The Redemptive Narrative in Jaycee Dugard's Captivity Story

Why children play a vital role in the stories from women who were abducted.

Karen Swallow Prior

Since the first Europeans arrived here, captivity narratives  have enthralled America’s collective imagination.  These real-life accounts of settlers seized by American Indians retaliating against invading peoples expressed both the dark underside and the eternal optimism of the early American experience.

 Modern times have seen a resurgence of this centuries-old genre, but with a more sinister, sadistic twist: the updated version of the captivity narrative narrates the harrowing experiences of sex slaves at the hands of their captors.

Such stories have made the headlines this summer, most notably in the release of A Stolen Life, the memoir of Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped at age 11 and kept a sex slave in a hidden suburban compound in California for 18 years.

A less publicized account, even more horrific than Dugard’s (as if one could even imagine such a thing) is that of twins Kate and Will Stillman, whose story is featured in the August issue of Glamour. In this case, not only were both brother and sister subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of various members of the family that enslaved them, but they were also cruelly tortured physically and emotionally in ways that make Dugard’s captor appear saintly by comparison. And, yes, I realize how insane such a statement sounds.

One cannot even imagine living through, let alone being born into, such circumstances—unless one is as imaginative and able as Emma Donoghue has proven to be in creating just such a character in her fictional account, stolen from the news headlines, of an abducted woman and the child born to her in her captivity. Donoghue’s award-winning novel Room is ingeniously narrated by 5-year-old Jack, born to his “Ma,” a prisoner in the backyard bunker (“Room”), which Ma has told him is the only real world that exists. The novel has garnered accolades from both readers and critics for telling so sensitively such an otherwise sordid tale.

The resilience and courage of these abuse survivors (both real and imagined) is, of course, the most discussed aspect of these stories. But less considered, though equally poignant, is the redemptive role in the outcome of these three stories played by the children born into these nightmares.

Dugard’s case, because of her book and ABC’s recently-aired two-hour interview with her, is familiar to many. During her 18-years of captivity and sexual abuse, Dugard gave birth in her hidden prison to two daughters, with no medical assistance, at ages 14 and 17. Strangely, the rapes by her captor decreased after her first child was born and stopped altogether after her second child was conceived. When eventually her captor would take Dugard and her daughters out in public, they were so well-trained and brainwashed that they did and said what he told them to do and say. Nevertheless, something clearly was amiss, and it was Dugard’s two children—something in their eyes and their seeming, unnatural worship of their father and Dugard’s rapist —who inadvertently attracted the attention of the university police who eventually uncovered the crime, leading to freedom for Dugard and her daughters.

During her and her brother’s captivity, Kate Stillman gave birth to four children by the time she was 20. Despite the number of contacts she and her twin had with teachers, counselors, and child welfare workers, no one saw past the rigid walls of silence their captors had erected around the terrified youngsters. It was not until Kate learned that the abuse had begun with her oldest daughter that she and her brother determined to escape—a concept unimaginable during all the preceding years of torment—for the sake the children. And they did.

Likewise, in Donoghue’s fictional account, five-year-old Jack, in the first half of the book, is the means of their escape and, in the second half, the means by which both he and Ma are finally take the necessary step to gaining a sense of closure on those horrific years and start life anew. Donoghue’s non-traditional allegiances—she lives with a domestic partner, has written award-winning lesbian fiction, and in Room depicts abortion favorably—make her choice to employ the child-as-savior motif all the more arresting.

A case older than Dugard’s has a more tragic outcome for the child that resulted from her captivity as a sex slave. In this instance, the 14-year-old abducted girl was brought to Planned Parenthood by her 41-year old captor where she was given an abortion, apparently with no questions asked. The girl, who had been missing for a year, was later found by police locked in a storage space under the stairs in the home shared by the captor and two women, all of whom were charged in the case. Although her unborn child did not survive the captivity, the baby was nevertheless able to provide the young mother with a crucial gift: police used DNA from the fetal corpse to match that of the rapist and prosecuted him accordingly.  

The sacrificial love that Jaycee Dugard and Kate Stillman—and even the fictional Ma—have for their children, conceived in rape, is profoundly moving. After her and her brother’s escape and the prosecution of the family that tortured them, Kate made another courageous and loving decision for her children: to give them over for adoption in recognition of her inability to provide for their needs while recovering from such prolonged torture. Kate has a tattoo that says, “Family First,” and it is that value that saved her and has sustained her, her brother, and her children. Similarly, Dugard, reflecting on her ordeal, writes in her memoir that despite her stolen life, “The most precious thing in the world came out of it …. my daughters.”

Such children, born into such horror but bearers of such hope, bring new meaning to the idea that a little child will lead them. In the case of Jaycee Dugard, Kate Stillman, and the award-winning Room, the children led their mothers to nothing less than freedom.

Two Stories about Babies with Down Syndrome

In light of new prenatal testing, what story will Christians tell about children with an extra 21st chromosome?

Amy Julia Becker

“It’s a girl!”

I received these words with tears of joy when our third child, Marilee, was born. We could have known her sex months earlier, of course, but we decided to wait. And yet, as I wrote in a recent Her.meneutics post, other cultures are far less willing to receive girls with joy. In both India and China, many people receive the prenatal information that they are having a girl as cause to terminate a pregnancy.

Prenatal information always comes within the context of a larger cultural narrative. We express our dismay over the “gendercide” halfway across the globe, yet prenatal testing in the United States also comes within a cultural context. Here, prenatal testing focuses upon identifying “fetal abnormalities.” Information about such abnormalities occasionally help a baby survive through surgical intervention in utero or due to additional medical support at birth. Information can also help parents receive a child with physical or cognitive delays. But the same information is often used as the reason for having an abortion, particularly when tests identify the presence of an extra 21st chromosome, more commonly known as Down syndrome.

In recent months, researchers have found a way to conclusively identify Down syndrome using a blood test in the ninth week of pregnancy. Although the test remains prohibitively expensive, it should be widely available in the next year. Current screening tests begin as early as 11 or 12 weeks, but the only definitive way to identify a fetus with Down syndrome is via chorionic villus sampling (CVS) in the 11th week, or amniocentesis around the 18th week of pregnancy. Both of these procedures carry with them a risk of miscarriage. The new test is noninvasive, providing close-to-definitive information without risk to mother or child. It also occurs before the time many women have told others the news of pregnancy.

Researchers hail these advances as good news for pregnant women. Others who want to protect babies with Down syndrome worry that these advances will lead to a tremendous increase in abortions for women with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. (It is true that 85-90% of women with prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome currently abort. Only 2-5% of women, however, have amnios, it was recently reported. As a result, most babies with Down syndrome are born to women who did not have a prenatal diagnosis.)

The headlines surrounding this discovery underline the cultural assumptions that a baby with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome will be aborted. Time asked, for instance, “Can a New Blood Test Make Babies With Down Syndrome Disappear?” The title alone assumes that as the test becomes widespread, we will see fewer and fewer babies with Down syndrome. Similarly, ABC News reports, “New Down Syndrome Test Could Cut Healthy Baby Deaths.” Here the headline indicates that because these tests do not carry with them a risk of miscarriage, they offer a way to save the lives of “healthy” babies while continuing to identify “sick” babies with Down syndrome.

Our culture tells two stories when it comes to Down syndrome: one of suffering and eradication, and another of hope and promise. A recent article from The Wall Street Journal demonstrates the presence of hope and inclusion for individuals with Down syndrome even as it reports on these early tests. The article lists facts compiled from the National Down Syndrome Society. It not only mentions that “people with Down syndrome have an increased risk for heart defects, respiratory problems and other ailments,” but also that “many of these conditions are now treatable” and “the life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has risen to age 60 today, up from just 25 in 1983.” Similarly, congressional legislation now mandates that doctors give up-to-date and factual information about Down syndrome. Ten thousand booklets created by Lettercase.org were distributed this year to U.S. doctors to offer positive and accurate information when providing a prenatal diagnosis.

For many, a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome in America is akin to a prenatal diagnosis of female in China: cause for concern and even ending the pregnancy. And yet human-interest stories, congressional legislation, inclusive educational environments, and medical advances that enhance quality of life offer a second cultural narrative, one echoed by the hundreds of thousands of families that include an individual with Down syndrome. Their narrative contains some hardship and suffering — as do most real stories of real people — but it also includes love, joy, and promise.

This new prenatal test poses a threat to babies with Down syndrome only if the cultural narrative assumes that babies with Down syndrome are better off dead. If, instead, we see these babies as fellow human beings in need of care and inclusion, the prenatal information becomes akin to the information that a baby has one X and one Y chromosome.

It is unlikely that anyone will be able to stop this new prenatal test from being performed on most pregnant women. Even so, Christians can help place the information within a larger story: the story about an unexpected baby who was a source of great joy and who would endure both suffering and triumph at the end of his short life. Despite the uncertainty, the social stigma, and the fear of what might be, Mary received her child as a gift from God. When Jesus was only an infant, Mary also received Simeon’s prophecy that her son would be a source of blessing and of sorrow. He gave her the sobering words, “A sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35).

Christians can tell the story of Down syndrome in light of the story of Jesus, with gratitude that Mary received her frightening prenatal diagnosis with humility and joy.

