Confessions of a Beth Moore Convert

Why the Bible teacher with the big Texan hair may just be our female Billy Graham.

Karen Spears Zacharias, guest blogger

Americans are becoming more biblically illiterate than ever. The Barna Group reports that fewer than half of us can name the four Gospels. Sixty percent of us couldn’t name five of the Ten Commandments, and fewer still could name two or three of the disciples.

The now-deceased but ever-respected Michael Spencer warned that this illiteracy was only part of the free-fall that is seeping into evangelicalism. Spencer warned in 2009, in the widely read "The Coming Evangelical Collapse": “Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.”

Spencer was right. We have managed to busy ourselves with issues that have us flailing about in shallow waters, rather than investing in the disciplines of our faith. We find it sexier to participate in a march advocating prayer in schools than to actually spend time praying. We’d rather sit at Starbucks discussing the Bible than to spend time reading it.

Bible Study is like homework, right? And everyone knows, homework is, like, so B-O-R-I-N-G.

Unless, you happen to be Beth Moore.

Linda, my sister, has long been a fan of Moore’s. Over the past decade, if Moore was within a day’s driving distance, my sister was in the audience. To be honest, Linda’s rabid devotion for all-things-Moore annoys me. My sister waited four months before ordering my most current book. If Moore releases a new book, Linda has it ordered within four minutes. Hundreds of thousands of women share my sister’s affection for Moore and her teaching ministry, but as usual, I’m late to the party.

I gave up on women-only Bible studies in the 1980s. I’m not a huge fan of fill-in-the-blank workbooks. I’m loathe to whittle big issues down to four words or less. I wrangle publicly with hot-topic issues like gay marriage, war, and the poor. As a rule I don’t like uniformity or conformity. If a pastor asks the congregation to repeat something together, I’ll be the woman singing a Janis Joplin tune aloud instead.

But I came off my last book tour convicted that I needed to spend less time writing about people who live out their faith, and more time living mine out.

The first thing I signed up for was the women’s Wednesday morning Bible study. They were studying Moore’s 2005 study When Godly People Do Ungodly Things.

Thankfully, I was delighted to discover Moore was not the woman I’d stereotyped her to be. I had wrongly dismissed Moore’s popularity to her being pretty, and perky, with big Texas hair. What I had not counted on was that Beth Moore is neither simplistic nor over-wrought.

Her studies present the Scriptures in a straightforward fashion. She often concedes that there are different ways of considering the matter. "There is a big difference between a head full of knowledge and the word of God literally abiding in us," she warns. She’s funny but never demeaning (which can’t be said for many these days). "Everyday temptation and intentional demonic seduction are as different as a snowball and an avalanche." Anyone who has experienced the two, and survived, knows the truth and wry humor of that statement. Moore's workbooks have the same general theme in that they repeatedly point people to the Jesus who can and will, given the chance, completely transform their lives. I'd go as far to say she is the female Billy Graham, unabashedly falling on her face in prayer in front of the masses.

Moore has her critics, to be sure. As a Southern Baptist (LifeWay publishes her Bible studies and books), Moore adheres to a conservative theology. Yet whatever she thinks about gay marriages or physician-assisted suicide isn’t something she discusses. Moore is intentional about not wading into murky political waters. She makes every effort to avoid the trap that Spencer warned us about, a trap I’ve fallen repeatedly into — that of believing in a cause more than a faith.

As Sarah Pulliam Bailey reported for CT in 2010, Moore did not attend seminary so what she knows about the Bible she learned “boots on the ground.” The Army Major’s daughter has steered clear of impropriety of any sort, be it sexual or financial. Her self-taught methodology is cause for concern for some — including Halee Gray Scott, who wrote about Moore's theology for CT — who belittle her references of “hearing from God.” But Moore is quick to point out that her hearing from God is not an audible thing, but rather the result of being in relationship with a living God.

Why should we dismiss people when they say they have heard from God as being intellectually wacky? Isn’t it the whole point of a believer's study of hermeneutics and theology to hear from God? Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed that it didn’t matter how well-trained a theologian was, or how much preparation one put into a sermon; if God didn’t come and grasp the people, all that study, all the preparation was useless. How does one have faith without expecting to hear from God?

In his letter, Paul urged Timothy: “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). The Greek context here for the word study is spoudazo. It means “to do one’s best, to spare no effort, to give it your all.”

It seems to me that Beth Moore is attempting to do that very thing. That is what has earned her the respect Paul was speaking about — including, finally, my own.

Karen Spears Zacharias is author of Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide? (Zondervan, 2010), and is a contributing blogger at Patheos. She can be reached at karenzach.com or via Twitter @karenzach.

Should Christians Use Self-Help Programs?

Many programs teach self-love and self-compassion as a path to inner peace. What is the gospel response?

Amy Julia Becker

We were staying with friends, and I was getting ready for the day in their daughter’s bathroom. It was a typical tween-age space: cute stickers and sayings posted to the mirror, hair products and cotton balls and drugstore makeup on the shelf. A quote on the mirror caught my eye: “I’m Third.” It came from Kanakuk, a Christian sports camp in Missouri. In smaller print, I found an explanation: “God first. Others second. I’m third.”

Something about the quote struck me as off. I knew it came from the Bible. When the teachers of the law ask Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment?” he responds, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself' ” (Matt. 22:37-38). I assume the Kanakuk saying intends to echo Jesus, yet the Bible states the command in a less hierarchical manner. Love of God remains at the top of the list, but love of neighbor and self are inextricably related. In fact, Jesus' command implies that we will know how to love our neighbor only if we properly love ourselves.

I remembered that Kanakuk saying upon reading two recent articles about self-help. In the first, “Change We Can (Almost) Believe In,” Time reporter Nathan Thornburgh describes his quest for personal wholeness at the Landmark Forum, “one of the country’s largest personal-development workshops,” and later through yoga. Thornburgh, who went feeling disappointed "about myself and my default noir outlook on life," said he walked away "increasingly curious about the vast number of people in the midrange of the self-help spectrum: the enthusiastic brigades of the transformists and yogis and New Agers who embrace change as a call to action."

The second, “Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges,” from The New York Times's Tara Parker-Pope, discusses new research surrounding “self-compassion,” or “how kindly people view themselves.” Parker-Pope covers the research of Kristin Neff, a Texas-based professor of human development, who says that "most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be."

It’s easy for Christians to dismiss self-help regimens as self-centered and thus ultimately self-destructive and harmful to others. But Thornburgh hints at some Christian truth as he journeys through the self-help landscape. He embarks upon a Landmark course of self-discovery and realizes, for instance, that “we overestimate our importance to the universe.” He writes, “I benefited tremendously from the uncomfortable mirror that the course had put in front of me.” In his experience, the way to inner peace came via a hefty dose of humility and recognizing personal failings, something Christians often call an admission of sin.

Parker-Pope takes a different tack. She writes that many people confuse self-compassion with self-indulgence. Ironically, many people who offer support and kindness to others are unwilling to treat themselves in the same way. Parker-Pope writes, “The research suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic.”

Thornburgh’s and Parker-Pope’s reports contain kernels of truth about human nature. Both affirm the need to acknowledge our shortcomings. Both also offer reasons to love ourselves. And yet a Christian understanding of self-love goes much farther. For Thurnburgh, self-help is a means to personal peace, becoming a better parent, and generally reordering one's life. Parker-Pope offers only one practical application of the self-compassion research: “Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.” Christian love, in contrast, acknowledges a source of love outside the self and a purpose for love that includes the self but extends far beyond personal well-being.

God’s love anchors self-love and neighbor-love. As with self-help regimens, God’s love provokes recognition of sin, and a recognition that we are unable to change sinful patterns by berating ourselves and trying harder. Instead of dealing with sin on our own or dismissing the problem of sin altogether, we receive first unity with Christ in his sinlessness and then transformative power from the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, God provides a rationale for loving ourselves that goes beyond inner peace and weight loss. He dignifies every human being as a creature “in God’s image,” with inestimable value to the Creator. As we understand God’s love for us, manifested in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, so we begin to understand God’s love for every person. God’s love prompts us to love ourselves and to love other people.

Whenever love exists in a vacuum, it becomes idolatry. Loving ourselves without reference to our neighbors leads to self-centeredness. But loving our neighbors without loving ourselves refuses to acknowledge our common humanity and our common value before God.

I haven’t come up with a new slogan for Kanakuk, but I might start by omitting the word I and substituting it with we. Love, in its essence, is relational. God the Father loves the Son loves the Spirit, and God invites us to participate in this holy love, first by receiving it personally and then by extending it outward. Modern research may help us understand how to love ourselves, but only when that love is coupled with an understanding of God’s love will it combine inner peace with outward acts of joyful service. Really loving our neighbor means loving ourselves with the love embodied in the life and death of Christ, the love of God that fuels the universe.

