Technology's Dark Underbelly

A non-Luddite asks how media saturation shapes our minds and hearts.

Elrena Evans

When news broke that a Pennsylvania school district was using laptop computers to spy on students in their own homes, I did what seemed the only logical thing to do: I panicked. In a world where airports can view detailed images of passengers' naked bodies in the name of security, I confess I often wonder how long it will be until I find myself sitting in Room 101, tracing patterns in the dust and idly scrawling 2+2=5.

Initially intended as an anti-theft device, the laptops that Lower Merion school district was giving to high school students contained the capability to snap a picture, remotely, should the laptop ever be stolen. School officials reported their ability to recover missing computers in a meeting with school board members, but they didn’t specify how.

Unresolved questions about the laptop scandal, dubbed "Webcamgate," prompted Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) to hold a special hearing to investigate the topic of students and remote-tracking software. When the school decided to hand out laptops with anti-theft software installed, “it had no intention of dragging Congress into a national debate about wiretapping laws and webcams,” Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson wrote, “but that's exactly what it got.”

InfoWorld's Robert X. Cringely notes that, even when the laptop scare is resolved, it will not be the end of the story: "The unintended consequences of technology can come back and bite you." The real issue is not whether laptops were used to spy on students; it's that they could have been used to do so. The technology was readily available, so that all the school, or any other nefarious user, had to do was switch it on.

The "new frontier" of technology is in the news so often it's nearly cliché. We know that everything from menu-planning to navigation is different in this Brave New World. But I wonder, in light of the recent technology-motivated scandal, if frequent exposure to these sorts of headlines has made us blasé about technology's implications for culture and the future of humanity.

I'm by no means a Luddite; I've embraced much of the technological revolution, and I appreciate its power to be used for good ends, or, simply, to make my life slightly easier. My 1-year-old son fell asleep in his car seat this morning, and rather than unbuckle him to bring him in the house and wake him up when I had to leave again shortly, I parked the car in the driveway and grabbed my laptop so I could work, in the car, while he snoozed. I appreciate the technology that allows me to write, save, edit, and send this post to my editor when it is finished, all without waking my son.

But I don't often invest the time to think critically about the technology I use. It's just there, a part of my life. What does it mean when you update your Facebook status, enter an address into your GPS, type and print a three-item grocery list because you cannot be bothered to find a pen? How does our relationship with technology inform our relationship with the world as citizens of heaven, first and foremost?

Earlier this month, Google announced the launch of captioning technology that allows YouTube videos to be closed captioned automatically. In a BBC interview, Google CEO Eric E. Schmidt discussed the future of technology as it relates to language translation. Using Google Voice, Schmidt hopes to develop real-time translation software that would allow users to "speak" to people in other languages — "every language that matters," Schmidt said, "in automatic translation."

"At Google we try to build things where you go 'Oh my God,' or 'Wow!' " Schmidt continued. While I didn't say, "Oh my God," I did think "Wow, God, what an amazing way to potentially transform the mission field." Imagine: no more tedious study, no more work on Bible translation. But on the heels of that thought was another, more sobering one: “Every language that matters”? What does that mean? And who decides? It's safe to assume my native tongue will be on the list, but what about the Dani tribe of New Guinea, where a dear family friend spent years living and sharing the Good News?

Last night after our children went to bed my husband and I were discussing Facebook — he’s on, I’m not — and the blurring of public-private spheres that comes with technology like Facebook. It’s wonderful to be able to stay in touch with friends and family members that are geographically distant. I don’t think most people would argue that point. Yet at what point does the connection become too much? Do I really need to know what my middle school Sunday School teacher, say, had for lunch yesterday? And how am I changed by this surfeit of information?

As the world reshapes itself through technology, I’m curious what Her.meneutics readers think about the shape we are taking because of it. What’s good? What’s bad? Where do we need to tread carefully, and how do we know what to do?

Therefore Let Us Keep the Feast

Celebrating the Passover meal prepares Christians for Easter.

Alicia Cohn

Last night’s sunset marked the beginning of Passover for millions of people worldwide. It is the only major Jewish holiday recognized by most mainstream calendars and celebrated by the U.S. President.

Although the Jewish holiday lasts all week, until sunset next Monday, the most widely celebrated aspect is Seder, the traditional Passover dinner (Exodus 12). This is the meal Jesus celebrated with his disciples in the Upper Room before his crucifixion (Matt. 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:17-20). Because of this, it carries special significance to both Jews and Christians.

I had the privilege of celebrating two Messianic Seders last year, and Communion has never been the same since partaking of it within the original context. I highly recommend that every Christian attend a Seder at least once. I am missing it this year, without a community to invite me to its celebration. (Passover, like most Jewish holidays, is family-centered and essentially impossible to celebrate alone.) Surprised by my own intense craving to celebrate again, I did a little research and found multiple locations that offer Seder open to the public. These are hosted for a variety of reasons by a variety of different groups, but few are Messianic.

It’s hard to describe the beauty of a Messianic Passover except to call it a precious balance of Old and New Testament. Specifically, of course, Passover celebrates the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt in the Exodus. But the Exodus is part of a much larger story of God’s proven faithfulness in upholding his covenant with the children of Abraham.

There are four specific times to drink wine during Seder, representing four symbolic cups. The third cup is the Cup of Redemption, also known as Blessing. Most biblical scholars understand this is the cup that Jesus raised and called his blood, as it is the cup taken after the meal (the timing indicated in Luke 22:20). Just as Jesus spoke of a “new covenant” with this cup during his last Seder, I consider my invitation to celebrate Passover with Jewish friends symbolic of the privilege of Jesus inviting me into the covenant. This is also why observing Passover is a great lead-up to Easter: Through his death, Jesus again proved God faithful to his promises.

More churches have begun celebrating Passover over the past few years, raising concern within some Jewish communities about the appropriation. As one Houston-based rabbi told the Houston Chronicle, "They take our symbols, our holiday, our ritual and start investing them in Christian meaning." I agree that the context is important, and I don’t think I would feel very comfortable observing Seder without a guide who understands the rich history of the traditions (on a deeper experiential level than my own). Getting the details of Passover right is difficult if you have not been raised with them. Fortunately, the explanation of why things are done the way they are is built right into the tradition: the same questions are asked, customarily by the youngest member of the family, and answered every year.

But it is not difficult to include Christ in the Passover, because the promise of Messiah is already involved. There is a big difference between Christians celebrating Passover — where celebrating the fulfillment of the promised Messiah (in Christ) is a natural extension — and turning it into a “universal parable” — made even more possible now by digital, customizable versions of the Seder text — as if gaining physical freedom from bondage is the only point of remembrance.

Freedom from slavery was merely proof of God’s promise to Abraham, a promise that encompassed everything in Deuteronomy 28. “God heard [the Israelites’] sighing and groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob,” reads Exodus 2:24, and because of that he not only delivered his people but also delivered them to “a land flowing with milk and honey” (3:17) — the Promised Land. Christians are also celebrating God’s covenant deliverance through Jesus, this year less than a week later, on Easter.

Put this way, Passover and Easter don’t seem like two separate holidays but more like one long celebration. This is a week to count your blessings: every single one of God’s promises and the proof that he keeps them.

Minnesota Man Arrested for Prostituting Wife

Clinton Danner's arrest raises questions about Craigslist's culpability in sex trafficking — and about the church's response to criminal offenders.

Elissa Cooper

A Rockford, Minnesota, man was arrested in Chicago two weeks ago for prostituting his wife using Craigslist, transporting her in a van to hotels in eight states and threatening to take away their 3-year-old daughter should she not comply.

Clinton Danner, 32, met his wife five years ago when she was a 17-year-old attending her family’s church. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Danner held a criminal record for burglary, lottery fraud, and drugs, but was working with a church counselor to change his life. The couple was wed at the church a few months after the young woman became pregnant.

The woman, whose name has not been released due to her victim status, told her parents about Danner a year ago and tried to leave him. Then, while at a downtown Chicago hotel in mid-March, she contacted Polaris Project for help. Founded in 2002, Polaris Project is one of the largest U.S. organizations battling human trafficking. Its hotline, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, gets 400 to 500 phone calls every month.

The woman’s call led to the Cook County Sheriff’s Department involvement and Danner’s arrest March 14. Several metro areas in the U.S. are attempting to change their approach to prostitution, and Cook County has made great strides. The city has educated its police force to better recognize child prostitution and to view prostitutes as victims instead of criminals. (Oftentimes, prostitutes — even if they are minors — are arrested instead of their pimps or clients.)

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart gained attention in 2009 for filing a lawsuit against Craigslist, calling it the “largest source of prostitution in America.” The department said it spent more than $100,000 between January and November 2008 to arrest 156 people who used Craigslist sexual services. The lawsuit was dismissed by a judge. Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster responded to Danner’s arrest with the following statement: “Criminal exploitation is reprehensible, and Craigslist works with law enforcement when called upon to apprehend and prosecute those responsible. . . . Misuse of Craigslist for criminal purposes is extremely unwise, since an electronic trail to the perpetrator is inevitably created."