Being Loved through Breast Cancer

God became 'the God who sees' when I faced a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation at age 27.

Sarah Thebarge, guest blogger

I met Kristin during my first shift in an urban E.R. in Portland 3 years ago. I was working in Fast Track as a physician assistant, and she was the assigned nurse for the day. She was strong and outspoken and said within minutes of meeting me, “I’m probably going to offend you today. I apologize in advance, okay?”

I nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and we got to work.

We worked well together, but other than work, we had little else in common. She was tough, outspoken, tattooed and pierced — and I was none of those things. Earlier in her life she had battled an addiction, and lived in a car while she put herself through nursing school. Then she raised two kids as a single mom while working full time in the E.R.

A year after I left that job, I was having coffee with my friend Stephanie, who works in the same E.R. She told me that Kristin had just been diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer at age 42. She had already started chemotherapy to shrink the tumors, and in a few months would have a mastectomy and radiation.

“How’s she doing with everything?” I asked Stephanie.

“You know — it’s hard,” she said.

I nodded. It’s been five years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 27 and went through a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I also remember how far away God felt during that time, how I asked everyone I met — from the hospital chaplain to my oncologist to my pot-smoking neighbor — how God could do this to someone he loved when I wouldn’t do it to someone I hated.

A few days after I found out about Kristin, I went to visit her. I handed her a jar of soup I’d made, and gave her a hug. She hugged me back, and didn’t let go for a long time. When we pulled apart, I saw that she was crying. “No one tells you how lonely cancer is,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “Sweetheart, I know.”

I also remember how it felt when people pierced through my isolation when I was going through months of exhausting treatments.

My mom traveled a thousand miles to stay with me in my tiny studio apartment, and slept on a mat next to my bed for months.

My friends from grad school came to visit, and sat on my bed and played mindless rounds of card games to distract me from my misery.

I remember my therapist, who let me sit with her for an hour every week and weep, trying as hard as I could to survive cancer treatments without losing my mind. She suggested at one point that I take it “one day at a time,” which sounded ridiculous. A day? A whole day of feeling nauseated, with a metallic taste in my mouth, no hair, all my joints aching, and no end in sight?
Even taking life one hour at a time seemed like too much. At my lowest point, the most helpful thought I had was that I could take this experience one breath at a time. If I could breathe one more time — just one more time — I could survive.

The first time I went to visit Kristin, we sat in her living room and talked for almost three hours. Suffering seems to break down the artificial barriers we erect. And when all the categories fall away, we realize that we all pretty much want the same things. We want to feel loved, we want to know that we’re not alone, and we want to know that it matters to someone, anyone, when we are in pain.

Genesis 16 describes the pain that ensues after a barren Sarai tells her husband Abraham to sleep with their servant Hagar to try to conceive an heir. After Hagar becomes pregnant with Abraham’s child, Sarai treats her so badly that she runs away into the desert.

Hagar, whose name means flight, is running off into the arid desert when God comes after her and soothes her and tells her what to do next. Before she leaves the desert, she becomes the only person in the Bible to name God. She calls him El Roi, The God Who Sees.

Part of the beauty of loving God is that through simple acts of compassion, we get to bear witness to El Roi, the God who loves and sees his struggling children.

Last night we threw a party for Kristin. Stephanie and I found a restaurant to donate their space, recruited a band to play for free, and plotted a fundraiser for Kristin that also gave her the chance to say goodbye to her breasts before the mastectomy.

When I was getting dressed for the party, I looked in my closet for anything pink to wear. I found a pink messenger cap I had worn during chemo to hide my bald head. I put it on and looked in my bathroom mirror. I thought about the girl I was when I was wearing that hat four years ago, and the girl I am now. And as I studied my reflection, I cried tears of relief and thankfulness that God saw me in my desert of cancer treatments and pursued me in love and mercy.

Before the band started playing last night, I read my favorite quote from the physician Paul Tournier: “I believe we can face everything when we know we are loved . . . ” and told Kristin she may be able to get rid of her breasts, but the rest of us are here to stay no matter what.
After the short speech, Stephanie and I led Kristin outside and gave her two pink helium-filled balloons. And with a crowd of family and friends and coworkers around her, cheering her on, she let them go.

Sarah Thebarge lives and practices medicine in Portland, Oregon. She writes at My Tropic of Cancer and the Burnside Writers Collective.

My Father Was a Porn Addict

The Playboys lying on the coffee table were the tip of the iceberg in our home.

Michelle VanLoon

My father taught me how to ride a bike, the value of a great punchline, and what a woman was supposed to look and act like.

My dad was a great guy with a bad habit.

When we consider relationships negatively impacted by a pornography addiction, most of us first consider the addict’s spouse or girl/boyfriend. It is not just the adult partner who is affected by a porn habit. Even if the addict believes he or she has the habit under wraps, porn’s toxicity leaks into other relationships in an addict’s life.

When I was growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, porn made its way into our home in the form of Playboy magazines on our coffee table, next to copies of my mom’s Redbook and Ladies Home Journal. My parents had come of age in the Mad Men era, when Hugh Hefner’s magazine was a signpost of cool in the same way that other sophisticates of their generation smoked cigarettes in the doctor’s office, slow-danced to Sinatra, and imbibed a dirty martini before dinner.

The coffee table reading was only the tip of the iceberg in our home. I can still remember the shock waves that hit me when I discovered the cheaply printed hard-core erotica stashed in my parents’ bedroom. I was 11 or 12 when I discovered a stash of the stuff in my dad’s dresser drawer and nightstand. Whenever my parents left the house, I pored over each plain-wrapped volume. I didn’t fully understand what I had read, but I knew that I’d been initiated into the world of adulthood at an age when I barely understood the mechanics of how babies were made.

I thought these books and materials encapsulated what it meant to be an adult. Porn taught me that the single most important thing to grown-ups was this mysterious world of fantasy, pain, and animalistic impulses too powerful to ignore. I was jarred by the difference between the sexually ravenous Barbies I’d met in the books, and the skinny, frizzy-haired, braces-wearing preteen I saw staring at me in the mirror. By 8th grade, I was determined to do what I could to close that gap. I used some of what I’d learned from the books and magazines with some willing neighborhood boys, which I later discovered is a very common response in children who are exposed to porn.

However, it wasn’t just the early exposure to porn and the resulting sexual experimentation that left dark smudges on my soul. It was devastating to realize that porn was an additional partner in my parents’ marriage. The discovery of my dad’s stash stripped away a sense of trust from me. From that point forward, I was a little uncomfortable around my dad. I was uncomfortable around my mom, too – but the awkwardness was definitely more pronounced whenever I was around my dad. It was as if I’d accidentally seen him naked, though that was never the case. I was left with questions I didn’t have the words or the nerve to ask: How did my dad view my mom? Other women? Me? Was my dad disappointed in me because I didn’t look like the women in Playboy?

I don’t remember either parent ever telling me I was beautiful. I would have given anything to hear that from one of them In fact, I did give anything when I gave myself away to some eager boys, hoping to hear from one of them that my parents were wrong about me.

Not surprisingly, my dad once advised me to “get some experience” before marrying. He didn’t know I already had. Much later, I realized that his advice was probably a sad self-report on his relationship with my mom.

It wasn’t until later in my life, after I’d become a Christian, after I’d married, that I began to come to terms with how deeply I’d been affected by having porn in my childhood. Men who have grown up with a porn-addicted parent tell me that they learned that real men are addicted to sex, and that it’s okay to objectify women. I thank God that my husband did not bring porn baggage into our marriage. My lost innocence and warped self-image have been more than enough baggage for both of us.

God is an amazing healer. Though I can’t entirely forget, I can forgive because I have been forgiven. I’ve forgiven my dad and mom – and myself, for choices I’ve made. I continue to practice forgiveness as God continues to excavate and reshape my life. I’ve been blessed with a patient husband who has walked alongside me for over three decades, occasionally helping me loose clenched fists from this carry-on or that tote bag I’ve schlepped for far too long.

And restoration has also come as I’ve shared my story with parents who have discovered that their spouse is a porn addict. While these parents may be waging an adult war for their relationship with a combination of prayer, Internet monitoring tools, counseling, and support groups, they need to remember that this is not an adults-only battlefield. Porn’s effects permeate the atmosphere of a household like noxious gas. Commitment to cherishing each child’s personhood and protecting their innocence with ferocity are essential weapons in fighting the battle as well.

'Bridesmaids,' Marriage, and Real Happiness

Where are all the popular stories about happy single women?

Ruth Moon

Movies have taught me a few valuable lessons.

There may be a train platform in between numbers 9 and 10 in London’s King’s Cross Station. If two men are fighting for your attention, and one is very pale and the other is Native American, well, watch out — they may not be men at all, especially if one smells like wet dog.

And the lead girl always, always gets the guy.

I watched Bridesmaids this weekend, about two months behind the rest of the world. I read up on it beforehand: Dana Stevens at Slate called it a “giddy feminist manifesto." Watching the film is a “social responsibility,” claimed Rebecca Traiester at Salon, an opportunity to “persuade Hollywood that multidimensional women exist, spend money and deserve to be represented on film.” (Michelle Dean at The Awl disagreed, noting that all the conversations in the film about weddings were still really about men.)

