The Gospel of Grace for Women Who Self-Injure

Self-harm — clinically defined as the deliberate destruction of one's body tissue without suicidal intent, such as cutting, burning, and hair-pulling — is not new. What is new is the proliferation of images and messages through social media that may trigger these behaviors among those vulnerable to them. This is the finding of research published this month in Pediatrics journal.

The study examined one hundred YouTube videos focused on self-injury. Researchers analyzed the most-viewed videos appearing under the search words “self-injury” and “self-harm,” and found that the top 100 videos were viewed over 2 million times and marked as “favorites” over 12,000 times. While some videos require viewers to verify they are at least 18 (a simple process requiring no proof of age), most of the videos were viewable to all. The researchers conclude that the videos “express a hopeless or melancholic message” and “may foster normalization of non-suicidal self-injury and may reinforce the behavior through regular viewing of non-suicidal self-injury–themed videos.”

A cursory look at these videos confirms that even those presented as cautions against self-injury seem more likely to glamorize it. Ambient music, moody settings and images, and artistic renderings of self-injury are typical. One recurring type features animated characters, further removing self-harming behaviors from the realm of reality, yet aimed at viewers whose very struggle is to remain grounded in reality.

My introduction to cutting occurred years ago when I was a 20-something English teacher in a Christian high school. I’d never heard of cutting before. Like all of the subsequent students I’ve encountered who self-injure, this student was female, intelligent, intense, and experiencing deep emotional turmoil. Everything “Grace” told me about her cutting is consistent with my later research and experiences. Around age 15, prompted by feelings of rejection, Grace began self-injuring by grating her knuckles on the brick fireplace that went through her bedroom. She later explained, “I had an overwhelming sense of pain that I didn't know how to deal with, and I felt that whatever my problems were were my fault. So the physical pain seemed to sate the mental pain.”

More recently, “Amy,” a college-age friend, told me about a bout with cutting she underwent in the midst of a prolonged break-up last year. Helpless and alone after her boyfriend walked out on her, she made numerous shallow slices along her arm. “Feeling lost in a mental tornado,” she says, “the physical sensation of cutting seemed to be the only thing that could bring me back to reality.” These first cuts were so gentle that the welts, like mysterious modern-day stigmata, didn’t appear until the next day. However, her third and last cut resulted in an emergency call and a permanent scar that she has since hidden under a tattoo.

Amy is confident now that her cutting days are over. She acknowledges her actions to be the proverbial “cry for help.” Grace wasn't so lucky: her foray into cutting was followed by years of drug addiction and other self-destructive behaviors. Thankfully, she has been clean for a number of years now, although she fights depression, a condition likely connected to her struggles from the beginning.

Not all cutters and self-injurers go down such destructive paths. Many are highly functioning. Among these is a graduate student I know who, among other self-harming behaviors, deliberately irritates her stomach ulcers before settling in to work on her thesis. The pain, she says, helps prevent other distractions that would take her focus off her writing. She doesn’t see herself as a self-harmer, however. She asked me recently how her “method” of working is any different from that of a friend who sits in an uncomfortable chair when she works. “It’s different,” I said, “because sitting in an uncomfortable chair doesn’t harm your body.”

According to a 2006 Today’s Christian Woman article,1.5 percent of Americans engage in self-harming behavior. This jumps dramatically to 12 percent among college students (most self-injury begins in the teen years). Most self-harmers are female (60-70 percent), and many, although not all, struggle with eating disorders, too. I’ve not seen research on the incidence of self-harm among Christians compared with the general population, but my experience shows that this problem is far from rare within the church.

Some religion scholars have made intriguing, if not always convincing, links between the extreme pietism of some medieval religious mystics — such as Catherine of Siena, who died at age 33 after prolonged abstention from all food but the Eucharist — and modern day anorexics, bulimics, and self-injurers. The ascetic lifestyle practiced by some among both laity and clergy in the medieval church often included behaviors parallel to those of self-injurers today: self-flagellation, self-mutilation, and various forms of self-denial and regimented living. A reviewer of Caroline Walker Bynum's Holy Feast, Holy Fast notes of medieval women that “food and their own bodies were the only things women had control over and through that control they could manipulate their surroundings.” If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is the same language used to describe modern-day women — living in an ocean of overwhelming choices — who engage in self-punishing behaviors.

I’m not surprised that self-punishing behaviors occur among Christians. And this is not to blame the church. For legalism — and I would argue that this is what these behaviors are at their core — comes in guises both religious and secular. The desire to control the destiny of a few moments, if not our lives, is a fact of the human condition. But it is a fact that directly opposes the gospel of grace. Indeed, our vain attempts to mete out our own justice and punishments and thus save ourselves merely reflect the universal human desire to be our own God. For those who self-harm, the gospel comes as an invitation to trust in the One who has enacted perfect and complete justice before God on our behalf, through his body, so we don't have to punish our own.

The Social Network's Women Problem

The Social Network is a Golden Globe winner for Best Drama and one of the most acclaimed films of 2010. The story of how Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook is a frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar this Sunday night, and there are people who will be gutted if it loses. It’s innovative, stylish, cutting-edge — all those things that have critics tripping over each other to praise and reward.

In one aspect, though, the movie harks back to the stone age: its view of women. In both the early scenes at Harvard University and the later scenes in California, women are there as sex objects and little else. They inspire vengeful fantasies; they strip at parties and go home with strangers; they reward creative nerds for their creativity with spontaneous sex in the bathroom; they get drunk and high and play video games (badly). And that’s about it.

In the film, women are barred from any role in either the technological or the business side of Facebook. A female intern at the company is only there to show off her rear end in a short skirt and then get arrested for doing drugs. Even a seemingly levelheaded and businesslike woman flips out for no apparent reason, and sets a gift from her boyfriend on fire just for the heck of it.

I’m not saying there aren’t women who act like this. But nearly every woman in an entire movie — a movie that’s supposed to be a serious drama and not a frat-boy comedy?

The film’s defenders point to the fact that The Social Network is bookended by appearances from two smart, sensible women. But these two, a student named Erica and a lawyer named Marylin, are there to give Mark contradictory messages about himself. (Erica’s there at the beginning to tell him he’s an [expletive]; Marylin’s there at the end to tell him he’s not an [expletive].) Both female characters are lacking in serious screen time and substance.

When outcry arose over the film’s depiction of women, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin argued that he was just the faithful scribe trying to tell the truth. As he explained: “Facebook was born during a night of incredible misogyny. The idea of comparing women to farm animals, and then to each other, based on their looks and then publicly ranking them . . . I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren't the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80's. They're very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now.”

But as one digs into the facts, Sorkin’s argument begins to fall apart. For instance:

· A mean blog post from Zuckerberg about a girl he knew, shown at the beginning of the film, was real, but most of the deeply personal insults in that post were invented by Sorkin. (Here’s a look at Zuckerberg’s actual post. If you saw the film, you will realize what’s missing.)

· Zuckerberg is shown inventing a sexist “Facemash” site to rank Harvard women. But in real life, the site actually ranked both men and women.

· Zuckerberg has been with the same girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, since college. (No, there was no lonely nerd in a deposition room obsessively refreshing the Facebook page of the girl that got away, as at the end of The Social Network.) Far from being a “now you sit there on the couch and look pretty” type like the girls portrayed in the film, Chan is an intelligent woman who’s studying to be a pediatrician. She never appears in the film.

· According to technology writer Sarah Lacy, who was acquainted with both Zuckerberg and Chan in Facebook’s early days: “In ten years in [Silicon] Valley, I can count on one hand the times I’ve been hit on at a techy party or event — and even during those few occurrences the people apologized as soon as they realized I was married. I have never had an illicit proposition, I have never seen a girl stripping at a party, I have never seen giggling underage girls in panties doing bong hits as male programmers code.”

And as I was researching this piece, I noticed something intriguing. Do a Google search on “Aaron Sorkin” and “sexism,” and The Social Network is not the only project that comes up. You’ll also get hits related to The West Wing. And Sports Night. And Studio 60. And more.

There’s one thing that all these projects have in common, and it isn’t Zuckerberg. In fact, Sorkin has been dealing with accusations of misogyny in his work for years. According to many of his viewers, even his smartest female characters frequently get condescended to and put in their place by men.

I’m not trying to make Zuckerberg out to be some sort of saintly figure. But it looks as if he’s been unfairly smeared in some ways — very likely for reasons that have little to do with him, and a lot to do with one particular screenwriter’s fallen worldview.

And therein lies a sobering lesson. When you have a hammer, the adage goes, everything looks like a nail. And when you have a shallow, demeaning view of women — one that sharply contrasts the Christian view of women being wonderfully created in God's image and made for good, meaningful contributions — apparently more and more women start to look like “groupies, sexed-up Asians, vengeful sluts, and feminist killjoys” (as Business Insider put it) in your eyes.

