we agree on is that if the Obama administration rescinds the Bush regulation, it should educate the stakeholders about existing federal statutory protections for the rights of conscience. We also argued that the administration should work with Congress to strengthen the religious accommodation provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, provisions that are broader than the federal statutes that simply address conscience protections in the health-care arena. We believe these Title VII provisions should be amended so that they offer more robust protections for those who seek to have their religious needs respected in the workplace.

As we said in the comments, this should not be a zero-sum game. We should make every effort to honor the rights of conscience while providing access to lawful health-care services.

How is this office different from the one that President Bush established?
The Obama White House has said that ensuring that these partnerships are in compliance with the Constitution is a priority, as is making sure that they are effective and sensibly arranged for both providers and beneficiaries. It has said it won't measure success by how many religious groups or secular groups get government money, but by whether its policy goals (like bringing about an inclusive economic recovery) are being achieved through these partnerships.

The Obama office has a much broader mandate. There is an effort to see, for example, where the areas of agreement are on issues like encouraging responsible fatherhood, reducing the number of abortions, and promoting good stewardship of the environment. And the administration is involving religious and secular communities not only in discussions about social service partnerships but also about what the government's policy should be on domestic and global poverty.

Christians Urge Obama to Keep Conscience Clause

Among those speaking up are evangelicals who belong to Obama's own faith advisory group: Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland Church in Florida, Melissa Rogers, director of Wake Forest Divinity School's Center for Religion and Public Affairs, and Jim Wallis of Sojourners. According to Michelle Boorstein over at The Washington Post's God in Government blog, these three were part of a group who signed a document calling for the Obama administration to "reaffirm its commitment to decades-old federal laws meant to offer some ?conscience' protections," and to indicate what Obama plans to replace the clause with, if anything. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention and Catholic law professor Doug Kmiec also signed the document.

The Christian Medical Association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are among those also urging Obama to rethink his intent to repeal the conscience clause. According to Julia Duin of The Washington Times, David Stevens, president of the 15,000-member, pro-life Christian Medical Association, warned yesterday in a Washington news conference: "In some states, pharmacists must dispense certain medications or lose their licenses. . . . Students are denied admission to medical schools or residency programs because they are not in favor of abortion. Doctors and nurses are losing their job or a promotion because of their beliefs."

Stevens also warned of the many Catholic-affiliated hospitals in the U.S. that may close their facilities all together rather than follow government regulations on abortion and contraception. He noted that 23 percent of his association's members already report facing discrimination because of their beliefs.

For more advocacy information, visit the Be Heard Project or Freedom2Care, or e-mail the Department of Health and Human Services at proposedrescission@hhs.gov. Today is the last day to write.

And stay tuned to Her.meneutics today for an interview with Melissa Rogers!

Marital Rape Law Reconsidered in Afghanistan

After heavy criticism from Western aid agencies and human-rights watchers, Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai agreed over the weekend to review a new law he had supported last week that legalizes forced sex within marriage and places Taliban-era restrictions on women in the country's Shiite minority.

According to The Times (U.K.), which received a leaked copy of the law last Friday, the law requires women to grant sex to their husbands every fourth night unless they are ill, restricts a woman to the home unless her husband allows her to leave, legalizes child marriage by setting the marriageable age at first menstruation, and grants child custody rights to fathers and grandfathers before mothers.

Jon Boone, a freelance journalist based in Afghanistan, explained the law's impact to The Guardian.

"It's a family law which only affects the Shiite community in Afghanistan, which is about 10 percent of the population," Boone said. "The U.N. calls it the legalization of rape of a wife by her husband, so within a marriage a wife is not able to refuse her husband sex."

The law was passed quickly, Boone said, because leaders of the Hazara, a predominantly Shiite community in the country, compose a key swing vote in the upcoming Afghan election August 20 and have been pushing for its passage.

