Afghan Girls Poisoned for Attending School

Some Afghan groups believe educating girls is forbidden in Islam and corrosive to society.

Elissa Cooper

Some 88 girls and teachers fell ill at three different schools within a week in northern Afghanistan. Authorities believe the sickness is due to poison gas attacks, and have not yet identified who harmed the girls and teachers. The Taliban has been suspected but claim they were not involved and denounce the attacks, which some people consider a terrorist action.

On the Wednesday and Saturday attacks, reports said the girls felt “dizzy and nauseous.” The girls who became sick on Sunday experienced fainting, vomiting, headaches, and chills. There were no fatalities, but some girls are continuing to receive medical care.

Male Afghan students outnumber female students six to one, and Afghan girls pursuing education are no strangers to persecution. The recent incident only gained attention because there were multiple attacks in a relatively short amount of time. Girls have been attacked or even killed for attending school. In one horrific case in 2008, Taliban fighters threw acid on fifteen girls and teachers on route to school in Kandahar city. "A real man would never throw acid on the face of a little girl," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in response. "Beside it being a cowardly act, it is an un-Islamic act."

The attacks against the girls can be viewed as a fight against the government. Some conservative groups may view the country’s progress, such as educating females, as destroying the culture. For example, the Pashtuns, the biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan, remain against girls’ education:

"There is no way around it," says Bashir Khan, a businessman in Kabul who counts himself among the staunchly anti-Taliban Pashtuns. "In Pashtun culture, a woman's place is in the home. Even some of the most educated Pashtuns believe this. I'm willing to let my daughters go to school but only to a point, maybe until they are 11 or 12 years old. After that, why do they need an education? Their life will be in the home." Pashtun men like Khan resent the emphasis Western nations have placed on girls' education, arguing that they are trying to destroy Pashtun culture. "It's an insult to our way of life," he says. "We will not allow it. We see what happens to women in the West; we see it on television, in their music videos and movies. We will never let our women become so corrupted."

Some students poisoned last week expressed concern that their parents will no longer allow them to go to school. When the Taliban led the country from 1996 to 2001, girls were not allowed to go to school. Currently, it is estimated that about 30 percent of girls are actually attending schools in Afghanistan.

Do you think children become corrupted through education, as Khan suggests? Are Western-style images of femininity a corrupting influence?

Barbara Brown Taylor Builds 'An Altar in the World'

The former Episcopal priest helps readers pay attention to where God is dropping ladders in surprising places.

Sarah Cunningham, guest blogger

An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, preacher and writer Barbara Brown Taylor’s most recent book, uses a variety of spiritual — though not always distinctly Christian — stories to demonstrate the surprising ways the spiritual and physical worlds intersect.

Taylor’s unconventional spirituality is partially rooted in her involvement with Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches before settling in for over 20 years as an Episcopal priest. From these experiences, Taylor has authored 12 books, becoming a noted voice on religion in the literary world. She currently teaches religion at Piedmont College in northeast Georgia and is an adjunct professor of spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary.

Altar bears some similarities to Taylor’s 2007 memoir, Leaving Church, which recounts her decision to leave the priesthood for teaching and delineates between loving church and loving God. Like the former, Altar finds spiritual meaning not just in concrete beliefs but also in the realm of nature. Taylor recounts a road to God that included drawing close to the “ground of all being” and the “one heart beating inside all living things,” phrases borrowed from Eastern philosophy and religion more than Christianity as such.

The title of her recent book draws from the story of Jacob’s dream (Gen. 28:11-19), in which a ladder falls from heaven and imbues an ordinary location with sacred meaning. This leads Jacob to recognize the stretch of wilderness, rocks, and sand as part of the house of God or “an altar in this world.”

Jumping off from Jacob’s Bethel experience, Taylor uses stories to suggest that God can drop a ladder anywhere, so to speak. She introduced various practices that help one notice a spiritual significance in routine moments. She starts with the practice of simply paying attention, an exercise in awareness and being fully present. Taylor links this practice to the story of Moses, who noticed the bush burning and went to investigate it. By tuning in to her surroundings, Taylor finds increased reverence for many things — including meat, which she says she’s more grateful for since seeing chickens housed in a nearby barn and hauled off in a truck.

The next practice is a related lesson in appreciating our bodies — or, as Taylor calls them, the “marvelous luggage” in which our souls are tucked. She suggests praying before a mirror, naked, to recognize that “I live here. This is my soul’s address.” She says this candidly, acknowledging that more readers will follow her suggestion in principle than in practice.

From there Taylor moves on to find spiritual significance in local geography. For example, Taylor advises readers to consider looking down at our feet and answering, “Here, I guess, since this is where I am.” This section relays several observations about place, which Taylor draws from watching others walk through a labyrinth and prostrate themselves before God. These sorts of practices, says Taylor, help us tune in to the details of our surroundings, to “consider the lilies of the field.”

Taylor ends Altar by advocating a definition of prayer that extends past conventional methods to include daily activities that express the heart of prayer. Biting into a tomato with gratitude for nourishment, for example, might raise a sort of thankfulness to God, Taylor maintains.

Throughout the book, Taylor’s strength is in her word choice. The attentive reader will have a hard time not appreciating her fresh vocabulary and insightful metaphors. While plenty of Taylor’s observations complement the Christian walk, some believers might be disappointed at how easily Taylor illustrates various points by referencing Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and other religions’ beliefs and practices.

Overall, however, if one can read Taylor’s insights reflectively, with an eye toward Scripture, Altar will serve as a refreshing reminder that the physical world is designed to help us experience the spiritual one. Her observations encourage us to think carefully about what God might be revealing through “what has been made”: his “invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature” (Rom. 1:20).

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.

The Hard Realities of International Adoption

Torry Hansen's story and the ensuing Russian adoption freeze might make some families reconsider.

Julia Duin

A Tennessee woman's decision send her troubled 7-year-old son, Artyom Savelyev, alone on a plane back to Russia this month with a note saying he had psychopathic issues has turned the international adoption world upside down and seems to have frozen adoptions between the two countries. It has also unleashed a wave of resentment from Americans who feel that Russia passes severely disturbed children to foreign adoptive parents because the country lacks the will to reform an orphanage system that's an international disgrace.

As the mom of a 5-year-old girl adopted from Kazakhstan in 2007, I belong to five different adoption list serves, most of which lit up when the news broke. The overriding sentiment on the list serves was that, as awful as Torry Hansen’s action was, Russia is in no position to be pointing fingers. Yes, about 16 Russian adoptees have died in the U.S. since 1996 (out of 60,000 total adopted), but at least 15 adopted children die each year at the hands of Russian parents, according to The Times. Russia has 800,000 children in orphanages, with about 120,000 added each year. Americans adopt only about 1,600 per year, so we don’t make much of a dent. What depressed me in many of the posts written by adoptive parents were the horror stories about children they had adopted or knew about. This one is an example of the comments and links people post.

Many Russian children have some form of fetal alcohol syndrome whereby the child's brain is irreparably damaged due to binge drinking by pregnant moms. One recent Swedish survey estimated that 52 percent of 71 adopted children from Eastern Europe (including Russia and the Ukraine) were brain-damaged due to FAS. Those are horrible statistics, and the Russian Foreign Ministry seems to have few qualms about giving these children to unsuspecting foreigners.

I found a very informative piece in a Russian newspaper from last fall (in English at adoption advocate Alex Krutov's blog) that explained part of the problem: Russian families get state subsidies for adopting. An extra child allows them to receive better housing, but once they move into a larger home, there’s nothing to stop families from returning kids to the orphanage — and horribly, many do exactly that, as though they were returning a library book.

“Frankly, I hope adoptions from Russia do stop,” one adoptive parent wrote on one of the list serves. “Although adoption corruption is rampant everywhere, Russia tops the list. The Russian authorities are the pot calling the kettle black on the case of Artyom. He lives with an alcoholic mother for 6 years before they terminate her rights, stick him in an orphanage, palm him off on a single mom, refuse to tell her his brain was soaking in alcohol his whole creating life, then say that by returning him to Russia, he’s damaged for life? Give me a break.”