It’s not just Sorkin, either. Almost more disturbing than the fact that he wrote a screenplay full of such characters, is the fact that no one he was working with called him on it. Could it be that decades of promoting sexual libertinism has led to a jaded view of women within the film industry?

All I know is this: Hollywood may fancy itself a bastion of enlightened tolerance, but judging by The Social Network, it’s got a long way to go, baby.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog. She wrote "The Good Christian Girl: A Fable" and "God Loves a Good Romance" for CT online, and "Facebook Envy on Valentine's Day," "What Are Wedding Vows For, Anyway?" "Why Sex Ruins TV Romances," and "Don't Think Pink" for Her.meneutics.

Live Action, Planned Parenthood, and a Year of Change

It’s only February, and already I have whiplash from the news speeding past me from the U.S. abortion front.

The frenzy began on January 17, when a Philadelphia abortion doctor was indicted for killing a patient. Next came the revelation that he had also gruesomely killed eight babies and that his filthy clinic had not been inspected for 17 years. At Pro Publica, Marian Wang reported, “According to the grand jury report . . . Pennsylvania health officials deliberately chose not to enforce laws to ensure that abortion clinics provide the same level of care as other medical service providers.”

Then, on February 1, Live Action, a California based “new media movement for life,” released a series of videos in which actors posing as sex traffickers secretly recorded Planned Parenthood employees giving out unethical and sometimes illegal advice. A clinic worker in New Jersey, for example, was fired and denounced by Planned Parenthood for advising the impostors to have underage sex workers lie about their ages so that clinic workers could avoid reporting them to authorities. “As long as they don’t say [they are] 14, and as long as there’s not too much of an age gap [with ‘boyfriends’], then we just kind of . . . play it stupid,” the worker said.

On February 16, Live Action moved on to the next thing, which was to enlist Abby Johnson, author of the memoir Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life-Line, as its chief research strategist. (CT reviewed Johnson’s book in January.)

National Review published an interview with Johnson on the 18th. Kathryn Jean Lopez asked the convert to Catholicism what she would say to a young, idealistic Planned Parenthood worker like she had once been. Johnson said, “I would tell her that I know her intentions are good and she has dived into an organization that does help women in many ways. However, I would want her to know that she can help them in better ways. I would encourage her to take that leap of faith I did, and join me in helping women in a wholistic way, because that is not going to be offered in the abortion industry.”

The big news on the 18th, however, was that the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal federal funding of Planned Parenthood, or more precisely, to repeal funding of its non-abortion services. When the Senate takes up the measure next week, its version is unlikely to pass. (The Hill reported that Republicans have prioritized two other abortion bills.) Still, Live Action was accused of timing its video releases to influence the vote, which the organization denied.

Lopez reported that Live Action’s timing was instead “expedited” by Planned Parenthood’s January 18 letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The organization asked Holder to investigate possible sex trafficking that it suggested could be a hoax.

Tom Brejcha of the Thomas More Society told Lopez that “Live Action’s investigations have been carefully planned and researched and found to be in strict accordance with the applicable laws.” Still, in a blog post of my own, I questioned both the efficacy and the ethics of the amateur investigations.

Pro-choice writer Will Saletan jumped into the fray with a series of seven abortion-related posts that ran from February 16-23 at Slate. The most newsworthy detailed how pro-choice activists in Florida had, from 1989, worked to limit oversight of the abortion industry. He wrote, “The Miami Herald and the state department of Health and Rehabilitative Services had found dangerous — and, in one case, fatal — conditions at four Florida abortion clinics. [Governor Bob] Martinez wanted new regulations to address the problem, but pro-choice groups and lawmakers were arrayed against him. They had the votes to crush him, and they were resolved to do it.”

Then, this Monday, 84-year-old pro-life icon Bernard N. Nathanson died. Nathanson was an abortion doctor who helped found the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Law (NARAL Pro-Choice America) but later became a pro-life activist. The New York Times reported that while he was an intern, Nathanson “observed the effects of illegal abortions on the mostly poor black and Hispanic women who came under his care, and he soon became convinced that the laws prohibiting abortion must be changed.” After performing 5,000 abortions himself and overseeing 70,000 more, he relented and served as narrator on the landmark 1985 film Silent Scream.

So, what does this frenzy of news tell us? Is change on the horizon?

The stories of Johnson and Nathanson teach us that personal experience can be an incredibly powerful force in conversion. Nathanson was emotionally invested in abortion but came to see his position as intellectually untenable. Johnson was undone by the sight of a nun praying regularly outside her clinic, and by her participation in a sonogram-guided abortion. By comparison, the defunding bill in the Senate seems like a legislative stunt meant to generate more heat than light. And Live Action’s investigative work raises serious questions about deceit and lawbreaking. These recent victories seem to have served merely to entrench the opposition further.

In one of his articles, Saletan said the pro-choice lobby resembles the gun lobby in that both resist any regulation in fear of rights eradication. It turns out that journalists, reporting without bias on the enforcement of real violations of law, can shed light on far more horrific deeds than those manufactured by activists. It’s painstaking, collaborative work and it, along with those two other bills in the Senate, offers the best hope for moving the debate forward. That’s what I take away from the scene.

A New Mission for the Burnt-Out Mom

In a recent "Stuff Christian Culture Likes" post at Beliefnet, humorist Stephanie Drury poked fun at signs — positioned so that they can be read only when people are leaving a church building or parking lot — that read, “You Are Now Entering the Mission Field.” They remind churchgoers to share God’s love with the people they encounter “out in the world.” In the act of leaving the property, Christians are being sent out, as it were, on a mission.

When I was growing up, the word mission was used exclusively for those self-sacrificing believers who packed their bags and moved to a hot and sometimes unpronounceable locale. (Remember trying to read the words “Irian Jaya” as a kid?) Missionaries sent annual prayer letters to supporters, cards which pictured large “quivers” of children whose names were taken from the Old Testament, never shortened into nicknames and often began with the same letter of the alphabet. “Christmas Greetings from Daniel and Esther . . . and Jacob, Jonathan, Jesse, Judith and Jemima — on the Mission Field in Konang!”

But times have changed. Now instead of being “called to the mission field,” all Christians are urged to “live missionally.” But what, for the love of Jacob, Jonathan, and Judith, does that mean? In a climate in which we throw around terms such as emergent, organic, and Church 2.0 with such frequency that they lose whatever meaning they might have begun with, is missional another trendy, soon-to-be ignored modifier?

Not if Helen Lee can help it. Lee is a journalist, home-schooling mom and is author of The Missional Mom: Living with Purpose at Home and in the World. Since her book’s publication, Lee has engaged others in the work of nailing down what “missional” really means. In a recent interview with author and New Testament scholar Scot McKnight, posted on her website, Lee asked McKnight what “this new buzzword” means and whether its “popularity [is] matched by its practice.”

“Being missional comes down to answering a simple question: ‘How can I help you?’ ” McKnight said. “Pastors are using the word, but I don’t know that they understand it. Defining the word has become a game. In missional churches, people’s ears are open, their eyes are open, and they are asking, ‘What does our community need?’ A pastor friend of mine wrote to the local police department and asked, ‘What are the biggest problems you deal with in this community?’ The police said, ‘Drugs and alcohol.’ . . . if that’s the answer your church hears, what are you going to do about it?”

Missional living, then, is no longer reserved for the Jim Elliots of the world, but for soccer moms, men and women in business, and other regular people. Lee’s passion is to help restore “missional urgency” — something she believes existed in the early church but has fizzled out in recent generations — in Christians today. Early on in her book, Lee quotes prominent missional pastor Dave Ferguson, who has written that “the last thing the mission of Jesus Christ needs is more Christians.”

A provocative statement to be sure, but Ferguson, whose book The Big Idea is highlighted in Lee's, states that American Christians are no more likely to help homeless people, keep their marriage vows or correct a cashier when they are given too much change as those who don’t identify as believers. Ferguson asks whether to be a Christian in our culture means to be “no different than anyone else.”

Lee recognizes the same malady in Christian mothers. Many of us, Lee writes, describe ourselves as burned out. We feel boredom and even despair in our parenting. We are spiritually parched and, after a grueling week of work and parenting, we engage in activities our “comfort-craving culture” provides for escape.

“God had strong words for his people when they spend too much effort building their own households at the expense of his house,” Lee writes. “The missional mom . . . acts as God’s warrior of light and love to those who most need it.”

Lee encourages women to step out of prescribed roles and look further than their own homes and Sunday School classrooms for places to serve. Women can live missionally by using their gifts, caring for the poor and otherwise living lives fueled with intention. Instead of feeling more depleted, Lee avows, mothers who live missionally find new purpose and energy.