Bill Maher Slurs Sarah Palin, NOW Responds

The National Organization for Women seems to believe that being conservative and pro-life means being anti-woman. Not so fast.

Gina Dalfonzo

When comedian Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a “dumb t--t” on his HBO show last week, few people were holding their breath waiting for the National Organization for Women to come to her defense. But as a matter of fact, NOW — the largest feminist organization in the U.S. — did. They just did it in a way that brings to mind the old saw, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”

According to the Daily Caller, "NOW made it clear that their denouncement of Maher’s sexist remark toward Palin is in no way an endorsement of her or conservative policies." NOW communications director Lisa Bennett said,

You’re trying to take up our time getting us to defend your friend Sarah Palin. If you keep us busy defending her, we have less time to defend women’s bodies from the onslaught of reproductive rights attacks and other threats to our freedom, safety, livelihood, etc. Sorry, but we can’t defend Palin or even Hillary Clinton from every sexist insult hurled at them in the media. That task would be impossible, and it would consume us. You know this would not be a productive way to fight for women’s equal rights, which is why you want us stuck in this morass.

Given Palin’s position on “reproductive rights,” it's hard to miss Bennett's swipe at the very woman whom her organization was defending against a sexist slur. Her statement carried this subtext: Pro-life women are less important than pro-choice women. Even without the mention of reproductive rights, the phrase “even Hillary Clinton” would have been a dead giveaway. Bennett's comment suggested that pro-life women are a disgrace to their sex, and if by some misfortune they need defending, then it should be done only under protest.

From what I've observed, this tone is all too common where Palin and other pro-life women are concerned — so common that we have come to expect it. For an example, go back and read what Wendy Doniger, history of religions professor at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, wrote at The Washington Post’s On Faith blog during the Palin vice presidential campaign: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman. . . . She does not speak for women; she has no sympathy for the problems of other women, particularly working class women.”

Why would Doniger say such a thing? Because of Palin’s views on “both sex and religion (which combine in the debates about abortion),” and because of the way those views influenced Palin’s politics.

So when Bennett claims that conservatives defending Palin are guilty of “the worst kind of hypocrisy,” she’s basing that charge on the common pro-choice view that to be a conservative — particularly a pro-life conservative — is to be anti-woman.

But Bennett and Doniger and others like them need to take a long hard look at hypocrisy in their own camp: the tendency to attack a person’s very identity because of a difference in beliefs. For gender — contrary to those who teach that it’s merely a social construct — is one of the most personal and essential things about us. It’s core to who we are. Thus, the charge that a pro-life woman is somehow less of a woman is the lowest of blows.

When pro-choice feminists like Bennett and Doniger argue that women should not be treated as inferior beings because of their gender, one has to wonder if they’re so vehement precisely because they are familiar with the temptation to dole out such treatment, and know just how powerful a weapon it can be. As we’ve seen, pro-life women can make some of them so angry that they go for the jugular — that is, gender — themselves.

There’s an important application here for Christians, who believe that all persons, of all beliefs, backgrounds, and genders, are created in the image of God and derive their worth from him. That in itself should ensure our respect for each person's dignity, and restrain us from personal attacks based on gender or race or appearance or any other God-given quality. All of us struggle in that area, myself not least. But as Christians, we have a vital reason to fight the temptation: our stated belief in the value of each human life that God has created.

Whether the woman making headlines at any given moment is Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama or Laura Bush, some of us will have reasons to disagree with her. But disagreements should be just that: disagreements. As Christians, however strongly we deplore a person’s ideas or actions, we should know that to attack a woman on the basis of gender, or any other essential part of her identity, is to attack the God who made her.

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 “The Social Network’s Women Problem,” "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. She is working on a book about the media’s treatment of Sarah Palin during Palin’s vice presidential campaign.

Where Are All the Women City Leaders?

The way the Christian city-renewal movement is being narrated, one would assume all the leaders driving the movement are megachurch pastors.

Michelle Van Loon

“What can we do together that we can’t do on our own?”

The question silenced a room full of local church leaders at an organizational meeting for a city-reaching network. It was a jolt to the thinking of those who understood themselves as representatives of their individual congregations instead of a city-wide, big-C church, with many expressions and in many locations.

But they had me at the word together.

That word led to my own involvement in a local city-reaching network several years ago. It's been a delight to see churches that had once labored side-by-side like disconnected silos begin to interact with one another in meaningful community service, prayer, fellowship, and learning. The big-C church in my area has a way to go in terms of fully responding to the prayer Jesus prayed for his followers, but there have been some encouraging first steps over the past few years.

Eric Swanson and Sam Williams have served and/or coached other leaders in city-reaching church networking movements around the world, and have penned a practical guide for those interested in the notion entitled To Transform A City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City (Zondervan). The book’s subtitle comes from the Lausanne Movement and reflects the power of gospel-rooted collaboration.

The book attempts to construct a theological framework for the notions of "city" and "kingdom." The authors write,

The church serves as a living proof of the kingdom, a community where the world can see what marriage, family life, business practices, work habits, generosity, mercy, race relations — all of life — look like when lived under the rule and authority of Jesus Christ. . . . Spreading the kingdom of God is more than simply winning men and women to Christ. It involves working toward shalom and the redemption of structures, individuals, families, and relationships as well as surprising others with unexpected deeds of grace, mercy and justice (Micah 6:8).

Using their solid, kingdom-centered framework, Swanson and Williams do a thorough job explaining how and why regional collaborative relationships between congregations can be formed, cultivated, and maintained. This coaching is packed with real-life examples (including my own local network) designed to inspire and motivate. These examples spotlight a gap in the current conversation about collaboration, however.

A centerpiece of their strategy rests on having a committed high-octane leader who first owns the vision and then invites other local church, nonprofit, and business leaders to connect and collaborate. The authors suggest that megachurch pastors have the wiring, the social capital, and the spiritual influence to spearhead such movements. They write, “Like attracts like. Leaders attract leaders. Influence usually does not flow uphill, so senior pastors . . . lead the way.” They do note that it is possible to create viable networks without an alpha dog driving the team. “God is always in the business of surprising us by raising up Gideons, Davids, and little lads carrying a few fish.”

The gap? There are precious few women leaders mentioned in To Transform a City. The authors acknowledge the omission in the final chapter of the book: “We have not introduced you to many of the outstanding women leaders, who in every society play a transformational role in that society.” They go on to explain that the book’s purpose is “to serve as a primer on current, contemporary models of ministry to cities.” Though the authors were careful to use gender-neutral language, the examples and names referenced throughout were almost entirely male.

The reality is, women play a crucial role in the contemporary city-renewal movement. Women are leaders and influencers both inside and outside the four walls of churches. I’ve met women who have organized tutoring initiatives serving under-resourced public schools, created transitional housing for recently paroled female inmates, championed regional prayer ministries, and coordinated gospel-centered community service outreaches.

However, there don’t appear to be many women in key leadership roles in various city-reaching networks. They are involved, to be sure. Many women I know are already wired to be gifted collaborators and networkers, and have long been doing in their own sphere of influence what the (mostly) male leaders of networks are now attempting to do on a city-wide scale. Women are an integral part of the city-reaching movement, to be sure. They are doing the work of the ministry, but as I read To Transform a City, I wondered how women are being fully, intentionally included at the tables where Big Dawg leaders are gathering to pray, strategize, and dream about what kingdom-shaped renewal might look like in their cities.

On one hand, the deficit of the feminine in the book is surprising because these networks aren’t bound by the same hierarchies and traditions as local congregations are. On the other hand, the deficit isn’t surprising at all, given the manner in which many networks form as described by Swanson and Williams.

The good news is that this movement is still in its formative stages in most cities in America. Women’s leadership gifts are desperately needed to help guide, create, and nurture relational networks. Men involved in forming ministry networks must continue to keep the kingdom image of “the whole church” at the forefront so that the inclusion of women leaders happens organically.

Because the only way we can reach the whole city with the whole gospel is to do it together.

When Christians Get Divorced

A popular Christian blogger recently announced the end of her marriage. How should churches respond to those grieving?

Amy Julia Becker

A popular Christian blogger recently announced that she's getting divorced. She knows all the biblical reasons to stay married, and she understands the far-reaching repercussions when Christians divorce. On her personal blog she writes, “I can see why the Scriptures say God hates divorce. It’s not that he hates either of us (although at times, it’s easy to believe otherwise), but he hates what the brokenness of divorce does to the very souls of a man and his wife. He hates what it does to the people who love them. And even the people who maybe they’ve never met.” But, as she says, her marriage is broken beyond repair. "We, along with others in our lives, have tried desperately to fix it, to bring it back to life, to see a broken covenant redeemed. But the life is gone, and in order to preserve peace and love in our relationship, our marriage needed to end."