Maybe it is a feminist film, especially if feminism in film means men make hardly any screen appearances and are primarily asses when they do (I’m talking to you, Jon Hamm).

But it seems odd that this giddy feminism would result in the same formulaic rom-com result as The Devil Wears Prada, Pretty Woman, The Proposal, and about every other romantic comedy I can think of having watched in my lifetime.

Annie (Kristen Wiig) has a life in shambles. Her cake business (and dating relationship) went under in the recession, she drives a beat-up car and lives with a British brother and sister and, after they kick her out, her mom. She loses her second job at a jewelry store for mouthing off to potential customers, and has an ongoing sleeping arrangement as a playboy’s “number three.” When she meets a quality man — a vaguely Irish police officer who pulls her over for a ticket — they hit it off. But she walks out on him, afraid to commit to a nice guy (or so she tells her friend, Lillian, on the phone). Yet in the end (spoiler alert!), after Lillian's nearly-spoiled wedding comes off, Annie and her dream man ride off in the squad car to their happily ever after.

As an example of every chick flick that has ever been, this teaches me two things, neither of which are I think true:

(1) Your dream man will let you walk all over him, then take you back when you ask.

(2) Every happy ending starts with a man.

I have little expertise with which to respond to the first point. I can only say this may not be the case. Some things cannot be rebuilt once broken, and trust is very hard — sometimes impossible — to regain when lost. Even the lead woman may irrevocably lose a man, even a good one, with particularly idiotic behavior.

The second point is demonstrably false. Having a man is not a precursor or parallel requirement to building a fulfilling life. I am not half a person scouring the world for my better half; I am a full human being, whether a man is by my side or not.

Lauren Winner addresses this problem well in Real Sex, and in far more detail than I can share here.

“I have often wondered why we use ‘single’ as a noun,” she writes. “Perhaps no other marker of identity should be a noun other than Christian, since that is the most fundamental identity any of us claim.”

The most important question we should ask each other, Winner says, is not, “Who are you dating?” but rather, “How is God calling you to be faithful now as you are?”

Faith in Jesus can free us from using our relationship status as a measurement of our worth. In the words of my cheesy freshman class t-shirt, our relationship status is defined by Christ.

Many if not most readers might agree with this in theory or even in practice. But the pop culture world does little to emphasize it. When every on-screen woman finds her happy ending in a man, what’s a single girl to do but assume that her happy ending is just not here yet?

Where are the rest of the women? Where are the women who find happy endings by themselves — either through losing a good guy, grieving, and moving on, or just never finding him in the first place? There’s hardly any pop culture image of what it looks like to be a happy single woman. This is somewhat surprising, given that five years ago, more than half of American women were living without a spouse. You would think that Hollywood would capitalize on stories that real women can relate to. Then again, it’s not that surprising. Singleness continues to be seen both outside and inside the church as a waystation, a stopping point between college and marriage on the path toward real adulthood and happiness.

Although there are signs of change, evangelical churches have by and large dropped the ball on encouraging women (and men) to embrace singleness as a fulfilling way of life, whether it lasts a short period or indefinitely. The world of pop culture has apparently dropped the ball as well.

Feminism on film could be paving the way for a healthier understanding of happy endings, one that reflects the fact that women are fearfully and wonderfully made persons whose value does not hinge on having a man by their side. Instead, it’s giving us fart jokes and Judd Apatow lite.

A Parenting Manual for Bad Kids

Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson's Give Them Grace proceeds from the belief that all children - and parents - need the gospel more than they need how-to tips.

Courtney Reissig, guest blogger

Many parenting books promise fast results for raising children who always obey, toddlers who never talk back, and teens who keep the faith. The marketers of such books get that we consumers will buy almost anything if it promises speedy outcomes and comes in a tidy list of dos and don’ts.

In their new book, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus (Crossway), mother-daughter writing team Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson write to challenge the assumption that if we raise “nice” kids, our parenting task is complete (17). They believe God has something far greater for parents than raising the most moral kids on the block. Writing from the experience of a mother whose children are grown (Elyse) and a mother currently parenting young children (Jessica), they offer a reflective look back at what should have been, and a helpful look forward at what parenting can be, by God’s grace.

Give Them Grace is divided into two sections: foundations of grace and evidences of grace. In the first, Fitzpatrick and Thompson present the gospel story and its implications for parenting. They assert that we often spend our time parenting by rules alone rather than reciting the story of redemption, which provides our children a way to follow the rules. They emphasize that salvation is all of God, which is a parent’s only foundation as they raise children:

Raising good kids is utterly impossible unless they are drawn by the Holy Spirit to put their faith in the goodness of another. You cannot raise good kids, because you are not a good parent. There is only one good Parent, and he had one good Son. Together, this Father and Son accomplished everything that needed to be done to rescue us and our children from certain destruction (50).

While our primary goal shouldn’t be raising obedient children, teaching obedience is still a large part of parenting. The authors list four types of obedience (initial, social, civic, religious) and show how to differentiate this obedience from true Christian righteousness (30-32). By weaving in examples of how to respond to children when they disobey, they teach parents the importance of pointing children to Jesus, the only Son who obeyed perfectly. They call this “gracious parenting.”

The second section, evidences of grace, explores the nuts and bolts of applying grace to parenting. While the authors steer clear of a simple cause-effect parenting strategy, they provide tools for parents in light of the grace-filled framework already established. They provide a chart for parents to use as they think through parenting “of the Lord” (taken from Ephesians 6:4). The chart has five distinct categories: management, nurturing, training, correction, and promises (89-92). Each category includes an example for the believing and the unbelieving child.

For further study, the book includes an in-depth look at this chart in Appendix 2. This section includes a chapter of everyday examples parents encounter, ranging from children with unbelieving friends to a daughter who wants to dress up in princess attire. They provide grace-filled responses for parents coupled with thought-provoking questions intended to help parents grasp this grace for themselves.

We all know the kid in our church or family who is the meticulous rule follower. He is always obedient, always respectful, and often pleading with siblings and peers to do the right thing. We also know the kid who throws fits, says “no” for every command, and doesn’t like talking to adults, or anyone for that matter. As much as we believe in grace and the sinfulness of all people, including children, the truth is that we actually like the first child better. He fits the model of goodness. He is easier to manage.

Fitzpatrick and Thompson shatter the notion that the best Christian child is the one who follows all the rules, the one who displays external righteousness. Instead, they write, we need to teach our children that any righteousness they possess is a precious gift from God, not of their merit. This approach will not only serve a parent of the seemingly compliant child. It will also help the parent whose child falls into the category of a sinner in more obvious need of mercy. Both are on an equal playing field (75).

The task of Christian parenting is not an easy one. It's certainly harder than following a list of tips. Fitzpatrick and Thompson, while careful to not take an overly pragmatic approach, provide a steady stream of hope and simplicity for the weary parent. Each chapter includes questions for reflection, intended to aid the reader in applying the gospel to their own parenting and their life. They are a breath of fresh air that is often polluted by legalistic and list-based approaches masquerading as Christianity.

Parental love and training give children a glimpse of what God is like. Heavy-handed law will not help them drink of the flowing fountain of grace that comes down from our heavenly Father. Neither will a cheap grace that skirts all rules or sense of authority. It won’t help us as parents either. The truth is we all are in need of being dazzled by the matchless grace of Christ, and that is what this book sets out to do for both parent and child.

Courtney Reissig is a pastor's wife and freelance writer/blogger. She has written for the Gospel Coalition's book review site, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. She blogs regularly at In View of God's Mercy.

Doing Authentic Ministry with My Smokin' Hot Bride

A list of the worst ever Christian cliches.

Karen Swallow Prior

I slipped. My husband and I were asked to take on another church commitment. I was trying to decline graciously. In my e-mail response, I wrote, “We cannot help now, but hopefully in another season.” I copied my husband on the e-mail and instantly received a one-word reply:

“Season?”

You see, season is one of many words long ago banned from our vocabulary. But my lapse reminded me how hard it is to resist the lure of the handy cliché.

The trouble with prefabricated words is that they don’t require or encourage much thinking. Yes, clichés contain truth; that’s why they are used so much. But familiarity can turn even truthful words into vain repetitions.

Church-based clichés are nothing new. In 1719, satirist Jonathan Swift warned in “A Letter to a Young Clergyman Lately Entered Into Holy Orders,” against “the folly of using old threadbare phrases.”

So I did some brainstorming with many Her.meneutics writers to find some of the worst clichés in vogue among Christians. (In fairness, the cliché problem isn’t limited to Christians.) The terms here are my personal peeves. If you happen to be fond of any of them, please know I’m not judging you — just your vocabulary, and mine.

Cliche Category #1: “Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice”

I drink my coffee black, prefer more potatoes to dessert, can’t abide chick flicks, and have a low tolerance for sweetness (puppies excepted). Sicky-sweet terms that certain Christians seem to love include

- precious (road trip to the Precious Moments Chapel, anyone?)

- come alongside (I can just see the strong arm of a big, burly come-alongsider draping across the shoulders of a grateful come-alongsidee)

- love on, as in, “Let’s just love on these precious kids.”

- a real heart for God: why doesn’t anyone ever talk about having a mind for God, which is just as scriptural?