Last May Her.meneutics editor Katelyn Beaty interviewed Kaffie McCullough, an Atlanta-based advocate for ending child prostitution, when Craigslist changed its adult services guidelines, promising to start monitoring submissions. Adult services advertisers must now pay to publish postings and must list a phone and credit card number. However, Dart and other law enforcement members continue to criticize the site for encouraging prostitution. McCullough called Craigslist the “ground zero for pimps to profit from children.”

Meanwhile, Danner’s arrest raises critical questions for the Christian community. Obviously local churches are called to demonstrate Christ’s love and compassion to even criminal offenders. Yet they are also called to protect innocent churchgoers and to use wise discernment about incorporating such offenders into church life (see Christianity Today’s previous coverage about sex offenders in church). When it comes to responding to those who hold criminal records, does your church have specific policies in place? If so, what are they?

Learning from the Cornell Suicides

The Ivy League school's six suicides in six months serve to remind us of the people in our networks who are struggling privately.

Sarah Cunningham, guest blogger

The public image of Cornell University, the Ithaca, New York, Ivy League school, changed drastically this month when news broke that a third student in one month had committed suicide by jumping from Cornell’s famed gorges, following three other student suicides since October.

The March deaths of Bradley Ginsburg, William Sinclair, and Matthew Zika contributed to the stigma the press attached to the Ivy League school. The gorges’ eerie presence on campus didn’t help shake the labels. The natural landmarks served as an unusually public stage for suicides, and an all-too-effective reminder of the deaths for students forced to cross them on the way to class.

Cornell's administration responded quickly, posting guards at the bridges overlooking the gorges and sending staff to every campus dorm to search for students struggling to cope. Administrators have created a website compiling news related to the recent deaths and mental-health resources.

It's perhaps logical for the press and public to view the tragedies and Cornell’s response with increased concern. What is wrong at Cornell? The questions began. Is such a competitive academic program too much for most young people? But even with the rash of suicides, Cornell is no more a “suicide school” than other similar-sized universities. The Big Ten Suicide Study (1997), the most recent comprehensive study on college suicides, found that students in higher education programs are half as likely as non-college-bound young people to take their own life. The suicide rate for students in higher education is 7.5 per 100,000, compared with the national average of 15 per 100,000 among same-aged counterparts. By these numbers, Cornell, with some 20,000 students, falls within the national average for a school its size. In most years, it falls below the general average for overall deaths by suicide in the U.S., which is 10.9 deaths per 100,000 people. In fact, Cornell did not lose any students to suicide between 2005 and 2008.

Christians are wise to let Cornell’s tragedy serve as a corporate and personal reminder about how we communicate love and meaning. There are likely people in our lives who struggle with private depression, wrestling with deep questions and insecurities that do not often play out in settings as public as Cornell’s gorges. I was personally reminded of this earlier this month upon hearing that one of my former students took his own life at age 21.

Personally, it encourages us to be more attentive to those in our social spheres. We might note, for example, if certain colleagues or clients are disconnected from support systems. We might listen with greater care as peers reflect on what they view as their “underperformance” in some areas of life. We might develop habits that affirm God’s hope and blessing for every person, regardless of their educational, career, or life performance, and regardless of past mistakes.

Corporately, Cornell serves as a Bradbury-like metaphor. The society in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 relies on a suicide-response team of non-medical personnel, who show up to pump a person’s stomach with the same sensitivity one might show when fixing a flat tire. Bradbury’s social critique serves to warn that we must seek a quality of life that addresses abortion and end-of-life care but also encompasses the ongoing treatment of mental health issues. As we use our public voice to advocate for health care reform, we would do well to acknowledge hidden illnesses that claim more lives than many traditional diseases treated by the medical field.

Most importantly, those who raise the voice of faith in this generation can communicate the meaning and value of every human life — a value that extends beyond the intellectual prowess of Ivy League universities to one inherent to everyone who bears the imago Dei. If someone you know voices suicidal thoughts, it is best to lead them to professional counseling or medical assistance. Friendship and support during the process of seeking help can be a valuable aid to someone in this vulnerable stage. Listening and prayer also help. If a person’s impulse to take his life is disrupted by an expression of care or hope, the support may — at least initially — prevent the person from following through.

Also, churches can offer support by distancing themselves from judgmental or “punitive” responses to suicide, and instead treat those with suicidal tendencies with a concern that reflects Christ’s heart for the vulnerable. Local congregations can invite those who are struggling into small groups, ministry teams, and other activities where they may grow friendships with a wider base of loving people. With steady reminders of God’s love and affirmation, people may become more able to enjoy his purposes for their lives.

Like many facets of nature, Cornell’s gorges hold the potential for both destruction and beauty. It is in learning from these tragedies, and in nurturing God’s intentions in the world around us via personal and corporate faith, that we help bring goodness back to places marked by darkness.

Sarah Raymond Cunningham is a wife, mother, and the author of the memoir Picking Dandelions: a Search for Eden Among Life’s Weeds (Zondervan, 2010). She blogs at SarahCunningham.org.

Mixed-Gender Housing, and Mixed-Gender Friendship

Christian colleges likely won't let men and women room together anytime soon. Will they teach men and women how to be friends?

Marlena Graves, guest blogger

Should men and women room together at college? Last week the Los Angeles Times reported that close to 50 campuses across the U.S. permit those of the opposite sex to room together in what's being called "gender-neutral housing." According to the article, “the movement began mainly as a way to accommodate gay, bisexual and transgender students who may feel more comfortable living with a member of the opposite sex. Most schools say they discourage couples from participating, citing emotional and logistical problems of breakups.” The majority of heterosexuals participating in the gender-neutral housing programs say they are not romantically involved. Although few students participate in these programs, colleges that do offer gender-neutral housing programs contend that their students should have the option of rooming with whomever they feel most comfortable.

It's almost certain that this housing trend will not be showing up on distinctly Christian college and university campuses anytime soon. (Nor should it.) However, the Los Angeles Times article highlights something I’ve been pondering lately: What more can Christian universities do to foster wholesome friendships between the sexes while keeping healthy boundaries?

This semester at Cedarville University, the Ohio Baptist school where I'm a resident director, I’ve noticed panic among many of the single women who are approaching graduation. Part of their panic is fueled by a fear (whether real or imagined) that the odds of meeting a godly man will dwindle once they graduate. Just a few weeks ago, I spoke with female nursing majors who lamented that, during their college experience, they'd had very few opportunities to interact with the men on campus. “It’s so bad, we don’t even know how to relate to a guy. We can barely carry on a natural conversation,” they told me. They wished for more opportunities to hang out with guys. After my conversation with these women, I starting thinking of additional ways our dorm could foster opportunities for healthy, meaningful interactions between men and women.

At Cedarville, men and women are housed in either separate dorms or separate wings of a dorm that are separated by a coed lounge. Two to three times a semester, we have open dorm nights, during which students can visit the dorm rooms of the opposite sex during a three-hour window. Doors must remain open and lights on. Resident assistants and resident directors make their rounds during open dorms to ensure that students abide by the rules. Students also have a curfew: 12 a.m. on weeknights and 1 a.m. on weekends.

So we have rules to keep students safe and to (hopefully) curb sexual immorality. And we talk constantly about sexual purity and modesty and men’s roles and women’s roles and dating relationships. Yet with all of these rules and all of this talk on our campus and on evangelical campuses throughout the nation, we demonstrate our obsession with sex — mimicking the broader culture's sexual obsession. There is more to male-female relationships than sexual attraction and acts, or the lack thereof. And that is what I want my girls and other students on campus to learn. I want them to have the opportunity and skills to develop Christlike friendships with the men on campus and those they meet outside of Cedarville. And for that to happen, the Christian community desperately needs to re-imagine and prayerfully and deeply reflect on how Christian men and women relate to each other. We need people in the church creatively thinking about and presenting new holistic paradigms for life together — for friendships between the sexes.

This summer, I will be thinking of holistic ways to help male-female friendships flourish. It is not something I can do alone; I’ll have to draw on the wisdom of the Christian community. Unlike some of my peers at secular institutions, I don’t think coed dorms and bathrooms or gender-neutral housing programs are the way to go. But what might be some fruitful ways to foster friendship between the sexes?

Marlena Graves (M.Div., Northeastern Seminary) is a resident director at Cedarville University. She blogs at His Path Through the Wilderness, and has written for Her.meneutics about the sin of self-promotion, and students who experience same-sex attraction.

Top 10 Posts of the Past 30 Days

The posts that got readers talking over the past month.

Katelyn Beaty

Thanks to both faithful readers and stumble-upon visitors of the CT women's blog for making March a very successful month so far! We reviewed three new books that opened up important discussion about gender-based education, the toxic cosmetics industry, and race-based injustice in American history. We also heard from a number of new Her.meneutics bloggers, including Ellen Painter Dollar, Amy Julia Becker, and Michelle van Loon. And, of course, Joni Eareckson Tada's concerns about the now-passed health care bill got a lot of attention.

Stay tuned to Her.meneutics this spring as we talk to Nashville-based counselor Marnie Ferree about female sex addiction, review a forthcoming book on Jane Austen's Christian faith, and ask whether plus-size models are any better than rail-thin models. And if there are topics you'd like to see us cover, e-mail editors Katelyn Beaty (kbeaty[at]christianitytoday.com) or Sarah Pulliam Bailey (spulliam[at]christianitytoday.com).