An adoptive mom of three Russian children said there is no preparation by agencies for what to expect with anyone older than a toddler. “No one warned me about anger issues, attachment problems, tantrums, running away or any of the other problems that are so prevalent with these emotionally damaged children,” she wrote.

Other parents who have fruitlessly tried to adopt from Russia but have been stymied by the corruption. “I am personally beginning to realize that the Russian program is one giant scam of sorts, and you are lucky if you get out with a child and even luckier if that child doesn’t have lifelong issues that prevent them from living an independent life,” said one parent who has spent $11,000 in adoption fees to date. “I feel the country, the coordinators, the agencies, everyone is just out to milk whatever they can."

There has been a big push among U.S. evangelicals to adopt, and Russia is the third largest sending country (after China and Ethiopia) as to where parents go. I was thinking of adopting again myself, and even took lessons in Russian to prepare. But after hearing that I have a one-in-three chance of a disastrous adoption, I thought twice. I’m a single working mom, and my immediate family is 3,000 miles away. I would be thousands of dollars in debt simply paying the $50 million price tag Russian adoptions cost, as Russia is also the world’s most expensive country to adopt from. Even in the best scenarios, parents of two adoptive kids tell me it’s a rough ride when a new child arrives in a home where the first child has already established a place. But what if the scenario goes bad?

Mind you, many adoptions from Russia do work out, and we often don’t hear those. “I wouldn’t hesitate to adopt again,” is what several parents have written, “and if I did, I’d go only to Russia.” And we could spend our lives worrying about “what ifs” that never happen. And unless parents do take risks, these poor children will remain trapped in awful places.

Russian and American diplomats are currently hashing things out, apparently. One thing I’ve not seen mentioned much is that Russia has yet to sign the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which is an agreement that aims to regulate international adoptions. It’s been in force in the U.S. for two years. From what I can tell, all that Hague has meant is reams more paperwork for families and their agencies, but it’s at least something.

Russia can threaten to end adoptions all they want, but the cynical side of me looks at the enormous amounts of money paid per child and guesses that Russia's government isn’t going to turn off the spigot any time soon.

Female Sex Addict: Not an Oxymoron

Marnie Ferree's No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Addiction challenges easy assumptions about who gets addicted and why.

Interview by Katelyn Beaty

Biblical scholars have yet to determine if the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11) was a sex addict. But Nashville-based clinical therapist Marnie Ferree says the woman’s shame and social status make her an apt archetype for women struggling with sex addiction. For one, women sex addicts often face a double dose of shame because they believe they as women aren't supposed to have sexual sin. And because the number of female addicts is relatively small (expert Patrick Carnes estimates 3 percent of the U.S. population, with male addicts composing 8 percent), few books and recovery groups are available. “I tell some of my colleagues, such as Mark Laaser, ‘you wrote a great book, but the pronouns are wrong,’ ” says Ferree.

Thankfully, the story of the adulterous woman in John’s gospel reminds sex addicts that not even their deepest secret is outside Christ’s healing touch. Ferree knows this from personal experience, because she is a recovering sex addict — something she hid for 20 years until an HPV diagnosis in 1990 brought it to light and kick-started her recovery. Today, alongside her husband of 29 years, Ferree runs Bethesda Workshops, which aims to provide “Christian treatment for sex addiction recovery.” Their dramatic story appears in No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Addiction, Ferree’s immensely practical, deeply biblical book for female sex addicts, out this month from InterVarsity Press. Ferree spoke recently with Her.meneutics editor Katelyn Beaty.

What is sex addiction? How is it different from, say, porn addiction?
There’s no difference between porn addiction and sex addiction. Sex addiction is an umbrella term; the particular form of acting out, whether it’s pornography, affairs, sex chat rooms, prostitutes, picking up people in bars, is immaterial. These are all just one manifestation.

The main characteristics of sex addiction (and any addiction, for that matter) are
Obsession: the behavior becomes the organizing principle of life. The addict is obsessed with acting out, trying to hide the acting out, and figuring out when she can act out again.
Compulsion: continuing behavior in spite of your best efforts to stop. You keep doing what you don't want to do.
Continuing despite adverse consequences: you continue behavior that clearly isn't in your best interest. You pay a price for your behavior (in terms of relationships, jobs, shame) and yet you keep doing it.

Several times you describe female sex addiction as an intimacy disorder: the search for “love, touch, affirmation, affection, and approval.” Is male sex addiction also at root an intimacy disorder?
Yes, absolutely.

Doesn’t that challenge some assumptions about male sex addicts, that what they seek is the physical sexual release?
To be clear, there’s no doubt that [the desire for physical sex] is a powerful force, and some women really just like sex. And some men really just like sex. And it’s still bigger than that. That’s where the Christian framework differs from our clinical colleagues and the professional associations that deal with this issue, because for a Christian, genital-based sex is not enough. Even if it’s just with your husband, God longs for us to have so much more than genital-based sex. That one-flesh union is spiritual and emotional and [about] companionship and fun and recreation, and God longs for us to have so much more than orgasms. So even someone who has a higher sex drive than others — and there is some validity to that concept, they are wired differently — but still on a continuum, it’s a pretty narrow one. It’s not nearly that wide of a continuum.

At many points in No Stones, the language of addiction reminded me of alcoholism. How does sex addiction compare with other addictions?
Many addictionists consider sex addiction, along with food addiction, a core addiction. They are core because they are central to who we are and to survival. Obviously you can never drink alcohol or smoke a cigarette, and you’ll be fine. But you do have to eat, and we’re made as sexual beings — that doesn’t mean we have to have sex, but sexuality is part of who we are and our automatic nervous system response. That makes recovery from either one of those significantly harder. A sex addict is, neurochemically speaking, constantly carrying within her own body her drug.

Is sex addiction best understood as sin or as a neurological disease?
The answer is yes. Unquestionably this is sinful behavior. There’s no getting around that or trying to make excuses. And it does follow a disease model in terms of having predictable neurochemistry involved, predictable withdrawal involved, and being progressive without intervention.

In terms of the mental illness category, sex addiction is what’s known as an attachment disorder. Attachment describes a person's experience with early caregivers and how well the child "attaches" to her parents. When parents aren't attuned to the child's needs, when they fail to make eye contact with her, when they don't touch her affectionately, when they don't respond to her verbal cues — the child doesn't bond adequately with her parents. She doesn't develop the sense that the world is a safe place and others will be there for her and take care of her needs. These early experiences (especially those before age 5) imprint the child emotionally and even neurochemically. Sex addiction is rooted in attachment failures, which is why it's often described as an intimacy disorder. A woman doesn't learn from her parents about healthy intimacy, and she tries to fill that in unhealthy ways.

How would you advise a single Christian sex addict to proceed in recovery?
Bless her heart. It is hard. I think obviously to proceed in integrity and holiness, I think to really focus on her healthy relationships, and they can be of opposite gender, but to be certain about what’s driving them and what the foundation is. And I think to embrace her sexuality, and by that I mean to be very aware of and in touch with her feminine side, whether that’s her appearance or her creative side or her athletic side. To really be a whole person and not just focus on “Well I’ve gotta find a man.”

What do sex addicts need most from the people who love them?
They need loved ones to educate themselves about sex addiction, especially about women. They need to understand the extraordinary challenge that the female sex addict is facing. Second, female sex addicts need their loved ones to be working on themselves. My husband would say that he enabled me for years by his passivity. I’m still totally responsible for what I did, but it sure would have helped had he been healthy enough to put his foot down and say, “I am not going to live with a wife who is unfaithful to me.” That’s what I mean by doing their own work: setting healthy boundaries, learning themselves how to address their own attachments and the impact they have had in their own life.

Female and Athletic: College Basketball's Gender Dilemma

Gay bloggers' backlash to Christian coach's pro-family statement highlights the NCAA's messy relationship with femininity.

Katelyn Beaty

What seemed like a simple statement about family togetherness has become a lightning rod in the world of Division I women’s college basketball.

Robin Pingeton, the new women’s basketball coach at the University of Missouri, said in her first press conference April 8, “I’m very blessed to have my staff here. This is something very unique, I think, for Division I women's basketball to have a staff that the entire staff is married with kids. Family is important to us, and we live it every day.”