She is certainly not alone. Although recent reports indicate that the divorce rate for practicing evangelical Christians is lower than the American average of 50 percent, it still stands at 38 percent. In other words, 5 of 10 marriages in America are likely to fail, and nearly 4 of 10 marriages among practicing evangelicals fail. (Incidentally, 6 of 10 marriages among non-practicing evangelicals [those who don't attend church] fall apart, a statistic that raises its own set of questions.) How should the people of God, both individually and corporately, respond?

Before I was married, it baffled me that anyone who could call themselves a Christian could get divorced. Jesus himself stated God’s ideal for male and female: “They are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matt. 19:6). Jesus goes on to say that divorce and remarriage is the equivalent of adultery. Moreover, other biblical passages uphold the sanctity of marriage as a covenant that teaches us about God’s love for the church (see, for example, Eph. 5:21-33). Christians had a responsibility not only to stay married, but to demonstrate through marriage the way God’s love works.

Now I’m married. Happily married. And now I understand why Christians get divorced. There’s the impact of our culture, of course. The divorce rate in American is higher than most other nations, and cultural change has weakened the institution of marriage. As the Pew Research Center recently reported, “millennials” (defined as those between ages 18 and 29) value “being a good parent” as “one of the most important things in life” at a far greater rate than they value “having a successful marriage.” But divorce is nothing new, which is probably why the Bible has so much to say about it. Marriage, in any culture and at any point in history, is hard work.

The first way the church can respond to a divorce rate that mirrors the culture's is to support married people, particularly married people who are struggling. This support often takes the form of accountability, be that in the form of mentors or small groups, and yet accountability requires recognizing the ways good things — often work and children — can in fact cause harm to a marriage.

A wise Christian professor once told me that if he were to go out to dinner with another woman, a handful of faithful Christian men would fly into his hometown to hold him accountable and urge him to remain faithful to his wife. And yet, he said, that same group of men commended him regularly for his scholarly achievements without ever questioning how those achievements impacted his marriage. He was praised for the nights he spent wed to the office. In other words, infidelity can take subtle forms.

But the church must do more than support married people. It must also provide space for the grief of divorce and help restore divorced members to wholeness. As the author herself recently tweeted, "There is a huge opportunity to reach out & grieve with the grieving, be near to the brokenhearted, and encourage the people who've failed."

Jesus not only embodied grace and truth (John 1:14). He also embodied wisdom. He upheld God’s ideal for human flourishing, and he also acknowledged the reality of human sin and suffering. In the aforementioned comments on marriage and divorce, he makes reference to provisions in the Mosaic law for divorce, but he says, “it was not this way from the beginning.” God’s ideal, as expressed in Genesis, is a covenantal and mutually self-giving relationship between a man and a woman. But Jesus also acknowledges the reality of life in a fallen world when he gives provision for divorce “in the case of adultery.”

In addition, biblical prohibitions of divorce often arise in the context of God’s desire to protect women. Take Malachi 2:16, for example: “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect.” Even Jesus’ reflections on divorce in Matthew come in the context of the Pharisees asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" Jesus’ emphatic no not only upholds the sanctity of marriage but also protects vulnerable women from abandonment within a patriarchal culture. Our different cultural context does not mean divorce is desirable or even permissible. Rather, these verses demonstrate that God’s pronouncements about divorce are just as much about protection and care as they are about prohibition.

The church needs to follow Jesus’ lead in both upholding the sanctity of marriage and offering understanding and hope for those in the midst of divorce. Divorce demonstrates the fallen nature of the world. The Christian response to such fallenness ought to be a demonstration of God’s love — and his power to restore.

How I Learned to Love a Show about Mormon Polygamy

Despite its troubling views on marriage and family, HBO's Big Love always felt like an allegory for real people I know.

Christine A. Scheller
Years before TLC launched its polygamous reality show Sister Wives, Tom Hanks and company produced HBO’s award-winning drama series Big Love, about a family of polygamists who emerged out of a creepy Mormon splinter group.

I’ve watched all five seasons of Big Love, including Sunday night’s series finale. Creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer told the Los Angeles Times this week that the series emerged from their marriage, with the goal of communicating the idea that marriages can endure change. What appealed to me about the show was how it parsed the challenges of breaking free from a closed religious community while grappling with the community’s best ideals and penetrating reach.

The fact that the show was built around polygamy wasn’t a hindrance for a variety of reasons, not the least because of a conversation I had with an African friend who compared American “serial monogamy” unfavorably with his own culture’s polygamy. Also, by dislocating the faith struggle outside familiar television narratives, Big Love made the subject seem fresh rather than tired.

The plot centered on two families from the sect, the Grants and the Hendricksons. The Grants represent legalism and corruption, while the Hendricksons represent an amalgam of religious identities. Bill Hendrickson was kicked out of “the compound” as a teenager and was taken into the Mormon fold, where he met and married Barb, a woman of high Mormon pedigree. After many years of marriage, Bill senses a call back to polygamy. Barb goes along with his vision after a life-changing bout with cancer. Bill marries Nicki Grant, the daughter of his arch-nemesis Roman Grant, and then Margene, a much younger woman with sparse religious identity.

All manner of chaos ensued as the Hendricksons sought to work out their family dynamics and faith struggles while battling the Grants and trying to live out their minority faith as they move into increasingly public roles. It was an open question, particularly this season, what influences would hold sway in the family and whether or not the Hendricksons would survive both their internal conflicts and the external pressures that threatened them.

The story line about the battle for control in the polygamous sect and its resources reminded me of every church power struggle I’ve ever witnessed in that various factions claim divine blessing for themselves and divine judgment for their opponents. As Nicki slowly emerged from the sect’s influence, viewers saw how deeply entrenched she was in its values and how damaged she was by them. After many years of marriage, Bill and Barb seemed to retreat into the religious heritage with which they were raised to a degree that nearly undid them, while Margene authentically embraced faith for the first time. In the end, these tensions were resolved and the family forged its own original path. That is a familiar narrative, not only on the TV screen but in American life.

Commenting on a scene from the final episode in which protagonist Bill Hendrickson comes to grips with the changes his family is going through, Olsen told the Times the character was saying, “Religion is not there to dictate the form of a family. Religion is not there to cram our emotions into. It’s just the other way around. I just had this profound vision of eternal loving family, and anything that’s inconsistent with that is bad. That’s where religion ought to come from. Not the other way around.”

Before we condemn the uncomfortable view that faith should emerge from family rather than family values emerging from faith, we should note that this perspective is consistent with Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell's findings in American Grace, about how Americans’ doctrinal commitments are weakening due to relationships with those who are outside the bounds of those commitments. Who among us doesn’t wrestle with the problem of how to live in loving tension with family members whose convictions are at odds with our own?

I had many points of disagreement with the message of Big Love, including the portrayal of assisted suicide as a loving alternative in the final episode and the strong patriarchal thrust that endured to the final scene. But apart from the much derided fourth season that crammed parrot smuggling and forced embryo implantation into the plot, I always felt like Big Love was an allegory about people I know.

As such, it succeeded as a work of art. I’m reticent, at this point, to think its creators had an ulterior motive unrelated to good storytelling. Art and propaganda are at odds with one another, and if indeed Big Love was more the latter than the former, I’m sorely disappointed. Either the series succeeded as art in spite of its creators' motives, or their view of faith and family is indeed broader than their own narrow prejudices. The humanity that infused the characters leaves me with the impression that great writing was married with skillful acting to make a memorable series about living out a difficult faith in modern times. What’s not to love about that?

Prayers for Japan's Unborn Children

As the country quells a nuclear crisis, I'm reminded that even the best-intentioned parents can't fully protect their children.

Ellen Painter Dollar
I was a fairly relaxed mother-to-be during each of my three pregnancies. I didn’t even try to follow the overwrought “Best-Odds Diet” popularized by the blockbuster What to Expect When You’re Expecting, for example, preferring my normal, reasonably healthy diet, including grateful consumption of calcium-rich ice cream, which my obstetricians kindly included on their list of excellent foods for pregnancy. But I did develop one odd habit: Whenever I used my microwave, I never stood directly in front of the machine as it hummed along, just in case those waves of instantaneous heat could harm my baby.

My microwave avoidance seems silly today, as I read about the potentially dire effects of radiation exposure on pregnant women and their fetuses in Japan’s earthquake-devastated north, where damage to a nuclear reactor has caused an ongoing crisis. Experts warn that unborn fetuses are particularly vulnerable to the effects of radiation, which their mothers can breathe in or ingest through tainted food. Radiation levels that do not pose major threats to adults can be devastating to babies in utero, particularly during vital periods of development. According to The Daily Beast,

Should the worst-case scenario become a reality, it could lead to a generation of children born with all manner of maladies, from congenital malformation to mental retardation. Even at radiation levels too low to make a mother-to-be sick, health consequences for a fetus can be severe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fetal exposure to radiation is particularly damaging during the stage of organogenesis (9-42 days), a period of gestation crucial to the development of the heart, lungs, and brain . . .