Afghanistan is where, in October 2008, the Taliban killed a Christian aid worker with SERVE Afghanistan in a daylight drive-by shooting. Observers said 34-year-old Gayle Williams may have been a target simply for being a Western woman. Her death, along with those of two South Korean missionaries in the 43-day hostage crisis of July 2007, have led many Christian aid groups to reconsider their presence in the Muslim-majority country where conversion is punishable by death under Shari'ah law.

TV's Women of Faith

Ninety-nine percent of all American homes have a television set. Like it or not, TV is a part of our everyday lives. We can't write if off as trivial; we're watching it, and so are our friends, family, and neighbors. There's a lot of junk out there, sure. But great TV - which is admittedly rare - is no less worthy of our attention than a great movie or book. At its best, a good show expands our understanding of who we are and what it means to be human. It affirms what's universal to the human experience and challenges us to consider the world from another point of view. But what about our point of view, as women and as evangelicals? Who is telling our stories?

I'm hard pressed to think of a female character on television today who thoughtfully approaches issues of faith, but one that comes to mind is the character of Rose on Lost. The show is one of the few on television that actively engages themes of faith - at its center is the fate vs. free will debate - though it does so mainly through its male characters. Rose, albeit a character who rarely sees screen time, embodies a thoughtful, confident faith that does not resort to stereotypes of religious folks. In one of the most moving scenes of the series, Rose prays with a character struggling to make sense of a difficult situation. Her prayer (to "our heavenly Father") comforts, and her faith impacts all those who come into contact with her.

I would love to see more of this kind of character, both to process my own faith and to help others understand the unique viewpoint of Christian women. Lost's nuanced portrayal of faith has led to constructive conversations with friends who would normally dismiss Christianity because of TV's portrayal of them as silly, judgmental, or unintelligent. While TV has a long way to go, Lost represents small steps toward engagement with the issues of faith that make up our stories.

Your Responses: AIDS in Uganda

The initial success of the ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms) program in Uganda was dramatic, with the HIV prevalence rate dropping from 15 percent in 1991 to 5 percent in 2000. (See Avert's lengthy analysis here.) I completely agree with Edward C. Green's statement that "condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa" (emphasis mine) - the primary approach must be based on abstinence and fidelity, because the epidemic in Africa spreads through a vast web of "ongoing multiple concurrent sex partnerships."

However, I also agree with Green's statement that "all people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship." This indeed is how condoms were used in Uganda in the nineties: "The number of condoms delivered and promoted by international groups rose from 1.5 million in 1992 to nearly 10 million in 1996."

Unfortunately, even at its lowest point, the Ugandan AIDS rate was approximately ten times as high as the AIDS rate in the United States. In recent years condom use has decreased (millions of condoms were recalled and burned in 2004, and a severe shortage continued until 2006) as multiple partnering has increased. The Avert report quotes from a Uganda Ministry of Health survey: "The proportion of sexually active Ugandans who reported having had two or more sexual partners in the previous 12 months increased from 2 to 4 percent between 2000?01 and 2004?05 among women, and from 25 to 29 percent among men." Once again, the AIDS rate in Uganda appears to be on the rise.

Sadly, despite the fact that Ugandan women are far more abstinent and far more faithful than Ugandan men, women are two times as likely to become infected with HIV. Yes to everyone who believes that abstinence and fidelity are the most important factors in reducing the spread of HIV. And yes to condoms as a necessary backup measure among people who will not, or whose partners will not, be abstinent and faithful.

Deciphering a Religion Journalist's Deconversion

Former Los Angeles Times journalist William Lobdell lost his faith reporting on both the shiny, happy face of American religion and its cancerous underbelly. I became interested in Lobdell's work when I lived in Southern California and was trying to get a grasp on the region's unique religious landscape. After reading his blog for more than a year, recently meeting him, and devouring his memoir — Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America . . and Found Unexpected Peace — I have a great deal of empathy for the man, as I suspect many religion journalists would. And yet, his conclusions don't ultimately convince.