Pingeton, 41, who calls herself “a Christian who happens to be a coach,” has taken heat from gay rights bloggers who watch college athletics, reported Inside Higher Ed this week. Helen Carroll of the National Center for Lesbian Rights said Pingeton’s comments were meant to “subtly prov[e] that everyone in their program was straight,” and that mentioning her faith “was yet again, a subtle way of saying being lesbian or being gay would be against religious values and isn’t what our program is about.”

Pat Griffin, University of Massachusetts professor emerita, wrote on her LGBT sports blog:

[Pingeton’s] husband and son were at the press conference as were her proud aunt and uncle. Nothing unusual about that. Family is often present to celebrate professional achievements (unless, of course, the family is a same-sex partner). But then she goes on to make sure we know that heterosexual marital status is important to her by noting that all of her assistants are married with children. . . . [Y]ou have to wonder what kind of team climate she will promote for student-athletes who are not Christian or who are not heterosexual.

The backlash to Pingeton’s comments makes sense only in the context of women’s college basketball’s “long and persistent history of struggles over players and coaches’ sexuality,” reported Inside Higher Ed. The height and muscle that help players on the court often put them outside traditional images of femininity, and many of them endure rumors about sexual orientation. Rene Portland, former head coach of Penn State University’s Lady Lions, infamously had a written “no-lesbians” policy, and was sued by a former player who said she was cut in 2005 for her perceived sexual orientation. Sherri Murrell, the only openly gay coach in Division I women’s basketball, told Salon’s Broadsheet that during the competitive recruiting stage, coaches will dismiss other schools’ basketball programs for having too many lesbians.

Athletes like Baylor University’s 6-foot-8 star player Brittney Griner may be upending notions of what “feminine” means. But pressure still exists for players and coaches to show they are really (straight) women. The result, said DoubleX’s Hanna Rosin, is “a confusing mishmash of girl-power messages, something like the sounds that emit from working-woman talking Barbie — ‘I have e-mail!’ and then ‘I can't wait to go dancing with Ken!’ ”

Despite gay rights groups’ criticisms, there are no signs that Pingeton will encourage players to wear makeup and heels (as the WNBA has done with rookies) — or show bias against lesbian team members. Tom Rogeberg, spokesperson for evangelical college ministry Fellowship of Christian Athletes, pointed Inside Higher Ed to an online commenter who self-identified as a former player of Pingeton’s at St. Ambrose University, a Catholic school in Iowa. “Jane Doe” wrote,

Coach Pingeton even with her busy life and success maintains contact as much as she can with her former players. I should mention that I am openly in a same-sex relationship with my partner of nearly six years with a son. I last saw Coach Pingeton two years ago when she invited myself and two former teammates over to the team hotel to chat in the lobby after a victory. She returns my emails and text's [sic] of support. As a player, she NEVER pushed her personal religious beliefs upon [me] and I never witnessed it being done to any other teammate. We were not subject to Bible studies. Just because someone mentions they are CHRISTIAN doesn't mean they hate gays.

Meanwhile, Missouri yesterday announced a five-year contract that promises Pingeton an annual salary of $350,000. She earned $180,000 in 2009 during her final season at Illinois State University. “This is where the good Lord wanted me,” Pingeton told the Columbia Daily Tribune.

Yoga: An Exercise in Discernment

How I submit the meditative practice to Christ.

Amy Julia Becker

About 16 million adults in the United States practice yoga — an increase of 85 percent from 2004 to 2008 — and the Los Angeles Times reports that both Christian and Jewish groups are incorporating the Eastern meditation practice into their respective faith tradition. Explicitly Christian yoga classes, such as Laurette Willis's PraiseMoves, seek to "transform your workout into worship!" I've practiced yoga for over six years now, but haven’t sought out a Christian class, instead being content to bring my faith to the class I attend. This exercise in Christian discernment has strengthened both my body and my spirit.

I had two reservations when I began practicing yoga. One, I don’t like trying new things, and the thought of contorting my not-so-flexible body in front of others made me nervous. Two, I knew that yoga had Eastern origins, and didn’t want to turn exercise into an unwitting endorsement of Hinduism. But the class was free, and I wanted to be more willing to try new things, and I figured my faith could withstand one yoga class. So I went.

And I loved it. As a Christian, the spiritual aspect of yoga both attracts me and concerns me. It’s easy to affirm the goodness of taking care of my body. Even though “honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:20) was written to address sexual morality, it extends to the care we take in other areas as well. Christian theology insists that our bodies matter. God’s physical creation is a good one. In contrast to the Greek idea that the body is corrupt, Christ’s incarnation affirms the importance of physical existence. Moreover, Christian hope is built on the promise that our souls and our bodies will be resurrected as a part of God’s new heaven and new earth. Again, Christian theology insists that our bodies matter — even though our spiritual practices, especially in private, are often devoid of physical expression.

Yoga offers a way to connect the physical and the spiritual. A posture of hands raised (a "sun salutation") can be an expression of worship to the God who made the sun. “Child pose,” a posture of dependence, head to the ground, knees drawn into the body, can be a reminder of humility, reverence, and vulnerability before God. Yoga also emphasizes the significance of breathing. When I start a yoga class with breathing exercises, I think about God’s Spirit — a word in Hebrew that can also be translated breath — hovering over the face of the waters, and breathing life into Adam. I think about Jesus on the cross, breathing his last that we might live.

Over the years, I’ve started my personal prayer time by integrating God’s Word with the breathing techniques I learned in yoga. Breathe in: “Be still.” Hold the breath: “and know.” Exhale: “that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). I have translated my yoga class into my Christian experience, and my understanding of God has grown.

But what to do with all of Scripture's warnings against worshiping false gods and listening to a false gospel? Is yoga one more opportunity for idolatry? Yoga is, at its core, a Hindu practice. Certainly Hinduism does not affirm the triune God whom Christians worship. It does not affirm human sinfulness, human uniqueness, or the possibility of a personal and eternal relationship with a loving Creator. At the end of every yoga class, we are invited to put our hands together in “prayer position” and bow forward with the words “Namaste.” Our instructor translates this phrase as, “I salute the light that is within you.” I go back and forth on my participation in this act. On the one hand, I do salute the light that is within you as a human created in God’s image. On the other, I don’t want to suggest that the light within you is sufficient for you to be justified before God or to experience God’s sanctifying work in this world. I don’t want to suggest that you are (or I am) divine. Similarly, I have participated in yoga classes where part of the class involves chanting “om.” I choose to abstain due to the spiritual implications of the chant, which, as I understand, is intended to take me into union (the word yoga translates to "union") with the sound of the universe. Chanting “om” stretches too close to pantheism for my liking.

Still, yoga has offered me a way to integrate exercise and prayer. That weekly hour of movement and thought and breathing is one way I am able to honor God with my body. Ultimately, I believe that “whatever is true” (Phil. 4:8) comes from God, and that we can affirm any truth, any goodness, as God’s truth and God’s goodness — even if it involves lunging and stretching. Even if, perhaps especially if, it recognizes the ways the body and spirit are inextricably linked. Yoga just might support the gospel after all.

Christianity Today magazine has a special online section on "Yoga and the Christian."

Breastfeed for the Health of the Nation?

Not nursing has major societal and health consequences — but even so, mothers deserve our support and understanding, not our judgment.

Ellen Painter Dollar, guest blogger

A new study published in Pediatrics journal concluded that breastfeeding has major life- and money-saving benefits. The study found that “if 90 percent of U.S. families could comply with the medical recommendations to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months, the United States could save $13 billion [per] year and prevent an excess 911 deaths annually, 95 percent of which would be of infants.”

The $13 billion figure came from examining occurrences and associated costs of 10 common illnesses that occur less often in breastfed children, as well as calculating the lost potential wages of infants who die. The preventable deaths are due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and several infectious diseases that breastfeeding has been shown to reduce.

Breastfeeding came easy for me and my babies. They latched on, my milk came in, they gained weight. It is not so for many women. Their babies are tired, their breasts hurt, the nurses are overworked, the grandmas won’t stop asking if a bottle might be easier, the calendar careens toward the end of maternity leave, and they crave nothing more than the uninterrupted sleep they might get if their husbands could give bottles of formula.