“Motherhood is critically important, but even the role of being a mother cannot come before our commitment to God and the particular mission he has designed for each and every one of us,” Lee said. “And more often than not, that mission includes—but also goes beyond—the walls of our homes to the greater world around us.”

When we are aware that we are on a “mission from God,” serving on “the mission field” or “living missionally,” what we’re not doing is living by chance. Lee’s book details the ways in which to live missionally, is to live deliberately as we seek to serve Christ in everyone we meet — whether or not we are standing inside the doors of our churches.

Jennifer Grant is a journalist and columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She has written for Her.meneutics about the sexualization of young girls, girls in sports, mid-life callings, multitasking, and Lady Gaga. Her memoir, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter, will be published this summer.

The Argument for Girl-Boy Wrestling

When my friend posted a link to the story of Joel Northrup — the 16-year-old Iowa wrestler who defaulted rather than wrestle a girl, Cassy Herkelman, in a state tournament last week — I was floored when my athletic, competitive friend said she had “mixed emotions” about his decision. I imagine this friend, had she pursued wrestling and not track and field in high school, would’ve wanted the opportunity to wrestle. Even if it meant competing against the boys.

My reaction to this story was decidedly unmixed. I think Joel should have wrestled Cassy.

Not that I don’t get some of the issues at play here. I understand that teenage boys, as a rule, are stronger than teenage girls. I understand that boys wrestling girls could introduce some sexual awkwardness. I agree that the best-case scenario would be for Cassy to be able to wrestle in an all-girls wrestling conference.

But in this world, best-case scenarios almost never exist. So our job as Christians is to figure out how best to live and behave in these broken scenarios, how to be “salt and light” in every arena.

Which brings me back to Joel, since he cited his Christian faith as reason to default.

In his statement, Joel said, “Wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner.”

I applaud Joel's decision to back away from any seeming violence toward girls. But I wonder why he thinks the Christian faith smiles on violence-for-fun against fellow boys. I’m confident that it doesn’t. My guess is that his decision to default has more to do with his view of who is against him on the mat than it does with actual violence. And I think his refusal has more to do with his cultural view of girls than his Christian faith.

To those who are sympathetic to Joel's decision, no matter how strong and tough Cassy may be — after all, she made it to the state competition with a 20-13 record — she is still a girl. Therefore, she is too weak. Her girl-hood prevents her from being seen as someone who is gifted by God to use her body and her muscles and her spirit to wrestle. She is a would-be victim on the wrestling mat. Or, she’s a sexual object. But a contender? Nah.

Every time I’ve thought about this story over the past couple of days, I think of my husband, Rafael, on his first day of class at the University of Illinois. To most students, having a girl sit down next to you wouldn’t have been any big deal — a thrill maybe even. But Rafi was coming from an all-boys prep school. He hadn’t sat next to a girl in school since eighth grade. He was thrown for a loop.

Rafi told me that he couldn’t think during that whole class period. He was so preoccupied with how to behave next to someone of the opposite sex. It was weeks before he focus if he sat next to a girl in class.

But Rafi overcame his issue by reminding himself of a startling truth: “She’s just a person.”

This story cracks me up. (Had I gone to college with him, I’d have been sure to sit extra close in class just to make him nuts.) But it’s very revealing, I think, to how we are as sexual, gendered beings.

We screw things up when we focus too much on gender, when we forget that while we are each male or female, and that's a wonderful thing, we are also just people.

Jesus seemed to remember this well. He never saw women the way his culture did. He never treated them as they were “supposed” to be treated. Women who were not to be touched, Jesus touched. Women who should have been shunned, Jesus included. Women whose opinions didn’t matter, Jesus sought. Women who were not to learn, Jesus taught.

That was the way Jesus behaved in a terrible-case scenario for women. He provided opportunities. He didn’t shirk away because things could be awkward. He didn’t ease up because women were weak. Jesus treated women like humans. Like breathing, feeling, thinking, capable people.

When Joel refused to wrestle Cassy, he took an opportunity away from her. An opportunity for her to shine using her own God-given strength and ability. An opportunity to win or lose, fair and square.

I don’t mean to harp on Joel. I’m sure he’s a good kid who clearly meant well. These thoughts aren’t so much for him as they are for the rest of us as we wrestle with these sorts of issues all the time.

As Christians, when faced with less-than-best-case scenarios, we need to be in the business of affording others equal opportunities. Usually this means expanding our view of other people beyond how our culture would have us see them or how we think they are and getting it more in line with how Jesus sees them. Doing this usually means things get awkward. Doing this means we’re stretched way beyond our comfort zone.

Doing this means we might need to step onto a mat and wrestle, not despite our faith but because of it.

Caryn Rivadeneira is a writer, speaker, and mother of three, and the author of Mama's Got a Fake I.D. as well as a book forthcoming from Tyndale House. She has written for Her.meneutics on parenting, boycotting Amazon, Halloween, burqas, fathers, Mother's Day, spanking, happiness, and pregnant Olympians.

Christian Dating Do-Over

I work with Christian college students who are in the throes of dating or of wanting to be dating. Nearly every week during the school year, I am asked questions (mostly by ladies) about the ins-and-outs of the dating process. Questions like, “What’s the biblical model for dating?” “Is it okay for girls to pursue guys?” and, “Do you believe there is one person out there for me?” I am even asked to arrange dates.

Yet when it comes to directing them to resources about relationships, often I’m uncomfortable recommending many of the Christian resources available. While no doubt the purveyors of these resources mean well, I find that many of the resources lack significant social and theological acuity.

Rules and regulations (mostly geared toward women) like, “Do not call or text him,” “Never ask a guy out, let him pursue you, let him initiate,” “Do not pray together,” and “Only go on group dates” are often touted as inviolable and sacrosanct, as if they are dating principles derivable straight from the Bible. Really, most are cultural preferences, and are often one-sided and narrow in their approach. We need a greater vision — a more holistic way of thinking and speaking that contextualizes these admonitions.

For example, I believe we have conflated a unilateral campaign for sexual abstinence with deep, robust theological reflection on human relationships and sexuality. It’s one thing to teach that God wants us to remain pure (which is, by the way, about more than not having sex). It’s another thing to sabotage what might otherwise be sexually pure, healthy, male-female relationships with an inordinately long list of do’s and don’ts. (I touched on this subject in another Her.meneutics post.)

Yet the Christian conversation about dating is making a turn for the better, if a new website and Christian college event are any indication.

Recently I found out about the site IKissedDatingHello.com. IKDH dubs itself as a place for “A (Somewhat Irreverent) Conversation Between The Sexes about The Trials And Tribulations Of Christian Dating.” Obviously the name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the title of Joshua Harris’s best-selling I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

Two friends, Chanel Graham and Sarah Roorda, met in New York City and launched the site in 2009 after a coffee-shop conversation. Chanel is a Biola University alumna with a degree in English, psychology, and a minor in biblical studies. Sarah graduated from Calvin College with a degree in business communications. They both live in Brooklyn. In order to find out more about IKDH, I contacted Chanel with a few questions.

MG: What motivated you to start the site? Did you feel that a particular perspective on dating wasn't being represented within Christian culture?

CG: We felt like there was an authentic conversation about Christian dating that wasn't happening. Or at the very least, the conversation that was happening wasn't one we could relate to at this stage of our lives. Of course there is a plethora of dating books and websites about topics like courtship or waiting until marriage to have sex or even dealing with singleness. But none of the resources we had available to us answered the deepest questions tugging at our hearts.

Like, if we have it relatively "together" in most areas of our lives, why can't we make our relationships work? Is it possible that Christian culture has taught us to approach dating in a way that's unhealthy? Why have our dating experiences been so damaging even if we've dated fellow Christians? We felt like the questions were worth engaging, and it turned out our community of Christian friends shared many of the same concerns. So we created a space where Christians could feel safe to explore the answers.

MG: What are some misconceptions Christians have about dating?

CG: One of the biggest misconceptions Christians have about dating is that as long as you’re not having sex, you’re dating appropriately. As we’ve explored on the site, there is an entire realm of how we treat and love one another well in relationships beyond how we relate sexually. Whether it’s avoiding pseudo-dating where intentions are unclear, turning a mate into an idol, or even breaking up without wounding the other, there are many aspects to dating as a Christian that go unnoticed.

Another major misconception we've seen is the belief that marriage will solve issues of loneliness, insecurity, etc. Marriage is a wonderful thing, and we'll agree that a loving, committed relationship does give you the space to work out some of those challenges. But the work of submitting yourself to Christ's redemptive care doesn't begin the second you get married or land a serious relationship. There is room for growth, room to learn more about how to care for people well and how to engage in the work of relationship prior to walking down the aisle.