(10) A Black Maid's Expose, by Sarah Pulliam Bailey // Comments: 10
First-time novelist Kathryn Stockett's The Help uses compelling narrative to illustrate the power of truth telling.

(9) Citing Modesty, Two Women Refuse Full-Body Scans, by Katelyn Beaty // Comments: 15
Pope Benedict and Muslim scholars have warned that the scanners — slated for major U.S. airports — violate principles of human dignity and chastity.

(8) Eliminating Suffering or Eliminating People? by Amy Julia Becker // Comments: 10
When genetic testing threatens our common humanity.

(7) Gay Marriage Leads D.C. Archbishop to End Foster Care Program, by Julia Duin // Comments: 64
Catholic Charities has given its caseload of 43 children, 35 foster families, and 7 staff members to a Maryland-based family-care agency so as not to disrupt client care.

(6) Pregnant Olympians Are Not "Selfish," by Caryn Rivadeneira, guest blogger // Comments: 10
Women like Kristie Moore show that parenting well and taking healthy risks are not mutually exclusive — especially when taking risks means obeying God.

(5) Lead in Your Lipstick, Carcinogens in Your Hair Color, by Stephanie Krzywonos, guest blogger // Comments: 12
Most of the personal care products you use every day are damaging your health, argues Samuel Epstein in Toxic Beauty.

(4) Why Boys Are Failing in the Classroom, by Michelle van Loon, guest blogger // Comments: 10
The author of Why Boys Fail says females now have an unfair academic advantage in most schools — and that the pendulum needs to swing back.

(3) "Why Don't You Just Adopt?" by Ellen Painter Dollar, guest blogger // Comments: 19
The frequent question assumes that adoption is both easy and morally superior.

(2) Health Care Bill Concerns, by Joni Eareckson Tada, Religion News Service // Comments: 58
Protecting the least among us in health care reform.

(1) Are Chick Flicks "Emotional Porn"? by Laura Leonard // Comments: 26
It depends on how you view them.

Get Your Free Human Eggs

A recent in vitro fertilization 'raffle' in London entices British women with an unregulated American fertility market. But it's too easy to dismiss that market as a money-grubbing enterprise.

Ellen Painter Dollar, guest blogger

Imagine that you are a woman with an intractable medical problem. You awake each day desperate to find a way to live the life you have dreamed of. Your doctors have offered increasingly sophisticated, invasive, and expensive treatments, to no avail. You have depleted your savings, and your insurance coverage is inadequate to pursue further treatment.

You attend a seminar about a treatment that has helped other women with your problem. A raffle will award one attendee a free treatment from the seminar’s sponsor. When the seminar ends, the speaker announces the winner’s name to the hushed crowd. It is your name. Maybe, just maybe, your nightmare is over. This treatment could work. And you will not have to pay a dime for it.

Sounds like a dream come true, right? But what if the medical problem in question is infertility? And what if the grand prize is an in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle that includes another woman's donated human egg? And what if the raffle, held in London and sponsored by an American clinic, was designed to market a kind of medical tourism, in which British women travel to America for IVF with donor eggs?

According to news reports, including this one from The Washington Post, the seminar’s sponsor, the Genetics and IVF (GIVF) Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, insisted that they were not raffling human body parts, but instead offering free medical treatment. When I initially heard about the raffle, I was troubled by such blatant commodification of human reproduction. But I could not dismiss out of hand GIVF's claim that they were simply trying to help those who needed their services. Shortly after we got married, my husband and I met with the same GIVF physician who is quoted in the Post article. Because I have a genetic bone disorder, we explored conceiving via pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which is IVF with an added step of testing fertilized eggs for a particular genetic anomaly. Although we never received treatment from GIVF, my experience there and later at a fertility clinic in Connecticut showed me that we cannot disparage all fertility clinicians as money-grubbing marketing machines.

Still, I am troubled by the ethical implications of the egg raffle. GIVF said that they have given away treatments at American seminars, to American women, without any fuss. To me, the fact that similar American giveaways generated little controversy, rather than revealing that the furor over the British seminar is overblown, actually uncovers a troubling aspect of fertility medicine: how much more market-driven, and how much less regulated, the American fertility industry is compared with its European counterparts.

In Britain, egg donors are reimbursed only for personal expenses, and must agree to allow children conceived with their eggs to contact them once the children reach age 18. American donors remain anonymous and are paid thousands of dollars. British women, with little access to donor eggs, are highly motivated potential clients for American clinics. In Britain, a government agency regulates reproductive medicine, developing mandatory guidelines for fertility clinics. In the U.S., oversight of reproductive medicine relies on clinicians’ regulating themselves by creating voluntary guidelines and censuring practitioners who go to extremes. An example: the doctor who helped "Octomom" Nadya Suleman conceive octuplets by transferring six embryos during an IVF cycle — far more than voluntary guidelines recommend.

In reading about the IVF raffle, I am unsatisfied by the arguments on both sides of the debate. The detractors raise important alarms about the commercialization of reproduction, but perhaps fail to take seriously enough the motivations of infertile couples who are seeking a child to love, not a product to buy. The supporters' intentions to help infertile couples are worthy, but they appear a bit tone deaf in their refusal to acknowledge the market orientation of their medical specialty and the “ick” factor of raffling off a human egg.

Christians are obligated to care for everyone involved in fertility medicine — prospective parents, embryos, babies, and clinicians. Forming compassionate, educated positions on ethical questions is hard, especially when we take seriously the needs, motives, risks, and rewards affecting all of those involved. It is much easier to focus solely on one group’s concerns — the dignity of unborn babies, the longing of couples who just want a baby to love, physicians’ duty to help patients. It is much easier to choose sides in a provocative debate summed up with a few soundbites in a news article, instead of really listening to all the stories behind the story.

Ellen Painter Dollar is a writer who focuses on Christian reproductive ethics and disability theology. She is writing a book for Westminster John Knox Press (forthcoming in 2011) about the ethics and theology of assisted reproduction and genetic screening. She blogs at ChoicesThatMatter.blogspot.com and Five Dollars and Some Common Sense. She has written for CT about disability and genetic testing.

The History of Glenn Beck's 'Social Justice'

While warning of a 'perversion of the gospel,' the radio commentator mangles recent American religious history.

Elesha Coffman, guest blogger

Setting off waves of debate in recent weeks, conservative radio host Glenn Beck advised his listeners on March 2 to leave their churches if they found signs of commitment to “social justice” or “economic justice.” Beck called such language “code words” and “a perversion of the gospel,” and he linked it to totalitarian regimes. Christians across the political spectrum called Beck out on his misreading of the gospel and of the American religious landscape. Beck’s grasp of history was just as shaky, but he did not catch as much flak on this point. A better sense of recent American religious history helps to explain both the appeal of Beck’s rhetoric in certain circles and its fallacy.

The “social” half of Beck’s key phrase entered religious discourse around the beginning of the 20th century, with the Social Gospel movement. A response to the suffering, displacement, and dramatic inequity of wealth brought about by the Industrial Revolution, the Social Gospel advocated a shift toward more holistic salvation. One of the theological architects of the movement, Walter Rauschenbusch, spent part of his early career as a pastor in the squalid Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City, and he came away convinced that human problems ranged much farther than the need for individual conversion. His books included Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), an exhortation for Christians to move beyond sedate, Victorian piety and embody Christ’s message in a desperately needy world.

The Social Gospel met resistance on many fronts. The movement’s leaders drew heavily on new academic disciplines like psychology and sociology, at times privileging these scientific insights over Scripture. The movement also flirted with Marxism, as, for example, in Washington Gladden’s book Christianity and Socialism (1905). Many American Christians were not prepared to exchange their image of Jesus as gentle and nurturing — the characteristics most emphasized by late 19th-century art and literature — for the image of Jesus as a social reformer, even a revolutionary.

The Social Gospel caught hold in many seminaries and denominational hierarchies, particularly in the sector of American Protestantism that would later be called the mainline, but more conservative Protestants generally spurned or ignored it. As the fundamentalist-liberal controversy boiled over in the 1920s, emphasis on the Bible and on individual salvation, the hallmarks of fundamentalism, became divorced from social concerns. The separation was not complete, as fundamentalists engaged the world through all kinds of missionary and outreach efforts, while liberals continued to read the Bible and love Jesus, but intense skepticism regarding the other side’s motives was mutual. Certain terms, book titles, and institutional affiliations did become “code words” in this charged atmosphere, as caricature often replaced dialogue.

The “justice” half of Beck’s formulation came later, with the civil rights movement of the 1950s. Earlier Social Gospel advocates opposed injustice, but they were less likely to seek judicial solutions to broad social problems than were civil rights activists. As the famous photographs of fire hoses turned on unarmed protesters attest, civil rights met much fiercer resistance than the Social Gospel, frequently (though by no means exclusively) from the same fundamentalist-evangelical wing of American Protestantism that fought the earlier movement. These Protestants by and large did not see affirmative action, school busing, and related efforts as justice, but rather as unwarranted federal encroachment into private lives.