While 43 percent of American mothers do some breastfeeding, only 12 percent breastfeed exclusively for the first six months as recommended. Advocates argue that breastfeeding’s life-saving qualities should convince mothers to do it, and everyone else to support them, without all the drama about choices and guilt. The blogger Feminist Breeder, for example, had this to say: “You know what else saves lives? Car seats. So, why aren’t people spitting mad at the [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] for saying that? Why aren’t they leaving thousands of comments on car seat articles saying, 'But I just couldn’t afford a car seat, why are you trying to make me feel guilty?!' Well, maybe it’s because our society will admit that car seats save lives, and we’re willing to give them out free at fire stations and hospitals if we have to because it is that important.”

I agree with the Feminist Breeder, medical experts (including the Pediatrics study authors and physicians who commented on it), and others who argue that mothers struggling with breastfeeding should focus on the support they need and don’t get, not feel guilty. Breastfeeding can be beautifully simple, but it is not always easy, in part because of cultural and employer expectations. We expect new mothers to bounce back and return to the daily grind ASAP, whether that means returning to work or to the carpooling, chores, and errands that fill most stay-at-home mothers' days.

This latest study makes clear that nursing is much more than a personal lifestyle choice the rest of us have no obligation to support. New mothers need hospital policies that give priority to breastfeeding; low-cost or insurance-covered lactation assistance; paid maternity leave; flexible workplace policies; and husbands, relatives, friends and neighbors who help care for other children and manage the household during an infant’s first months.

We should support breastfeeding not only because it is good for babies, but also because it honors women’s bodies as God’s gifts, capable of giving babies exactly what they need. But we should also acknowledge that breastfeeding does not always feel like a gift to mothers wrecked by fatigue and overwhelmed by the challenges of breastfeeding while raising other children, managing households, and working. While informed, healthy choices honor our God-given bodies, even healthy bodies are limited (guaranteed to fail, actually) and are only one part of the human story. Our salvation comes from God, not from exclusive breastfeeding, organic diets, natural childbirth, baby-wearing, or any of the myriad other ways that women are encouraged (or commanded) to achieve optimal health for their children.

Because breastfeeding involves unpredictable, limited human bodies, it is not directly comparable to life-saving technologies. Using an infant car seat, for example, does not require a mother to wake up every 90 minutes throughout the night, grit her teeth as her baby latches onto sore nipples, and lock herself in a bathroom stall at work to attach a mechanical contraption to sensitive body parts (although the recent health-care overhaul, which requires large employers to provide a private, non-bathroom space for women to pump breast milk, should make this task less unpleasant for some).

Even if a woman’s breasts are producing milk and her baby is drinking it, she can bump up against physical and psychological limits that make long-term, exclusive breastfeeding more burden than gift. I have a friend who breastfed her baby for several months but found it, overall, to be exhausting and difficult, even though her body did its thing and the baby thrived. She eventually stopped nursing, with trepidation and guilt, but immediately felt happier and better able to enjoy her child. Breast milk is good for babies, but so is a peaceful, happy mom.

Lady Gaga: Champion of Abstinence?

The wave of celebrities touting a "celibate" lifestyle actually undermines the movement.

Laura Leonard

Lady Gaga can make anything cool: Muppets as clothing. Bows made out of human hair. Pantslessness. Abstinence.

Wait . . . what?

“I can’t believe I’m saying this — don’t have sex,” said the 24-year-old pop star in an interview with Britain’s Daily Mail. Gaga, the heir to the Madonna/Freddie Mercury glam-pop throne, known for her catchy dance music and outrageous wardrobe, went on, “it’s okay not to have sex, it’s okay to get to know people. I’m single right now and I’ve chosen to be single because I don’t have the time to get to know anybody. I’m celibate, celibacy’s fine.”

Her message, as the article points out, is more about choice than abstinence itself. “Something I do want to celebrate with my fans is that it’s okay to be whomever it is that you want to be. You don’t have to have sex to feel good about yourself, and if you’re not ready, don’t do it.” She adds, “And if you are ready, there are free condoms given away at my concerts when you’re leaving!” And this, in the context of an interview to promote a MAC lipstick that supports global HIV/AIDS projects — a lipstick Lady Gaga hopes will make women “feel strong enough that they can remember to protect themselves . . . [so] that when your man is lying naked in bed, you go into the bathroom, you put your lipstick on, and you bring a condom out with you.”

Not exactly the champion of abstinence many seem ready to make her.

Part of the problem seems to be confusion over what the word celibate actually means. Take, for example, the “celibate” Ashley Dupre (of Eliot Spitzer scandal fame). "I love sex and I'm very good at it, but I'm saving that," said the former call girl in a recent Playboy interview — complete with 8-page spread. "That's for my future boyfriend from now on. And it will be fabulous."

The word celibate to these celebrities, and in turn their very large audiences, seems to now mean “only having sex with my boyfriend” or “abstaining from random sex.” This is not the traditional understanding of celibacy or abstinence, but by identifying themselves with these terms, these celebrities point out an even more dangerous shift in the public conversation about abstinence. At least when Britney Spears told the press that she and then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake were abstinent, she meant that they were saving sex for marriage. She later admitted she was lying, of course, but at least she knew what the word meant. But if these women are now using the most “extreme” words possible to describe their sexual attitudes — which are not all that close to their traditional definitions — where does that leave actual abstinence? How can it be communicated when its terms have come to mean something entirely different?

A Christian understanding of the term, as Marcy Hintz wrote in “Choosing Celibacy” for Christianity Today last year, involves “a vowed, vocational commitment to the church” and is “a radical sign of fidelity to Christ and his body.” It’s not about putting oneself in a holding pattern while waiting for the right person to come along. It’s about understanding the fullness of God’s plan for sexuality and for each individual as a member of the body of Christ. It’s an ideal rooted in Scripture and a biblical community. To self-identify the movement with celebrities who may not share these foundations inevitably leads to an even more confused conversation.

These big celebrities are building momentum on a trend already growing among young Christian stars. In January, VH1 aired “The New Virginity,” a special highlighting the rising trend of purity rings and faith-based abstinence pledges among young Hollywood stars: the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Jordin Sparks (former American Idol champion), and Adriana Lima (Victoria’s Secret underwear model) have all publicly professed a commitment to save sex for marriage. The special explores the rising popularity of abstinence as well as the tension between these public professions of abstinence and the very sexual personas that often accompany them. Even when the terms are technically correct, as with these stars, there is often a disconnect that clouds and confuses a healthy understanding of sexuality. As these kids eventually transition from child star to adult, they must publicly go through the messy process of growing up, which inevitably leads to mistakes. It’s difficult enough to navigate the messy process of growing up in relative obscurity; to do it with the world watching, in a profession with much pressure to maintain a sexual image, is bound to lead to a few slip-ups. Endorsements aren't intrinsically faulty — children should have healthy role models — but we have to exercise more caution in who we hold up as examples of an ideal.

What do you think? Are celebrity “endorsements” of celibacy and abstinence helping or hurting the formation of healthy attitudes toward sexuality?

Art That Reveals Our Need for Grace

Physically disabled photographers surprising work reveals to viewer their own limitations.

Christine A. Scheller

After seeing an advertisement for the 8th Annual Garden State Film Festival on Twitter, I requested a press pass, thinking I might screen an inspiring film or two that I could recommend to Her.meneutics readers. The festival director suggested Newt Gingrich’s Rediscovering God in America, which I saw and appreciated, but not nearly as much as two other films. Both reminded me that seeing the world through another person’s eyes is often the route to both empathy and greater self-awareness.

Shooting Beauty introduces viewers to a community of people with cerebral palsy, first through the eyes of an aspiring fashion photographer whose career is diverted as she teaches them how to take pictures, and then through their own and each other’s eyes. The second, Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers, defies logic as it highlights the stunning art and unique vision of some of the world’s leading blind photographers. Yes, that’s right, blind photographers. And no, I didn’t believe it either until I saw their work and their processes for myself. Both films tell their stories without either pity or sanctimony. This is a significant accomplishment for filmmakers who don’t travel through life in the dark or by wheelchair.