///

Chanel and Sarah aren’t the only ones who have picked up on our need for healthier dialogue about relationships and sexuality. On Valentine’s Day, Biola University kicked off its first ever “DTR” (define the relationship) Week. Biola reports that findings from an alumni survey show “relationships were the greatest joy and greatest pain for graduating students,” and that many of their students either too quickly jumped into relationships “headed for marriage” or they dated “too casually.” In events scheduled throughout the week, professors and speakers addressed topics such as abstinence, healthy and unhealthy relationships, homosexuality, and singleness, with the goal of fostering healthy conversations among students. Even Chanel and Sarah from IDKH were involved in the events going on at Biola.

It is my hope that refreshingly honest and thoughtful community conversations like the ones at IKDH and Biola become commonplace at Christian colleges and universities like mine and in our churches. It is about time. We desperately need them.

Michael Vick's Long Road to Recovery

Two weeks ago, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick was named the Associated Press NFL Comeback Player of the Year. Vick is the 12th recipient of the award but the first to “come back” as an ex-con who served time in federal prison.

Even non-football fans are familiar with the meteoric rise of Vick, recruited by the NFL two years into college to become its first African American quarterback chosen in the first-round draft. But by 2007, Vick’s early notoriety as a bad boy with a bad attitude blossomed into a full-blown federal case. Charges of dogfighting and gambling ended in conviction, imprisonment, suspension from the NFL, and, finally, bankruptcy. Vick’s second chance came in 2009, when the Philadelphia Eagles decided to sign him. That’s the road that brought Vick to his recent award.

I don’t follow football, but living as I do in Virginia Tech territory, where the Virginian rose to fame, I had little choice but to follow Vick even before his fall. But because his story connects to matters at the core of my being — creation care, activism, education, and the essence of the Christian faith — I’ve been compelled to follow it closely.

To begin with, creation care, specifically animal welfare, is clearly a biblical concern, from God’s command to Adam to name the animals in Genesis to Jesus’ assurance in the New Testament that falls outside God’s care, up to the establishment of the first animal-welfare society by Christian abolitionists in the 19th century. Christians especially should be heartbroken by the vicious acts Vick was convicted of perpetrating against God’s creatures. Dogfighting is a blood sport more gruesome than the name suggests. Dogs are bred to fight one another to a slow, tortured death for the sake of entertainment and gambling. Poorly performing dogs are often abandoned or killed by their owners. In Vick’s operation, such dogs were drowned, electrocuted, and shot, in some cases by Vick himself.

Vick’s and other dogfighters' actions test the limits of human depravity. They also test certain Christian doctrines, too: repentance, forgiveness, and restoration, to name a few. Even outside the Christian context, controversy on these matters has swirled. President Obama was questioned for calling the Eagles’ owner — months after Vick’s turnaround was clear — to congratulate him for giving Vick a second chance. And when the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) accepted an invitation from Vick’s representatives to partner with him in his attempt to make amends by joining the HSUS’s anti-dogfighting campaign, some saw such an alliance as an unconscionable compromise on the part of HSUS.

Yet in responding to Vick, Christians must ask: Isn’t grace the center of the gospel? If it were up to my husband, Vick would no more be permitted to have a dog again than a pedophile would be allowed near a child, even after serving time. I admit, when my 75-pound dogs are snuggled up to me — the very embodiment of trust — it’s hard to disagree. And when I heard that Vick is itching to own a dog again (something prohibited until his probation is over next year) for the sake of his daughters, I can’t resist the temptation to observe that what his children probably need more than a dog is an intact family. In more dispassionate moments, however, I realize that as Christians we must not only make allowance for repentance and forgiveness. We must actively seek and cultivate the same.

I spoke recently to Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of HSUS, about his work with Vick in the anti-dogfighting campaign. Pacelle told me the approach they’ve taken is very much modeled on the Christian pattern of repentance and redemption. Pacelle thinks he’s seen not only genuine repentance in Vick, but also growing understanding and remorse over the course of Vick’s talks before more than 10,000 kids. Although partnering with Vick wasn’t an easy decision for Pacelle, he said Vick has proven to be an “agent of reform” in HSUS’s ongoing efforts to combat “the festering problem of dog fighting in our communities.” The fact is, as reflected in Vick’s own life — seeing his first dog fight at age 7 — many young people are growing up in environments that teach that dogfighting is normal and acceptable entertainment. Undoubtedly, education is key to addressing this and all forms of animal cruelty.

While Vick is poised to present a cautionary tale to others on the evils of dogfighting, what of his own state? Pacelle, who has spent much time with Vick, explained that people who “exhibit malicious cruelty toward animals have problems that need to be addressed.” He said Vick is working on those problems through treatment and therapy. “By every external measure, both on and off the field,” Pacelle said, Vick is reforming. The goal for HSUS, he explained, “is for everyone to be a good pet owner, regardless of their background.”

If you’ve read accounts of the rehabilitation process Vick’s surviving dogs have gone through, then it’s hard to think about a helpless animal being entrusted to his care again. But, as Pacelle points out, Vick will forever be “the most scrutinized pet owner in America” if he does get a dog. (His probation prohibits only dogs, not cats or other pets.) Beyond Vick, Pacelle urged, there is animal cruelty going on all around us right now: “Get outraged about that.”

It’s a pointed reminder. It’s easy to heap coals on a specific sin or a particular sinner that happens to catch our individualized ire or enough media attention. But what do those particulars look like in the eyes of God? And what do my own sins look like from that view? Aren’t I "comeback player" of sorts, too?

Why Your Church Needs a Dr. Oz

Where do you exercise? Your basement? Your backyard? Your gym? Your church?

Browsing the list of weekly programs offered at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, fitness classes and weight-loss support groups are now listed alongside baptism and leadership training classes.

Warren made headlines last month when he announced his New Year’s resolution: to lose a whopping 90 pounds in 2011. Warren is certainly not alone in his goal: Every January, millions of people pledge to lose weight, get in shape, and eat healthier, and evangelical Christians have long used Christ-based fitness programs, like Gwen Shamblin’s The Weigh Down Diet and Jordan Rubin’s The Maker’s Diet, in their personal routines.

What make Warren's announcement headline-worthy was the significant commitment of his church’s time and resources to pursuing health and fitness, in the form of what he calls “the Daniel Plan: God’s Prescription for Your Health.” Developed specifically for Saddleback by Dr. Daniel Amen, Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dr. Mehmet Oz (Oprah’s health guru), the Daniel Plan, Warren says, is a “healthy lifestyle program including a six-week small group study, an online profile you will create on this Website that will help you track your progress, monthly Webcasts with me interviewing leading health experts, an optional healthy choice menu, and new outdoor fitness equipment set-up on the Lake Forest campus.”

When Rick Warren decides to do something public, it becomes a big deal. Over 6,000 people attended the kick-off event, which featured speakers Amen, Hyman, and Oz (all of which are advisers to the program), and thousands more watched at the church’s satellite campuses and online. The church has evangelistic hopes in mind. “This is God's prescription for your health," Warren told The Orange County Register. "This is the greatest opportunity for you to introduce friends to Saddleback Church through a non-threatening event."

As Saddleback focuses its energies on physical fitness, I have as well — and have come to believe that a focused diet and fitness plan can drastically reshape our spiritual lives.

If you’re anything like me, you think about food a lot during the day: whether or not you’re hungry, what you’re going to eat for dinner, what you need to buy at the grocery store. My thoughts are dominated by food, but I had never really thought of this as a spiritual issue. Out of physical necessity, food is part of our daily routines. Because of this, to think of food as a “neutral” human activity, one that God doesn’t care about one way or another, is to create a dangerous divide that removes God from a significant portion of our lives. And his presence makes this part of our lives fuller and gives us purpose, connecting us to his purpose and creativity in coming to more fully understand the unique ways God created us to enjoy every kind of food.

Though not all of us may "feel God’s pleasure” when we run or spend time on the elliptical, the act of exercise can strengthen our understanding of our bodies as God’s creations. I’ve never been an exerciser — much less a runner — but when I feel my muscles burn, I am reminded that God has created me with the ability to do more than I can right now, and that to strive toward that goal is a way to more fully pursue all that God has intended for me. The same is true with food. For all the complex rules and plans marketed in the multibillion-dollar diet industry, weight loss can really be broken down to one rule: eat less calories. You could lose weight eating nothing but potato chips, as long as you consumed fewer calories than you burned.

But this is not what a Christian vision of health looks like. As I’ve begun learning more about health and nutrition (with the help of two recent Christianity Today cover stories) I do my best to fill my body with nutritious, natural foods that help my body function better. This is a new way of thinking for me. Before, food was all about pleasure. As long as it tasted good, I had little concern for how it might affect my body. This seems like such an obvious idea, but I have to believe I’m not the only one who has allowed myself to settle for this low view of food and my body. And this is not how God has called us to live! By eating foods that allow our bodies to best perform the functions for which God created them, we glorify him as best we can (1 Cor. 10:31). For me, this attitude spills over into every area of my spiritual life. Once I let go of the idea that life is about pursuing tangible pleasures, I learned to focus on the great intentions God has for my life rather than the realities I often settle for.

