'Unbroken' by Jesus

Look at the word unbroken.

An uncommon word that begins with a common prefix. Un- is so familiar that its meaning is rarely considered. Those two little letters just mean “not,” don’t they?

It makes good sense, then, that Laura Hillenbrand used the prefix in the title of her new biography, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. The title pays tribute to the strength of the book’s subject, Louis Zamperini — an Olympic distance runner, war hero, and former POW who survived outrageous challenges, beatings, and torture with body and spirit in tact. Zamperini, in fact, is still living, at age 94 in Hollywood, California.

Hillenbrand's book has garnered much popular and critical acclaim, but some reviewers have complained that her choice is “generic," even a “goofy mushball of a title.” “Not broken? That’s the best you could do?” They seem to sneer at the word, insisting that Zamperini’s life story is so extraordinary that it deserves a grander title.

Best known for Seabiscuit, another story of unlikely resilience, Hillenbrand has noted that she doubts that any person in history besides Zamperini has found or will find himself in the position of grasping the underside of a failing life raft while beating away sharks with warplanes shooting at him from the sky.

Perhaps those who criticize Hillenbrand’s title are correct, that it should contain a more startling adjective than the one she chose. But I’d like to take a closer look at what those two letters, that little prefix un- can do.

You see, it has two meanings.

The first is “not” – as in words such as unruly, unbeatable, and unlikely. These three, by the way, aptly describe Zamperini. As a child growing up in the 1920s in Torrance, California, Louie was smoking and drinking by age 8. He picked locks and stole food out of other families' kitchens, and was often escorted home by police officers to his mortified parents. All of this transpired before he was even in high school. Unruly behavior, to be sure.

Later, his older brother Pete, whom Louie admired and who had great affection for his brother, channeled Louie’s drive toward running track. Within a few short years, his life of crime forgiven by adoring fans, Louie Zamperini was the town hero as he was a seemingly unbeatable world-class competitor, training for the 1940 Olympics and edging ever nearer to breaking the world record for the 5,000-meter race. During one race, his rivals slashed his calves with their sharpened spikes, stabbed him in the foot, and gave him a blow that broke one of his ribs. Zamperini still won the race. Unbeatable.

And unlikely? Well there are too many incidents to list here, but the fact that Zamperini met Adolf Hitler in 1936, unwittingly befriended a Japanese spy while at college, and endured weeks starving in shark-infested waters are certainly unlikely.

Unruly. Unbeatable. Unlikely.

But there’s another way to understand the prefix. Un- can indicate that an action or state of being has been reversed, or “undone.” Words such as unsqueeze, unbind, and untangle employ that kind of un-.

When Zamperini returns home after the war, the man who was once full of verve and mischief is changed. The deprivation, humiliation, and abuse he faced as a POW didn’t break him, but once he’s home, something else does.

Stateside, Louie has flashbacks. He is overcome by resentment and fury. He becomes obsessed with retribution, longing to return to Japan and torment the guard who most abused him. The hatred breaks him apart. He self-medicates by abusing alcohol and mistreats his family. Like the boat that was his home for so many weeks on the Pacific, his life starts to disintegrate.

On that raft, on a day early on in the ordeal, Louie’s crewmate, Mac, “snaps.” He raves that they are going to die. After quieting him, Louie does something he hasn’t done before: he prays, pleading for God’s help to survive. His prayer is answered, only to deliver him into the hands of his enemy.

After his return home and nearly losing his family to the hatred and alcoholism that fuels him, Louie finds himself in another unlikely situation. It’s 1949, and a young, attractive evangelist from North Carolina has come to town.

After a few failed attempts to persuade him to attend Billy Graham’s Christ for Greater Los Angeles Campaign — and stay to the end of the meeting — Louie’s wife prevails, and he reluctantly agrees to listen to Graham. Several days into the revival meeting, Louie recalls the prayer he spoke on the life raft, after Mac’s panic attack.