Shooting Beauty opens with the first person story of Courtney Bent. She initially visits a cerebral palsy day program to photograph its severely disabled clients, but soon discovers that her own limited perspective distorts the images she creates.

She decides to equip the clients with cameras of their own. In this way, they can communicate to others what the world looks like from their vantage point—one that often shows up in their photographs as a witty, tender, waist-high one. This is no easy feat for Bent, as nearly every camera must be uniquely modified. One man, for example, can use only his mouth, so she mounts a camera onto his wheelchair within reach of his tongue, which he then stretches, twists, and bends to make his pictures.

Bent’s project spans a decade, and thus takes her and viewers out of the realm of charity and into authentic friendship. There are love affairs, successes, heartbreaks, marriages, a divorce, and a death. Both the filmmaker and one of her subjects long to love and be loved. Both find what they’re looking for. One loses it. Their journeys, and ours, intertwine.

These artists are mostly amateur photographers, while the artists featured in Dark Light are gifted professionals. The film opens with the skepticism of lauded photographers who can’t imagine how the visually impaired could possibly produce good work. With them, viewers’ questions are answered, and our cynicism is silenced.

Two of the featured artists, Pete Eckert and Bruce Hall, experienced gradual vision loss, whereas Henry Butler has been blind from birth. His work alone hints at the kind of randomness and dependency on sighted aides that one might expect from blind photography. But his process also reveals a unique ability to draw his subjects out and into his field of vision.

Hall is noted for his underwater photography, and some of his work has graced the pages of National Geographic. His website says he fell in love with all sorts of lenses after seeing the night sky for the first time through a telescope when he was 10 years old. Ever since, he has depended on cameras to amplify his own and others’ limited vision. Hall is the father of profoundly autistic twin boys and has taken up a long-term project of photographing them.

Eckert, whose work is an ethereal masterpiece of precision and planning, doesn’t want to chronicle the sighted world or depend on sighted people to make his photographs. On his website, he writes: “It is important to me that the sighted think about blindness. . . . Talking with people in galleries builds a bridge between my mind’s eye and their vision of my work. Occasionally people refuse to believe I am blind. I am a visual person. I just can't see.”

What one discovers anew through these films and the artists they highlight is that the world is a magnificently broken and beautiful place. It is full of pain that can at once overwhelm and inspire. The brokenness of others reflects back to us our own brokenness and need for grace, if we have eyes to see. All too often, however, we refuse to believe we are blind. Sometimes it takes an artist to remind us that we too are visual people who just can’t see.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are" (Matt. 6:28-29), This reference to paradoxical beauty comes in the middle of an exhortation not to worry. The Lord concludes it with this word of comfort (v. 30): “And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?” Why indeed?

The above photos were posted with the artists' permission. The final photo is © Stations by Pete Eckert.

A Failed 'Date Night'

Tina Fey and Steve Carell’s new romantic comedy about marital commitment hits a dull note.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Out of habit, I still watch Tina Fey in 30 Rock and Steve Carell in The Office every week, even though I do not particularly like the shows anymore. Both started out as a fresh, humorous takes on usual suspects, corporations and the average American work place. Regrettably, each has turned predictable, which also ends up describing Fey and Carell’s latest comedic attempt.

In Date Night, the TV stars play Claire and Phil Foster, a "boring couple from New Jersey" whose life turns exciting for one night during a disastrous date. The film might initially interest CT readers because of its family-friendly comedy and strong marriage themes. It opened last weekend to mixed reviews but still raked in $25.2 million at the box office. Perhaps my expectations were too high because of Fey and Carell's mere presence in the film, a likely draw for others as well. I was also eager to see a film that depicted a strong marriage, instead of the predictable "chick flick" as seen in films based on Nicholas Sparks novels. This isn't the usual love story challenged by cancer, but the themes seem conventional nonetheless.

Playing into the stereotype of the mundane marriage, Fey and Carell go through the humdrum parts of life: feeding the kids, going to work, as Fey puts her mouth guard on before bed. Each date night, for instance, consists of salmon and potato skins. We are set up to believe the couple has marital woes to confront as they watch friends go through a divorce; they've become “the most excellent roommates,” but nothing more.

One night, though, Carell takes Fey into Manhattan to a fancy restaurant to invigorate their marriage. The movie contains some charming moments, like when the actors look over at people at tables and make up their own stories about the couples. Unfortunately, the television stars’ usual hilarity doesn’t quite translate on the movie set.

Claiming another couple’s reservation, they are mistaken for a pair who is trying to blackmail a gangster. Your average fifth-grader could have written the script; the implausible plot puts Fey and Carell in danger as they run from a pair of bad cops. The filming is unbelievably amateurish as we watch overly dramatic fight scenes and car chases.

If there’s anything redeeming about the film, the takeaway is evident: Marriage can be quite dull, but through trial and hardship (though ridiculously unrealistic), couples realize why they choose to remain married. Though it’s painfully obvious, it’s an important reminder of what it means to remain faithful in tedious times.

Brett McCracken took a more positive tone in his review for CT, noting that “we need more normal married couples in movies.”

Rather than resorting to cheap laughs, gross-out humor or harsh belittling of one another, they instead mine laughs out of the idiosyncrasies of married love (such as the notorious "he's in the mood but she isn't / vice versa" problem). Not once in the film do either of the Fosters lose their love for or trust of one another. But they do grow in both.

It is refreshing to see “normal marriages” played out on the big screen, though Mr. and Mrs. Smith told a much cleverer marriage-oriented story. That movie was also unrealistic but offered a bit more depth about appearances in marriage and truly knowing one’s spouse.

I wanted to enjoy this film because of the quaint takeaway about the importance of marriage, but solid family values failed to make this movie worthy of time or money. Unfortunately, playing into stereotypes didn’t provide enough substance or laughs this time around.

A Higher Calling Than Barbie

Why do women want to be represented by a plastic doll?

Alicia Cohn

Last week in a coffee shop, a complete stranger felt compelled to show me an article in the local newspaper. It was an article about career-oriented Barbie dolls. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that a recent poll on Mattel’s website asked people to vote on what career the next Barbie doll in the “I Can Be . . .” category should have.

“Mattel gave them a choice of architect, anchorwoman, computer engineer, environmentalist and surgeon,” the WSJ reports, resulting in more than 600,000 votes during a four-week period. “Girls the world over overwhelmingly cast their ballot for anchorwoman Barbie. . . . But by the end of the first week, a growing flood of adult votes for computer engineer Barbie trumped the popular choice. Female computer engineers who learned about the election launched a viral campaign on the Internet to get out the vote and ensure Barbie would join their ranks.” Both dolls are now available on the Mattel website.

The kind, quirky woman brandishing a page out of her newspaper seemed far more excited about Barbie’s new career aspirations than I did, but the WSJ story suggests that a lot of women feel strongly about the symbolism of Barbie. What is it about these dolls that women take so personally?

Perhaps I would be more interested if Barbie’s career path more closely mirrored my own. In Ohio, a female Episcopal priest recently took that matter into her own hands, creating her own version of career Barbie: the High Church Reverend. Although she’s not available for sale by Mattel, this Barbie has attracted 6,000 friends on her Facebook page and a story by the Religion News Service last week.

My first thought on reading about the Rev. Barbie was hesitation over the idea of encouraging girls to “aspire” to priesthood. Isn’t that a calling rather than a career?

Then again, any career path we take should be God-ordained, regardless of where it goes. “I Can Be . . .” sounds inspiring on the surface, but the drawback is that only God’s aspirations will fulfill our heart’s desires.

That day in the coffee shop, the article sparked a conversation on the controversial topic of Barbie as a role model. “I thought for a minute she was talking about Mattel making a Barista Barbie,” I said to the other barista there.

“Nobody thinks girls should aspire to be baristas,” she replied. I didn’t argue with her, because I knew she was probably right. But that’s silly, because even though there might not be a plastic icon to it, it is entirely possible to have a profound impact on the people around you no matter where you are or what career you have.

There’s something compelling about an iconic representation of who we are. But a plastic doll can, of course, represent only the most tangible qualities: she is defined by what she does (her career) and how she looks (much has already been written about that). Even the Rev. Barbie is only characterized by the physical tools of her trade: her clothes and the items of her sacristy.