By bringing this whole process into the context of the local church, Saddleback has enriched these experiences by encouraging their community to expand the meaning of living life together. Too often the Christians who do decide to pursue healthy living and eating do so independently, either because they don’t want to admit their issues with food (and so many of us have them) or don’t want others to feel judged for their own choices. But as a result, it’s not getting talked about, and we’re closing off a large part of our lives that does, in fact, have spiritual implications from the people God has placed in our lives to offer support. Any effort to more fully live life together is one worth pursuing.

This doesn’t mean every Christian should embark on a rigorous diet or an ambitious exercise program. But to pursue more fully what it means to be God’s physical creations, to submit our daily choices to his will, and to share together in these pursuits — surely this is something closer to a healthy understanding of health and fitness as they could be and should be in the life of the church.

Why Barbie Needs Ken After All

The saga of Barbie and Ken isn't exactly the Song of Solomon. For one thing, the Mattel match is made of plastic. For another, Mattel probably doesn't mean for the couple to teach us a lesson about God's prevailing love. Yet Barbie and Ken remain the power couple of toys, ranking right up there with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, thanks to Toy Story 3.

Barbie and Ken publicly “broke up” in 2004, when Mattel, faced with competition from dolls such as Bratz, was looking for media attention. Barbie sales have improved since then. Now, Mattel has launched a campaign to put Ken and Barbie back in the spotlight through social media, and on Valentine's Day, the couple got back together, and their love "is red-hot once again."

“Barbie and I are destined to be together, don't you think?” Ken tweeted earlier this month. He signed up on Match.com (see video) and dedicated a cupcake to Barbie in New York City. Mattel plastered Ken’s message to Barbie (“Barbie, I know we’re plastic but our love is real”) on billboards in major cities. Aside from expressing confusion on her own Twitter feed, Barbie so far has been passive in the campaign. You can vote on how Barbie should respond at BarbieandKen.com or on Facebook.

Ken has remained a part of Barbie’s story for 50 years, almost as long as Barbie has held a place in pop culture. Barbie has been just fine without him, navigating a career as a politician, doctor, teacher, coach, chef, astronaut, singer, race car driver, and dancer (and all without aging). She also dated an Australian surfer named Blaine. So the question has been raised: Does Barbie really need Ken back?

In my opinion, it’s the wrong question.

In Barbie’s world, everything is about Barbie. She's a woman defined by her accessories. Her costumes and job titles are all an extension of the roles she can play, and Ken becomes one of those accessories. That didn’t change when Barbie became a career woman. Ken remains the amorphous male role model that few girls even try to personify. (I certainly didn’t; Ken mostly sat around in his suit or swimming trunks while Barbie hustled around him with her friends. He was around when she needed him but conveniently tucked away when she didn't.)

Ken seems to have fallen out of favor at the same time the idea of a committed relationship did. Now, Barbie can trade in the same old Ken for a younger, hipper version of himself, which Mattel is calling "Sweet Talking Ken.” (According to Mattel, “He’s the ultimate boyfriend for every occasion . . . [b]ecause this handsome Ken doll says whatever you want him to say!”) It’s eternal love without the trade-offs that come with long-term commitment.

Turning Barbie into an independent, career-driven woman instead of one whose existence revolved around romantic love was not a bad idea. But it’s not the solution to concerns about Barbie’s influence on girls’ self-image. The influence of Barbie on girls' play has been criticized for many reasons, mostly related to body image issues, but Barbie is not the only girls' toy guilty of promoting a culture of selfish play.

Which came first: Barbie and Ken, or the cultural revolution that teaches young women they are fine on their own, and can discard a man like last season's accessory if he doesn’t make her “feel good enough”? This sentiment translates now across age and situation, from homeroom to the bar scene to online dating websites.

As girls get older and their emotions become more linked by pop culture to sexuality, we are bombarded by advertising insisting that if these man-shaped accessories don't make us feel like the ideal woman, it’s their fault not ours. The idea is dangerous because it contributes to the self-absorption that can take over the lives of even well-intentioned Christian women.

I don’t think it’s fair to blame a piece of plastic, but perhaps the culture of play that surrounds Barbie and Ken is the real culprit. There must be small, everyday ways to counter the cultural trend without turning off imaginative play or opportunities for little girls to play grown-up. What are your ideas?

Facebook Envy on Valentine's Day

It’s Valentine’s Day: the day of flowers, candy, and candlelit dinners, that is, for those fortunate enough to be part of a happy couple. For others, Valentine’s Day can bring on a few twinges — of loneliness, pain, envy, resentment, or some combination thereof.

But things have changed a little in recent years. I don’t mean that lonely people no longer feel those twinges. What I mean is that now they get opportunities to feel them all year round.

An article in The Washington Post talks about the concept of “Facebook envy," that feeling that can ambush a person when scrolling through status updates and seeing happy announcements or reflections. According to reporter Ian Shapira, this is a rapidly growing phenomenon.

There's no shortage of people who feel pain while scrolling through Facebook: Chronically single people may envy friends' wedding pictures, for instance, and those who've lost a spouse can feel overwhelmed by friends' wedding anniversary announcements. Infertile couples say they protect themselves by hiding most, if not all, Facebook posts from pregnant friends who can't resist hitting the site's "Share" button to show off, say, the latest in maternity ware.

Staffers at Shady Grove Fertility, a large provider of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments in Montgomery County, said more and more patients talk about Facebook envy during consultations. . . .

At the McLean-based National Infertility Association, executive director Barbara Collura said many couples cannot fathom why friends post so frequently about their pregnancies. "What you're hearing in the infertile world about their pregnant friends on Facebook is: 'My God, they're obsessed. There's no filter.' "

Single people can feel much the same way while seeing page after page of variations on “Today is Husband Day! If you have a wonderful husband (or wife, or son, or daughter) like me, paste this into your Facebook status!” (I’ve always wondered what would happen if I posted, “I have no husband, son, or daughter! If you don’t either, paste this into your Facebook status!”) I know of at least one single woman who, like some of the people in the Post article, had to stop spending so much time on Facebook because she could no longer face a constant stream of, “My husband is awesome, and our house is awesome, and we love our lives!"

It’s easy to put all the blame for this situation on technology. When we didn’t have a way of keeping in constant touch with so many people, feelings like this didn’t hit us so often and were easier to manage. Bragging Christmas letters came only once a year, and one could always throw out the especially fulsome ones after a glance or two. Or one can always blame the happy couples themselves for not being more careful to “filter” themselves a little.

But I have to say that reading that Post article forced me to face up to my responsibility for my own feelings. I started to feel a little uncomfortable as I read how some couples felt guilty about announcing their pregnancies, because they knew many of their friends would feel bad. Is it really fair for us who haven’t yet been blessed with marriages or children to hold our friends hostage to our own hurt feelings? Why should people with great news feel like they have to tiptoe through a minefield to share it?

I’m pretty sure I will never enjoy the “Husband Day” status updates. But as I’ve thought all this through, I’ve decided to discipline myself to avoid resentment and envy as much as I can. As justifiable as those emotions may seem to us, there’s a reason that Scripture warns us against envy and covetousness. Long before Facebook, the God who made us and loves us knew that those feelings could consume us if we let them. I may not be where I thought I’d be at this point, but I don’t want to live my life eaten up by bitterness, unable to bear the thought of anyone else having a happy relationship.

That’s why, instead of dwelling on what I don’t have this year, I want to concentrate on my gratitude for all the love I do have: the love of God, of family, and of friends. This Valentine’s Day, I’ll send cards to my godchildren, enjoy a nice meal with my parents, and do my best to “rejoice with those who rejoice,” as Paul admonishes us in Romans 12.

And maybe take just a short vacation from Facebook.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog. She wrote "The Good Christian Girl: A Fable" and "God Loves a Good Romance" for CT online, and "What Are Wedding Vows For, Anyway?" "Why Sex Ruins TV Romances," and "Don't Think Pink" for Her.meneutics.

The State of Sex

When it comes to attitudes about sex in America, I often find myself somewhere between cynical and hopeless. I read statistics about 95 percent of adults losing their virginity before marriage. I look at the magazine rack in the grocery store and the headlines that encourage promiscuity and multiple sexual partners. And I tend to conclude that Christians who believe God intended sex to be a joyful, mutually edifying expression of commitment and love, a mirror of God’s love for his church, a gift that binds a wife to her husband and a husband to his wife — I tend to conclude that such Christians (myself included) have lost not only the battle but also the war. As cynical or hopeless as I might become, two recent articles have inspired me to try to articulate a view of sex that counters the mainstream assumptions and calls individuals to a different way.