“If you will save me, I will serve you forever,” he’d prayed. It was a promise that, until then, he had failed to keep. But upon accepting God’s grace at the crusade, Louie said he “felt supremely alive.” The flashbacks, need for alcohol, and hatred left him and never returned. Louie later said that “surprising things began to happen” after he accepted Christ’s love and forgiveness.

“I . . . went back to the prayer room and made my confession of faith in Christ. And then, boy, it was a complete turnabout," Zamperini said in a 1976 interview recorded for Wheaton College's Billy Graham Center archives. "I had a totally new direction of life and a whole new purpose . . . I wanted to be used of God somehow.”

At his turn to Christ, a state of being was reversed; Zamperini was, truly, unbroken.

Jennifer Grant is the author of Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter, published in August by Thomas Nelson. She freelances for the Chicago Tribune and is currently working on her second book, to be published in August 2012 by Worthy Publishers.

The Saving Grace of a Shared Meal

A number of recent studies have confirmed what we’ve intuitively understood all along: Eating with others keeps us healthier, happier, and better connected to each other. Even so, shared meals — especially ones at home — have been on the decline for some time. Busy parents find it hard to gather everyone around the table, much less have people over for dinner. Take-out and drive-through are a part of many Americans' routines. And let’s face it: Having people over can be a pain. It’s hard to get the house cleaned up and prepare several courses and spend hours eating and chatting and face a mountain of dirty dishes at the end of the evening. If there are children involved, things are that much messier; you face the prospect of pickiness, stains on the carpet, and people who scream or tell bathroom jokes at the table.

There is an element of vulnerability in all this: we may feel that we are on display, that we will be judged by our guests and found wanting, that our cooking may come out badly or our family will embarrass us. Having people over for dinner is intimate, more intimate than most restaurant meals ever can be. Maybe that’s why we don’t do it that much. But maybe, also, that’s why we should do it. Recently, blogger David Swanson suggested that meals with friends at home, rather than in a restaurant, can be a sign of “our confidence in a hospitable God,” as meals out avoid the sometimes-complicated and uncomfortable roles of host and guest.

And, writes pastor Tim Chester in A Meal With Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table (Crossway), the early church didn’t just have meals along with their worship services; their worship services were meals. Throughout the Gospels (Luke’s gospel particularly), Jesus is the Son of Man “eating and drinking.” Scandalously inclusive table fellowship, Chester shows us, was characteristic of Jesus’ ministry and provided a real taste of his kingdom. When we sit to eat with one another, tasting the goodness of God with one another, we acknowledge our common creatureliness and dependence on food. There are to be no hierarchies at Christ’s table. That’s the source of the apostle Paul’s annoyance in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34. “I hear that there are divisions among you,” Paul writes; “in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.” Why do you humiliate the poor? he asks; going so far as to say that when they have these inequitable feasts, “it is not the Lord’s supper” that they are eating, but in eating without sharing properly, they are profaning Christ’s blood and body. The opposite — meals shared equitably, without regard to social status — are a declaration of Christ’s blood and body.

Is it possible that restaurant meals and The Food Network and images of idealized 1950s dinner parties have convinced us that meals with others must be orchestrated perfectly against a background of cleanliness, or else not hosted at all? Don’t get me wrong: I would rather people not see my house when it is strewn with Lego pieces and toy train tracks, when my dining room table is heaped with clean laundry, all while I’m in the middle of an over-achieving food preservation project. But I have learned that eating together is a practice worth pursuing, even if the house is less than perfect. Even if the meal is nothing more than soup and bread.

When my husband and I lived in a small town in the mountains of northern California, the church where we worked was filled with older people, many of whom lived alone. Though our ministry included counseling, preaching, youth group, and hospital visitation, the part that seems to have made the biggest difference was our meals. At first, we simply had people over for dinner. A lot. Then, we started having potlucks after church. Pretty soon, the unchurched spouses of some of our members started showing up for the lunches. And other members began bringing their unchurched neighbors. Several of our older singles began meeting for casual, simple meals during the week, which helped enormously to ward off the cabin-fever blues of small-town single life. It’s now five years since we left that church, and the potlucks, they’ve told us, still keep them together.