Lobdell writes that he backed out of his imminent conversion from evangelicalism to Catholicism because he "didn't want to join an organization that was run by leaders so out of touch with the modern world that they never picked up the phone to turn in child rapists — something most of us would do automatically, even if the perpetrator were a member of our own family."

This is a truly na?ve assertion. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported in 2006 that 56.3 percent of child-abuse reports were made by mandated professionals — police officers, medical workers, and educators. Of the nonprofessional reporters, only 7.7 percent were family members. Furthermore, a 1992 U.S. Department of Justice report found that in 20 percent of cases when a female child younger than 12 years old was raped, the rapist was her father.

So should we stop believing in family because fathers rape and mothers often fail to report?

Reason disallows me to concede to Lobdell's assertion that religious institutions are inherently more corrupt than others. One hardly needs to mention financial and political institutions, so let's consider journalism. He complains that Christian media are loath to investigate their own, as if these organizations alone acquiesce to advertising and circulation pressures. As a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Association, I heard similar complaints from a peer at Ms. Magazine. Over lunch, the idealistic feminist lamented that her magazine shied away from reporting on intra-feminist debates because its editors wanted to present a united feminist front and didn't want to lose readers.

Lobdell rightly notes that Christians should be different, but often aren't. And yet, he finds a few radical disciples worthy of praise. It is this disproportion, the very reality that shipwrecked his faith, that correlates entirely with the biblical account of the faithful throughout history, and with our Messiah's short experience on earth.

Thus, I understand Lobdell's deconversion not as the rational decision for truth in light of experience that he claims it be (for if it was, he'd have to handle his evidence far more carefully), but as tragic post-traumatic shipwreck.

In comparing Lobdell's own actions as a father to that of God, he reveals an immature, if admirable, discipleship: "I felt angry with God for making faith such a guessing game. I didn't treat my sons as God treated me. . . . How to hear God, love Him and best serve Him shouldn't be so open to interpretation. It shouldn't be that hard."

Jesus made God's priorities clear when he said that the Law and the Prophets are summed up in the injunction to love the Lord our God with our whole selves and our neighbors just the same (Matt. 22:37-40). Figuring out how to love is the mystery. Ask any parent.

Lobdell fulfilled the mandate to love in his reporting, and perhaps he unwittingly fulfills it still with this red-flag of warning. May the self-described "reluctant atheist" heed his own counsel and apply skepticism to the godless utopians and utopianisms that now tempt him.

Read more about Lobdell at Exploring Intersections.

Meanwhile, What about the Women and Children?

On March 18, my friend Tim Morgan posted an article on Christianity Today's Liveblog called "Why the Pope Is Right about Condoms and HIV in Africa." "You can't resolve [the AIDS crisis] with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard the plane heading to Yaound?. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Maybe the pope had to say that. He's a spiritual leader, and it's his job description to hold up the ideal, no matter how difficult it may be to fulfill in real life. Certainly sexual abstinence and fidelity are the best ways to prevent the spread of HIV. But such either-or idealism may be harmful to millions of people whose morality is exactly what the pope prescribes - the faithful wives and innocent children of HIV-infected men.

According to international AIDS charity Avert, in 2007, 22 million people were living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Only 37 percent of these were men (defined by the survey as males over the age of 15). Women made up 55 percent of the total, and children the other 8 percent. Another grim statistic: 11.6 million children under the age of 18 had lost one or both parents to AIDS.

Granted, condom promotion alone will not stop AIDS. People don't use condoms consistently. African men have strongly resisted using them at all, especially in long-term though non-monogamous relationships. And because many African men must work far from their wives and children for days and even months at a time, multiple families are very common. "HIV, many experts now believe, is spreading through interlinked sexual networks," wrote Nicole Itano in the December 1, 2008, Christian Science Monitor. "And what's needed is a concerted effort to educate people about the dangers of multiple partnerships."