And so, if the phrase “social justice” communicates a combination of the Marxist follies of the Social Gospel and the identity politics of civil rights, conservatives, as Beck assumes, are going to run the other way. But this is not what the phrase means to very many people. In recent decades, evangelicals have taken up many Social Gospel and civil rights impulses, both domestically and abroad. Evangelicals have confronted urban crises and weighed in on public policy. They have shown concern for underprivileged members of society and sought to increase diversity in their churches and schools.

The thing is, evangelicals tend to call these impulses by other names, obscuring their connections to liberal crusades. Instead of the Social Gospel, evangelicals speak of redeeming culture. Instead of civil rights, evangelicals talk about “the least of these.” Conservative Protestants have not adopted either the Social Gospel or civil rights wholesale by any stretch, but there is enough overlap in concern (if not necessarily in proposed solutions) that “social justice” is hardly anathema.

Beck is decades out of date in his characterization of conservative Protestant thinking. In 1973, a document titled “The Chicago Declaration” launched Evangelicals for Social Action and the evangelical left more generally. A few years later, in 1977, a more conservative group of evangelicals issued “The Chicago Call,” a very different document that nonetheless also showed deep concern for social issues. It included a “Call to Holistic Salvation,” stating the following:

Wherever the church has been faithful to its calling, it has proclaimed personal salvation; it has been a channel of God’s healing to those in physical and emotional need; it has sought justice for the oppressed and disinherited; and it has been a good steward of the natural world. As evangelicals we acknowledge our frequent failure to reflect this holistic view of salvation. We therefore call the church to participate fully in God’s saving activity through work and prayer, and to strive for justice and liberation for the oppressed, looking forward to the culmination of salvation in the new heaven and new earth to come.

Evangelicals figured out how to pursue evangelism and social justice years ago. Hopefully Beck will get the memo.

Elesha Coffman is assistant professor of history at Waynesburg University in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. She regularly contributes to the Christian History blog.

Addicted to Books

My love of reading has too often become another way to stay busy rather than practice 'holy leisure.'

Ruth Moon

I took three books with me when I went backpacking last weekend.

When you’re a backpacking novice like me, every ounce in your backpack matters; after the first mile, you are ready to toss everything except maybe a water bottle and M&Ms to keep you going. My friend and I debated leaving part of the tent behind, and discussed the merits of toilet paper, but I never considered leaving my books behind. And if I had left them, I would have been reading the backs of our dried fruit packages when we stopped for breaks.

I love to read.

I read War and Peace on a dare when I was 15, read the backs of cereal boxes and shampoo containers when I eat and shower, and rarely leave the house without a book.

So I identify very much with journalist Bibi van der Zee, who decided to go “cold turkey” from books for a week, and wrote on her experience in The Guardian earlier this month:

I am usually reading three, sometimes four books, with a pile of books waiting in case I run out. I never leave the house without my book, and if I'm taking a train I'll usually have a back-up book in case I finish the first one. I'd rather read than do housework or laundry, and sometimes I'd rather read than talk to friends or husband or family.

Van der Zee went on her “book fast” because, she says, she often senses that "books are eating you up instead of the other way round.” I can identify. I try to read good literature, but even so, occasionally I find myself reading so much that I don’t stop to process what I’ve read. I read the last page of Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young and Handsome (a book I highly recommend) and proceeded on to an essay on terrorism I had been reading in The New Yorker.

Now, I’m happy to praise the benefits of reading. In a recent interview with Her.meneutics, Sarah Clarkson made an excellent point about reading as a way to strengthen imagination and, thus, a grasp on spiritual reality:

In the realities of modern life it’s easy to not be able to see the spiritual consequences of the choices you’re making or to understand yourself as part of a great story God is writing. By strengthening your imagination through stories, you’re strengthening your ability to see all of life as a story and enter into the realm of the spiritual world.

But in a world where so much of our time is structured and filled, books can be a trap, another way to add structure and busyness and doing to an already over-structured life. It seems to be a common complaint that “the Internet” — blogs, a constant news cycle, and Twitter — are destroying reading time, and we should counter the trend by reading long books printed on actual paper. But why do we assume that reading longer things, with older technologies, is better?

A student dean, in a recent Harvard Magazine article, described the university’s students as “unbelievably achieving . . . [and] always on. They prefer to be busy all the time, and multitask in ways I could not imagine.”

I’m sure many readers can relate to the feeling of busyness and multitasking, preferential or not.

The reporter goes on to say,

The paradox is that students now live in such a blur of activity that idle moments for such introspection are vanishing. The French film director Jean Renoir once declared, "The foundation of all civilization is loitering," saluting those unstructured chunks of time that give rise to creative ideas. If Renoir is right . . . then civilization is on the precipice: loitering is fast becoming a lost art.

The art of leisure is something I’m not sure I even understand; why would I take time to sit still when I could be studying, cooking, cleaning, or (especially) reading? But it is tied to the spiritual discipline of meditation, the art of “inward silence” and “holy leisure” that Richard Foster calls, in his classic Celebration of Discipline, “a time to become still . . . [and] allow the fragmentation of our minds to become centered.” Meditation is not even a structured time for processing information: “This is not a time for technical studies, or analysis, or even the gathering of material to share with others.” It is a time to be still and silent, to let God speak and guide, and to come to know him better. Books as a time-filler seem a poor second to the practice of holy leisure.

This isn’t to say a full stop to book reading is the thing to do. My point is that reading can be escapism or real-world discipline; it can be structure or leisure. It can be creativity-inducing or creativity-killing. The question is how to distinguish between the two, so that the discipline of reading remains a useful tool rather than a spiritual blind.

Finding the Right Words for Disability

Following Jesus' example in John 9, I want to see beyond 'the problem' when I encounter people with disabilities.

Amy Julia Becker

The word retarded has made the news lately. The Special Olympics designated March 3rd as a day of awareness about the hurtful and inappropriate ways that word is used. Before that, Sarah Palin excoriated Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s Chief of Staff, after he used the word to describe some of his fellow Democrats. Palin went on to defend Rush Limbaugh in his use of the word to also describe the Democrats, something that caused another round of blogposts and op-eds.

It’s great to draw attention to a hurtful word. But the problems within our culture go far deeper than the use of the word retarded as a slur. When it comes to talking about disability in general, even those of us who want to be sensitive, just, and kind often don’t know what to say or how to say it.

I write as the mother of a child with Down syndrome, yet I’ll be the first to admit that I also struggle with language here. Do I call it "disability"? "Special needs"? "Developmental delays"?

The most telling example of my own loss for words came a few months ago. My daughter Penny and I went to a birthday party, and I met another mom. She said, "I have a child with special needs, too." She pointed out the window. "My daughter is ten. She's the one with the walker."

Over the course of the afternoon, I found myself watching this woman's daughter, whom I’ll call Abigail. Abigail fed herself pizza. Abigail's body looked like spaghetti. She could crawl and walk with the walker, but she couldn't navigate the stairs. I didn't hear her speak more than one syllable, and the meaning of her utterances was often unclear to me. Abigail was thin and tall and beautiful, with smooth skin and kind eyes and a gorgeous smile.

And I didn't know what to say. I wanted to get to know Abigail and her mom, yet all I could do was watch. I thought about asking, "What is her diagnosis?" Or, "Where is she in school?" Or, "Do you like your therapists?" But all those questions seemed wrong, somehow, focused on figuring out Abigail's "problem."

And I wondered, how would Jesus have talked to Abigail's mother? How would Jesus have interacted with Abigail?

There are plenty of examples in the Gospels of Jesus ministering to people with disabilities of both the mental and physical variety. But John 9 serves as a particularly telling instance of the way Jesus both talks about disability and interacts with people with disabilities. It is here that the disciples ask the winning question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). They betray their assumptions immediately: Blindness is the result of someone’s personal sin. They also betray their own blindness. They fail to see the man who is standing right in front of them. Instead they see a problem, a theological conundrum for Jesus to solve.

Jesus answers, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (v. 3). He goes on to spit on the ground and apply a poultice of mud to the man’s eyes. He instructs the man to wash himself, and the man finds that he can see. Jesus overturns assumptions immediately, not only in his answer but also in his refusal to reduce the man to a problem and his insistence on seeing the man as a human being. Jesus touches him. He allows the man to participate in his own healing. And the man becomes a witness to Jesus. He coins the phrase, “I was blind, but now I see!” (v. 25).

The scene ends with the man coming to faith in Christ, and with Jesus confounding the Pharisees: “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” (v. 41). Back to the disciples’ original question: It is not the blind man who can’t see. It’s the rest of us.

This passage in John 9 teaches us at least three things. One, people with disabilities provoke questions, and often the questions are spiritual in nature. Two, Jesus overturns easy assumptions about the nature and cause of disability. Three, Jesus affirms the full humanity of persons with disabilities, while at the same time demonstrating the brokenness of everyone, with or without disabilities.

After my experience at the birthday party, I finally hit upon what I wish I had said. I realized I didn’t really want to know Abigail's diagnosis. What I wished I had asked was, "What do you and Abigail enjoy doing together?" "What are the things you love most about your daughter?" "What makes Abigail special?"