Studies of Russia’s Chernobyl nuclear accident indicate that unborn Swedish children who were at 8 to 25 weeks gestation when they were subjected to radiation fallout had lasting cognitive damage, even though the radiation levels were low enough to be considered safe at the time.
In Japan, concern over babies’ health is compounded by parental anxieties about their children being labeled hibakusha, or “radiation-exposed people.” The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have given Japanese people a tragic familiarity with the health and social ramifications of radiation exposure. In a culture that celebrates conformity, children who grow up with health damage from radiation may have trouble finding jobs or marriage partners.

The radioactive threat to Japan’s unborn children is a stark reminder that in nearly any disaster, natural or human-made, the weakest and most vulnerable people (the young, the old, the sick) usually suffer the most. In the Gospels, Jesus says bluntly of the end times, marked by wars and famine, “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!” (Matt. 24:19; Mark 13:17; Luke 21:23). Like most pregnant women, I turned inward as my babies grew in my womb, nurturing my body, my family, and my home to create a hospitable space to welcome this new person. I simply do not know how women living in the world’s sore spots bear up under the knowledge that their efforts at hospitality can be completely undone when natural disaster, war, famine, and persecution make this world a most inhospitable place.

Perhaps the thought of pregnant women and children suffering through disasters is so mind-boggling because in our culture, we work so hard to manage our childbearing. Reproductive technologies offer the opportunity to control our pregnancies and our children’s genes. Genetic science even offers tools to manage our children long after birth. A test is now available, for example, that parents can use to determine if their kids have a gene associated with success in particular types of sports. And even parents who don’t test their children’s genes are bombarded with cultural messages about how the right birth plan, the right foods, and the right brain-stimulating activities will guarantee healthy, successful children.

Japanese mothers must live with the desperate knowledge that their children might not be healthy or successful — not because the mothers ate a hot dog or stood in front of a microwave during pregnancy, not because they needed a c-section or gave their babies formula, not because they use jarred baby food instead of the homemade organic stuff, not because they let their kids watch cartoons or try whatever sports they liked, regardless of their athletic prowess. These mothers’ babies are threatened because something terrible happened to them at the worst possible time. It is a heartbreaking reminder that children are not ours to manage and control, but to receive in all their vulnerability.

Jesus offered God’s hospitality, especially and explicitly, to the most vulnerable people, and so we offer our prayers and our help to the tiniest victims of Japan’s earthquake. My paltry prayers and few dollars feel so inadequate. They are inadequate. I offer them anyway, trusting that in spite of evidence to the contrary, God is more powerful than an earthquake, and God’s love more abundant than my stunted attempts to share it. And I hold my own children close, with all their maladies, mistakes, and limitations, everything unforeseen and unwanted yet welcomed along with their beauty, wisdom, and kindness.

The Divine Grace of Diapers and Dirty Laundry

A harried mother of three rediscovers Kathleen Norris's classic The Quotidian Mysteries.

Amy Julia Becker

I sat in the chair with a sleeping baby on my lap. I held her close, and I prayed. I prayed about the things I wanted to be doing — responding to e-mail, taking a shower, writing an essay. And I admitted my fears to God: Those things feel so much more important than this. Yet I saw the lie I was succumbing to, and I looked once more at my daughter’s round face, and I prayed that I would have faith in the importance of holding my child.

It takes faith to be a parent. It takes faith for me to care for our three children day after day. It takes faith to believe that this 30-minute episode of crying, or this midnight, bleary-eyed feeding, or this time-out for hitting your sister, or this poopy diaper — that these will bear fruit. That they matter, and even eternally.

In the midst of dirty clothes and unmade beds and the daily scramble to get food on the table, I remembered a little book I read a few years ago. As I nursed our daughter, I re-read Kathleen Norris's The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women's Work. The book itself is relatively old — published in 1998 after Norris gave the Madaleva Lectures at St. Mary's College in Indiana — but the contents are timeless.

Its epigraph offers a definition: “Quotidian: occurring every day; belonging to every day; commonplace, ordinary.” My life right now feels very ordinary and very repetitive. I am tethered to a child who needs to eat every three hours, who relies on me as her sole source of nourishment. And it is easy to believe that the quotidian stuff of life is the meaningless stuff, the stuff that gets done only to be taken up again, the stuff that gets in the way of “real” work or play.

Norris considers the everyday stuff of life essential to who we are as human beings and as children of God. She draws a connection between the daily, repetitive tasks of cleaning and our daily relationship with God. “Each day brings with it not only the necessity of eating but the renewal of our love of and in God," she writes. "This may sound like a simple thing, but it is not easy to maintain faith, hope or love in the everyday.” Norris notes that liturgy, the habitual practice of prayer and Bible reading, sometimes feels as rote and unwelcome as another load of laundry. And yet just as doing the laundry keeps our household in order, daily conversation with God, no matter how routine it might feel, brings order to our spiritual house.

Moreover, Norris contends, living within the rhythms of daily life is not only necessary for keeping order, it's also necessary for our flourishing. She writes, “It is precisely these thankless, boring, repetitive tasks that are hardest for the workaholic or utilitarian mind to appreciate, and God knows that being rendered temporarily mindless as we toil is what allows us to approach the temple of holy leisure.”

Quotidian tasks — be they of housekeeping or a more devotional nature — open up space in our lives for creativity, for the gentle whispers of the Spirit to reach our ears. They enable us to let go of anxiety, to enter into God’s rest.

Norris also prescribes the quotidian as vessels of God’s healing. Beginning with the purely physical, she explains, “Shampooing the hair, washing the body, brushing the teeth . . . as simple as they seem, are acts of self-respect. They enhance one’s ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world.” Simple acts of self-care counter depression, which Norris terms acedia, a word that denotes a lack of care. Again, the same can be said on a spiritual level, that engaging in daily habits of communion with God and God’s people enhances one’s ability to know and take pleasure in who God is.

This book offers me hope that the ordinariness of my life—both my life as a mother and housekeeper as well as a Christian — matters, that I am growing as a human being in and through washing dishes and sweeping the floor and reading through Genesis and saying the Lord’s Prayer one more time. But Norris insists that the quotidian mysteries — the mysterious ways that daily life can lead to transformation — extend beyond the self. She discusses the quotidian nature of marriage, and she asserts that God's sanctifying work often (almost always) happens in the context of the very mundane daily work of relating to one another: “Paradoxically, human love is sanctified not in the height of attraction and enthusiasm but in the everyday struggles of living with another person. It is not in romance but in routine that the possibilities for transformation are made manifest.”

Jesus instructed us to pray for our daily bread. He reminded his disciples not to worry about tomorrow, for “each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt. 6:34). God provided only enough manna to the Israelites for the day at hand. The Quotidian Mysteries helps me remember that our God is a God of the everyday, a God who comes into ordinary life, into my ordinary household, into my ordinary soul. And who — through the commonplace activities of cleaning and caring for children and distracted prayer — does the extraordinary work of healing my soul.

'Mother Teresa of Our Age' Talks to Her.meneutics

Dr. Catherine Hamlin, 87, has saved countless Ethiopian women's lives through her work repairing fistulas. Most don't know that she labors out of love for Jesus.

Elissa Cooper

Vesicovaginal fistulas (VVFs) and the people who champion their eradication are fascinating. For Dr. L. Lewis Wall’s Christianity Today piece “Jesus and the Unclean Woman,” I spent a lot of time learning about VVFs for the accompanying news article, and enjoyed a refresher course for documentary review of A Walk to Beautiful for Her.meneutics. But I finally got to the heart of the story when I met Dr. Catherine Hamlin last month.

The world knows Hamlin’s name. The Australian obstetrician-gynecologist has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof dubbed her “the Mother Teresa of our age,” and Oprah has featured her story. However, Hamlin’s most striking quality is her Christian faith. It has driven her life’s work in healing women with VVFs in Ethiopia and her goal to end VVF worldwide by the end of the century. During her trip to launch Hamlin Fistula USA — the newest member of Hamlin Fistula International — 87-year-old Hamlin sat down with me to talk.

Hamlin and her late husband, Reginald, also an obstetrician-gynecologist, were initially hired to work at an Ethiopian government hospital in 1959. “I believe God put us there. We came across these patients soon after we got there. They touched our hearts so much we stayed working with them.”

However, they soon found themselves overwhelmed by VVF patients. VVFs are holes or tears that occur during labor where the baby cannot be delivered without intervention, such as a cesarean section. The child usually dies, and the women are incontinent and become outcasts because of their condition. It is unknown how many women suffer from VVF as it usually strikes those in poor, rural areas, but one estimate puts the figure at 3 million women worldwide.

Fortunately, VVFs can be repaired with a simple surgery, and over the decades, the Hamlins have cured thousands of women. In 1974, the Hamlins founded Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia with the sole aim to treat VVF. Catherine still lives and works there as she performs surgeries one day a week, helps manage the hospital, and visits with patients. “I’m usually occupied all day with something,” Hamlin says. “I lie down after lunch for a bit of a rest, since I’ve gotten old.”

Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital is not a mission hospital or affiliated with a particular denomination, but the Hamlins’ faith defines it. The staff begins the day with a prayer meeting, and recordings of Scripture readings and messages are available in at least 25 languages for the women to listen to on headphones as they recover. Many patients have become Christians.

As the second fistula hospital in the world (the first ran in New York from 1855 to 1928 when VVFs became obsolete in the U.S.), Addis Ababa depends on donations to provide free surgery and care for these women. Organizations give financial support to run the hospital and provide each woman with a new dress, a bus ticket home, and, if they would like one, a Bible. Hamlin Fistula International also raised money to launch five regional hospitals in Ethiopia that serve 3,000 patients a year and hopes to treat 4,000 annually. In order to prevent VVFs, another project involves training midwives to serve in rural areas and supporting them in their work.

“Most of the midwives in Ethiopia are congregated in the big city, Addis Ababa,” Hamlin says. “But our midwives are committed to work in the countryside, and they’re happy to work back in their own areas.” One of their first trained midwives returned home to find her sister was in labor, and she was able to deliver the child.

Mark Bennett, CEO of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, adds, “The challenge is to make sure that we instill the same kind of ethos and environment in five new locations as well as our college to train midwives. We’re trying to capture what it is that’s made the hospital special, which is really centered on Dr. Hamlin’s faith that has empowered her and given her the love and desire to do this work.”

The problem may seem relentless, but Hamlin remains optimistic. When asked if her faith had ever been shaken by her work, she firmly says, “No. I never had a doubt about my faith. I’ve had many answers to prayer, and I know that God is behind us. He loves these women far more than I do.”

Hamlin relies heavily on prayer to keep her and others going, but most of all, she asks people to pray that VVF will be over by the end of the century. “Surely we can have something in this 21st century where there’s so much done for medical conditions throughout the world, and yet nothing is done for women in labor. The most important moment in their lives, bringing a baby into the world, nobody cares about them. Or they can’t do anything if anything goes wrong.”

With VVF, the first goal is to treat the physical body, but Hamlin and her staff also find themselves administering emotional and spiritual healing. “They think that God has cursed them. They’re so terribly ashamed of this condition,” Hamlin says. Women are thrown out by their husbands. One unknown statistic is how many women with VVF commit suicide. Hamlin remembers one story of a girl who was brought in by her uncle after he saved her from hanging herself.

“Once they get through the gate, their attitude changes,” Hamlin says. “They come with downcast eyes and ashamed to look up, and then they see somebody with the same condition. They think they were the only ones.”

After the surgery, if the woman is able to have children again, Hamlin and others encourage her to marry because “without a baby, there’s no life for a woman in the countryside.”

“We don’t know what happens to them, but some of them remarry and come back pregnant to us,” Hamlin says. The women stay there until labor begins, and they are moved to a hospital for a cesarean section. After the hospital discharges them, the women return to the fistula hospital. “We teach them how to breastfeed, how to look after a newborn baby, and give them a set of clothes for the baby. This ward is usually a place of joy.”

For someone who has worked tirelessly for others and keeps expanding her vision, I couldn’t help asking if Hamlin thought about retiring. “I’ve got a grave there waiting for me,” Hamlin laughs. “I hope to be here a little bit longer.”

For more information about Dr. Hamlin, Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, or fistulas, read The Hospital By the River and Catherine's Gift: Stories of Hope from the Hospital by the River, or see the 2009 Emmy-winning documentary A Walk to Beautiful.

The Newest Gnostic Christian Diet

Lysa TerKeurst's Made to Crave comes dangerously close to suggesting that food is bad.

Rachel Marie Stone

There’s a long history behind Lysa Terkeurst’s bestseller, Made to Crave, recently out from Zondervan. All jokes about “Calorie Baptist Church” and attendance-boosting potlucks aside, American evangelicals have long worried about weight, health, and food. Early writers of Christian diet literature felt that God couldn’t be glorified in fat bodies, nor could souls be effectively won for Christ by overeaters. Recent contributors to the conversation reject this view, but not the conviction that food and eating are spiritual issues.

Made to Crave falls within this tradition, but unlike other programs, it specifies neither what to eat (a la The Maker’s Diet or What Would Jesus Eat?) nor how to eat (a la Gwen Shamblin’s Weigh Down Diet). Instead, it aims to be “the missing link between a woman's desire to be healthy and the spiritual empowerment necessary to make that happen.” It’s message is simple: Instead of craving food, crave God.

Much in this book will appeal to readers. TerKeurst’s writing is casual and confessional; she dishes the details of her struggles with candor and charm. (More than one Amazon reviewer said something like, “I felt like Lysa and I were sitting in the same room.”) Built into the book’s message and marketing strategy is the creation of a community of "Made to Cravers": "Friends don’t let friends eat without thinking.” You can sign up online for free magnets for your car and fridge and for the “21 day challenge.” The book has already hit a number of bestseller lists, including The New York Times's; there’s a workbook and DVD series. You can feel the movement gaining momentum. So what’s the substance of it?

Among other things, a big portion of old-fashioned asceticism. TerKeurst stops way short of saying we don’t need food if we are satisfied with God, which was the view of some saints, including Catherine of Siena, who died of self-starvation at age 33. But dualistic philosophies — which exalt the spiritual and denigrate the physical — have a history much longer than Christian diet books, and a version of them appears to be alive and well in Made to Crave. Of course, TerKeurst doesn’t advocate going without food, but she does advocate a rigid devotion to a “healthy eating plan” (plus exercise) of the reader’s choice. Her own is so low-carb, potatoes are considered unhealthy. She claims nutrition is “food’s intended purpose,” with no room for “unhealthy choices.” Not even for birthday cake, apparently.

Which reminds me of a study done several years ago by psychologist Paul C. Rozin, in which American women were likely to associate the words “chocolate cake” with “guilt” and “fat,” while French women associate the same words with “celebration” and “delicious.” In a multi-country study, Americans associated food more with health and less with pleasure than any other country. The French made the opposite associations. So why are Americans so demonstrably unhealthier than they? They don’t care about nutrition nearly as much as we do, they are not nearly as religious, and they love food and take it very seriously. (While staying for a month with a friend in France, I was scolded for abstaining from chocolate: “But you need a little chocolate!” my friend insisted.) Food is not something that they avoid, obsess over, or feel guilty about. Is their approach sinful?

We are made to crave God and find our ultimate good in him — no question about that. But we are made by God to crave food, too. Throughout Scripture, God’s lovingkindness is demonstrated through feeding his people. From the delightful fruits of Eden, to the manna in the wilderness, to the Lord’s Supper, to the Supper of the Lamb, God is farmer, chef, and server, the sustainer of his people. In my view, we Christians can connect our dependence on and enjoyment of food to our dependence on and enjoyment of our Creator. While our eternal life depends on the Bread of Life, our daily existence is no less graciously sustained by him who brings forth food from the earth.

Meanwhile, the number of people whose lives are touched by diet-related illness and disordered eating has skyrocketed since the 1970s. Is this the result of a sudden, widespread loss of discipline, or lack of desire for God? Or, has the potent combination of hyperpalatable, super-cheap, and near-omnipresent "edible food-like substances" worked our brains and bodies over with narcotic power? I think there are plenty of reasons to consider the latter as one cause of the rates of obesity in the U.S. And thus, I remain unconvinced that TerKeurst’s message, however well intended, will lead to lasting change so long as it urges readers to sublimate their God-given cravings for food into spiritual cravings for divine fellowship. Sure, we overeat sometimes because we are trying to use food to fill something only God can fill. But we also overeat because our environment is engineered to make that happen.

We Christians need a more complex solution to food addictions. I agree with TerKeurst that we need God and a Christian community to break addictions. But I refuse to think of food as mere "healthy fuel." To regard ourselves, and our food, in ways that honor God, we need to crave not just him but a better food culture as well. I crave one that rejects Madison Avenue images of stick-thin models as the money-hungry fabrications they are; one that remembers that even as 1.1 billion of us struggle with being overfed, 1.1 billion of us are underfed; one that embraces God as creator of soul and body, Lord of farmer and chef, and one that honors him with our gratitude and disciplined delight in the bounty of the earth — from farm to table to tummy.

Rachel Stone has written for Her.meneutics on fathers, eating disorders, miscarriage, flash mobs, mommy blogs, and doulas, and for Christianity Today on Germany, and has also contributed to Flourish, catapult/*cino, and Creation Care magazine. She lives in Greenport, New York, with her husband, two sons, extended family, and assorted cats.

Assaulted Woman to Be Kept Alive, Rules India Court

Until the story of Aruna Shanbaug, I had never heard the phrase "passive euthanasia," let alone grappled with whether or not I participated in it nearly 20 years ago.