Both articles appeared in The Atlantic, a publication that routinely engages topics such as marriage, divorce, sex, and pornography in a thoughtful and even-handed way. For instance, there was the essay in which Ross Douthat argued that viewing pornography could be considered adultery, and the blogpost about Hephzibah Anderson, who decided to abstain from sex for a year. So when the January/February issue arrived, with two articles about sex and porn in the United States, I was looking forward to reading them.

The first, “The Hazards of Duke,” by Caitlin Flanagan, analyzes a PowerPoint presentation created by Karen Owen, a recent Duke graduate. This slide show details Owen’s sexual escapades with 13 campus athletes. Flanagan concludes that despite Owen’s bravado, crudity, and “desire to recount her sexual experiences in a hyper-masculine way,” she is really just a girl wanting affection from boys. Flanagan laments the culture of random hookups on college campuses: “We’ve made a culture for our college women in which they have been liberated from the curfews and parietals that were once the bane of co-eds, but one in which they have also shaken off the general suspicion of male sexuality . . . Maybe they’re all the better for it. Or maybe an awful lot of these young women at our very best colleges are being traumatized by what takes place during so much of this mindless, drunken partying…” Flanagan has no answer for the problem Karen Owen represents. But at least she understands that there’s a problem.

The next article, “Hard Core” by Natasha Vargas-Cooper, explores the world of Internet porn and what it tells us about our humanity. I have chosen not to link to it because I cannot recommend reading it due to its depraved view of men, women, and sex.

Despite its content, the article deserves comment. In fact, it deserves rebuttal. Its subheading reads, “The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women.” According to Vargas-Cooper, the sexual acts portrayed on many porn websites merely reflect natural human, or rather, natural male, desire: “porn doesn’t plant [ideas] in men’s minds; instead, porn puts the power of a mass medium behind ancient male desires.”

Men, she argues, are violent creatures. Sex is a sometimes pleasurable experience “largely driven by brute male desire and therefore not at all free of violent, even cruel, urges.” Furthermore, she suggests that women are complicit in this “truth” about sex. Even for women, the “best sex” comes “where the buffers of intimacy or familiarity do not exist.”

Despite the many false premises Vargas-Cooper asserts, in the end she too identifies a problem with no solution. Although porn divorces the physical act of sex from the emotional connection of a man and a woman coming together, and although Vargas-Cooper’s own claims support that divide, she concludes, “The most frightening truths about sex rarely exist in the physical, but instead live in the intangible yet indelible wounds created in the psyche.”

For Flanagan, the new sexual mores take away women’s needed protection. For Vargas-Cooper, porn is simply a representation of sex: a brutal, male-dominated, and harmful act. If either of these women is right, then sign me up for lifelong virginity.

The Biblical perspective on human sexuality offers a counter-narrative, a counter-narrative of faithfulness, hope, and love. Jesus quoted Genesis 2 when the Pharisees asked him about divorce: “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4-5). The eternal truth about sex, according to the Bible, begins with Adam and Eve, whose union reflects the image of God. God intends sex to be a physical expression of an emotional and spiritual reality, an expression of love protected by the vows of marriage. Furthermore, sex, in contrast to Vargas-Cooper’s argument, is about mutual giving and receiving. Paul writes, “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (1 Cor. 7:4). Sex in marriage, in other words, is an expression of self-sacrifice and submission for both the man and the woman. Sex involves pleasure, of course, but receiving the physical pleasure of sex is intimately related to giving of oneself—giving oneself to the other and also giving oneself to the possibility of bringing life into the world.

Secular culture assumes that a Christian view of sex is repressive and boring, not to mention virtually impossible to achieve. And yet the options offered by the secular culture lead to subjugation of women, violence, and despair. It is up to Christians to hold forth a radically hopeful alternative to the porn industry and hookup culture. It is up to Christians to articulate the eternal truth about sex as a gift from God intended to bring life, freedom, and joy.

'When Gender-Based Parenting Goes Too Far': Author Response

Editor's Note: When we asked frequent Her.meneutics blogger Caryn Rivadeneira to review Secure Daughters, Confident Sons: How Parents Guide Their Children into Authentic Masculinity and Femininity (Multnomah), we knew it would get her — and readers — on a roll. The book, from Glenn Stanton, director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family, covers two of the most thorny topics in evangelical circles: gender differences and parenting styles. In her blogging and book-writing, Caryn has given much thought to both, and her review received many amens from readers, mostly women, who have experienced traditional definitions of femininity to be confining and untrue. Yet we also decided to give Stanton the space to further articulate his views on the two topics. Below is his response, which we hope will move the gender-and-parenting conversation beyond well-trod lines of debate.

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These days, most discussions on gender unfortunately gravitate to one of two extremes. Either we reduce gender to mere plumbing and social construction, or we have what I call the “pretty-in-pinks” and the “macho-Joes”: neat and easy, black and white, a good boy is rough and tumble, real girls are gentle and sweet, and so on. In Secure Daughters Confident Sons, I want to help parents explore the vast terrain that lies between these extremes. It’s where most of us live. Can we speak meaningfully and authentically about male and female while navigating the space between? It is the best place in which to do so.

My book takes Genesis 1:27 — and thus what it means to be gendered persons — very seriously. In fact, Christianity takes femininity very seriously, for it “images,” or reflects, God in the world like nothing else can. There is no bigger statement about how special it is to be a woman. And men do the same in their male uniqueness. To dismiss or oversimplify femaleness and maleness fails to appreciate one of God’s greatest and fundamental gifts. It is the first thing God tells us about ourselves, and it is the first question we ask about every new human (“is it a boy or girl?”). Secure Daughters Confident Sons examines through the lenses of Scripture and new insights from science the place where gender demonstrates itself most vividly: parenting.

At Focus on the Family, I handle a good share of the media calls. Most reporters ask if the differences between mom and dad are really necessary for a healthy family. I ask the reporter to imagine his or her magazine or newspaper being staffed entirely by only one sex. Would such a turn have no discernible effect on the quality of the publication? “Doesn’t a good publication like yours just need intelligent, insightful reporters?” This is typically answered by an unenthusiastic, “I see your point.” If your newsroom, or any other human enterprise, requires male/female contributions to be its best, how much more so in parenting, which issues from this very difference?

How do we live, work, and love as males and females in the family, in molding men out of boys and women out of girls? The first half of the book explores in fine detail what it means to be authentically male and female, and not just in particular corners of the world. If what we say about being authentically male or female doesn’t apply to those working in a shop in Lincoln, Nebraska, as it does to those working rice fields in Longyan, China, then it is not genuinely masculine or feminine. Since God created all of us — in all corners of the earth, red and yellow, black and white — meaningfully as gender-distinct beings, we should then be able to speak meaningfully about a general, universal masculinity and femininity.

Over the past decade, a wonderful body of research from neuroscience to anthropology suggests there is a real, measurable maleness and femaleness that’s more universal than gender-studies folk ever imagined. Secure Daughters Confident Sons provides a narrative, drawn from the male and female physicality of sexuality, helping parents grasp what a male or female essence really is and does.

The male physical orientation is outward, beyond himself. Every boy must learn to get up, prepare himself, rouse his confidence, and go to it. This is just as true of the macho Clint Eastwood types as of the cerebral Bill Gates types. As Michael Gurian, a leading gender specialist, says, “Almost every man you know is on a quest.” Girls, on the other hand, are physically oriented to take in and receive, to draw others to themselves, to nurture and protect. It is why Gurian says, “A girl is born with an inherent, directly natural path to self-worth.” And thus, Margaret Mead, decades ago, noted from her cross-cultural anthropological studies that “women, it is true, make human beings, but only men can make other men.” Girls have a more natural path into womanhood. Boys need to be invited into manhood. This is what the Bar Mitzvah is about. It is what’s behind the call for men to help boys “cut the apron strings.”

Consider how the outward-inward nature of men and women shows up in some basic aspects of parenting. Consider just one example: how moms and dads hold young children. Dads will at some moment throw them into the air. Mothers seldom do. I have seen this everywhere from Manhattan to Jakarta. Mothers holding their babies communicate closeness and security, something we all need. Dads scare the wits out of us by throwing us up in the air, teaching us that the world can be a scary place. But just as soon as gravity has its effect, we sail back into Dad’s strong hands. And we giggle uncontrollably and demand “again!” Mom provides comfort, and Dad provides confidence-building experiences.

The social and child-development sciences point to hundreds of other ways that the differences between mothers and fathers provide rich and essential developmental experiences for children. Go to any playground and listen to the parents. Some will be saying, “Don’t climb any higher.” Others will be saying, “See if you can make it to the top.” Who are the moms, and who the dads? And which message is more important? Neither is more important: our boys and girls need both.