I identify with the disciples, but I want to be more like Jesus. I want to reach out to those who are different from me. I want to understand our common humanity. I want to see the places in my heart and soul that leave me far less able to worship God than any physical or mental limitation ever could.

Language matters, as the Special Olympics and Sarah Palin have recently pointed out. But what matters even more is the language of our hearts.

Joni Eareckson Tada: Health Care Bill Concerns

Protecting the least among us in health care reform.

Joni Eareckson Tada, Religion News Service
A few years ago, I helped write a book, How to Be a Christian in a Brave New World, about the bioethical challenges in the 21st century. Today, one of our foremost ethical challenges is how to accomplish health care reform in a way that respects most Americans' traditional religious values.

As a quadriplegic for the past 43 years, I have had more than my fair share of doctors' visits and medical treatments. I know the difference between good care and bad care, and I can tell when a physician has my best interests at heart. I am thankful that, for the most part, my doctors have always treated me as the individual I am rather than just another patient in a wheelchair.

For these reasons -- my faith and my experience with medical care -- I am very concerned about two specific items that currently exist in proposed health care legislation:
-- Federal funding of abortions
-- Rationing of care.

Proposals in the current House and Senate health care bills would set up a health insurance marketplace to benefit small businesses and people buying coverage on their own, with the promise of some subsidies to keep premiums affordable. The difference, however, is that the House bill would prohibit government-subsidized health plans from covering abortions, and the Senate bill would not.

Anyone watching the drama unfold in Washington this week knows that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to round up the votes to pass the Senate version of the bill through the House.

The House-approved version would prevent the American people from being forced to pay for abortions, and it closely follows existing law (the so-called Hyde Amendment) that prohibits most federal funding of abortions.

Another major concern I have is the $11 billion that President Obama has earmarked for community health centers to serve low-income people and the uninsured. Providing access to medical care for the poor is a good thing. However, as the bills are currently written, those funds are not covered by the Hyde Amendment.

Why is this issue of abortion important to me? Given my experience with quadriplegia and other forms of disability, I have a special concern to protect and value life in every aspect. I know of countless individuals who have been injured far more gravely than I was when I took that fateful dive back in 1967. For those whose disabilities keep them bedridden or unable to communicate, is their life of any less value than mine? I should say not!

The infant who is developing inside its mother's womb, and who at just a few weeks' gestation already has more mobility than I do, is a human life and a real person, and therefore we must give our all to protect that life.

On the question of rationing care, I understand that all health care systems ration care to some extent, but the real question is whether health care decisions are made by the government using ethical criteria, or by insurance plans where limitations would be based on ability to pay. If decisions are made by government-created Comparative Effectiveness Research boards, decisions on who gets treatment (and who doesn't) could mean life or death for many, especially the elderly and those with disabilities.

The proposed Comparative Effectiveness Research program could put the government in the position of determining how to implement the boards' decisions, and such boards could review quality of care based on providing for those who will benefit most. Unfortunately, this could leave those who require specialized, long-term care -- people like me -- way down on the list of priorities.

These issues recently led me to join other Christians in signing the Manhattan Declaration, which supports the sanctity of life and the rights of conscience and religious freedom. "Although the protection of the weak and vulnerable is the first obligation of government," the document says, "the power of government is today often enlisted in the cause of promoting what Pope John Paul II called `the culture of death."'

Let me be clear: there are some positive aspects about health care reform, such as prohibiting insurance companies' discrimination against pre-existing conditions, and revamping the Medicaid program to offer community-based alternatives to institutionalization.

But there are concerns -- not just for disabled people like me, but for all who care about and uphold the value of human life. Health care reform cannot, and must not, be allowed to negatively affect the least among us.

Joni Eareckson Tada is an author, disability advocate and the founder of Joni and Friends International Disability Center. Injured in a diving accident in 1967, she is one of the longest living quadriplegics on record.

'Femivores' and Food Ethics

The trend toward locally grown, naturally raised food is giving some women more fulfilling lives than the workplace ever did.

Lisa Graham McMinn

If a daily trip to the vegetable patch to harvest vegetables and to the chicken coop to gather eggs means a woman is a femivore, then so be it, though I think the term is rather silly. Historically speaking, folks who did those things were just called "farmers," at least if they sold their produce or eggs. Otherwise, they were called "gardeners who kept chickens."

Every day I visit our hens, check their feed and water, and collect eggs. In the summer I freeze, can, and dry fruits and vegetables, and this year hope for a good honey harvest from the beehives. I never thought I was "radical" (see Shannon Hayes's 2010 book, Radical Homemakers). Rather, I’ve been inspired to live a little more like my grandmother did. I always admired her and her simple farmer’s life.

In last week's New York Times article “The Femivore’s Dilemma,” Peggy Orenstein describes the trend among educated women in the West to leave successful but unsatisfying careers to reconnect with nature by keeping bees and chickens and growing vegetables. While the term is a play off of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Orenstein uses femivore to describe women who are taking "the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove [them] into the work force in the first place," and applying them in the home.

Orenstein cites four women who gave up careers to build coops in their backyards, and she connects coop-building to the women’s search for meaning. We didn’t find it as homemakers in the 1950s, and we haven’t found it in a paycheck since. Orenstein thinks keeping chickens is another way women are searching for meaning; if they can be productive and connected to nature, life will be fulfilling. Yet she worries that the coop may become one more cage for women rather than a path toward meaning — one more expectation for women who want to have it all.

Pollan's books speak to a growing movement of folks paying more attention to their food. Many are motivated by health and/or the planet’s, and/or because they want farm laborers and animals to be treated fairly and respectfully. Many who have read Pollan's books or Barbara Kingsolver's latest, Animal Vegetable Miracle, and who watch documentaries like Food, Inc. are eating more locally produced and naturally grown and raised food, and a fair number are learning to grow and raise their own. The movement is partly a response to consumerism, rejecting the crazy notion that buying stuff will bring happiness. We have always had counter-cultural prophets reminding us that we are part of nature rather than above it, and that living simple, gentle, and connected lives brings a deeper satisfaction than can another pair of shoes.

As a sociologist, I’ve been following the back-to-the-land movement for some time. I don’t see a strong link between chicken keeping and gender issues. The explosion of backyard gardens and chickens is part of a larger effort to reclaim food sovereignty found in the rise in community gardens, CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), farmer’s markets, and food co-ops. It is a rejection of corporate agribusiness and a desire to do a better job growing healthy and just food. As we’ve discovered wasteful and harmful aspects of the corporate food system, we are returning to more local choices (sometimes as local as our backyard), and finding meaning living with limits and within the seasons of harvest.

For the record, I know as many men as women who are raising chickens and tending gardens (though my data are as anecdotal as Orenstein’s). Mostly I know couples who are making the choice to produce more of their own food. Yes, some educated high-achieving women disillusioned with work are quitting their jobs to create a homemade home. But I suspect a good number of men would appreciate the same choice. If more women than men are leaving careers to create more meaningful lives at home, it may reflect the greater freedom women have to do so.

I look beyond gender and find hope in this movement — in being mindful of our place in God’s creation, of our responsibility to represent God by being good care-takers that consume responsibly (and less), so that all God’s creation might flourish, including our neighbors and our own souls.

Lisa Graham McMinn's next book, co-written with her daughter, is Walking Gently on the Earth: Making Faithful Choices About Food, Energy, Shelter and More (InterVarsity, August 2010).

A Sinking Argument on Gender and Courage

Do secular feminists really want men to stop showing courtesy?

Lynn Cohick

Cultural commentator Al Mohler recently covered an unusual study that compared passenger behavior on the Titanic, in 1912, and the Lusitania, in 1915. The study, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that men on the Titanic were more likely than those on the Lusitania to give up their lifeboat seats for women and children. On the Lusitania, which was struck by German torpedoes and sank in 18 minutes, more women and children died than did men, something the study attributes to the men’s physical strength and speed in getting to the lifeboats. Put bluntly, the men on the Lusitania acted selfishly, while those on the Titanic showed good manners.

Mohler draws from this study a lesson on gender roles and the created order. He writes that “modern feminists” wish to eliminate “all meaningful gender distinctions,” which he believes would lead to the disregard that the Lusitania’s men showed for women and children. “Are we really to believe that the moral call that makes men act against their own self-preservation is just a socially constructed artifact of manners?” he asks. “The feminists . . . call for a world like the Lusitania, but must hope against hope that the world is really more like the Titanic.”

Unfortunately, this argument suffers from two serious flaws. First, the most telling of all the statistics is not taken into account: the overwhelming number of upper-class people, male and female, who were rescued on the Titanic. Time magazine reports thusly: “The Titanic’s first-class passengers had a 43.9% greater chance of making it off the ship and into a lifeboat than the reference group; the Lusitania’s, remarkably, were 11.5% less likely.” In other words, it is not so much that men gave their lifeboat seats to women, but that poor men and women gave up their seats to wealthy men and women. On the Titanic, poor women died and rich men lived. Neither today’s feminists nor Mohler would, I wager, want to support that trend today.