In a March 29 Washington Post article, "The Pope May Be Right," Edward C. Green, director of the Harvard AIDS Prevention Research Project, quoted researchers who concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa." In a Christianity Today interview with Morgan, Green advocates for "promotion of monogamy and fidelity, and male circumcision" as the most effective public policy measures.

But moving from the statistical to the personal, what about the wife and mother who stays in the village to care for her family while her husband goes off to a distant city to work? Estelle, a friend who has worked for a relief organization in several African countries, points out that an African woman does not generally have the option to "just say no," to insist that her partner use a condom, or to leave him and support herself. How can she and her children protect themselves from AIDS if he is not 100 percent faithful to her?

According to Itano's Christian Science Monitor article, a CADRE study "found that many people thought ?faithfulness' meant making sure your partner didn't find out about your other sexual partners." Karen, a missionary friend of mine who has worked for years in one of those sub-Saharan African countries, told me, "Over here, the difference between a bad husband and a good husband is that the good husband uses a condom when he's with a prostitute."

Until the pope sparks a religious revival powerful enough to transform every man and woman, Christian or otherwise, into a totally committed monogamist or celibate, condoms - if used - can help protect the innocent. Of course, faithfulness - if understood and observed - is better than condom use, and perhaps someday it will become the norm. Meanwhile, back on planet earth, how does the pope recommend protecting Africa's women and children?

Priest Who Professed Islam Defrocked by Episcopal Church

An Episcopal priest who professed two years ago that she was also a practicing Muslim has been defrocked by the Episcopal Church.

Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf informed Ann Holmes Redding, who lives in Seattle, of the decision on Wednesday. Although she lives outside the diocese, Redding was ordained in Rhode Island and remained under Wolf's authority.

"Bishop Wolf found Dr. Redding to be a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two yeas have been open, honest and respectful," the diocese said in a statement. "However Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim."

The diocese learned in June 2007 about Redding's Muslim profession. It removed her from ministry temporarily and told her to spend a year on "discernment of her faith commitment."

After that year, a diocesan committee determined that she had abandoned her Episcopal faith "by her formal admission into a religious body not in Communion with the Episcopal Church." She was restricted from public ministry and told she had until Tuesday to determine if she would renounce either her Muslim faith or her Episcopal ordination. The diocese "deposed," or defrocked, her when she did neither.

"I am very sad," Redding told the Seattle Times on Tuesday. "I'm sad at the loss of this cherished honor of having served as a priest."

Redding, formerly a director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, told Religion News Service in a recent interview that her two faiths "illumine each other much more than they collide" and she didn't spend much time on theological disputes.

"My experience and my call is to follow Jesus," said Redding, who was an Episcopal priest for 25 years, "even as I practice Islam."

When Serving Makes You Sick

You grew up a pastor's daughter in Texas. What was your family's experience with burnout?

We moved to Dallas a few months later, and I'd like to say everything has been great since. But almost 13 years later, my parents are still deeply hurt from the last experience. They have only recently started attending a church. . . . Their faith in the local church has yet to be rekindled. That kind of brokenness breaks my heart every day. It also propels me forward with a passion I can't begin to explain.

How do men and women experience church burnout differently?

As I've extensively researched and interviewed thousands of church leaders and their families over the last two years, [I've found] there isn't much difference. Burnout doesn't play favorites.

Sometimes the force behind our burnout may differ, though. Genesis 3 mentions how, after the Fall, men will be slaves to the earth (work) and women will be ruled over by men. I see how many times men chase ministry like it's their work — and find their purpose in what they do. Ultimately, that leads to burnout. And generally speaking, many women fall to the approval of man. We are people pleasers by nature, finding our worth and affirmation of our calling by being a slave to man — not God.

Did you pick up on a burnout "epidemic" at the recent National Pastors Convention in San Diego? Is there truly an epidemic, as the book's subtitle suggests?