Christine A. Scheller

On March 7, India’s Supreme Court decided a landmark case that will allow life support to be legally removed from some terminally ill patients. The ruling involved the case of a woman who has been in a vegetative state since she was sexually assaulted and suffered brain damage 37 years ago. Her parents are dead, and a friend wanted hospital staff to stop “force-feeding” her mashed-up food. While the court ruled that Aruna Shanbaug be kept on life support, it distinguished between "active euthanasia" and "passive euthanasia," allowing the latter for certain terminally ill patients.

Until I read these reports, I had never heard the phrase "passive euthanasia," let alone grappled with whether or not I participated in some such cruelty.

It was nearly 20 years ago. An elderly relative had been badly deteriorating in a residential care facility for a few years when she was hospitalized with congestive heart failure. She was initially conscious, but quickly lapsed into a coma. Tests showed she had minimal brain function. The doctor said she wouldn’t recover. Although there was a medical directive in place that prohibited heroic measures, a feeding tube was inserted.

After a week or so, we were told the feeding tube had been removed because it had a kink in it. Everyone knew that if she went back to the nursing home with the tube, it would take a court order to remove it again. It was left to her family to decide what to do. The feeding tube was not reinserted. She was given intravenous fluids to keep her comfortable and she died a few days later.

Even if the hospital staff was lying about the kink in the tube and removed it of their own accord, I don’t believe this was “passive euthanasia.” I believe it was resisting, or correcting, medical encroachment.

I wonder now, though, if medicine will make murderers of us all.

In a 2010 talk at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity annual conference, Ryan Nash, M.D., an assistant professor at the University of Alabama School of Medicine Center for Palliative and Supportive Care, argued from the work of bioethicist Jeffrey Bishop that in the relatively new field of palliative medicine, death is not only being redefined from a biological standpoint, it is being redefined psychologically, socially, and spiritually.

Whereas the hospice movement sought to return death and dying to the community, Nash said specialists are now trying to control all aspects of death in pursuit of “optimal dying.” He blamed this development in part on a redefinition of medicine from a discipline that sought to care, cure, and comfort to one that frames it as a duty to relieve suffering. Nash warned that such a duty could lead health-care professionals to believe that euthanasia and assisted suicide are encompassed within their responsibility because it isn’t always possible to adequately relieve patients’ suffering, especially their spiritual, psychological, and social pain.

At the same coference, Patrick T. Smith, assistant professor of theology and philosophy at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and ethics coordinator at Angela Hospice Care Center in Livonia, Michigan, argued that any act, whether passive or active, that is intended to hasten the death of a patient is wrong from both a Judeo-Christian perspective and from the foundation of homicide law. He said discontinuing or refusing futile care is not wrong for those who are imminently, irretrievably dying, but noted that imminent death is not synonymous with terminal illness. Likewise, he said, refusing treatment that is burdensome is not the same as refusing life. When such treatment is withdrawn, an ethical health-care professional will immediately replace it with active comfort-only care that serves life not death. Smith concluded that comfort-only care stands between euthanasia and a vitalism that seeks to extend life at all costs.

From these descriptions, I am convinced that my instincts about my relative’s death are correct. The Indian situation is not so clear. A representative from the hospital where Shanbaug lives told the Los Angeles Times that the staff is fond of her and that she smiles and has a preference for mangoes and fish. One can view her care as simultaneously burdensome, futile, and comforting. The stage was set for that dilemma a long time ago. (Indian commentators are likewise divided over the court's ruling.)

In a 2006 Los Angeles Times column, author Anne Lamott confessed to the kind of “totalizing” view of death that Nash described.

“The man I killed did not want to die, but he no longer felt he had much of a choice. He had gone from being tall and strapping, full of appetites and a brilliant manner of speech, to a skeleton, weak and full of messy needs,” Lamott wrote of the suicide she assisted.

Her solution was to kill the body with a lethal dose of Seconal before it killed what she and her friend believed was his essential humanity. One can only assume Lamott didn’t have the capacity to handle her unbelieving friend’s spiritual and psycho-social needs. In expanding the definition of death to include mental incapacitation, she bifurcated body and spirit, which is ironic for a writer whose primary appeal is in her tendency to transgress artificial boundaries between sacred and secular, liberal and conservative. Here she merely transgressed the sixth commandment. Even atheists on the scene recognized that and urged her not to “play God.”

In all three situations, a physical solution was sought for an existential problem, as if the world is only a material place. Few things in life are more painful than our inability to alleviate the suffering of those we love. As Christians, though, we are called to resist this kind of reductionism. Whether we are tempted to artificially extend life or prematurely end it, we must resist.

The Charlie Sheen Has Worn Off

This Lent, given the disturbed actor's slow self-wrecking, I'd like to fast from celebrity news.

Jennifer Grant

For the past few months, Charlie Sheen has given our distraction-hungry culture a particularly delectable snack. “Hey look over here!” he grins. His grandiose, self-delusional bragging, his unapologetic hedonism, and his remarkable ability — whether it’s a result of mental illness, years of heavy drug use, that “Adonis DNA,” or a combination of the three — to call the broken parts of his life whole is stunning.

“Winning!”

The disturbed actor has been offering us the intimate details of his life on a plate, and we’ve been grabbing them by the handful, wolfing them down, and licking our fingers in expectation for the next course. But, after a few weeks of noshing on Charlie’s braggadocio and the perverse details of his life, the novelty of it is — forgive me — losing its sheen. We’re sick of hearing about him, but no worries: there’s an app for that.

Our culture wipes its mouth with the back of its hand and glances absentmindedly around the room. What’s next, we wonder. We want a new distraction.

Well, we could divert our gaze toward the April wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The Internet buzz gets louder and we turn our heads toward important questions such as: Is the bride-to-be getting too skinny? Could she be pregnant? How does she compare with her fiancé’s iconic mother. Hmm . . . like Princess Diana, Middleton 29, is admired as a fashion icon, commits herself to charitable causes, and, of course, is adored by William. But is she a mere “commoner?” (Was Diana? What does that mean, anyway?)

When Charles and Diana were married at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1981, an estimated 600,000 people lined the streets in hopes of catching a glimpse of Diana on her way past. I know. I was one of them. As her carriage rolled by, flanked by white-wigged footmen, I saw her for one fleeting, thrilling moment. It was, indeed, like seeing a fairy tale come to life.

Fast forward to a summer day in 1997, when Americans woke up to learn that Princess Diana had died. By then, we knew that her marriage to Prince Charles had been anything but a fairy tale. (Well, maybe more like one by The Brothers Grimm, not by Walt Disney.) She died after being injured in a car crash, the result of her driver going twice the speed limit to avoid paparazzi.

A few weeks later, I dreamt about Diana. She and I were standing inside a circus tent that was bursting with noise, prancing elephants, oscillating spotlights, and hoards of people. She was frightened and shaking. When I asked her what was wrong, she just smiled that famous smile. A moment later, a man’s voice barked her name and, in response, she climbed up into the open mouth of a large cannon.

“What are you doing? Why are you getting in there?” I asked.

“I don’t have a choice,” she said, and before she could say more, someone lit the fuse or sprang the spring or whatever one does with a human cannonball, and she was shot over the heads of the crowd. The customers pointed and clapped. “It’s Diana!” they screamed.

A few minutes later she walked back to where I stood, weary and disheveled. She stood beside the cannon and waited for her name to be called again.

Remembering that dream, I wonder in what ways celebrities are beholden to those who profit from selling them to a hungry culture. We obediently give our money and attention to it, glad to forget for a moment about the ordinariness and disappointments of our lives. We grab a magazine at the grocery store and gleefully soak up stories of luxurious lifestyles as just as merrily read about the messy and painful details of drug problems, arrests, and divorces. We enjoy the show and we don’t give much thought to what being shot out of the cannon costs a person. Focusing on celebrities passes the time, distracts us, and allows us to ignore the broken places inside of ourselves.

This Lent we might commit to a kind of fast. Maybe, for the next six weeks or so, as we approach Easter, we can get up out of our seats, exit the circus tent, leave the spectacle behind us. It is Lent, after all, and the right time to look at the broken and crumbling places inside hearts and minds. For aren’t we, just as truly as Charlie Sheen and his “goddesses,” in need of redemption?

We can approach God in the quiet, unlit season and look for real healing and connection with a God who offers sustenance much more satisfying than watching a person’s life unravel or even than fixating on the next “fairy tale” come to life.

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

The King's Speech and Doulas

What King George VI's speech therapist, Lionel Logue, and I have in common.

Rachel Marie Stone

Turns out that Lionel Logue, the speech therapist to King George VI, played beautifully by Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech, had no formal training in speech therapy, or any kind of therapy, in fact. So what did he have?

Lots of qualities shared by a good doula, it turns out. A doula? Wait — isn’t a doula like a midwife?