Cliche Category #2: “Good Words Gone Bad”

These are perfectly fine terms that through misuse, overuse, and abuse have become trite.

- authentic

- contemporary

- intentional

- relevant

- community

I happen to be fond of the ideas denoted by all these words; I lament their downward spiral into triviality. But authentic, for example, has now become like that riddle about silence: “What’s broken when its name is spoken?” If you have to call it authentic, you’re probably trying too hard and are therefore not really authentic.

Subcategory: “Good Grammar Gone Bad”

These are nouns twisted into verbs and verbs deformed into nouns. The church loves to do this. For example, the noun impact (as in to have an impact) is rendered in Christian-ese to impact something. And rather than seeking, simply, to minister or to live, we now do ministry or do life. Why, oh why, do we do this to words?

Cliche Category #3: “I Heart My Wife and Have the Bumper Sticker to Prove It”

- bride, as in, "My beautiful bride, Tanya, and I went camping this weekend." This word generated lots of buzz recently when Jon Acuff of Stuff Christians Like brilliantly skewered this behind-the-times church edition of society’s expired license to call women “girls” (but not men “boys”).

- smokin’ hot, as in, “I just wanna love on these precious kids and come alongside them as we do life together and then go home to my smokin’ hot bride.” To me, calling one’s wife bride on any day after the honeymoon betrays a rather silly insistence that she is into perpetuity that sweet, young, virginal thing once greeted at the altar — or worse, a tacit acknowledgement that she's not (wink, wink), so let's just make like she is. Smokin’ hot, on the other hand, just sounds like someone trying a bit too hard to convince himself.

Cliche Category #4: “Does the Bible Really Say That?”

No harm is probably meant in using these theologically questionable terms, but thoughtlessness easily becomes wrong thinking, as George Orwell famously argued. If we believe in the power of words, we must recognize their thought-shaping ability.

- just. This is a mild but pervasive example that peppers many prayers and is intended, I suppose, to express humility. There’s nothing wrong with this unless constant use causes believers to forego coming to God boldly.

- testimony. This one is troubling when it is =used singularly, suggesting that the Christian life is marked by only one testimony when, in fact, every day provides believers with unlimited opportunities for more testimonies.

- Christ-follower. A problematic trend in recent years is calling oneself this rather than a Christian. I understand the embarrassment the label Christian can cause when it aligns one with others who are not as smart, savvy, or theologically and politically progressive as oneself. (Yes, that was sarcasm, another language altogether). But the term Christ-follower is vague enough to apply to any number of good-hearted folks who admire the teachings of the historical Jesus but don’t ascribe to the creeds that martyrs like Stephen, Polycarp, Joan of Arc, Tyndale, Cranmer, and Bonhoeffer lived and died for. Keeping this great cloud of witnesses — joined by the likes of Luther, Calvin, Wilberforce, and Mother Teresa — in mind can help one reconsider the privilege and honor it is to bear the name Christian.

What about you? What Christian-ese terms do you find mortifying, annoying, or simply amusing? Post your nominations below.

When Sex Becomes an Idol

Jenell Williams Paris's The End of Sexual Identity seeks to overturn the power that sexual identity labels — homosexual and heterosexual — have in and outside the church.

Amy Julia Becker

In the past few months, I couldn’t help noticing the flurry of articles about the PCUSA’s decision to ordain people in same-sex relationships, the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, the passage of same-sex marriage laws in New York, and the decision of Chaz Bono, daughter of Sonny and Cher, to become a man.

Yet conversations about sex and sexual identity emerge as often around our dinner tables as on the front page of the paper. Recently, a pastor told me about a married member of his congregation who routinely cheats on his wife with other men. A friend described helping a female friend pick out an engagement ring so she could propose to her girlfriend. Another friend sat at our dinner table and talked about leaving the church after years of celibacy because he couldn’t deny his gay identity. Jenell Williams Paris, an anthropology and sociology professor at Messiah College, seeks to enter this cultural conversation in her new book, The End of Sexuality: Why Sex Is Too Important to Define Who We Are (InterVarsity Press). Moreover, Paris seeks to change the conversation within the church. Her analysis of contemporary culture offers a helpful aid to Christians trying to wade through the complex issues surrounding gender and sexuality in the modern age.

Paris does not want to overturn centuries of traditional Christian doctrine about sexuality, singleness, and marriage. Rather, she wants Christians to understand the manner in which we have capitulated to our culture, and then she wants to help churches create communities that offer a better way for all people, regardless of sexual experience, desire, or practice. To begin that new way, Paris insists we reclaim our core identity as God’s beloved rather than identify ourselves according to sexual preferences, either heterosexual or homosexual, which are relatively modern labels. Paris writes, “All sexual identity categories have a common trouble; they tell us that what a person wants, sexually, is an important measure of who a person is.” The same could be said for other identity categories, be they ethnic, racial, economic, or related to ability and disability. As Christians, first and foremost we know ourselves as members of the body of Christ, as new creations by the power and work of the Spirit of God. Only as we recognize this truth about ourselves and about our sisters and brothers can conversations about sexual practice proceed in a constructive way.

Despite her critique of sexual identity categories, Paris does not seek to overturn traditional biblical understandings of sex and sexuality. She calls herself a “ ‘sex only within marriage between a man and a woman’ kind of Christian,” and she acknowledges, “God did create humans male and female. But sin has influenced every dimension of human life . . . .” She upholds a biblical understanding of creation, sin, and redemption, although she might have spent more time examining the theological significance of being created “male and female, in the image of God.” Paris approaches the Genesis passage from a sociological standpoint, but she needs to provide an exegetical lens as well. Furthermore, she is so concerned about questioning the cultural construction of sexual identity that she fails to thoroughly discuss the Bible’s understanding of masculinity and femininity.

Paris asserts that reclaiming our core identity enables us to eliminate a hierarchy of “heterosexual” and “homosexual” within the church. Only then can we begin conversations about holiness in general and sexual holiness in particular. She writes, “In post-sexual identity Christian communities, sexual holiness becomes a common standard for all believers. Same-sex attraction and behavior still matter, but not as identity-constituting characteristics and not as points of theological disagreement that warrant separation or exclusion.” Sexual holiness, according to Paris, includes celibacy for people who experience same-sex attraction as well as for people who are unmarried and attracted to someone of the opposite sex. And rather than call for individuals to repent, be they individuals who have participated in same-sex sex or individuals who have condemned and judged others, Paris instead calls for cultural renewal throughout the church.

Paris suggests that celibacy is not currently “plausible” because there are very few ways to experience intimacy without sex in contemporary culture, even within the church. She upholds an ideal of celibacy that exists with institutional and relational support: “Long-term celibacy becomes plausible when there are widely held values, positive language, meaningful social roles and real social support for celibates.” Unfortunately, she doesn’t offer specific examples of communities — past or present — in which such support has existed. And she could spend more time examining the theological significance of Jesus and Paul and other New Testament figures who live holy and full lives as celibate persons.

The End of Sexual Identity could use more theology to balance out its anthropological focus. Nevertheless, Paris upholds a Christian understanding of who we are as human beings while offering a critique of the church for its appropriation of modern cultural categories that create false power structures and divisions.

Which brings me back to the headlines and dinner conversations of late. Paris’s book offers hope that the church might become a refuge for people who have been marginalized by cultural assumptions about sex. Instead of supporting divisions, The End of Sexual Identity reminds readers that identity is bestowed upon us by God, not by our sexuality. It rebukes me for my participation in the divisions created by sexual identity categories. And it helps me consider ways to support and equip single people as meaningful members of our church community. Paris herself doesn’t go this far, but her book also reminds me that — even when it involves self-denial, even when it involves countercultural lifestyles — God’s way of holiness is good for all people. It reminds me that the way of holiness is the way of love.

Much Ado About Mark Driscoll

What do we do when Christian leaders are imperfect?

Sharon Hodde Miller

This week the Christian blogosphere worked itself into a frenzy over a Facebook status posted by Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. The status, which was later removed, read, “So, what story do you have about the most effeminate anatomically male worship leader you’ve ever personally witnessed?”

The news of this post quickly drew responses from bloggers like Rachel Held Evans, who called Driscoll a bully, and Tyler Clark, who reflected on his own experience as an oft-labeled effeminate male. These responses consequently elicited counter-responses from writers like Anthony Bradley, who accused Evans of libel, only to be met with counter-counter-responses, such as Brian McLaren’s contribution to The Washington Post. The discussion finally culminated with Driscoll issuing his own response, admitting his comment was both “flippant” and failed to address “real issues with real content in a real context.”

The biblical author James once described the tongue as a “small spark” that sets a great forest on fire. Watching this debate ignite, I couldn’t help wondering whether James penned those words with the Internet in mind. That said, my intent here is not to throw additional kindling onto the flame.

Moving beyond the firestorm catalyzed by Driscoll’s words, many evangelicals are not quite sure what to do with him anymore. This is not the first controversial thing he has done, so is it time to draw a line in the sand?

Before I answer that, I should confess my conflicted feelings about Pastor Driscoll. On the one hand, comments like the one cited above are, I believe, harmful for both men and women. On the topic of manhood and womanhood, I disagree with Driscoll often.