Traveling and speaking on burnout since my book released has been an intriguing experience. I've found three kinds of people. The first is open to discussing burnout and is actively creating environments that are healthy. The second group is hesitant, but curious. They may not want to admit they are burned out, but something inside compels them to listen. The third group consists of the people who are in denial about burnout. They don't think it's possible for them or for their staff. It seems like everyone loves their jobs and everyone is passionately committed and running 110 percent.

Burnout, for the most part, is a silent disease. For my first couple of years in ministry, I loved my job. Yet I wasn't taking care of myself. I went from healthy to in the hospital for a week, extremely sick, almost overnight. Everything came crashing down. If only I had . . . had some way of measuring my health, I doubt I would have crashed that hard.

In February you announced on your blog that you were giving up blogging, Facebook, and Twitter for Lent. Was your decision related to a technology burnout of sorts?

I wouldn't say I was burned out, but I was certainly not in a healthy place. My self-worth and emotional being were becoming wrapped up in a giant list of statistics. If my stats tanked, my esteem plummeted down with them. I was finding my value in how people would respond to my thoughts, my questions, my activities. I became passively self-absorbed.

It's been a little over a month and quite honestly, it's been refreshing. My heart has had time to properly withdraw and rediscover where my hope and confidence come from. And how having a platform doesn't mean talking about yourself all the time.

Don't Christians in service need to risk burnout in their love for Christ and his church?

Yes. Yes. Yes. If you look at Romans 12:1, I think we can find what should consume our hearts: "I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice — the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him."

We are only to offer ourselves as a living and holy sacrifice to God. Out of that obedience will the overflow of Christ be present in us. And that presence is required for our ministry (John 15:5).

What spiritual disciplines help to prevent and heal burnout?

Unapologetically being in constant communion with Christ. Through meditating on Scripture, prayer, and simply resting in him, he promises us we'll bear much fruit, more than we could ever ask or imagine. If something is standing in the way of that communion, even if it's your ministry, something has to change. Nothing is worth losing that connection with your Savior.

Lynne Hybels

Lynne Hybels is an advocate for global engagement at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. She is the author of Nice Girls Don't Change the World and helped to produce Hope and Action, a DVD and participant guide that introduces churches and small groups to first steps in addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Lynne and her husband, Bill, have two adult children.

Lynne Hybels: My Lazy Christmas Wish | At 29, 39, and 49, I couldn't imagine an unhurried holiday season. At 59, I have realized that very little matters. (December 16, 2010)

Lynne Hybels: Beware! Dangerous Women | They might just step up and do something. (April 24, 2009)

When Deadbeat Dads Are Really Trying

Family courts around the country are hearing the same story over and over again, according to an article last week in The New York Times: I can't make my child support payments. Can I have the amount reduced?

"Presented with documentation of falling incomes and rising expenses," the article goes on to say, "judges often have little choice but to grant the downward adjustments, even in the face of protests from mothers struggling to support children." Yet for many families, these child-support payments aren't exactly funding the kids' weekly allowance or iTunes purchases. This is money that's going toward rent or groceries.

But what to do? It's hardly fair to force non-custodial parents — mostly fathers — to make payments they can't afford, yet most custodial parents aren't seeing a commensurate drop in their expenses. The resulting gap between income and expenditures leaves families in tight places, as parents — both custodial and non — struggle to find ways to meet their children's needs in an increasingly tight economy.

In Lee County, Florida, this gap has led to a 77 percent spike in contempt orders when non-custodial parents fail to make timely support payments, according to a recent News Press article. And a contempt order can mean jail time. That's a tough sentence for a parent who's trying to do the right thing in the face of layoffs, pay cuts, or unemployment, especially when a court-approved reduction in child support payments can take up to a year to be processed.

It's a tough situation, regardless of how you look at it. So how can we, as Christians, respond to these parents who are struggling in our churches and communities?