More troubling is the charge that secular feminists — in desiring equal access to educational and vocational opportunities — also want to do away with acts of kindness that men extend to women and children. But do feminists really ask that men stop being caring and nurturing, as they were on the Titanic? I assume that most feminists just want women to be considered as equal to the task — to be seen as courageous, caring, and life-giving as those brave men (and not a few women) on the Titanic.

From a Christian perspective, I hope that believers who identify as feminists would applaud any human action that sides with the cause of the weak. But to assume that women are less responsible, less capable of making virtuous decisions, and less likely to show courage than men — as was the prevailing view of centuries past — is rightly challenged by many feminists today. We must distinguish between biological differences, such as percentage of muscle mass per body weight, and evaluative conclusions about women’s character and abilities vis-à-vis men. Thus, any person should help another who is physically weaker. This might mean that a man helps a woman; it might also mean that a young woman helps an old man. The call extended by Christians who are feminists is that men and women alike think of others above themselves, giving first place to the weak, poor, and helpless among them.

Courage to face death to save another’s life is not a virtue limited to men. Jesus makes clear that laying down one’s life for his or her friends is a call for all his disciples, male and female.

Lynn Cohick is professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, and author most recently of Women in the World of the Earliest Christians (Baker Academic). She has written for the women's blog about Jesus' mother and mammograms.

Should Pro-lifers Call Black Children an 'Endangered Species'?

The controversial Georgia ad implies that, like endangered species, black children should be protected up until they're born.

LaTonya Taylor, guest blogger

Perhaps you’ve heard about the controversial billboard campaign sponsored by Georgia Right to Life, that state’s largest pro-life organization, in partnership with a Christian group called the Radiance Foundation. In signs put up around Atlanta, as well as through a dynamic website, the campaign puts the abortion issue squarely in the faces of passersby with the image of a young child next to the startling words, “Black Children Are an Endangered Species.” It’s a provocative image and caption, created in part by black and biracial people with compelling stories related to pro-life issues.

I applaud the campaign’s message and the attention it draws to the devastating impact of abortion in the African American community (one CDC survey reports that African American women have abortions at three times the rate of white women and almost twice the rate of other racial groups). But I find the use of “endangered species” language and imagery to describe black children to be profoundly inappropriate.

First, there’s the problem of comparing African Americans to animals. Because of the ways those kinds of comparisons have been made to dehumanize blacks in the past, I think the campaign’s organizers should have reconsidered leveraging the “endangered species” comparison for its shock value and attention-grabbing potential.

I understand that the point of the Georgia campaign, like those “Save the Baby Humans” bumper stickers, is to emphasize the hypocrisy in caring more about animals than we do about people. But black children aren’t animals — and that’s precisely why their lives are important. They shouldn’t be compared to the Okaloosa Darter or the Galapagos Petrel, or some other species most of us haven’t heard about and don’t care about the survival of.

Further, the copy and imagery the campaign’s organizers have chosen creates a false choice between saving lives and recognizing those lives as human — which is precisely the point of the pro-life movement, as well as the blind spot it’s sometimes accused of having, particularly as it relates to African American lives.

Think about how we often regard animals on the endangered species list: they are protected with the hope that they can be released back into the wild, where they can survive on their own.

The late Spencer Perkins identified the problems with this kind of thinking in 1989, in a classic Christianity Today article entitled “The Pro-life Credibility Gap.” In Perkins’s view, the Christians who were most visible in leading the pro-life movement were often not as interested in other issues of justice for African Americans. He wrote, “I feel that if the love of Christ compels me to save the lives of children, that same love should compel me to take more responsibility for them once they are born.” Though Perkins was making the point about white pro-lifers, it’s a question for all of us to consider.

An “endangered species” mentality de-contextualizes and dislocates many children from the possible sources of the issues they may face. Comparing black children to an endangered species limits our thinking about what they will need to live healthy lives. I do not believe that is the intention of the campaign’s organizers, but I do think it is an unintended consequence of the language they’ve chosen.

I’m pleased that a national spotlight is being directed on a critical issue. I just wonder if those Georgia groups could have garnered similar attention without the “endangered species” meme.

LaTonya Taylor is a communications professional and graduate student in Chicago. She is a contributing editor to Kyria. This post is condensed from an article that appeared on UrbanFaith.com on March 5, 2010.

A Black Maid's Expose

First-time novelist Kathryn Stockett's 'The Help' uses compelling narrative to illustrate the power of truth telling.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey

It took me several weeks to finally retrieve The Help from the library's waiting list, but I was determined to find out what the fuss was about. Kathryn Stockett's first novel has appeared on The New York Times bestseller list for 48 weeks. It was worth the wait. The Help (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam) is a beautiful story of a powerful bond that develops between three women in the segregated South.

The Help, set in Mississippi, 1962, will likely remind readers of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird for its themes of racial injustice, class differences, and gender roles. Stockett's story begins by introducing her most charming character, Aibileen, a black maid who spends her days taking care of white babies and her nights writing down prayers. The woman she works for has just been convinced to install a special bathroom for Aibileen's use, believing that African Americans carry special diseases. Overhearing the conversation, a white woman named Skeeter asks Aibileen whether she ever wishes she could change things. Her question is cut short by Aibileen's employer, but the idea lingers with Aibileen.

"The thing is though, if I start praying for Miss Skeeter, I know that conversation gon continue the next time I see her," Aibileen says. "And the next and the next. Cause that's the way prayer do. It's like electricity, it keeps things going. . . . Law, I reckon I just go ahead and put Miss Skeeter on the list, but how come, I don't know."

Skeeter is a 22-year-old budding writer whose mentor has instructed her, "Write what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else." She embarks on a project to interview several black maids and tell the stories of how their employers treat them. The challenge, though, is to get the maids to talk. As Minny, another maid, explains to Skeeter, ". . . the NAACP officer who live five minutes away, they blew up his carport last night. For talking."

Skeeter eventually persuades Aibileen to participate in her project by dictating the stories she's written down. "Can't be much different than writing my prayers every night," she says. "You don't say your prayers then?" Skeeter asks. "Find I can get my point across a lot better writing 'em down," Aibileen replies. Skeeter determines that the writing is clear, honest. "Well, look who I been writing to. Can't lie to God."

Skeeter risks her friendship with her old roommate, Miss Hilly, who does fundraising for “the Poor Starving Children of Africa” while she treats the black maids like they are thieves. Without turning the novel into a 'message' book, Stockett reveals the ironies of ways blacks were treated in the segregated South; for example, the maids raise the children of their employers, who are convinced the maids have diseases related to their skin color.

Stockett's tale also illustrates the power of truth telling. As the civil rights movement starts to gain momentum throughout the country, more maids become eager for their stories to be heard. The little girl whom Aibileen cares for asks one day, "How come you're colored, Aibileen?" "Now I've gotten this question a few times from my other white kids. I used to just laugh, but I want to get this right with her. 'Cause God made me colored,' I say. 'And there ain't another reason in the world.' "

Some readers might find the book's rhythm difficult to get used to. Janet Maslin of The New York Times points out the potential risks of "a Southern-born white author who renders black maids’ voices in thick, dated dialect.” The author switches between the three women's stories, so dialects change every few chapters. DreamWorks Studios has picked up the film rights to the novel, so expect the story to be around for a while.

Overall, Stockett subtly shows the power of a truthful narrative. She skillfully weaves the stories of three women into a compelling account of the risks women take to combat injustice.

'Why Don't You Just Adopt?'

The frequent question assumes that adoption is both easy and morally superior.

Ellen Painter Dollar, guest blogger

The detention of U.S. Baptist missionaries who tried to take 33 children out of Haiti after the January 12 earthquake shone a bright light on complex moral questions related to the country’s adoption practices. The Wall Street Journal reports that, even before the earthquake, an estimated 400,000 Haitian children lived in some type of orphanage, and only a few thousand were orphans in the traditional sense. One American arrived in Haiti to find that the girl he planned to adopt not only had a living mother, but that her mother actually worked in the girl’s orphanage. When the man balked at taking the girl, the mother assured him it was what she wanted for her child. She beamed as her daughter drove away with her adoptive father.

While Haiti’s child welfare system seems uniquely overwhelmed, the focus on Haitian adoptions reveals a broader truth: Adoption is not quite the straightforward, ethically superior choice many of us assume it is.

“Why don’t you just adopt?” Well-meaning people say this often to those who have used or are considering reproductive technology to conceive because of infertility or a troubling genetic history. The question implies that adoption is the simplest, most loving, and least selfish choice. Wouldn’t it be a better use of resources to adopt a child who needs parents rather than paying fertility clinics to help make a baby? If a couple really wants a child, should they really put their desire for a biological child over the needs of living, breathing children who could use a home?

These questions rely on what theologian and ethicist Paul Lauritzen has called the “myth of unwanted children.” Lauritzen, in Pursuing Parenthood, writes that “even to talk about ‘unwanted children’ may be misleading in situations where a woman is relinquishing a child not because she is unwilling to care for her child, but because she is unable to do so. . . . To speak about ‘unwanted children’ is to fail to take seriously what is perhaps the most compelling reason women relinquish children, namely, poverty” (p. 126).