Were all of those meals perfect? Not really. Sometimes the food choices were weird. Sometimes the conversations were awkward. When our son was born, there was regular crying. Once, everyone brought only dessert except me, and we had to make my pot of soup go all around and then feasted on apple crisps and green Jell-O. Another time, my friend Ruth’s lentils remained hard after simmering all day in the slow cooker. (We improvised some waffles.) But always, we were refreshed, and not just by the food. We were refreshed by one another, and by the presence of our Lord and Savior among us in the breaking of that bread.

Ben & Jerry’s ‘Schweddy Balls’ and Scatological Humor

So, one million moms are up in arms over “Schweddy Balls,” the, uh, gutsy, name of Ben and Jerry’s newest flavor: rum-flavored vanilla ice cream adorned with fudge-covered malt balls.

One would think such an unsavory name for something that should appeal to taste not mortify it would negate the need for a boycott.

But the controversy provides an excellent opportunity to think biblically about scatological humor, which in its narrowest sense, centers on bodily excretions of any kind, or more generally, refers to any obscene humor. When it comes to humor of any sort, it’s sometimes hard to tell when the realm of manners crosses into that of morals. For manners and morals are not the same thing, and the lines connecting the twain don’t always meet.

I would argue, however, that the name of the latest Ben and Jerry’s flavor might be an offense against manners, but it’s not immoral.  I’d say it’s just a rather puerile example in a long tradition scatological humor:

·         Aristophanes’ prize-winning play, Peace, from the fourth century B. C., includes an insult of a scatological nature to Zeus.

·         Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages, has two stories that conclude on punch lines involving flatulence.

·         Within the eighth circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno, where the flatterers are found, is a pit lined with stinking excrement.

·         An entire body of scholarship exists around the scatology in Shakespeare’s works.

·         Perhaps the most scatological writer of all time is the conservative eighteenth century Anglican priest, Jonathan Swift. Within the body of his works is a group referred to by scholars as the “scatological poems.” Those familiar only with the children’s versions of his best known work, Gulliver’s Travels, would likely be shocked to learn exactly how Gulliver puts out the fire in the queen’s palace as well as the details about the Liiliputians’ efforts to rid their land of the giant visitor’s, um, leavings.

·         Another Anglican clergyman’s entire novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, is saturated with scatological humor, beginning with the unfortunate circumstances of his conception (humorously described), followed by an accidental circumcision when the young lad hero urinates out his bedroom window and the sash malfunctions.

·         By one account, scatology is a staple of contemporary children’s films, including Mr. Popper's Penguins, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Cars 2. There’s even a children’s book on the subject.

Clearly, not all scatological humor is equal.  Ben and Jerry are no Jonathan Swift.

Nevertheless, eras marked by the prim propriety of the entire culture, at least within the Western tradition, are few and far between. In fact, most of the ages of man, whether ancient or modern, have had a downright celebratory attitude toward these coarser aspects of the human condition, regardless of that culture’s morality. While God’s moral standards are eternal and absolute, human manners careen as wildly as a stung donkey from age to age and culture to culture.  

The continued influence of one particular period, the Victorian age, has caused many to equate Victorian manners with biblical morality. But the Bible actually has a surprising amount of scatology, most notably, Philippians 3:8 where Paul counts all his worldly gains to be dung, as it’s rendered politely, but not-quite-accurately, in the King James Version. Here, of course, Paul isn’t being humorous; he’s being quite emphatic.

But sometimes scatology, as in Chaucer’s tales, is just for laughs. The inability to laugh at ourselves, especially in the most undignified moments of the human experience, is probably one of the widest gateways to destruction.  Granted, humor of any kind works best within the context of community. Proper time and place are important factors. Questions of taste, decorum, and age-appropriateness are significant considerations. Funny is as funny does.