However, God is undoubtedly using Driscoll to edify the church and minister to God’s people. On the few occasions I have heard Driscoll preach in person, I was inspired in my love for Jesus and challenged to serve the church with greater urgency. In addition to my personal experience, I have heard consistently positive feedback from the members of his church. His congregation clearly loves him, and not in a “they drank the Kool-Aid” kind of way, but in a transformational Jesus community kind of way.

Bearing this in mind, Driscoll’s latest controversy raises questions about the appropriate response to Christian leaders with whom we disagree. Whether or not you support Driscoll on this particular issue, most Christians are at some point confronted with a teacher who professes Christ and bears spiritual fruit, yet espouses a misguided idea. In the face of this tension, how should we respond?

Here it is helpful to look at Paul’s example in Philippians. Imprisoned and awaiting an unknown fate, Paul experienced insult on top of injury when rival evangelists sought to worsen his condition. Paul describes them as preaching Christ “out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.”

Surprisingly, Paul responds to his opponents not with bitterness or even condemnation. Instead, he rejoices in the message they preach: “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”

Although it is difficult to comprehend Paul’s utter lack of gall, his apathy to their motives is equally confusing. Lest we think Paul was growing soft in his old age, he later employs harsh language in Philippians 3, referring to false teachers as “dogs” and “mutilators of the flesh.” Why such a different approach to these ill-intentioned preachers?

First, Paul’s rivals were Christians who preached Christ. They believed in salvation through grace and not the Law, a message more important to Paul than his own reputation or the impure motives of these men. Given the modern temptation to make every issue a gospel issue, that is a point worth noting.

A second factor informing Paul’s response was his knowledge of his own sin. Although Paul does not mention his shortcomings here, he describes his struggle with sin throughout the New Testament. Paul was well aware that the power of his preaching came from the Holy Spirit alone.  No Christian can ever be so bold as to claim an entirely pure heart, neither Paul nor his critics.

Paul provides Christians with a humbling example for handling the imperfections and mistakes of Christian teachers. But we don’t have to stop there. The Church has an entire history of parsing out the good from the bad when it comes to our leaders. Martin Luther was a notorious anti-Semite, and in comparison with St. Augustine’s misogyny, Mark Driscoll could pass for a feminist.

Should the blatant shortcomings of these influential men discount their contributions to the church? No, but it should temper our estimation of them. As a former seminary professor of mine once reflected, “Anyone who articulates the gospel articulates it as a hypocrite, someone who is trying to live it out but failing.”

Except for Christ.

Indeed, we are frail vessels of God’s good work in the world. Does such a reality preclude loving admonishment when a believer is in error? Certainly not. Neither Jesus nor Paul shied away from a stern rebuke when the occasion called for it. What warrants further conversation is how that rebuke should be administered, by whom, and whether the internet is the appropriate venue. Respectful disagreement and debate should be a welcome part of the Christian community, but blanket attacks on one another’s character or ministry are likely to trample over the complexities of human nature and Christian discipleship.

I may not always agree with Mark Driscoll, but I believe in the Holy Spirit who works through him. If I find myself totally unable to learn from Driscoll or any other Christ-preaching teacher in the church, that probably would say less about the preacher than it would my own faith in the power of God.

Why We Don't Use Natural Family Planning

The method works wonders for many Christian couples, but shouldn't be elevated to one-size-fits-all heights.

Ellen Painter Dollar

Because I write often about reproductive ethics, I knew Bethany Patchin’s story long before Mark Oppenheimer wrote about it in last weekend’s New York Times. Bethany and Sam Torode divorced in 2009 after nine years of marriage, during which they had four children. Early in their marriage, the couple wrote a book called Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception, in which they argued that natural family planning (NFP) is the healthiest, most spiritually enriching contraceptive approach for Christians.

NFP, the only contraceptive method approved by the Catholic Church, requires couples to track the woman’s fertility by detailed observation of body temperature and cervical mucus. Couples can then avoid intercourse on the wife’s fertile days if they wish to avoid pregnancy, and plan intercourse if they want to become pregnant.

The Torodes, as other NFP supporters do, argued in their book and here at Christianity Today that not only is NFP as effective as medical forms of birth control when done correctly (which admittedly requires knowledge and practice), but also makes for healthier marriages that more closely align with God’s purposes for husbands and wives. They believe NFP honors our God-given bodies and fertility cycles rather than manipulating them to suit our preferences. It makes each act of intercourse truly open to God’s procreative purpose for marriage. It allows spouses to fully embrace each other, body and soul, without any barrier. It enhances marital intimacy and interdependence by teaching couples to constrain their sexual urges in service to a greater goal.

The Torodes’ marriage did not last. But even before they divorced, they renounced NFP in a 2006 statement. They said that NFP can lead to guilt and frustration when the couple desires sex, but has to abstain, particularly given that many women are particularly interested in sex during ovulation. They argued that, rather than embracing God’s gift of the body, NFP can lead couples to reject physical intimacy, either because they don’t want to conceive, or because they are exhausted by raising children whose births may have been unplanned. (The statement is no longer easily accessible on the Internet, so I am paraphrasing based on a variety of sources that quote from it.)

I have several friends who speak eloquently about how NFP has enhanced their marriages. I believe them. I also know that NFP is not right for me and my husband. We have three children who were blessedly easy to conceive. I loved being pregnant, nurturing babies, and breastfeeding, even with all the physical strain and unpredictability those tasks bring. Now that our youngest is 5, though, we are reveling in the relative freedom that comes with no longer accommodating toddler naps, diapers, and night wakings. I am devoting more and more time to the life-giving work God has called me to as a writer.

My husband mentioned the other day what a “catastrophe” it would be if I were to get pregnant again. Then he corrected himself. It wouldn’t be a catastrophe. Every child is a gift, and we have resources to love and care for an unexpected one. But it would be very hard, not just because we’d have to reorder our lives completely, but also because my physical health, affected by a lifelong disability whose symptoms are exacerbated by aging, could be seriously compromised.

I am a worrywart. I know that if we used NFP, I’d be continually anxious about what we would do if our contraceptive efforts failed. I know a couple who practiced NFP by the book and nevertheless had an unplanned pregnancy that, by all normal NFP measures, should not have occurred. Can medical contraception likewise fail? Of course. But I feel more confident when contraceptive success does not rely wholly on my own potentially flawed observations, and the need to diligently plan sex amid a chaotic family life. I’m also uncomfortable with the fact that NFP requires women, who do the bulk of domestic and childrearing work in many marriages (including mine), to shoulder yet another task in service to their family — monitoring their fertility.

I have rejected NFP for my own marriage, but I trust that it works well for other Christian couples. And I will not hold up the Torode marriage as Exhibit A for what can happen to a marriage with NFP at its center. Like all marriages, theirs was surely many-layered, as was its end.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the Patchin/Torode story, it’s not that NFP ruins marriages. Rather, perhaps it’s that humility is the number-one quality necessary for dialogue about how to live as Christians, and that we should not be too quick to either give or receive advice that hasn’t been tested by years of living and plenty of challenging discourse. Perhaps it’s that we should refrain from holding up a certain behavior within married sex as the absolute best one for all Christians. Sam Torode told The Times, “I am out of the business of trying to tell people what they should do.” That’s not a bad lesson to learn from this sad story.

Or perhaps the lesson is that marriage — as the bodily, spiritual, and utterly daily union of two uniquely flawed and gifted people — is really hard, whether a couple is young or old, childless or the parents of many. What married people most need is grace within which to explore what makes each marriage flourish, not instruction about the one and only way to embody married love.

Obama Visit Challenges 'African Woman' Stereotype

The Young African Women Leaders Forum demonstrated that not all African women are victims and in need of Western help.

Enuma Okoro, guest blogger

Two weeks ago, on an official trip to Africa, Michelle Obama gave a speech encouraging 76 young sub-Saharan African women participating in the Young African Women Leaders Forum in South Africa. They gathered at the Regina Mundi Church in the black township of Soweto, where 35 years ago, in June 1976, South African youth nonviolently protested Apartheid laws affecting their education. Many of those students lost their lives in the ensuing government-issued police open shooting. Today, Regina Mundi is a memorial to those who refused to sit idly by as their country and people continued to suffer under Apartheid.

It was here that Michelle Obama had the opportunity to share words with 76 young women. Washington Post reporter Krissah Thompson, who traveled with the First Lady, writes that she challenged them to ensure that women are no longer "second-class citizens," fight the "stigma" of HIV/AIDS, and "stand up and say violence against women" is a "human-rights violation." It has been refreshing to have young African women highlighted not as refugees of war, victims of violent rape and female genital mutilation, contagions of HIV/AIDS, or recipients of monthly dollar pledges. For one day a couple of weeks ago, the world was offered a glimpse of another African female population: dedicated, persevering, brilliant women committed to using their gifts to highlight awareness, nurture justice, and improve the conditions of their respective countries.