For every mother who weeps in relief as her child leaves for a better life, another mother weeps in anguish that she felt compelled to make such a choice. As Christians called to care for “the least of these,” we are also called to help create healthy societies where mothers aren’t forced to relinquish children because they are overwhelmed by poverty, violence, and chaos. Given that our Scriptures frequently remind us that our treasure is not to be found in wealth, we need to guard against believing that a well-off parent is by default better than a poor one.

Beyond these tricky dynamics of wealth and wanting are other reasons that adoption is far from a simple solution.

With both assisted reproduction and adoption, prospective parents have to confront questions — about why they want children and how they will behave as parents — that many parents do not. No one responds to a couple’s pregnancy announcement by asking, “Why is biological parenthood so important to you?” No one did a home study on my husband and me before we brought our firstborn home from the hospital. Adoptive parents also deal with significant scrutiny and uncertainty: Will a birth mother choose us? Will she change her mind? Will war, natural disaster, or bureaucracy stymie our international adoption process? Will we have to field questions about why our child looks so different from us every time we go to the playground? All parents live with uncertainty, but adoptive parents have to accept a great deal of it up front.

Finally, the desire for biological parenthood is a powerful one. Christians understand the drive to reproduce as God-given, while scientists say we have an evolutionarily conditioned urge to propagate our genes. But the desire for biological children goes beyond a calculated plan to follow God’s mandate or widen one’s gene pool. Many people have a deep desire to have babies, a desire reinforced by both secular and Christian cultures, in which childless adults can struggle to interact meaningfully with peers wrapped up in parenthood and in churches centered on young families.

I am not criticizing adoption itself, which is a life-affirming, child-loving choice for building a family. Biblical mandates to care for orphans abound. But I am criticizing the question, “Why don’t you just adopt?” offered as a no-brainer to people who cannot or feel they should not (because of genetic history) naturally conceive the children they long for.

For Christians, decisions about childbearing go beyond practical matters of whether or not we can conceive, and the physical, emotional, and financial risks inherent in natural conception, assisted reproduction, and adoption. Our faith demands that we try to determine where God is leading us. A friend of mine, an adoptive mother of two boys, adopted not because she couldn’t conceive but because she believed it was what God desired. “Ultimately,” she says, “as a person of faith, I believe the road is decided by God. This has been the best and only explanation for how our family was created for [our sons].”

Likewise, despite my having a genetic bone disorder with a 50 percent inheritance rate, bearing children has been for me much more than the next logical step after marriage. It became clear, after years of discernment, struggle, and questioning, that God was calling me to biological motherhood.

I would love to see the question, “Why don’t you just adopt?” disappear from conversations about reproductive decision-making. Perhaps a better one is, “Have you ever considered adoption?” Although that question might sound as ridiculous as asking someone who has been job hunting for a year, “Have you thought about listing your resume online?” I think it’s safe to say that, yes, people who are dealing with difficult reproductive decisions have thought about adoption. Maybe it’s best to simply say this: “Tell me what you think about adoption.”

Ellen Painter Dollar is a writer who focuses on Christian reproductive ethics and disability theology. She is writing a book for Westminster John Knox Press (forthcoming in 2011) about the ethics and theology of assisted reproduction and genetic screening. She blogs at ChoicesThatMatter.blogspot.com and Five Dollars and Some Common Sense. She has written for CT about disability and genetic testing.

More Christianity Today coverage of Haiti earthquake relief is available in our full coverage section and our liveblog.

The first image portrays an orphan adopted from Haiti. The second image portrays children from an orphanage in Haiti preparing to head the United States to meet with their adoptive families. Both images were found on Flickr's Creative Commons.

Citing Modesty, Two Women Refuse Full-Body Scans

Pope Benedict and Muslim scholars have warned that the scanners — slated for major U.S. airports — violate principles of human dignity and chastity.

Katelyn Beaty

Two Muslim women boarding a plane in Manchester, England, last week became trailblazers in the debate over full-body scanners by refusing to undergo the scan, citing religious and medical restrictions. They forfeited their £400 airline tickets to Pakistan, as such scans became compulsory in the UK in February. The women are the first known passengers to refuse a scan under the new rule. Muslim scholars in the U.S. have already issued a fatwa against full-body scans as a violation of Islamic teaching on modesty.

More airports worldwide are installing full-body scanners after the Christmas Day bombing attempt by a Muslim Nigerian carrying explosives in his underwear on a Detroit-bound flight. The first round of 150 full-body scanners slated for major U.S. airports are being installed today in Boston’s Logan International Airport.

The Times (UK) reports that full-body scans give security staff detailed images of passengers’ nude bodies, which human rights groups decry as a “virtual strip search.” According to the Associated Press, the images are viewed in a private room and conceal passengers’ faces to protect identity. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has assured passengers that the scans are optional and that images are deleted. (This may not be true outside the U.S.; GetReligion’s Mollie Ziegler Hemingway notes that one Indian celebrity has already said he received printed images of his nude body at Heathrow.)

All these assurances may not be enough to protect passengers’ dignity, said Pope Benedict XVI at a meeting with airline staff February 20. “It is essential never to lose sight of respect for the primacy of the person,” he said. While he acknowledged this would be challenging given “the economic crisis, which is bringing about problematic effects in the civil aviation sector, and the threat of international terrorism, which is targeting airports and aircraft,” the Pope urged that “the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity.”

At the Chicago Tribune’s Seeker blog, Sister Anne Flanagan said her own objections to the scans stem from Catholics’ sacramental view of the body, one that says it reveals spiritual truths about God’s created intent for human sexuality and relationships. The sacramental view, expressed in Pope John Paul II’s magnum opus, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, holds that the body is not a mere receptacle for the soul. Sister Flanagan explains:

It is not true that our body is just a sort of envelope for a sexlessly generic soul, or that it is a strange animal-like appendage to the "important," spiritual part, but that really doesn't matter in itself. . . .We ought to be alert to the tremendous significance of being "bodied persons": God became incarnate so he could relate to us in this very human way! So there's something really not right . . . with a "revelation" of the body that takes place anonymously, apart from personal communion, in which I am being revealed to someone I cannot see or know; whose reaction I cannot gauge; whose trustworthiness with the sacredness of my body's image I am asked to take on the good faith of the [TSA].

The Muslim scholars who issued a fatwa rooted their argument in chastity rather than a sacramental view of the body. “[A full-body scan] is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” said the Fiqh Council of North America. “Islam highly emphasizes haya [modesty] and considers it part of faith. The Qur’an has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.” The council urged Muslims to opt for physical pat-downs, which the TSA provides with officers of the same sex.

No major Protestant groups have issued statements about the scanners.

If full-body scans were to arrive at an airport near you, would you opt out of them? If so, what would be your biblical-theological reasons for doing so?

Are Chick Flicks 'Emotional Porn'?

It depends on how you view them.

Laura Leonard

Nick Waters is your average Christian man who, in pursuit of becoming a better husband and person, did what some may consider extraordinary: he watched 30 chick flicks in 30 days. His blog project, which has picked up national media attention in the past few weeks, asks the question, “How far would you go to understand the opposite sex?”

With the help of his family, friends, and Internet strangers, he compiled a list of 30 films from the past three years and watched one each night leading up to Valentine’s Day, ending with a screening of Valentine’s Day on February 13. Each day he blogged his thoughts on the previous night’s selection, highlighting his observations on what the movie taught him about women. The blog is now becoming a book and has inspired many to take the “chick flick challenge.”

But do chick flicks really speak for women? Do we want them to? As Kate Harding at Broadsheet pointed out, only 11 of the 30 films were directed by women (though this is more than the 9 percent of female-directed films in 2008’s top 250). The state of chick flicks has been lamented by many — director Nora Ephron’s list of favorite romantic comedies included only one released since 1990 (Sense and Sensibility, a Jane Austen adaptation). There are few traditional chick flicks that I could actually point to as in some way reflective of how I think — particularly as a Christian woman, and the ways my faith convictions should shape my thinking on the stuff chick flicks are made of: relationships, marriage, and what makes a “happily ever after.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love chick flicks. If You’ve Got Mail runs on TV, I’m glued to the screen until Meg Ryan can admit, “I wanted it to be you.” On sick days I rotate between Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables. And I’m certainly not the only one who loves to indulge; a quick survey of female Facebook friends identified these titles as far and away the most popular, along with standards such as The Notebook, Ever After, and Sleepless in Seattle.

But then in college someone described chick flicks to me as “emotional porn” — a description that rang pretty true at the time, generalizations aside. I began to question my consumption patterns. Too many times I had suffocated my own loneliness with a repeat viewing of The Holiday. Too often I had allowed ridiculously high expectations to ruin an otherwise normal interaction with a guy. While traditional pornography appeals to men’s visual instincts and creates a false physical ideal of the female body, so the argument goes, chick flicks create in women a false emotional ideal of romance and marriage. Beth Spraul explores this in her classic defense of the chick-flicks-as-emotional-porn idea, “You’ve Got Lies.” She writes that women end up comparing men to fictional heroes and disregarding the qualities that are actually important — faith, character, regard for others — in favor of physical attraction or chemistry.