Yet, more often than not, there is purpose behind the laughter. Within the Christian tradition, excrement has been long held as a metaphor for sin. Even in the humanist tradition which excludes the notion of sin, scatology serves as a blunt reminder of the more sordid aspects of the human condition. Beyond the snickers, scatological humor has much to teach us about ourselves as creatures that are both animal and spirit, daily decaying yet always reforming.  

For this reason, I don’t believe that the biblical admonition against unwholesome talk necessarily precludes scatological humor (although certainly it sometimes does). The works of Chaucer, Dante, and Shakespeare (if not the likes of various so-called “teen comedy” films) surely build up those thoughtful enough to dig beneath the surface. 

Perhaps we even have something to learn from the natural offense we take at such a distasteful name for ice cream. For despite all of the scientific, philosophic, technological, medical, and social progress we’ve made in the human race, despite all the creams, lotions, sprays, and tissues we buy, we still sweat, urinate, defecate, bleed and excrete as much decay as our body is capable of shedding. And we still alternate between mirth and shame when confronted with these realities.

Such ambivalence perfectly reflects the in-between state of the human condition, one described by some of the most scatological and incarnational words ever written, a powerful reminder from St. Augustine: inter urinas et faeces: we are born between urine and feces.

Inexplicably, God chose One born of these same humble origins to save us — by his shed blood.

And, this is nothing to laugh — or blush — at.

Why I No Longer Pray for a Husband

Could fasting and prayer ever be a kind of sin? That was more or less the implication of one person’s response to the news that I had joined a group who weekly fast and pray about marriage and singleness. (And yes, we’re mostly female and mostly single.)

Perhaps it seemed like I’d committed myself to asking for a husband each Monday, that I’d found a spiritual guise in which to obsess about singleness and pester God to change things. But here’s why I don’t think we’re a bunch of women trying to apply The Prayer of Jabez to our love lives.

My first encounter with the fasting-and-prayer group came in summer 2008, a few months after my memoir of reluctant chastity was released. The book had begun as a blog, launched in summer 2004, when I was an angry Christian single woman, committed to serving God but struggling with deep doubts that he was really good enough to be trusted with my love life. By the time that four-year writing project concluded, I had discovered a far deeper intimacy with God, but was as single as ever and staring down my 30s. With the book done, I didn’t want to lose hope in God or drift away from trusting him with that part of my life, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Then a friend forwarded me an e-mail. A small group of people across the country, plus a few outside the States, were fasting and praying each Monday for God to bring marriages to those who desired them, to change and heal men in the ways they needed (but especially around their willingness to commit) and to do the same for women in the areas where we were most broken. To participate, I just had to sign up to receive the weekly e-mail meditations, skip at least one meal on Mondays (though other kinds of abstention were also possible), and pray. I joined them.

Of course, I hoped this might finally be the context where not just interior but also exterior, circumstantial change happened. Of course I did. The religious impulse to manipulate fate is strong. But I also knew God was God, and that beginning a spiritual discipline carried no obligation for him to work through that practice in the way I wanted. That was part of the appeal, in fact. Here was a way to invite him to work and bring life into a part of my life which, with each month I grew older, seemed more like a place where hopes, dreams — and fertility — were gradually dying.

From the start, it was far easier to fast than to pray. Often I felt guilty about this — especially as a former daily prayer-walker — but I started to see it as one way to acknowledge my ultimate weakness and lack of control with God.

Then one Monday, shortly before the end of 2009, I got the idea to take a “do-nothing” approach to my love life for 2010. You see, if relational life is like two adjoining rooms connected by a locked door, I had spent most of my time in the “single” room gazing through the door and scheming how I could get through to the other side. I’d never made a real, good-faith effort to inhabit the place where I was and be present in it. On the one hand, “doing nothing” scared me. In all my persistent doubt of God, it was easy to assume the only animating energy for change in my love life came from me.