As a person of faith, I think often about the power that our cultural imaginations have to draw us either closer or further away from a God-centered imagination. No one can deny that the way we visualize, imagine, and depict people in any culture has repercussions for how we engage one another. Westerners are predominantly exposed to stories or images of African women as victims in desperate political, health, or socioeconomic situations. This influences how we imagine we are called to be in relationship with our sisters spread throughout the 53 countries in Africa. While it is important for the West to acknowledge the legitimate needs of Africans caught in political and socioeconomic strife, an unbalanced portrayal of African women risks the danger of fostering an “us / them” mentality that underwrites the notion that we Christians are called to go and help the “helpless non-Western other” (quotes mine). For many in the West, this plays out in a gentile condescending relationship that entails reaching out to “those less fortunate than ourselves,” and imagining African women mostly as potential benefactors of Western compassion and generosity.

One White House aide said the 76 women at the forum were “some of the most awesome women in Africa.” Recognizably this was a compliment, but the fact is that there are countless ordinary stories of women participating in daily life across the African continent that witness to a fuller picture of what it means to be an African woman. Stories that, if told in equal parallel with the stories of need and suffering, might lead to a broader depiction and more faithful imagination in the West of seeing African women, and those in other non-Western countries as well, as having as much to offer their respective countries and those in the West as we suspect we have to offer them. We might learn to imagine all of us together as co-laborers striving to manifest the kingdom of God right where we are placed. I think of African women like Marguerite Barankistse, a Burundian Christian whose story still amazes no matter how often one hears of it. Women like Dr. Kaswera Kasali, who with her husband, Dr. David Kasali, returned to their native war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo to create Congo Initiative, because they “felt called by the Lord to help rebuild lives, families and communities through holistic ministries with churches from various denominations.” Women like Ghanaian theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye, who directs the Institute of African Women in Religion and Culture at Trinity Theological Seminary in Ghana and writes about Christian theology from an African and feminist perspective. Women like Nigerian and Harvard Business School graduate Ndidi Nwuneli, who returned to West Africa to start nonprofits that promote and teach leadership to young women. I also think of young women like Delicia Beatrice Kotugondo, one of the forum participants from Namibia who works with the National Youth Council of Namibia to support leadership and business development in Southern Namibia.

Having been raised in a couple of different African countries and visited several others, I know of so many unnamed African women across socioeconomic boundaries whose daily, ordinary lives tell beautiful and inspiring stories of strength, communal care and reliance, and healing that ripples across generations. These women, both in the spotlight and unnamed, stretch our cultural and holy imagination of what we might be called to, what we might be capable of, and with whom we might be invited to come alongside, where God is already in motion.

Enuma Okoro was born in the United States and raised in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and England. She holds a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School where she served as director for the Center for Theological Writing. The author of Reluctant Pilgrim and co-author of Common Prayer (with Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove), Enuma lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She blogs at EnumaOkoro.com.

Would Jesus Walk Away from a Mortgage?

Reflections from an underwater home owner.

Michelle Van Loon

My husband and I have joked that our 2006 purchase of a townhome in a blue-collar suburb of Chicago must have been the single transaction that popped the housing price bubble in America. Within weeks after we signed the papers, the housing market began a historic slide that hasn’t yet hit bottom.

We paid $193,000 for our property. Today, it is worth $101,000 – if we could find a buyer for it. We are now so underwater on our mortgage, I see coral reefs every time I write a mortgage check. If housing prices stopped declining today and prices began to appreciate 5 percent a year, it would take more than 13 years for the price of our house to climb back to the price we paid for it. Those calculations are far rosier than the cold reality that at middle age, we probably won’t live long enough to see the prices return to the numbers we paid in the good old bubble days of 2006.

Eighty percent of the homes on the market in our town are foreclosures. We find ourselves wondering if we could simply walk away from this bad investment. If only it were as easy as dumping a bum stock and writing off the loss.

More and more people have decided that it is. Earlier this year, CBS’s 60 Minutes highlighted the growing trend toward strategic default. Last year, nearly 11 million Americans were underwater on their mortgages. That’s a whole lot of potential walkaways.

We’ve already refinanced once, a nightmare that took nearly a year. Even so, we couldn’t rent the place for what our costs are each month. We are grateful that we’ve been able to write that mortgage check each month, which puts us in a better position than many in this economy. But we are aware that a couple of corporate bottom-line decisions could change our financial status overnight.

A strategic default will wreck our carefully cultivated high credit score for at least seven years, but those in the strategic default camp insist that the financial benefits usually outweigh the negatives. It isn’t hard to embrace the logic. Freedom from the obligation of home ownership would allow us to rent a property at a far more reasonable monthly outlay than our current mortgage permits. We don’t want to sink our money into another house. Not after our current experience. We can’t afford it anyway.

I’ve heard a few in the strategic default camp who have cited Jesus’ parable of the ten minas as their rationale for walking away from a bad investment. But the context of the passage has far more to do with kingdom faithfulness and courage than it does with a 30-year fixed FHA mortgage.

And there’s the dilemma. As much as we fantasize about doing a midnight move, we can’t escape the fact that there are moral components and spiritual ramifications to the question of strategic default.

Secular and Christian sources alike insist that strategic default is not merely a financial decision. Though a mortgage document focuses on the financial obligations to which lender and borrower agree, some mortgages also include a moral clause, stating that a borrower has a responsibility to repay the lender. To be honest, there’s a part of me that chafes at this legal language, because both the government and the financial industry have not been particularly ethical when it comes to their end of the agreement. However, Scripture unblinkingly buttresses the notion of fulfilling our vow to pay our mortgage in spite of the sleazy lender who signed the documents with us.

We never had a deep sense of calling to this community. We prayerfully purchased our townhouse using the accepted financial logic of the time: “We’ve relocated, and we need to find a home with enough space to launch our young adult kids. This is what we can afford in this crazy housing market. We’ll stay a few years, then move on.” Reminder to self: Our plans are not God’s plans.

But the lack of “calling” does not exempt us from a sense of responsibility for those living beside us. All of our remaining neighbors are impacted equally by the “Bank Sale” signs and foreclosure notices that are as plentiful as dandelions in this neighborhood. Though we live in a community that seems to be built of closed garage doors and silent streets, we have attempted, however unsuccessfully at times, to build relationships here. We have prayed for our neighbors during our five years at this address. We may discover an escape clause of some kind in our mortgage documents, but is there a loophole in Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as we love ourselves? Since we know the answer to the latter question is no, then what does loving our neighbors look like in relation to our home ownership dilemma?

There are no easy answers. We’re searching for a lawyer and a financial adviser to help us parse our situation. However, even before we schedule a meeting, we need to ensure we have some clarity before God about our definitions. Have we been wrong about viewing our home as an investment? One thing I do know for sure: This underwater “investment” has been both laboratory and classroom, run by the One who calls himself our shelter, designed to school us in the costly basics of obedience.

Bachmann, Palin, and the Trouble with 'Evangelical Feminism'

Feminists say Bachmann and other conservative women can't join their club. I say the club needs some new ground rules.

Caryn Rivadeneira

When I heard rumblings about Michele Bachmann’s run for the presidency, I got nervous — though not the reasons you might think.

I’m not nervous about the political leanings of the Minnesota congresswoman and conservative Lutheran mother of five. In fact, I often agree with the way she votes. Instead, I’m nervous about ensuing conversations in my circles of feminist friends. As a fish-out-of-water, conservative feminist, I know what awaits the presidential hopeful.

Feminists don’t exactly have the best history of supporting politically conservative women. Even as Elizabeth Dole, Arizona governor Jan Brewer, and Sarah Palin sought to shatter some of the last panes of the American Glass Ceiling, they were derided among secular feminists, and others, for supporting traditional moral and economic values. Essentially, they belonged to the wrong party. And women who charge Democratic men with criminal actions certainly get a different response from those who charge Republicans: think Paula Jones’s reception versus Anita Hill’s.

Feminists of the Jesus-loving persuasion aren’t always much different from their secular sisters, if a recent Washington Post guest column by Rachel Held Evans says anything. The author of Evolving in Monkey Town writes, “As a Democrat, an evangelical, and a strong supporter of women’s equality, I can’t bring myself to call Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin ‘evangelical feminists.’ ”

I want to give the witty and wise Evans the benefit of the doubt, especially since in the paragraph before this, she calls evangelical feminism — the new media moniker for us conservative feminists — “meaningless.” But her “as a Democrat” affiliation seems to support the notion that feminism is a Democrats-only club.

In fact, Evans left me scratching my head even harder when she states, “If [Bachmann’s and Palin’s] ambitions force the evangelical community to confront the mixed messages being sent to young women in churches across this country, then I think their presence in this election is a good thing.”

Evans is right that exposing hypocrisy or mixed messages in our churches is good. But she misses something huge: the opportunity for the feminist community to face its own hypocrisy and mixed messages. Frankly, there’s so much of it, it’s no wonder Bachmann herself has rejected the feminist label.

While Evans may even be right about the meaninglessness of the term evangelical feminist, she’s wrong about why. What might make evangelical feminist meaningless isn’t the evangelical part. Some of us were actually raised evangelical Christians and feminists right in the same buildings: in our churches, our Christian schools, and our Christian homes.

Rather, if evangelical feminism lacks meaning, it’s because feminism today lacks meaning, drifting far from its original goals and tone.