No, we are not much like midwives, actually. To practice legally, midwives have to have the right letters after their names. They have to become experts at a host of clinical skills, including urine testing, cervical exams, fetal heart tone monitoring, and perineal stitching, to name a few. But doulas (the Greek word for "a woman who serves") — we are different. Much of our learning happens outside the classroom, and while we might have letters after our names, certification is optional in all 50 states. We don’t do anything medical. Mostly, we’re just there.

But "just" being there has a powerful effect on the process of labor and delivery, spilling over into the postpartum weeks as well. An oft-cited series of studies found that women who had a doula with them were 60 percent less likely to request an epidural, 50 percent less likely to have a caesarean, and 40 percent less likely to be delivered by forceps. Additionally, their labors were 25 percent quicker than those without doulas, and they reported lower levels of depression at six weeks postpartum. All this as a result of the presence of a person who isn’t required to have a diploma of any kind?

Those who have seen The King’s Speech, this year's Oscar winner for Best Picture, will recall that King George VI, "Bertie" to his family and Logue, had seen his share of experts about his stammer, but to no avail. Logue, who was familiar with healthy speech, having studied and taught elocution, honed his therapeutic model when working with shell-shocked veterans of the Great War. He wasn’t a doctor or a formally trained therapist. But he helped Bertie as no one else had, giving him techniques to speak more fluently and the confidence to find his voice.

And that’s kind of what doulas do for expectant mothers. Logue understood normal speech — he knew what had to take place to make it happen. Doulas understand normal birth; we have great confidence that it can take place safely and with minimal intervention. And Logue understood, as doulas do, that the psychological and emotional state of our clients can create impediments. That’s why Bertie had to talk about the origins of his stammering. That’s why doulas do everything they can to bolster a mother’s comfort and confidence. Babies, like words, come out easiest when we feel safe.

That safety comes from a sense of camaraderie, or perhaps even friendship. Doulas, like Logue, stand alongside their clients, not reaching down in condescension or looking up, servile. Logue refused to treat Bertie anywhere but in his offices, refused to call him anything but Bertie, and refused, his whole life, to exploit his royal connection for personal benefit.

Doulas, too, are like professional best friends. We comfort lawyers, professionals, teen moms, and Medicaid recipients, and treat them as equals. Because in the process of bringing forth life — or words — we are all very much the same. We need to feel respected, understood, loved.

And we need patience. Perhaps most importantly, the king’s therapist was patient. Whereas Bertie’s father, King George V, impatiently urged his son to “just say it,” Logue had all the time in the world to wait for Bertie’s words, encouraging him that his pauses would perhaps add a degree of measured gravity to his speeches. Doulas, too, need patience — something that’s in short supply for American moms birthing in hospitals. Many OBs enforce a 12- or 24-hour “rule” that states that they’ll do a C-section if the baby hasn’t been born in that space of time following the waters breaking, in spite of the lack of research supporting this practice. (To imagine the effect that this threat has upon a laboring mom, imagine someone standing in the bathroom with you ordering you to do your business in 2 minutes or else and multiply the feeling of tension and fear by 10.) And unlike medical professionals, we don’t go off shift. We stay with our clients until they become mothers. Logue, too, stayed with Bertie for every speech of his career.

In some people’s eyes, Logue was a quack. Some, especially doctors, are inclined to view doulas in a similarly unflattering light. But Logue also went on to help found the British Society of Speech Therapists as well as College of Speech Therapists. More and more people are recognizing the value of doulas as well — several nationally and internationally recognized certifying organizations exist, and we doulas hold fast to the words of renowned pediatrician and neonatal researcher John Kennell: “If a doula were a drug, it would be unethical not to use it.”

The active ingredients? Compassion, empathy, patience, and love, all virtues we Christians cultivate as we follow our risen Lord. Given their effectiveness applied to birth (or Bertie’s speech), I can’t help wondering: what would our world look like if we brought this life-giving touch to our every interaction?

It would look like the kingdom, I suspect.

Rachel Stone has written for Her.meneutics on fathers, eating disorders, miscarriage, flash mobs, and mommy blogs, and for Christianity Today on Germany, and has also contributed to Flourish, catapult/*cino, and Creation Care magazine. She lives in Greenport, New York, with her husband, two sons, extended family, and assorted cats. She is a doula.

Catherine Clark Kroeger, Remembered

The New Testament scholar's impact on so many lives was on display at this weekend's memorial service at Gordon-Conwell.

Cristina Richie, guest blogger

It’s hard to do justice to a lifetime of Christian service in just over an hour. But for a group of 75 professors, students, and family who gathered this weekend at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Kaiser Chapel for the memorial service of Catherine Clark Kroeger, we came close.

Surprise and disappointment lingered over Catherine’s sudden death February 14 from complications due to pneumonia, Lyme disease, and grief over the death of her spouse of 60 years, Richard Clark Kroeger Jr., who died three months ago. Yet the service focused not on her untimely passing but on her God-honoring life.

Scott Gibson, director of the Center of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell and professor of preaching and ministry, gave the call to worship and prayer. As a bulk of Catherine’s work was dedicated to espousing the equality of men and women in both Christian ministries and homes — notably in The IVP Women's Bible Commentary and No Place for Abuse — it was especially significant that teachers and students of homiletics were touched by her work.

Kroeger's work impacted Christian theology, but her academic focus was the role of women in the early church, classics, and human sexuality and relationships. Aida Spencer, one of her colleagues in the New Testament department, read one of the most cited passages on men and women in the Bible, Galatians 3:23-29: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Aida, with her husband, William David Spencer, who also gave remarks at the service, work for the Priscilla Papers, a journal that serves the academic community on issues of biblical equality and is an outlet of Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), the organization that Catherine founded in 1988. She served as the Minneapolis-based organization's president until 2001, when Mimi Haddad stepped in.

Catherine’s dedication to the edification of Christ’s servants through Christ’s love was evidenced in the many stories shared of her home life, her support of her husband in ministry, her rearing of five children, and her numerous foster children and spiritual grandchildren at the seminary. Goran Kojchev counted himself among the privileged to call a learned and wise woman “Grammy.” Kojchev is an MANT student and worked as Kroeger’s academic assistant for the past two years. He recounted Catherine's hospitality and avid devotion to swimming in lakes and oceans — even into her octogenarian years.

Lauding Catherine’s precision and breadth, David Eastman from Yale University noted that while the mere presence of female faculty undoubtedly changed the atmosphere in the halls of Gordon-Conwell, Kroeger’s impact did not solely grace the ivory towers of academia. Indeed, Catherine’s heart for God’s women — wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, and mentors — was pronounced in her impact on women who struggled not only with sensing a call to ministry but also in the shadows of domestic abuse.

Kroeger was sensitive to the ways male headship could be used by some to justify abusive behavior, and worked to establish the organization Peace and Safety in the Christian Home (PASCH), dedicated to eliminating domestic violence. The most touching remarks given at the service came from a woman who said her life was saved by Catherine’s work. The woman, an M.Div. student at Gordon-Conwell, told of her entrapment in an abusive marriage and how Kroeger’s books and articles on Christian equality and the biblical stance on abuse in the home led her safely out of the marriage.

In the days leading up to the memorial service, I reflected heavily on the impact and teachings of Kroeger. I had already graduated from Gordon-Conwell when I took my first class from her — “Women in the Early Church” — at the Boston-based Center for Urban Ministerial Education. Catherine's aplomb under contentions from some students when discussing the role of women as Eucharistic celebrants and priests in the early church came from her personal Bible study and prayer. I will never forget with what joy I received Catherine’s proposition that “the chosen lady” of 2 John was an actual woman, not a church! Indeed, her teachings on kephale (the Greek word for “head”) and misinterpretations of female subjections and silence were not always welcomed at Gordon-Conwell. But the collegiality and respect which with students and faculty discussed such issues was encouraging.

As I stand with an M. Div. in hand, entering my second year teaching religion at the college level, it is not Kroeger’s academic achievements that I wish to emulate, nor her amazing 60-year marriage, but the theme of her life and the goal of every Christian: that she loved Jesus and served him faithfully.

Cristina Richie is serving Jesus in the Boston area as a professor, pastor, writer, speaker, and theologian.

Women Step to Frontline in Mideast Protests

Women's political gains will be a litmus test for fledgling governments in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain, says Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow.

Elrena Evans

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock without wi-fi for the past month, you know the world has witnessed waves of political change in the Middle East. On February 11, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak relinquished control of the country to the military, and stepped down after nearly three decades in power. His resignation was the culmination of over two weeks of protests in Cairo, where hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy supporters rallied to decry Mubarak’s years of abuses.

What had begun as a group of youth activists working online soon grew into a major movement, with both men and women flocking to Tahrir Square in protest, unusual for this predominantly Muslim country.