But on the other hand, a commitment like that excited me. At a few specific times in my life, giving up trying to make something happen has been precisely the point when very good things, and not ones of my doing, happened. The lasting fruit of those experiences is a deep longing to see God move in my life; to see things change because and how he wants them to. We always get angry when our plans are thwarted (a move easily interpreted as divine spite and mismanagement), but boy, is it exciting to have something good come into your life that you had nothing to do with.

So the do-nothing approach became my 2010 resolution. I took down all my online dating profiles and tried to focus on inhabiting my singleness. This meant, of course, not asking for a husband, but that was actually the easiest part. The thing about this group, you see, is that I don’t actually make a ton of requests for myself — at least not in such a specific sense. In fact, in the past few months, I’ve even become more cautious about specifically asking for marriage on behalf of others. How do I know that’s best for them, after all?

It’s one thing to pray that men as a group would become more willing to commit, but in practical terms, that means a lot of individuals changing, and the more I think about praying for some one person to change so specifically, the less comfortable I am asking for that. More and more I find myself praying around the postures of the Lord’s prayer: sonship, worship, evangelism, generosity and contentment, mercy and justice, reconciliation, spiritual warfare (as the pastor John Smed has termed them). And when it comes to relational needs, I’ve become most comfortable asking that God establish that person in a community where he or she can most flourish and be a blessing. That may well include a relationship or even marriage, but it may not.

At this point, I wish I could say to you, “And by the way, meanwhile, my circumstances actually did change and I met So-and-So.” But the changes I’ve undergone don’t much resemble the plot I would have suggested to God. I can tell you he’s at work at my life and that I love him. But there have been weeks when I’ve had to wash tear spots off my glasses almost daily.

I still hope it’s possible to someday marry, and to do so while my body is still able to bear children without outside assistance (which I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable seeking). But “someday” is by definition the future. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through these three years of fasting and prayer about marriage, it’s that I’m called to live in the present. I may not know what the future holds, but there is never a present into which God cannot come. And when in his presence, the present is well with my soul.

Anna Broadway is a writer and web editor living in the San Francisco Bay area. She is the author of Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity. She has written for Her.meneutics about vibrators, prayer, more prayer, Eat Pray Love, dating cards, and Mel Gibson.

Spanking in the Spirit?

Each week, it seems, stories of parents arrested for spanking their children make the news. Periodically, proposed bans on spanking are considered, but are typically shot down on grounds that such bans tread on parents' rights. Such bans are also met with opposition from some Christians who believe that since the Bible appears to require corporal punishment of children, bans on spanking would prevent Christian parents from living out biblical convictions. Leaders such as James Dobson, Wayne Grudem, John Piper, and Albert Mohler — conservative evangelicals, to be sure, but not at all of the Michael and Debi Pearl stripe — agree that Scripture requires parents to discipline their children corporally. A quote from Focus on the Family's website sums up their beliefs: “the Bible's word on discipline clearly demands that parents be responsible and diligent in spanking.”

In a new book, Corporal Punishment in the Bible (InterVarsity), William Webb, professor of New Testament at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Canada, examines the Bible's strange and sometimes disturbing passages about corporal punishment, such as, “Blows that wound cleanse away evil; strokes make clean the innermost parts” (Prov. 20:30), and, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die” (Prov. 23:13). Webb, like the aforementioned scholars and leaders, once believed that Christian parents who sought to apply the Bible's teachings to their lives were more or less obligated to spank their children, and taught his seminary students the same. Over time, while parenting his three children (one of whom suffers from a degenerative brain disease), Webb grew aware that the Bible's texts on corporal punishment bore little resemblance to the restrained and lovingly limited spanking taught by Dobson and others. In seven important ways, he argues, pro-spankers have moved beyond the concrete, specific instructions of Scripture to a form of discipline that is, unquestionably by contemporary standards, ethically superior to what's actually on the pages of Scripture.