It’s important for Christians to understand what our gender differences as God-imaging humans mean theologically, humanly, and practically, day to day. Secure Daughters Confident Sons seeks to do exactly that.

Glenn T. Stanton is the director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family and the author of many books on the family.

Ohio Mom Gets Jailtime for Better Education

What do Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and an African American single mother in Ohio have in common? Both faced gut-wrenching realities that sometimes cause law-abiding individuals to blur the lines between what’s legal and what seems morally permissible. The shades of gray present both an interesting dilemma and a significant opportunity for Christians concerned about legal and educational justice in the U.S.

Les Misérables is a familiar tale. Set in 19th-century France, the story's protagonist, Jean Valjean, is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread in order to feed his sister’s seven destitute children. Valjean spends several years in prison for his crime. After his eventual release, the plot takes us through a complex story rooted in themes of social inequity, justice, mercy and fairness. We are caused to wrestle with whether or not Valjean’s original sentence was just. After all, Valjean was simply trying to take care of his sister’s starving children. The kids had no other apparent options and presumably would have starved to death. Should we grant leniency to Jean Valjean, given the circumstances?

Let’s consider the modern-day story of Kelley Williams-Bolar, a single mom in Akron, Ohio. Williams-Bolar has three children, and she’s raising them in Akron’s public housing projects. Like most inner cities, in Akron quality schools are sparse, and the local neighborhood public schools are among the worst in the area. According to 2008-09 state data, only 48 percent of African American students scored at or above proficient in reading, and only 39 percent scored similarly in math.

Knowing the life-changing importance of a good education, Williams-Bolar made a decision to send her children to live with their grandfather in nearby Copley-Fairlawn School District. Her children were never official residents of Copley-Fairlawn, so Kelley was breaking the law by using her father’s address to send the children to Copley-Fairlawn. Last month, she was convicted on two felony charges for falsifying records and sentenced to 10 days in jail, 3 years of probation, and 80 hours of community service.

Adding to the tragic irony, Williams-Bolar is an assistant special-education teacher at an Akron school district high school and a student at the University of Akron, where she’s one semester away from receiving her bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate. Now that she has a felony conviction on her record the presiding Judge Patricia Cosgrove informed her, “You will not be allowed to get your teaching degree under Ohio law as it stands today.” This mom was trying to do the right thing. She was working hard, balancing life as a struggling single mother, to get her college degree so she would have the means to move her children to a neighborhood with better educational opportunities. Now it appears that her efforts will have been in vain. Kelley, her children, and the students she would have served as a teacher will be penalized.

I've found that I can split the online reactions to this story into two camps. There are those who feel absolutely that this mom was in the wrong and “got what she deserved.” On the flip side, the vast majority of others seem to feel that she was justified and shouldn’t be punished. I find degrees of truth in both arguments.

According to school enrollment restrictions, this mother certainly did break the law. But ultimately I believe that an ‘either-or’ perspective on Williams-Bolar misses a deeper and more significant opportunity for reflection and societal change. I believe we should be asking ourselves a key question: Why do we create systems that force people to make dire ethical choices about basic human needs such food or a decent education? As a Christian, I believe God wants us to look at adverse and unjust situations in our society — such as educational inequity — and realize that we have the opportunity to truly make a positive impact.

My husband and I are fortunate to have wonderful, high-quality school options for our three children. We will likely never face the ethical choice Williams-Bolar had to make. But under parallel circumstances, would I make the same decision she did? Would I feel pressured to ensure my children got the best education possible, even if it meant bending the rules to do it? Honestly, I’m not sure. Williams-Bolar knows what we all know: The best way to ensure our children have an equal chance in life is by providing them with a quality education. She was willing to take a risk to make that happen.

As Christians, instead of passing judgment on Williams-Bolar and other moms in similar situations, we should focus our efforts on understanding why our nation’s unequal public school system drives some parents to break the law to ensure their kids get a good education. And, more importantly, what can we do to help change our country’s overall public education system so parents won’t have to face such dire choices?

Here are a few suggestions of what people of faith can do to help end educational inequity:
• Serve as a tutor or mentor at-risk students.
• Support a school board candidate, or add your name to the ballot.
• Encourage exceptional young people you know to become teachers, perhaps by joining Teach For America.
• Sponsor an under-resourced school in your area serving high-poverty students.
• Pray for God’s guidance for our teachers and schools leaders.

Nicole Baker Fulgham is vice president of faith community relations for Teach for America. She reviewed the documentary Waiting for Superman for Christianity Today and was featured in the magazine's Who's Next profile.

The No-Makeup Spiritual Discipline

About a week before Christmas, I decided to join my husband’s family for an entire day of shopping. I got ready for the day with my usual routine of showering, blow-drying my hair, and picking out an outfit, but there was one difference: I left the house without an ounce of makeup on my face.

“Today I am going out without makeup on as an act of Christian discipleship!” I announced to my in-laws upon entering the living room. My confidence flagged, however, as soon as I walked in the first store. I vainly wanted to tell the salespeople, “I don’t normally look like this” — as if they were concerned. Eventually I adjusted to the change, but the entire time I kept asking myself, Why do I feel naked without makeup?

In order to answer that question, let me retrace some steps. It all began with a book by Maria Harris titled Dance of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Women’s Spirituality. Harris, a Catholic professor of religious education, bucked linear models of human development and offered a more organic, true-to-life framework of spiritual development. As Harris conceived of it, a woman’s spiritual growth is more like a dance than a straight path: She moves forward, sometimes backward, and often repeats the same moves over and over throughout the course of her life. Indeed, Harris’s gender-inclusive language and her discomfort with accepted Christian traditions would make any evangelical cast a wary eye. Even so, in the course of my doctoral research at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I have found myself rather inspired by her surprising voice.

Harris termed the first stage of a woman’s spiritual dance awakening, which is best compared to the scriptural concept of daily renewal. Romans 12:2 instructs Christians to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” and 2 Corinthians 4:16 reminds us that “inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” This seems to be what Harris had in mind as she encouraged women to awaken to God, and their identity in him, on a daily basis.

Of the action steps Harris suggested, one stood out to me. Harris exhorted women to go outside without any makeup on:

Possibly the suggestion that we take off our makeup, or go outside without it, creates a feeling close to panic. (“Oh God, no”) If we react that way, it may be we are shocked by the suggestion that we allow someone else to see us as we actually are. (15)

She then adds,

I know. I wear makeup. But I marvel at women who go without it, and I notice how comfortable men are in public without it. And I wonder what our doing away with it, not all the time but on occasion, as an experiment, might do in awakening our spirituality. After all, in West Side Story, Maria didn’t sing, “I look pretty.” She sang, “I feel pretty.” (16)

Harris described other forms of makeup that we wear to hide our true selves, singling out “false expressions” as especially prevalent. Harris noted the wide array of expressions women don, masks “of peaceful disagreement when we are in raging disagreement; of pleasure when we are actually disgusted; of distaste when we are actually delighted; of human when we are actually repelled; of understanding when we are actually baffled” (16). Our desire to please others can be so powerful that we frequently hide our true selves behind symbolic makeup, instead of embracing the person God created each of us to be.

Harris’s words are powerful and timely. She also offers an appropriately balanced approach. Rather than condemn all makeup as an evil itself, she encourages women simply to keep it in check. From time to time, she advised, go out in public without any makeup. It is a quick indicator of where your confidence is founded. It certainly was for me.

Yet the question remains: Why did I feel so bare without makeup? The first answer came to me from 1 Peter 3:3-4, which reminds women that their beauty comes not from “outward adornment” but from the “unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.” True beauty, as God defines it, takes a lot of work. Worldly beauty, conversely, does not. Bearing this in mind, I feel naked without my worldly beauty because I am not confident in my spiritual beauty. And I am not confident in my spiritual beauty because I have invested considerably less time into it.

But there’s another reason why I feel vulnerable without makeup. When sin entered the world, Eve immediately felt naked and ashamed, so she tried to cover herself. Thousands of years later, I feel that same shame about who God created me to be, focusing on my faults instead of rejoicing in the imago Dei I bear. Echoing Harris’s sentiments, I am afraid for people to see me as I really am, even though God himself created me this way.

Harris passed away in 2005. I would have loved to sit down with her over a cup of coffee and hear about her personal awakenings to God and herself. I wonder if she ever reached a point at which she stopped wearing makeup altogether. But I suppose that was not the point. Her legacy was not one of legalism about makeup but of greater intimacy with God. For those of us who draw confidence from exterior adornments, achievements, and attitudes, she challenges us to experience a purer, unencumbered faith.

Sharon Hodde Miller is a PhD student in educational studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. She blogs at She Worships. Last year guest blogger Stephanie Krzywonos wrote about the health hazards in makeup.

Are Single Women Too Picky?