It may not translate well into plastic, but the Christian life is defined in far different terms than “I can be…” For instance: “I am the righteousness of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:30). And “I am the seed of Abraham” (Gal. 3:29). Our relationship with God is not a status accessory. It’s a good thing for us that the Barbie standard is manufactured, and that Jesus didn’t wait for us to measure up to save us.

We can’t expect Mattel to represent faith in plastic, or to encourage girls to look for a calling beyond a career. Yet evidently, Barbie continues to have an impact on female culture and childhood imagination, and so I wonder: How do intangible qualities such as faithfulness and wisdom connect with girlhood dreams of being a grown-up woman?

The Brave Women of the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church abuse stories are exasperating, but a few lay writers give me hope.

Ellen Painter Dollar
I love a good story. That’s why I’ve been captivated in recent days by stories concerning the Catholic Church abuse scandal. Not the newspaper spreads with timelines showing who knew what, when they knew it, and what they did or didn’t do about it. I’ve read some of those stories, but they do not captivate me.

I’m captivated, rather, by the complex, inspiring stories of lay Catholics and, in particular, the stories of three Catholic women who explain why they remain Catholic. NPR featured two essays, the first by writer Elizabeth Scalia, whose essay is a poetic meditation on the dark and light that coexist in creation. Scalia understands that “everything, from our institutions to our innermost beings, are seen through a glass, darkly,” yet she holds on to her faith’s “bright hope.”

In the second NPR essay, novelist and poet Julianna Baggott writes of leaving the church but retaining her Catholic identity. She honors the nuns and priests who welcomed and educated her mother during a troubled childhood and who schooled Baggott in a radical, inclusive faith. Baggott credits the church for shaping her as a writer, for “the basic rule of storytelling is show, don't tell. Christianity shares this idea — the word made flesh. Of all the Christian denominations, no one does more bloody, impassioned showing than Catholicism.”

Finally, religion scholar Donna Freitas, who has published a guest essay on Her.meneutics, debuted her new Washington Post column called “Stubborn Catholic” this week. Her first post revealed her own experience with priestly sexual impropriety. That experience left a scar, but that scar is only one piece of her Catholic identity. Catholicism “is my family, my friends, my professional life as a theologian and scholar of religion. It's the way I mark time during the week and the year and the food I cook depending on the holiday. It is a childhood and a lifetime of experience.”

These women are so brave. To understand why, just read the comments following their essays (although really, I want to say don’t, because the vitriol is discouraging, sometimes sickening). There is so much scorn, from those who accuse the writers of delusion for believing in any kind of religion, of sheep-like stupidity for their allegiance to such a damaged old institution, or of traitorous malice for speaking publicly of their church’s faults.

I am not Catholic, but I am writing a book about reproductive ethics. Because the Catholic Church, in general, has more to say about such matters than Protestant churches, I read a lot of Catholic resources. While I don’t agree with every Catholic position, I respect their thoughtfulness and integrity. I believe that, when people of faith are discussing difficult, emotion-laden topics (sexuality, childbearing, vocation, identity), we owe it to other people of faith to understand the context and community out of which their beliefs arise.

When I was part of an evangelical fellowship in college, I was perplexed to come across a book titled something like Catholics Are Christians Too. Having grown up in a New England town where most of my friends were either Catholic or Jewish, I was already pretty clear that Catholics were Christians. I didn’t understand why someone had to write a whole book about it.

That was one of many lessons in how Christians like to label other Christians to make clear who is serious about this Jesus stuff and who is just a poser. In my college days, people called themselves “strong Christians” or “disciples” to differentiate themselves from those who (in their perception) liked to get dressed up and sing hymns on Sunday but didn’t really love the Lord. In my 20s, I attended a nontraditional urban church where people who had painful histories with mainline churches were unable to believe that anything good could come out of Methodism (or Lutheranism or Episcopalianism). I have spent the past 10 years in Episcopal churches where evangelicals and Roman Catholics are, on occasion, perceived less as brothers and sisters in Christ and more as anachronistic cultures by turns quaint and threatening.

I too am prone to pigeonholing other believers based on what kind of church they attend, how comfortable they are uttering the “J” word in casual conversation, and whether hand-clapping, guitar-strumming praise music makes them ecstatic or uncomfortable.

When I listen to people’s stories, though, my preconceptions fade in the light of the wondrous mix of grit and grace that resides within each of God’s children. When I read news stories about the Catholic Church, I want to throw my hands up in exasperation at all the lies, cover-ups, and hypocrisy. But reading stories by Catholic writers reminds me that all churches are, below the institutional trappings, leadership styles, and music preferences, groups of sorry, sinful, grateful, grace-filled, beautiful, blessed people. When we hear and welcome people’s stories, in all their complexity, we discover that we hold much more in common than not.

Telling one’s story publicly, especially given the poison spewed freely on Internet comment boards, is courageous, plain and simple. I am grateful to these three women whose stories offer more insight and hope than any breaking news story ever could.

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 Christianity Today about disability and genetic testing. She also wrote on adoption and in vitro fertilization for Her.meneutics.

iHave an iPad, But at What Cost?

Perhaps technological advances are challenging spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, contemplation, and waiting to hear from the Lord.

Amy Julia Becker

We don’t watch much television in our household, but my husband and I both find ourselves wed to the computer. I was looking through a photo album with our daughter last week, and we came across one from her infancy. She’s swaddled in a pink and white striped blanket, asleep on a pillow between her dad and me. The camera, wielded by my mother, caught both of us on our laptops, typing away. Penny is 4 now, and her teachers tell me that when she sits at the computer in their classroom, she doesn’t want to play games like the other kids. She wants to type. Or, as she explains, “I want to work like Mom and Dad.”

As of last week, our gadgetry consisted of two laptops, two iPhones, an iPod, an iPod Nano, and an older iPhone that we handed down to our children. Even William, 20 months old, is becoming adept at sliding his thumb across the little screen to navigate toward photographs or games. Our kids will grow up with touchscreens as a cultural assumption, as normal as eating soup with a spoon or driving to the store in a car or sleeping in a bed.

Now we have an iPad. As far as I can tell, it’s a big and very impressive iPhone. It’s a little heavy, but it moves more quickly than any computer I’ve ever seen. We watched Lost on it last week. The picture quality was clear. The screen never skipped or froze, as it often does when we watch on a laptop. As a viewing experience, it was great.

Yet I have to wonder: at what cost? Somehow my husband convinced his employer to buy the iPad for him, so we didn’t shell out the $499. (Last year, he convinced them to buy him a Kindle, so we have that too.) I still haven’t seen his written rationale for the purchase. He tells me the iPad is the wave of the future. He says it will replace laptops and change the way information travels. And he may be right.

But before we ride that wave to wherever it carries us, I want to stop and think about it. Before the invention of the telegraph in the mid-1800s, information could travel only as fast as a human being could deliver it, by horseback or train or foot. Now information travels immediately. I have an iPhone. As a fairly disciplined person, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to resist the temptation to check my e-mail while sitting at a stoplight, waiting to meet a friend for lunch, or even walking across the campus where we live. I wonder how much knowledge of my surroundings I miss every day as a result of my increasing obsession with the screen.

I wonder how much my use of technology inhibits the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. I think particularly of the fruit of patience. I wonder how much my iPhone inhibits contemplation and prayer, disciplines of turning my heart towards God and waiting for a response to come. I wonder how much it inhibits submission to God’s time. Even the name of all these devices — the emphasis on the individual, the implicit elevation of “I” above all else — gives me pause. Apple’s logo, after all, reminds us of Adam and Eve’s choice to become like God. Are the iPod, iPhone, and iPad more of the same?

I don’t think that using technology is inherently sinful, or that Apple is an evil company, or that I need to rid our household of all these devices. Technology in and of itself is value-neutral. The ways in which we use it are where matters of moral judgment come in. Perhaps I should write a list of rules for myself in how to approach my iPhone, rules for my husband in how to juggle his various iDevices. Rules such as, Keep the phone away from the driver’s seat, even when stopped. Or, keep the phone out of the playroom with the kids. Or, never walk and type at the same time. But I’d rather state what I’m for than what I’m against. Walk outside and notice the birds and the trees. Drive with caution out of love for yourself and your neighbor. Be present to your children. And, finally, keep in step with the Spirit of God, not the spirit of the age.