When I was little, my teachers, pastors and Sunday school teachers, mom, mom’s friends, and friends’ moms told me that I could freely use my God-given gifts, form my own thoughts, and create my own stories. These early “feminist” influencers broadened my horizons. They opened up words and worlds for me. They offered huge vistas of what it meant to be a woman, and a Christian. I didn’t have to think or feel or worship or vote a certain way to be both.

Now, instead of being liberating and expansive, feminism offers women something quite narrow, at least politically. Contemporary feminism assumes all women must support and strive for unlimited access to abortion and birth control. Large chunks of today's feminism also support the idea that women should use their sexuality — not their gifts and intellect — to gain power in the corporate and political arenas. Any deviations have to be carefully constructed. Where feminists once fought to fling open doors and even escape hatches, it now busies itself putting women back into tidy boxes.

Whether it’s a conservative evangelical box telling us what or where a real Christian woman is, or whether it’s Rachel Held Evans’s box telling us how a real feminist votes, Christian women — whether or not we call ourselves feminists— must resist attempts to exclude women from full participation in public life. Instead, we must encourage one another in sisterly Christian love. Which, getting back to topic, is what evangelical feminism should mean.

In her Washington Post article “A privilege to be an ‘evangelical feminist,’ ” Anne Graham Lotz writes that while the term evangelical feminist is new to her, Lotz identifies with it, “if it describes women who are strong, bold, free-spirited leaders inside and outside of their homes, unashamed of their faith in God, his Word, his Son, and his Gospel . . . .”

I concur, but would take it few steps further.

As Christians we are called to lift each other up in the loving and dignifying spirit of Christ, calling out each other's God-given gifts. Combine this with the sort of old school, bare-bones feminism that believes that women are made in the full image of God, therefore deserving to be treated with dignity and equality, and you have the potential to change the world.

In the political realm, evangelical feminists can change the world by encouraging and supporting other women, even when our opinions differ. They can engage in civil discourse and debates, assuming the good about one another even as we disagree. But maybe most importantly, evangelical feminists can change the world by offering the very thing God created us to offer: telling women across the globe that God loves them no matter what, that Jesus' cross frees us from shame and degradation, and that the Holy Spirit transcends restrictions and equips all of us with fearlessness and power, even those among us who have much to fear and little power.

Women reaching women with the Good News of a God who loves them — no matter what they think or how they vote — is the feminism Jesus modeled for us.

A Daughter's Grief Observed

Meghan O'Rourke's luminous The Long Goodbye traces the final months as her mother succumbs to cancer.

Rachel Stone

Meghan O’Rourke is best known as a literary and cultural critic, a contributor to Slate, and the onetime fiction editor at The New Yorker. But she is a poet first, as is clear from the opening pages of her new memoir, The Long Goodbye. A chronicle of the final months of her mother’s life and the months afterward, O’Rourke’s book is luminous; her words evoke her tremendous love for and grief over her mother with a grace that few writers can match:

Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. . . . A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without the sky: unimaginable.

O’Rourke’s reflections on what a mother means — and what her mother meant to her — are achingly sad in light of her loss, but no less a beautiful tribute to a mother who loved children, dogs, and life itself (“YOUR A GOOD MOM. YOUR A GOOD SEWER. HOW COME YOU ARE SO NICE,” [sic], O’Rourke wrote in a card to her mother at age 6), an Irish-Catholic schoolgirl turned atheist private-school headmaster, a stunningly beautiful, witty, warm, and intelligent woman until the day she breathed her last. She was at home on Christmas morning, her favorite day of the year, surrounded by her family, including Meghan, her two brothers, and their father.

As a writer and literary critic, O’Rourke was able to be with her mother as she was suffering from metastatic colorectal cancer, driving her to doctors' appointments and searching for drinks that wouldn’t irritate the dreaded chemo sores inside her mother’s mouth. She observes so keenly the things that many of us only sense regarding the process of dying: the endless buzzing and clicking of hospital machines; the strange power dynamics in hospitals — don’t ask too much, don’t know too much, defer to medical authority and medical ‘facts’; the sense that watching television is both a strange thing to do with one’s final hours and yet not so strange (“What the hell. What is she supposed to do, contemplate every moment with saintly beatitude?”); and the longing for “somewhere to put my grief.” She writes:

I was imagining a vessel for it: a long, shallow wooden bowl, irregularly shaped. I had the sense that if I could chant, or rend my clothes, or tear my hair, I could effect, create that vessel in the world. Five days after my mother died a man elbowed me on the subway and I felt bruised and angry; if I had been wearing mourning clothes, I furiously thought, he would have taken greater care.

Making that which is almost ineffable somehow visible is, of course, what art, poetry included, is so often about. T. S. Eliot famously regarded Hamlet as a dramatic flop because he felt that Shakespeare failed to sufficiently externalize whatever it was that was going on inside Hamlet’s grieving mind. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that O’Rourke was preoccupied with that particular play in the days immediately following her mother’s death. Hamlet is a young man grieving the death of his father, and he can neither understand nor be understood by those around him because of it. She observes that “much of Hamlet is about the precise kind of slippage the mourner experiences: the difference between being and seeming, the uncertainty about how the inner translates into the outer.”

O’Rourke read the Bible, too, and C. S. Lewis’s memoir of his wife’s death, A Grief Observed. Although she describes herself as the “child of atheists,” there is in this book a deep longing for something beyond this life, a sense of “otherness.” O’Rourke writes,

What I do not know is this: Does that otherness — that sense of an impossibly real universe larger than our ability to understand it — mean that there is meaning around us?

O’Rourke’s keenly observed grief leads her inexorably toward questions like these; her longing for something like eternity, or at least, for her mother to "stay another night," is beautifully sad, resistant to all easy answers. In that way, the book is reminiscent of Ecclesiastes, which, though acknowledging a Creator, despairs at the certainty of suffering and death. Though some of us, finding hope in the promise secured in Christ’s resurrection, do not grieve without hope, we still grieve. This searching and beautiful memoir is a gift to the grieving, sure to become a classic among books Lewis’s, Kubler-Ross’s, and The Preacher’s, which help people both with and without faith understand the shape of loss.

Thoughts on Afghanistan from a Marine Wife

The 'drawdown' announced last month gives me another opportunity to be sore afraid — or to trust God.

Lisa Velthouse, guest blogger

Less than three weeks ago, I watched as my husband, Nathan, became the commanding officer of a U.S. Marine Corps infantry company. About 160 men, most of them barely adults, stood at attention in their camouflage and combat boots and waited as he became their leader. Moments earlier, some of the troops had curbed their cursing and offered startled greetings — “Afternoon, Ma’am” — when they saw me standing there in my dress and heels. It was a Friday.

The following Tuesday, I watched via televised address as my President announced a plan to dramatically decrease the number of troops in Afghanistan. The network-worthy news that evening was that we will be reducing our forces from the current 100,000 to about 67,000 by next summer. That’s a quick decrease of nearly a third — “a drawdown,” President Obama called it, which in many ways sounded altogether promising.

War-weary like everybody is, as a military wife I have perhaps more reasons to be overjoyed at prospects: Another war over! We’re getting out of there, finally! But my response to the announcement was instead lit by the light of the week before, by my husband and 160 other living, breathing men lined up in a dusty military gym. By how much he means to me and by my fears of what could happen to any one of them. In many respects, the concerns I have are not unfounded; in fact, I justify them by the fact that they are bona fide news stories.

For instance, it was reported only months ago that the number of troops killed by IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices — roadside bombs) in Afghanistan rose by 60 percent last year, while the number of troops wounded by them tripled. Ask any 19-year-old deploying to Afghanistan, and he’s not worried about the Taliban so much as he’s worried about some guy who took a lucrative job rigging trip wire and fertilizer, blowing up U.S. convoys.

And recent military operations in Afghanistan seem to suggest that the presence of troops brings stability to a region. Last year, Marines settled into the Sangin province of Afghanistan and began patroling aggressively to root out drug lords and Taliban militants. At first, the fighting was so fierce that Sangin became known as the “Fallujah of Afghanistan,” but in time and at great expense, the Marines battled until the majority of insurgents had left. The region began to experience something like peace and even had a visit from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who noted the “dramatic turnaround” brought by the Marines’ presence.

In Iraq, where another drawdown and another U.S. mission are yet to be complete, last month was the bloodiest since 2008 for U.S. forces in the country. It could be argued, then, that when large numbers of troops leave, for a time things become far more dangerous for those who remain.

I’m afraid that when Nathan’s company leaves for Afghanistan on schedule next year, the decrease in troop numbers will mean a higher likelihood of ambush or attack. I’m afraid that because the ratio of troops to terrorists will be significantly smaller, there will be significantly more chances that the man I love could be shot, captured, tortured, you name it. I’m afraid that fewer U.S. troops will mean larger areas for those troops to cover, which will mean travel, which will mean IEDs. And I’m afraid of all the typical 21st century combat risks, like sniper fire and traumatic brain injuries and PTSD.

And yet: “Fear not.” The Bible says it over and over: “Don’t be afraid.” “Do not fear.” “Fear not.” Even a minimal amount of time spent in churches will teach you that this is the most often-made commandment in all of Scripture. But why?