Are single women single because they are too picky? Lori Gottlieb argues this is precisely the case, and she uses herself as the prime example. When asked to list the qualities she wants in a husband, the then-41-year-old journalist came up with 60 items — just off the top of her head — ranging from “kind” to “has a full head of hair (wavy and dark would be nice—no blonds).” But the most important thing she was looking for couldn’t be quantified on a list. She wanted a man with a certain je ne sais quoi. She wanted fireworks on the first date. She wanted to know she had finally found “The One.”

Newly released in paperback and being marketed to Christian women in time for Valentine’s Day, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough details Gottlieb’s journey from picky singleton to enlightened woman who is willing to date a bald, bow-tie-wearing man named Sheldon. The book's title, based on Gottlieb's 2008 essay in The Atlantic, brings to mind desperate women who are willing to marry anyone simply to avoid being single, but that is not what Gottlieb means when she encourages women to settle for “Mr. Good Enough.” She does not advocate resigning yourself to a life of misery with a man you find unpleasant, but rather, adjusting your expectations and being happy with a more realistic version of Mr. Right.

According to Gottlieb, the problem is that women are no longer satisfied with companionship, security, and stability. Instead, we believe we deserve it all, and that includes a soul mate who is exciting, passionate, masculine, and has the same emotions women do. To make matters worse, we start to believe that no matter how great a guy is, there must be someone better out there. She argues that we should throw away our lists and focus on inner qualities and essential values rather than outward qualities such as clothes, height, job, or education. Rather than asking ourselves, “What’s wrong with him?” we should ask ourselves, “What values and goals do we share?”

Many readers might find Gottlieb’s journey humorous as she chronicles her adventures with online dating, speed dating, matchmakers, and even a dating coach. In each of these scenarios, however, her conclusion is the same: You’d better grab a man while you’re in your 30s, because men don’t want a woman who is over 40. Gottlieb frequently reflects with regret upon all of the good men she let get away when she was in her 20s and 30s. Now, at 41, there are few prospects. Unfortunately, there is little acknowledgment that men should not be picky about the women they date. It is accepted without question that men choose women based on age and physical beauty. I can’t help wondering where the book is that tells men that they need to “settle” for a woman who is kind and caring but might not look like a supermodel.

Although I think Gottlieb’s premise is a good one — in the search for a mate we should focus on shared values rather than superficial qualities — as a Christian I had trouble swallowing two aspects of the book. First, Gottlieb is clearly writing to urban professionals who date regularly and accept premarital sex as the norm. Although there are certainly Christian women who fall into this category, I don’t know very many who could pass as a regular on Sex and the City and who break up with good men because of the way they eat their peas. In fact, single Christian women have the opposite problem. Rather than being too picky, many are so desperate for a potential mate that they make excuses for less than desirable men. I knew one Christian woman in her late 20s who made excuses for a boyfriend who had recently been in prison for child pornography. Being picky can be a good thing — as long as you are picky about the right things.

But my biggest criticism of Gottlieb's book is that she considers religion to be one of those external, objective qualities that we should not be too picky about. When she realized, with the help of her dating coach, that approximately 2 percent of American men are Jewish and that this narrowed her potential dating pool to .1 percent of the male population, a shared religion quickly came off her list of must-haves. Gottlieb is right that we should focus on shared values rather than superficial qualities. But for us as Christians, these shared values should include more than kindness and a desire to get married. We should limit our search to those men who make their relationship with God first and foremost in their lives, even if it limits our dating pool to .01 percent.

When I finished reading Marry Him, I couldn’t help feeling depressed — not because I realized I had been too picky or because I realized no man would date me now that I am over 40. Rather, I felt depressed because of the desperation with which so many women search for Mr. Right. Yes, most single women would like to be married. Yes, we should not be so quick to judge others according to a superficial list of expectations. But settling for a husband who does not meet God’s standards will not bring us the happy ending we seek.

Bonnie Field is an educational consultant, curriculum specialist, and English teacher. She is single and co-author of the book Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today's Church, which Christianity Today reviewed in 2009.

When Gender-Based Parenting Goes Too Far

I have never once second-guessed my gender, my sexuality, or my femininity. But a new book has tempted me to. Even though I recently spent eight years either growing babies in my womb or feeding them from my breasts, according to Secure Daughters, Confident Sons: How Parents Guide Their Children into Authentic Masculinity and Femininity (Multnomah), I am in fact a man — and a good one at that.

Consider author Glenn Stanton’s description of what “makes a good man,” in the chapter “What Makes a Good Man?” These men are:

- Explorative
- Determined to deliver the goods
- Needing to know what’s next
- Opportunists
- Chance-takers
- Initiators
- Active and aggressive
- Competitive and dominant

I am all of these things, in one way or another. Now consider what Stanton, the director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family and author of several books on marriage and parenting, says “makes a good woman,” in the chapter “What Makes a Good Woman?” These women are:

- Confidently enticing
- Seekers of intimacy over action
- Wisely receptive
- Security-seekers
- Prefers of modesty
- Care-seekers
- Word-users
- Desirous of equity and submission
- Wielders of soft power
- All about connecting

Now I’m confused. After all, I use words. I might even be “confidently enticing,” though I’ll need to ask somebody. A quick tally of this list, and maybe I am a woman, though not all that great of one.

Of course, I jest, to illustrate the problems in pigeonholing men and women by lists of traits — especially when an author seeks to help parents understand the differences between their sons and daughters, and emphasizes the importance of having both male and female influences in a child’s life.

This is not to say I don’t believe men and women are different. Remember, I once spent eight years pregnant and/or nursing, while my husband . . . did not. Also, I have two boys and a girl. As I write this, my daughter is creating drama between her Rapunzel doll and some generic princess, while my boys are punching each other and fighting over the "WiiMote." I didn’t teach my daughter to play like that any more than my husband taught my boys to fight over video games. Those are “gifts” of nature, not nurture.

So what makes me nervous about gender discussion is not the highlighting of differences, but rather the conclusions drawn on what we can do and be in Christ according to those differences.

In many ways, Stanton’s book set me at ease on this front. The scientific evidence he offers on the differences between the male and female brain (“The increased level of serotonin [in the female brain] is what moves your daughter toward being . . . more measured, more reticent, more cautious, and better able to focus longer on one task . . .” — thus, the doll drama vs. WiiMote battle in my living room) piqued my interest. Stanton’s assertion that a man’s “male essence points him beyond” and serves as evidence of a man’s adventurous ways cracked me up. And the loving stories he tells of his wife (even of him submitting to her wisdom) and his children charmed me. Stanton is quick to state that gender differences are never carved in stone, so perhaps I shouldn’t take his lists so seriously.

Yet for all the wisdom Stanton offers, I find some of his conclusions — namely, that we should be raising our kids to seek different life goals based on gender — troublesome. Contrary to the title, we should not be raising “confident sons” and “secure daughters.” Rather, we should be raising both sons and daughters who are both secure and confident.

When it comes to what we raise our kids to do and be, certainly gender plays a role. But it isn’t, as Stanton believes, “the center of the human story,” at least not for Christian parents keen on raising their kids to follow Jesus.

Even as male and female reflect God, our gender doesn’t matter more than our God-given gifts or the gospel itself when it comes to playing our part in the kingdom. The Holy Spirit certainly doesn’t impart gifts according to gender. Many of us debate whether God outlines different gender-based roles in marriage and church life, but certain spiritual gifts do not require a certain biological makeup. And Jesus didn’t offer gender-tailored rules when he told us to love our neighbors as ourselves and go and make disciples of all nations.

Throughout this book, I kept wondering if Stanton forgot this fact, especially when he makes statements like, “Men lead because the male’s orientation is to shape, mold, create, and change things that are bad into something good.”

While Stanton says that women can also “shape, mold, and influence” by wielding the power of “simply being good, healthy women,” this isn’t the same. In fact, if only men are oriented to transform this world, women are in trouble, because a woman who is being “good” and eating healthy, hoping that the world changes for the better as it twirls around her, isn’t living the gospel.

As image-bearers of our Creator and Redeemer, we should all have a world-changing orientation. If we don’t, we ought to pray for it. And as Christian moms and dads, we’d better be working hard to raise our boys and girls to right the wrongs of the world in Jesus’ name. How we do that might look different according to our gender, gifts, or temperaments, but in Christ, in whom there is no male or female, it should become our very nature — and the center of our human story.

I am confident that Stanton agrees. It’s clear from his new book that he is smart, he loves his family, and he loves God. From the final heartbreaking story he tells about his dad — the one that left me crying, like a girl — I can tell that Stanton is a good man, list or no list.

Caryn Rivadeneira is a writer, speaker, and mother of three, and the author of Mama's Got a Fake I.D. as well as a book forthcoming from Tyndale House. She has written for Her.meneutics on boycotting Amazon, Halloween, burqas, fathers, Mother's Day, spanking, happiness, and pregnant Olympians.