Turning Child's Play into a Passion Play

How we might consider observing Lent after Easter.

Elrena Evans

I’ll confess I’m not sorry to see Lent come to an end this year.

Usually, I enjoy the Lenten season—although perhaps “enjoy” isn’t quite the right word. I love that the liturgical calendar has a space for penitence and discipline, for the work of preparation that heralds joy and victory. But if I’m completely honest, what I probably like most about Lent is that it appeals to my dramatic side: the weeping and gnashing, the sackcloth and ashes, the oh-Lord-I-am-but-a-worm mentality.

These dramatic tendencies of mine might help to explain, in part, the Lent I found myself observing this year, the one that I am so happy to see come to a close. Early one morning shortly after Ash Wednesday I discovered my five-year-old daughter lying on the couch in her red footie pajamas, her arms outstretched and feet crossed. Wisps of strawberry-blonde hair framed her small face, twisted into a painful expression as she held her arms out to the side, cruciform. Atop her head she’d perched my U-shaped nursing pillow, to be her halo. All she lacked was a sign saying “This is the King of the Jews.”

I knew at that moment it was going to be a very long Lent.

Since that morning, my children have enacted the Passion so many times I’m starting to feel as if I’m living in a medieval morality play. Oberammergau it’s not, but the reenactments are heartfelt, and as the weeks have dragged on they’ve gotten it down to a science: my daughter plays Jesus dying on the cross, and my three-year-old son weeps. Then they switch. This arrangement leads to random comments like “Get off the cross! It’s my turn to die.”

As I watch them, I wonder what Lent will be like next year when the baby is old enough to play, too. How will they expand their repertoire? The Roman guards? The thieves on the cross? Mary? Perhaps Veronica? Suffice it to say, by the time we got to Holy Week I was definitely feeling an excess of Lent, and longing for the promise—and resolution—of Easter.

Knowing my children as I do, however, I doubt that Easter Sunday will bring an end to the Passion plays any more than Christmas brought an end to the endless reenactments of the Nativity. I suspect that we are going to carry Lent with us, and in preparation for this inevitability, I’ve found myself wondering how I can do the same. I know that my appreciation of the light of Easter is that much stronger for weeks spent contemplating the darkness—perhaps rather than sloughing off the darkness and running headlong into the light, I need to carve out a space in my Easter celebration to hold a remembrance of Lent, to hold on to the knowledge of exactly how much the light of redemption cost.

Anyone who plays a role in the behind-the-scenes of church life knows that there is no such thing as an Easter-less Lent; the joyful panoply of delight that is Easter morning takes hours of rehearsal, preparation, flower arranging. In the middle of a run-through for a Good Friday piece last week, I caught the strains of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” floating down the church hall as the trumpeter rehearsed for Sunday morning. Easter preparations were in full swing, even through the fasting and the praying and the discipline of forty days. We knew Easter was coming. Having glimpsed those slivers of Easter all throughout Lent, I’m pondering how I can take slivers of Lent with me.

“Every Sunday is a harbinger of Easter,” Amy Julia Becker wrote during Holy Week. This year, I’m praying that every Sunday may also bring with it a reminder of Easter’s cost, of Jesus’ sacrifice for our salvation. And as my children act out the crucifixion once again, I’m thankful for the opportunity to remember the darkness as I live in the light, and to carry Lent past Easter.

Cosmetic Surgery to the Glory of God?

Christians can't dismiss such surgery until they seriously consider our God-given desire for beauty.

Shelly Beach, guest blogger

I’d never thought much about plastic surgery until 28 years ago, when my then 2-year-old son bit through an extension cord and burnt his mouth. Even though we had no insurance, my husband and I found a plastic surgeon who restored symmetry and proportion to our son’s features. To have left our child’s face distorted would have been unthinkable, and Christian friends supported our decision as parents.

Twenty years later, when I considered restoring symmetry and proportion to my body after a 70-pound weight loss, I received the opposite response among Christian friends; many questioned my motives and some my spiritual integrity. Cosmetic surgery was a pursuit of the vain and shallow, they told me, even though I desired the same restoration for myself that I had wanted for my son.

A seminary grad, I began investigating cosmetic surgery through a biblical lens, particularly a theology of beauty and the implications of cosmetic surgery in a postmodern, consumer-driven culture. I wrestled with my motives: What did I really believe I’d achieve through such surgery? Was the story I was telling myself about who I was and would be if I had surgery consistent with God’s story for me? And what about stewardship? My husband was a Christian school administrator. Could we justify the expenditure?

In many ways, I saw myself as an unlikely candidate for cosmetic surgery — different from “other vain” women I envisioned. I was a Christian school teacher who didn’t know another soul who'd had a cosmetic procedure. (If they had, they didn’t talk about it until I came looking for them.) But I discovered on my journey that I was very much like thousands of other women — Christian and non-Christian — who seek cosmetic surgery. I wanted restoration. I wanted healing from emotional pain. I wanted to be average — not a beauty queen, just a woman beautiful for my husband, even though he already declared me beautiful.

My investigation into cosmetic surgery led me to discussions with Dr. Stephen Beals, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and one of Arizona’s top plastic surgeons. Beals is a Christian who practices craniofacial and cosmetic surgery in conjunction with the Mayo Clinic. I’ve had the honor of working with him on a forthcoming book on the topic of faith, beauty, and cosmetic surgery. Our discussions gave me the courage to complete a consultation with a cosmetic surgeon he recommended. An inheritance offered me the financial means to pay for surgery without impacting our family finances. But in the end, my fragile neurological history disqualified me. I grieved the loss for months, but came to see the answer as God’s closed door. And my neurologist’s unequivocal “no” gave me the opportunity to divert funds to a friend in need and sparked a new interest in children born with craniofacial deformities.

As part of my research on cosmetic surgery, I interviewed dozens of Christian women who have had procedures ranging from breast augmentations to breast reductions to face lifts to tummy tucks. They represent a wide range of backgrounds: authors, ministry leaders, Christian school teachers, professionals, and stay-at-home moms. Almost everyone I spoke to was reluctant to discuss the procedure with friends or family due to a fear of judgment within the Christian community. The vast majority sought their procedures from a desire to look “normal.” Yet each was acutely aware of the bias among Christians against cosmetic surgery and chose to avoid the scrutiny of people quick to assign motives to their actions without knowing the truth about their stories.

Cosmetic surgery is a tool. The question, of course, is how we use it. The church has remained relatively silent on the issue and has not proactively equipped believers to make biblical choices regarding cosmetic surgery. As Edward Farley states in Faith and Beauty: A Theological Aesthetic, “. . . beauty’s function depends upon being part of a ‘master narrative’ that society takes for granted.” As a Christian, I must recognize that beauty as an end unto itself is valueless, because all beauty is rooted in God and has a moral context.

Decisions for or against cosmetic surgery are ultimately theological decisions. All beauty originates in God (Ps. 27:4). Beauty is important to God and reflects spiritual significance, as evidenced in the rainbow (Gen. 9:13), creation, and the God-ordained design of the Tabernacle and priestly robes (Ex. 25-28). As image-bearers, our beauty is secure and fixed in the loving, eternal gaze of our heavenly Father (Eph. 1:3-4). Yet our bodies are important to God; Jesus died to redeem both our bodies and souls (Rom. 8:23).

Yet that which delights the eye may be unbeautiful because our concepts of beauty can be derived from faulty human perception (Gen. 3:6-7). Our inward and outward beauty is to bear witness to God’s character as we fulfill roles of stewards (Rom. 1:20).

Can Christian women pursue cosmetic surgery to the glory of God? Jonathan Edwards offers a valuable insight that can help us evaluate motives and goals not only for cosmetic surgery, but for all areas of our personal conduct, including our judgment of others in areas where Christian liberty is granted: “Beauty is achieved when the thing created most closely and most perfectly glorifies its Creator.”