The thing about fear is that it does not ultimately trust. This is why it feels insecure entirely, why it can grip so wholly. Fear refuses to believe that even the terrible and horrific events of this life can be used for God’s glory, for ultimate good. It denies that our individual health and wealth, that all our lives and all our hopes are subject to God’s purposes. It rejects the biblical teaching that God is pure love and that therefore what he directs and allows is worth trusting, even when it seems to rip us to shreds.

“Fear not” — this is so much easier read than done, and there is enough mistrust in each of us to make it seem impossible. But God is pure love, and part of his loving work in us is that he gives us increased faith: an ability to trust him and believe, an assurance of the things we can’t seem to see.

Does God expect that we will never be afraid? The Bible doesn’t say that. It’s safe to assume that as long as humanity has a sin condition, not a single person will ever be fear-free. But in the midst of whatever keeps us up late at night, whatever has us most worried and petrified, we can be certain of the Voice that repeatedly commands comfort amid our unbelief. Fear not: He is holding everything well, come what may.

Lisa Velthouse is the author of Craving Grace: A Story of Faith, Failure, and My Search for Sweetness, a memoir (Tyndale House.) She blogs regularly at LisaVelthouse.com, and can also be found on her Facebook page and Twitter feed. She has written for Her.meneutics about lying memoirs.

What You Don't Know about Obama's Mama

A review of Janny Scott's new biography, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother.

Jennifer Grant

In a culture of “helicopter parenting,” in which mothers are tempted to manage every moment of their children’s lives to ensure future success, it's peculiar that no one seemed interested in Barack Obama’s mother when his political career began to skyrocket. Maybe the anomaly of his absentee, Kenyan father was so enticing that no one gave much thought to the oddly named Stanley Ann Dunham. No one, that is, except Janny Scott.

In 2008, Scott left her job as a New York Times reporter to research the life of then Senator Obama’s late mother. She interviewed hundreds of Dunham’s family members, colleagues, and friends. She traveled all over the world, tracing her subject’s journeys. Scott’s meticulous research shows; hers is an absorbing book that details Dunham’s rich, disordered life.

Having read Scott’s book, the fact that Dunham has been summarized — perhaps most often by the president himself — as “a white woman from Kansas” seems comically hollow. It was with much more care that Scott chose the title A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother for her biography. Scott said that if she had used the adjective unconventional in the title, “some people would have thought it was a pejorative. Others would have thought it was high praise.”

“Singular,” she wrote, “is neutral. But there’s no mistaking its meaning: This person was remarkable, one of a kind.”

A family friend of the Dunhams described the milieu in which Dunham grew up as a “Leave it to Beaver . . . kind of society.” Indeed, Dunham gave birth to the son who would be known as “Barry” when Leave it to Beaver was still on the air. (She stopped using her unusual first name after high school.)

Ann Dunham, however, was the anti-June Cleaver. In 1960, for instance, when racial intermarriage was against the law in about half of the United States, she married an African man. During a period in our history when divorce was not commonplace, Dunham divorced. Twice. Whereas Wally and the Beav’s mother was an ever-present fixture dressed in dresses and pearls in her spotless home, Dunham lacked a “Ward” of her own to pay the bills. She had a more disheveled appearance, supporting her children with help from her parents, working as a consultant, and piecing together an academic and anthropological career across the globe.

Of his mother, President Obama told Scott, “she was not a well-organized person. And that disorganization, you know, spilled over.”

Dunham worked in Hawaii, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Nairobi over the course of her adult life, sometimes living continents away from her children. When President Obama was 10, for instance, he spent the school year in Hawaii with his grandparents while his mother worked in Indonesia. She would later join him, but again leave him in her parents’ care in Hawaii during his four years of high school. Meanwhile, she conducted research for her dissertation and worked in international development in Southeast Asia.

In Scott’s book, striking descriptions of Honolulu where “jagged volcanic ridges parade against the sky like dinosaurs’ backbones” or of Indonesian snacks of “sticky black rice sprinkled with coconut” might fill you with the kind of wanderlust that contributed to Dunham’s life as an expatriate. But that travel came at a price both for Dunham and her children.

Dunham’s daughter, President Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, describes her and her brother’s childhood and “broad” and “adventurous.” But, Soetoro-Ng has said, they were “a little untethered” and drifted “in and out of worlds.” What Soetoro-Ng and President Obama sometimes longed for, it seems, was more groundedness — a little more June Cleaver and a little less Margaret Mead.

In his interview with Scott, however, President Obama said his mother gave him the “most important gift a parent can give – a sense of unconditional love that was big enough that, with all the surface disturbances of our lives, it sustained me, entirely.”

“What is best in me, I owe to her,” President Obama has written. “She was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known.”

Dunham was deeply curious and empathetic, as Scott’s book details, described by some family members and friends as a spiritual person whose life centered on improving the condition of some of the world’s least privileged people. But she was not religious. Her daughter said Dunham considered Christ “a wonderful example” but “felt that a lot of Christians behaved in un-Christian ways.” Growing up, her family attended a Unitarian church and were, as Scott describes them, “religious humanists.”

“At Christmas, children reenacted the birth of Jesus Christ, Confucius, and the Buddha,” Scott wrote. “The church encouraged community service and tolerance, and pushed for social justice.”

A friend of Dunham’s who is a Roman Catholic said he learned not to mention his faith to her. She had what he described as a “mocking quality” about religion. “And a sneer,” he told Scott.

Whether she was living in the States or abroad, Dunham was always aware that she didn’t “fit in.” Indeed, she seemed intent not to do so. Her second marriage ended, Scott suggests, in part because she refused to socialize with her husband’s colleagues and their wives at cocktail parties. She was told she should “sit with the women and talk about your children and your servants,” but she complained that “middle-aged white Americans talked about inane things.” She refused to be the “little wife” and was unperturbed by how others viewed her.

Dunham was aware that she had more important work to do. In addition to being a key figure in the development of microfinance, she was, however imperfectly, raising a child who would become the 44th President a few years after her death.

That Dunham lived life with an open and broken heart, seeking to empower some of the world’s most resource-poor people, is admirable. Perhaps more of us could follow her example of questioning some conventions and dislodging our desire for the things that moth and rust destroy in favor of living authentically and serving others. My best efforts as a Christian are to work to integrate these efforts with my faith and my responsibility to the family given to me by God.

Top 10 Posts of the Month

What got Her.meneutics' readers talking in June.

Katelyn Beaty

Her.meneutics devotees might notice two new names in our top 10 list below. Having only written for us a couple times, both women approached us boasting fascinating and varied CVs. Enuma Okoro (@tweetenuma) is a Nigerian-American who holds an MDiv from Duke Divinity School, where she directed the Center for Theological Writing. She now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she has found time two write two books — Reluctant Pilgrim and Common Prayer (with Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove) — and write regularly at EnumaOkoro.com. Natasha Robinson (@asistasjourney) is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (2002), and served six years active duty as an officer in the Marine Corps. Currently, she is co-director of the women’s mentoring ministry at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, and founder, writer, and speaker for His Glory On Earth Ministries. In her spare time (!), she attends Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary full-time and is a wife and mother. Natasha writes regularly at A Sista's Journey.

Judging from the popularity of their posts, both women will continue to provide our readers with thoughtful commentary on news and books that matter to evangelical women. And now on to the list!

(10) How to Talk about Having Children, by Sharon Hodde Miller // Comments: 53
Maybe God intended babies to mess with our well-planned lives.

(9) Lessons from an Expletive-Laced Picture Book, by Ellen Painter Dollar // Comments: 28
Self-sacrifice can make parents unhappy and unhealthy — or it can help cultivate the abundant life God desires for us.

(8) Why 'Happy' Isn't a Christian Word, by Enuma Okoro // Comments: 15
How to practice hope during the happiest season of the Christian year.

(7) Why Men Should Read Jane Austen, by Gina Dalfonzo // Comments: 31
And, how we all should read works like Pride and Prejudice.

(6) Should Christians Pursue External Beauty? by Enuma Okoro // Comments: 21
A controversial Psychology Today article arguing that black women are less attractive than others got me thinking about real beauty.

(5) Why Romance Novels Aren't Emotional Porn, by Caryn Rivadeneira // Comments: 57
Just because such novels are about escape doesn't mean they are destructive.

(4) Beyonce Is Wrong: Girls Don't Run the World, by Natasha Robinson // Comments: 52
Why her message of female power is hurting the African American community.

(3) Anthony Weiner, Gnostic, by Karen Swallow Prior // Comments: 41
The embroiled congressman's defense that sexting is not adultery reveals a mind-body dualism long resisted by Christian tradition.

(2) An Open Letter to Donald Miller on Your Engagement, by Karen Swallow Prior // Comments: 34
First, congratulations. Second, let's talk about that list of qualities we should want in a spouse.

(1) The Cult of the Orgasm, by Anna Broadway // Comments: 80
Thinking Christianly about the vibrator boom and unsatisfied sexual desire.

The Redemptive Narrative in Jaycee Dugard's Captivity Story

Two Stories about Babies with Down Syndrome

Being Loved through Breast Cancer

My Father Was a Porn Addict

'Bridesmaids,' Marriage, and Real Happiness

A Parenting Manual for Bad Kids

Doing Authentic Ministry with My Smokin' Hot Bride

When Sex Becomes an Idol

Much Ado About Mark Driscoll

Why We Don't Use Natural Family Planning