There is a certain truth to this. Any time we say, or even think, “I wish I could find a guy like that” (and who hasn’t thought that about Mr. Darcy, or Laurie, or Gilbert?), we are buying into a dangerous ideal of romance and marriage that just does not exist. Just as I do not want to be compared to a porn star, guys don’t want to be compared to Mr. Darcy. These movies can fuel a belief in “the one” — an obsession that celebrates the will of the heart, which “is deceitful above all things,” and disregards the qualities that will push a relationship through difficult times, as Drew Dixon, writing for the Christ and Pop Culture blog, points out in “Is ‘The One’ Worth Searching For?”

But chick flicks can be more than desperate-single-woman clichés and “emotional porn,” if we watch them well. I still love You’ve Got Mail, Pride and Prejudice, and Little Women. Even if they don’t totally reflect my thoughts and feelings, I certainly relate to many of the feelings and relationships they explore. The most popular, enduring chick flicks deal with much more than romance — they are about the relationships women have with their families, friends, and, yes, men, and the way those relationships are affected when something upsets the balance. This is something I can relate to, as can, I suspect, most women (and men). Art is not only a window but also a magnifying glass that “focuses our attention on everyday reality in a way that makes us see everyday reality for what it really is: magnificence and curiosity,” writes CT Movies critic Brett McCracken. By engaging with characters who may fall into the same traps as me, I can learn more about my own situation and hopefully, with the help of some biblical guidance, emerge as a stronger woman, person, and Christian.

CT Movies critic Camerin Courtney compiled a list of redeeming chick flicks in 2004.

Michelle Obama Tackles Childhood Obesity

The First Lady has been criticized for mentioning her daughters' weight to launch the 'Let's Move!' campaign.

Elrena Evans

As President Obama presided over a seven-hour cross-party debate on health care last week, First Lady Michelle Obama continued to make headlines in the advancement of her latest cause: childhood obesity.

In an historic appearance at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association on February 20, Obama called for a nationwide program to combat obesity in America's children, stressing as she did that such a plan need not be expensive.

Aims of "Let's Move," the name given to the Obama obesity initiative, include a $400 million annual budget to encourage grocery stores to carry healthier food selections, especially grocery stores in "underserved" areas, according to National Public Radio. "Let's Move" will also beef up (pardon the pun) initiatives to offer healthier lunches in schools, and partner with schools in achieving those goals.

It's no secret that being overweight is unhealthy and that obese children tend to grow into obese adults. And with childhood obesity continually on the rise, according to the latest government statistics, it's obvious something needs to be done. But from the minute it left the starting gate, "Let's Move" has endured some hefty criticism.

Salon's Broadsheet didn't like the fact that Obama said her children "weren't perfect" because their Body Mass Index did not conform to their doctor's ideal. Broadsheet also didn't like that Obama used her children as examples, stating that their privacy in this matter deserved to be honored. Others complained about Obama's use of the word chubby, citing the fragile and complicated relationship between descriptive language, body image, and eating disorders.

Issues surrounding weight are difficult to discuss, in part because weight and body image are so inextricably linked with so many different areas of life. Our health, in part, depends on our weight, but so does our body image and our self-esteem. Talking about weight in any culture is hard, but I think it is perhaps particularly so in the United States, where the tangled mess of obesity and eating disorders is perhaps only surpassed by the mess that is the practice of using sex appeal to sell everything from cars to shampoo. I'm going to voice a hunch, here, and say that there probably wasn't any way for Michelle Obama to launch an initiative relating to weight in this country without somebody getting upset.

But does the fact that it's an uncomfortable topic change the fact that it needs to be addressed?

Her.meneutics has tackled weight and body image issues before, as they relate to grown women. Broadening the discussion to children's weight and body issues in some ways raises the stakes, because now we're not only talking about our own bodies, we're also talking about the bodies of our kids — bodies that may or may not be the way they are because of decisions that we as parents have made.

It's a messy, complicated discussion. But I applaud Michelle Obama for taking on; I think it's high time that somebody did. I just hope the First Lady hasn't bitten off more than she can chew.

Lead in Your Lipstick, Carcinogens in Your Hair Color

Most of the personal care products you use every day are damaging your health, argues Samuel Epstein in Toxic Beauty.

Stephanie Krzywonos, guest blogger

My story begins on a plane. All I did was ask the woman next to me for some lotion. Eyes wide, she looked at me like I’d asked for rat poison. She told me she did not use lotion anymore and launched into a long synopsis of the book that informed her decision: Toxic Beauty, Samuel Epstein’s frightening glimpse into the cosmetics and personal-care products industries.

My flight mate informed me that most if not all of the cosmetics and hygienic products that I used were bad for my health in one way or another. Then she dropped a bomb: cancer. That was more than enough to get my attention. “The book changed my life,” she said while massaging grapeseed oil into her hands, as I scribbled toxic beauty on my boarding pass.

As my friends can tell you, the only room I usually make for a recommendation in my long list of books to read is at the very end. But this one quickly moved to the front. And now it is my turn to say, “This book changed my life” — including the way I shop, the products I use, my health, my beliefs about responsible living, and my views on makeup.

Toxic Beauty’s central premise is that most of the cosmetic and personal care products (e.g., shampoo, lotion, and toothpaste) contain hazardous chemical ingredients, and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal regulatory agency that should be responsible for monitoring such ingredients, is recklessly negligent.

As Epstein, professor emeritus of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, notes, we assume that our products are safe because we believe the FDA would not allow unsafe products on the market. Not true. The law, says Epstein, “does not require cosmetics or personal-care products and their ingredients to be approved as safe before they are marketed and sold.” All that’s required is that ingredients that constitute over 1 percent of the product be labeled.

If you have looked at the back of any of your hygienic products, chances are you can’t pronounce half of the ingredients. The identity of ingredients is purposely masked and distorted, says Epstein; even if you knew what the ingredients were, you wouldn’t know what they do.

Not only are ingredient lists deceptive, words and phrases plastered to the front of bottles and tubes like “fragrance free,” “all natural,” “hypoallergenic,” and even “organic” are often arbitrary as well — there are no requirements a product must meet to earn such labels. The truth of those words and phrases is solely dependent on the integrity of the company.

Lead in your lipstick

According to Epstein, “most brand-name lipsticks sold in the U.S. contain detectable levels of lead . . . of thirty-three brands of lipstick sent to an independent laboratory for analysis, 61 percent contain lead.” Those levels are higher than what the FDA allows in candy, which is .1 parts per million. Lead is not an ingredient; it is a contaminant, a substance created during the manufacturing process.

Frequent and prolonged use of hair dyes, particularly black and dark brown dyes, which contain high amounts of ethylene oxide (the carcinogenic culprit), have been associated with significant risks for a range of cancers, including acute and chronic leukemia, multiple myeloma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and bladder and breast cancers.

And talc powder, the common ingredient in baby powder and powder cosmetics, is a well-documented carcinogen and has been strongly linked to ovarian cancer. Women who use products containing talcum powder (which is in some sanitary pads and tampons) near their genitals have a threefold risk of ovarian cancer. Despite such clear evidence, the FDA continues to do nothing to warn consumers.

From toothpaste to deodorant, soap, hairspray, lotion, and nail polish, Epstein says, any beauty or personal care product you name is probably detrimental to your health.

The good news is that safe alternatives are available. The bad news is that they are usually harder to find and more expensive. Some reasonably priced and safe items are out there (I recommend Dr. Bronner’s line of soaps and lotions and Physicians Formula’s line of cosmetics). But I hear you about the higher costs. Besides not having the money, you also probably feel like you don’t have the time to research safe products, because you probably don’t have time for exercise, solitude, and that book you’ve been meaning to read. In short, you barely have time for yourself. You have bigger fish to fry than finding a safe product to combat crow’s feet.

Moreover, what does our use of makeup and other beauty products say about our cultural values? Researching and reconsidering the products I use have made me ask whether I actually need certain beauty products. Most of them aren’t necessary in order to survive or thrive. If cosmetics have negative effects on our health, the health of the children we bear and breast-feed, the environment, and the people who manufacture them, perhaps the right response is to not wear makeup — or to at least ask why we do (Is it to help with insecurity? To attract men? To appear professional in work settings?), and whether beauty products are the best means to meet those felt needs.

Voting with Our Dollars

The flaws of the cosmetics and personal care industries are symptomatic of larger, more overwhelming problems — ethical issues stemming from our over-consumption. There are so many serious moral issues concerning the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the energy and resources we use, and the people worldwide we indirectly exploit so that we can maintain our standard of living. In short, we are destroying the planet for ourselves and for future generations, the world that God calls us to steward well.

So why should we, as Christians, care about the cosmetics and personal care industries when there are so many other social justice issues that need attention? Because we can exercise considerable control over what we put on your skin, and it is as simple as changing the products we use. As consumers, we vote with every dollar we spend and with every dollar we don’t spend. When we collectively change our spending patterns, we can bring about enormous change.

Stephanie Krzywonos is an editor in suburban Chicago. You can e-mail her at Stephanie.Krzywonos[at]gmail.com. For more information about safe beauty products, visit cosmeticsdatabase.com, organicconsumers.org, safecosmetics.org,thenakedtruthproject.org, or lesstoxicguide.ca.

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