Shelly Beach is a national speaker and author of The Silent Seduction of Self-Talk (Moody), Ambushed by Grace (Discovery House), as well as a Christy Award-winning novelist and writer for Zondervan's NIV Stewardship Study Bible. She can be reached at ShellyBeachOnline.com. Mollie Hemingway also wrote on cosmetic surgery for Christianity Today.

Review: Anne Lamott's 'Imperfect Birds'

Flawed characters make this book stand out.

LaVonne Neff

Anne Lamott's seventh novel features alcoholism, drug addiction, and family dysfunction. This will not surprise Lamott's fans. Her characters — including herself in her five nonfiction books — are always "imperfect birds," and some are clearly on the endangered list. Most are also sensitive, funny, intelligent, and frightened by the messes they keep getting themselves into. That's why we love them, and their author, so much.

Imperfect Birds (Riverhead), released today, continues the story of Elizabeth and Rosie Ferguson that began in Rosie (1983) and Crooked Little Heart (1997). You don't have to have read the first two books to understand the third, though a little background can't hurt. Elizabeth is the alcoholic daughter of two alcoholics. Her husband died in a car crash when their daughter, Rosie, was four. A couple of years later, Elizabeth meets James, an alcoholic would-be novelist. Eventually they marry and begin going to AA meetings. By the time Rosie is 9 or 10, her mother is clean and sober, though inclined to paranoid episodes and panic attacks. As Elizabeth battles her demons over the next several years, Rosie faces her own issues — a child molester, a pregnant friend, competition and cheating, and, always, the need for independence from her hovering mother.

By the beginning of Imperfect Birds, it looks as if Elizabeth, still worrying incessantly, has maybe given her 17-year-old daughter more freedom than the woman-child can handle. Rosie has been on the pill for two years, is sexually active, is unreliable and dishonest, drinks, does a wide variety of drugs, and runs with a fast crowd. Elizabeth more or less knows all this (though she is unaware of the full extent of Rosie's misbehavior) but is afraid to intervene. After all, Rosie's grades are good. She is charming. When things go wrong, she always has a plausible excuse. Most of all, if Elizabeth lays down the law, she might lose Rosie's affection, those fleeting moments of mother-daughter bonding for which Elizabeth lives.

The plot is not the reason to read Imperfect Birds: Rosie does bad things. Elizabeth, in deep denial, keeps hoping everything will turn out all right. James, whose denial is more shallow, sometimes nurtures Elizabeth's hopes and sometimes sees reality. Rosie, along with her friends Jody and Alice and Fenn, keeps on doing bad things, until, inevitably, a crisis forces Elizabeth to see clearly and take action.

The imperfect birds — the flawed characters — are what makes this book stand out. Never have Lamott's people seemed so heartbreakingly real. Yes, I say as the mother of former teenagers: I know why Elizabeth wants to believe the best, I feel the bond she has with her wayward but charming daughter, I understand why the time for action never seems to arrive. Yes, I say as a former teenager myself: I know why Rosie needs to get away from her mother's worries, I understand why her group of friends is so important to her. These are real women living, on a grand and tragic scale, the little conflicts all of us face daily as we and our children grow up.

Still, I keep wanting to jump into the story and shake some sense into them. My heart sinks as Rosie repeatedly jeopardizes her health, her sanity, her very life. I grow more exasperated as Elizabeth ignores the mounting pile of evidence that her daughter desperately needs adult intervention. Yet I, the reader, know so much more about what is going on than Elizabeth does. Lamott is letting me see the oncoming disaster, not with my own limited maternal vision, but with God's eyes.

If Lamott didn't have a wacky sense of humor, reading this book might be depressing. If she didn't have an underlying sense of hope, it could be unbearable. But Lamott — herself a recovering substance abuser, the daughter of two alcoholics, and the mother of a young man just leaving his teens — is a spunky survivor, and she invests her own faith, hope, and love in her characters. As in nearly all Lamott's books, God is never far off. Elizabeth is not a believer, but Rae, her best friend, has enough faith for both of them:

Rae was Rosie's authority on all things spiritual, because her beliefs were so simple and kind. You were loved because God loves, period. God loved you, and everyone, not because you believed certain things, but because you were a mess, and lonely, and His or Her child. God loved you no matter how crazy you felt on the inside, no matter what a fake you were; always, even in your current condition, even before coffee. God loves you crazily, like I love you, Rae said, like a slightly overweight auntie, who sees only your marvelousness and need.

When Elizabeth desperately needs to pray, the only god she can imagine is "an entity called 'not me,' lowercase." Rosie believes "in something, some sort of energy field or force, like a cross between the oceans and their cat, Rascal." It is enough. Eventually truth begins to set them free.

Which is not to say that the ending is happy, or that it is unhappy. Elizabeth and Rosie still have a long way to go. This will not surprise Lamott's fans, who expect her books to be a lot like life. But funnier — even when they are breaking your heart.

For more on Lamott's faith, see Agnieszka Tennant's delightful 2003 interview for Christianity Today magazine.

Caught between the Easter Bunny and the Empty Grave

Reducing Easter to a purely spiritual celebration is almost as problematic as reducing it to a consumer smorgasbord.

Amy Julia Becker

For two weeks now, our kids have been singing, “Hosanna!” Penny, our 4-year-old, sings the whole song: “Hosanna to the King of Kings!” William, 20 months old, just repeats this new, favorite word. We went for a walk yesterday afternoon, and there they were, arms raised, running in circles, singing “Hosanna!” Or in the car, driving to the grocery store, “Hosanna!” In line at the post office, “Hosanna!” We live in a pretty secular neck of the woods. My husband and I find ourselves quieter than we wish when it comes to faith. But our kids give us away all the time.

Right now, Penny and William don’t know about what I have taken to calling “American Easter.” They don’t know about the Easter bunny. They don’t know that the chocolate eggs and jelly beans that have shown up in our kitchen are connected to this upcoming holiday. They don’t think of Easter as a day of candy and treats and baby chicks and bunny rabbits. Their experience of Easter right now comes only through stories and songs learned in church.

But Penny is old enough now for us to make some decisions. Will our kids grow up with fond memories, as I did, of wearing new clothes and searching for Easter baskets on Sunday morning? Will they think of Easter as a time to dye eggs? As a harbinger of spring?

The average American is expected to spend nearly $120 on Easter this year, for a total of $13.03 billion nationwide, according to the National Retail Federation. As far as Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart and flower shops are concerned, Easter is about big business. The spiritual stuff is optional. The jelly beans and cards are not. In fact, the money spent on candy in preparation for Easter is comparable to the money spent on candy for Halloween.

My initial reaction to all this material stuff — the pink plastic toys and cartoon bunnies and marshmallow candies — is to abandon it altogether. I want to retreat to the spiritual realities of Christ, died and risen, of life triumphing over death, of hope for eternal life and for God’s good re-creation of this world. Solution number one to the problem of American Easter is to ignore it and emphasize the spiritual.

But that solution is not without its own problems. This year I observed Lent for the first time in many years, and I’ve observed it in a very physical way, giving up my regular glass of wine with dinner. This physical act of self-denial is meant to serve as a means of spiritual preparation for the truth of God’s sacrifice on the cross and victory over the grave. Lent is a 40-day fast, but those 40 days encompass almost seven weeks on the calendar because Sunday is never a day of fasting. It is always a feast day, a celebration of our Lord’s life. Every Sunday is a harbinger of Easter.

This Lenten practice has made me more aware of the problems with approaching “Christian Easter” as a purely spiritual celebration. There is nothing more physical than the cross, except, perhaps, the resurrection of the body. Our Easter celebration becomes heretical as soon as it enters the realm of the purely spiritual. Reducing Easter to spiritual truth is nearly as problematic as reducing it to jelly beans.

So I am looking for ways to connect the spiritual reality of Jesus’ victory over death and our new life in Christ with our physical experience on Easter Sunday. A friend of mine mentioned that her church growing up always finished their Easter service by going outside and dancing. Another mentioned starting Easter Sunday as a congregation with a pancake breakfast. I don’t think the Easter bunny is going to visit our house. But we will eat some jelly beans and chocolate eggs and let our kids run outside and shout “Hosanna!” as loud as they want.

I no longer worship in an Episcopal Church, but at Easter time, words from the Book of Common Prayer return to me: Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Therefore let us keep the feast. Alleluia.

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