“Egyptian women often shun crowded public places,” writes Laura King for the Los Angeles Times, “fearing the pervasive sexual harassment that is the norm here. Simply walking down a Cairo street can be an ordeal of catcalls, pinching and unwanted propositions. But women attending the protests reported being treated with an unaccustomed respect. . . . Gaggles of teenage girls, dignified matrons and white-haired grandmothers have trekked daily to the square, swelling the crowd at a time when numbers were a crucial gauge of opposition power.”

Egyptian women drew encouragement from women protesters in Tunisia, following a rebellion that also found its roots online. Tunisian women used Facebook and Twitter to reach out to their Egyptian counterparts with bits of wisdom learned during their own revolution: “Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas,” The New York Times quoted one Tunisian advice-giver as saying. “This is a protest against patriarchy in all its forms, and that is the kind of thinking that can find its way into every home,” said 29-year-old Reem Naguib, a doctoral student at Northwestern University working on her dissertation at home in Egypt. “It's a revolution in how we're perceived.”

Not everyone agrees with Naguib. Mona Russel, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, says that women have played a role in Egyptian uprisings before. “Women were at the forefront of the 1919 revolution in Egypt right before Egypt got its independence, in the struggle against the British; women were prominent at the time of the French occupation as well,” Public Radio International quotes Ruheya, a 21-year-old Egyptian university student, as saying. “So Egyptian women have been involved in protests for many, many years; this isn't something new.”

It’s also uncertain how the political changes in Tunisia and Egypt are going to affect women there. While some, like Naguib, see the protests as liberating, others worry that Islamic fundamentalists might push toward a “radical Muslim state like Iran.” If that were the case, basic freedoms — to vote, to marry with consent, to pursue education, to name a few — would undoubtedly be hindered. “Women's rights will be a litmus test for the new government,” writes Isobel Coleman for The Washington Post, in reference to Egypt, “a sign of where the country is headed.”

Meanwhile, a group of women in Jos, Nigeria, are threatening to launch similar protests over the treatment of women and children in their country. Calling themselves the Women Without Walls Initiative, members are decrying the lack of female representation in all levels of government, especially in light of the fact that most victims in crisis situations are women and children.

“We note with deep dismay that despite concerted efforts of the state authorities to curb violence and bloodshed, the trend of killings have continued, with women and children being the major casualties of this regime of violence and wanton killing,” said initiative coordinator Esther Ibanga. “The STF [Special Task Force in Plateau State] should discharge its duties with the fear of Almighty God who created human life and who has assigned the sacred responsibility to safeguard it.”

Political unrest is far from a new phenomenon; the entire story of Christianity has played out against backdrops of political upheaval. What stands out among the current protests is the role that women are playing, and how that role may play out as new regimes come to power. Having helped to midwife some of these recent changes, are women going to revel in new-found freedoms or be relegated, once again, to the sidelines in public life? Writing for The Washington Post, Kathy Lally quotes political activist Marwa Faroak about the Egyptian protests: “It was amazing to see men and women together when we took to the streets. A lot of people were saying Tahrir Square was the future of Egypt, men and women equal, fighting for freedom. And now we have to translate this into action and change.”

CNN tells the story of a woman who, days after the ousting of the president in Egypt, was verbally heckled by an army officer. “I got out of my car, opened the door of his car and slapped him in the face,” Nawara Belal is quoted as saying. “I realized he wouldn't do anything about it, and it gave me the power to do what I wanted to do to every harasser in my past. I would never have been able to do that before the revolution.”

A slap in the face might feel like a step in the right direction, but is it? When basic rights for women extend past education and government representation to abortion rights and the choice to wear a miniskirt, we ought to remember that a political philosophy of absolute individual freedom, unmoored from love of neighbor and personal responsibility, can wreak havoc in a society and its people, men and women alike. The tenuous status of women in protesting countries begins to seem even more precarious. With this in mind, Christians are wise to continue praying not only for political freedom — which is an essential expression of human dignity and equality in a modern democracy — but also for the possibility of true freedom for people in the Middle East: the perfect rule of Christ over men’s and women’s hearts and minds.

Toddlers, Tiaras, and Surviving Princess Mania

A review of journalist Peggy Orenstein's new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture.

Sharon Hodde Miller, guest blogger

At the end of March, I will bid farewell to my twenties and celebrate my 30th birthday in style. My husband has planned an amazing trip to Disney World, which means I will enjoy this milestone the same way I did my 6th birthday and many since.

However, this trip will be a little different from the rest. After reading Peggy Orenstein’s newest book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, I’m not sure I can ever look at those Disney princesses in quite the same way.

Orenstein is a contributing editor to The New York Times Magazine and author of numerous books including her popular SchoolGirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap. Her newest is an exploration into the cultural tsunami of princesses, pink, and glitter that has now come to define American girlhood. Not to be mistaken as a guide on parenting, this book is just what its subtitle implies. Orenstein has gone into the trenches of Disney marketing, Miley Cyrus concerts, child beauty pageants, and American Girl stores for an insider perspective. Along the way, she consulted with child psychologists and child development experts to discern the implications of this new trend. Her findings are compelling.

For instance, Orenstein deconstructs the Disney machine that hooks young girls early on with its Princess line of products (a marketing device launched in 2000), later transitioning girls to the “real life” princesses of Hilary, Miley and Selena. All of this is orchestrated under the assumption that children are safe with Disney, that this princess world enables parents to shield their kids from the darker edges of culture and stave off the onset of early sexualization.

This plan, unfortunately, backfires. After years of “protecting” daughters from the pitfalls of American femininity, young girls are instead primed for it. The emphasis on pink princesses produces a preoccupation with outward appearance. The role model thought to be found in Miley Cyrus turns out to be quite the opposite.

As Orenstein documents her journey, she weaves in stories from her own struggle to raise a daughter. Admittedly inclined toward feminism, Orenstein tries to balance her natural convictions with her daughter’s ability to choose for herself. She cannot, after all, offer her daughter “more choices — a broader view of femininity — by repeatedly saying no” to every request for a Barbie doll or a Disney Princess dress.

Here, Orenstein clarifies that the villain in this tale is not the princess. Nor is it men, or even traditional femininity. What concerns Orenstein is the narrow, image-obsessed culture that imposes itself on girls in the form of seemingly innocent products.

In another fascinating chapter entitled “Sparkle, Sweetie!” Orenstein attends a child beauty pageant and interviews some of the participating families. While her observations are indeed thought provoking, it was her closing conclusion that really hit me between the eyes. Orenstein explains that controversial shows like Toddlers in Tiaras

purport to be exposés, but in truth expose nothing, change nothing, challenge nothing. What they do is give viewers license, under the pretext of disapproval, to be titillated by the spectacle, to indulge in guilty-pleasure voyeurism. They also reassure parents of their own comparative superiority by smugly ignoring the harder questions: even if you agree that pageant moms are over the line in their sexualization of little girls — way over the line — where, exactly, is that line, and who draws it and how?

That line is a blurry one to be sure. Princess parties, toddler makeup lines and manicures seem harmless enough, and Orenstein reminds us that they are — in a vacuum. It’s the totality of these products and messages that form an inescapable current that, by the time you awaken to it, you are nearly powerless to swim against.

How does Orenstein propose we resist the trend? To answer this question, she references the classic Brothers Grimm tale of Rapunzel. When Rapunzel’s evil mother discovers that her plan to lock Rapunzel in a tower has failed, she angrily cries out, “You wicked child! I thought I had separated you from the world, and you deceived me!”

Orenstein presents this as a “cautionary tale” for modern-day parents. Rather than pluck our children out of the world and “lock them up” until college, she believes in “fighting fun with fun.” She urges parents to get creative about their children’s options. Read stories and watch movies about independent, smart girls and boys. Intentionally affirm their inner beauty. Buy clothing and toys that represent the fullness of the color spectrum. The ultimate aim in each decision is to help our children “see themselves from the inside out rather than outside in.”

Orenstein’s book focuses largely on research about young girls, but it leaves me wondering about adult women as well. It will be difficult to lead our daughters to a land that we have never ventured ourselves. As thoroughly as the princess culture has infiltrated little girl-dom, one look at the shelves of any Christian bookstore indicates that grown women are just as concerned with embracing their princess personas as are children. Claiming one’s identity as a “daughter of the King” is a popular theme in women’s ministry today, but what about the biblical language of servanthood, or even slavery to Christ? (see Alexandra T. Armstrong, “’Slavery to Christ’ Becomes Labor of Love,” Telegraph Herald, Jan. 8, 2011). How does the princess culture square with Jesus’ directive to take up our cross and follow him? As we seek to raise women who are Christians first and princesses second (or third or fourth or fifth), those are questions we will need to explore further.

Sharon Hodde Miller is a PhD student in educational studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. She blogs at She Worships. She has written for Her.meneutics about forgoing wearing makeup as a spiritual discipline.

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