The seven ways that pro-spankers have unwittingly moved "beyond the Bible" include things like age limitation (most contemporary pro-spankers put an upper limit on the age-appropriateness of spanking; the Bible itself recommends spanking for all ages); the bodily location of the beating (while the Bible speaks fairly exclusively of beatings being applied to the back, contemporary pro-spankers recommend the buttocks or the back of the hand, places where injury is much less likely); the emotive disposition of the parent (while contemporary pro-spankers insist that spankings be administered in love rather than in anger, the Bible makes no such recommendation; if anything, it implies that some righteous anger in the application of 'the rod' is a good thing); and so forth.

Far from criticizing contemporary pro-spankers, Webb praises the ways in which their application moves beyond the concrete specificity of the Bible to fulfill what he calls its "redemptive spirit" (one he explored more fully in his well-known 2001 book, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals).

Webb's redemptive-movement hermeneutic (which I've referred to before on Her.meneutics) does a lot to explain some of Scripture's troubling texts while maintaining reverence for Scripture as the Word of God. In this book, Webb shows how even the most disturbing corporal punishment texts in Scripture — texts that call for a woman's hand to be cut off, for example — are, improbable as it may seem, redemptive when viewed against the backdrop to other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) laws and codes. Where Hittite, Babylonian, Assyrian, and other ANE beating codes call for hundreds of lashes, the Hebrew Bible places the upper limit at 40 — hardly "redemptive" given today's sense of justice, but downright progressive in its own context. Webb sees in this movement reason to consider that putting aside corporal punishment entirely may, in fact, be a wise and biblically sensitive option. Just as opponents of slavery did not move to make slavery "better" but abolished it entirely, so parents and Christian leaders can put aside corporal punishment entirely as long as they fulfill the "abstracted/purpose meaning" of Scripture, which is simply this: teach, discipline, and guide children in the way of wisdom.

In a sensitive and thoughtful postscript, co-written with Webb's wife, Marilyn, a highly experienced and qualified special-education teacher, Webb discusses their family's adventures in raising their kids largely without corporal discipline. Far from running wild, the picture that emerges is one of a disciplined Christian family where kids knew their limits as well as the limitlessness of their parents' love. Webb is guilelessly gracious to Christians who choose to spank, citing with gratitude how Focus on the Family's materials benefited his family. But he does clearly advocate for exclusively noncorporal punishment, believing that it affords greater dignity and honor to children, and aligns with the compassion of Jesus while providing an avenue for redemptive and peaceful Christian witness in our increasingly violent and punitive world.

Rachel Stone has written for Catapult Magazine about her and her husband's decision not to spank.

Real, Authentic Authenticity

The top-read Her.meneutics post of all time was Karen Swallow Prior’s “Doing Authentic Ministry with My Smokin’ Hot Bride,” published this July. To avoid misleading any church planters who might read the piece in earnest, the subtitle helpfully clarified that the post was a list of “the worst ever Christian clichés.”

Among the greatest offenders was the overused virtue of authenticity. Listed under “Cliché Category #2: Good Words Gone Bad,” it elicited quite a few “Amens” from readers.

Christians are not alone in their over-usage. Last week The New York Times featured a segment titled “Authentic? Get Real,” in which reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom highlighted the popularity of authenticity as a self-descriptor among politicians and television personalities. Everyone from Michele Bachmann (“I’m a real person”) to Anderson Cooper (“I’ve always tried to just be authentic and real”) has touted their authenticity, often citing the attribute as the secret to their success.

Politicians are not alone. Rosenbloom noted that “legions of marketers and social networking coaches are preaching that to succeed online — on Twitter, Facebook, Match.com — we must all ‘be authentic!’ A proposed panel at next year’s South by Southwest interactive conference promises to teach attendees ‘how to be authentic and human without embarrassing yourself.’”

The truth is, Rosenbloom’s piece just as well described Christians as those outside the church. And to the extent that our society values “being real,” authenticity is near to becoming a core American ethic.

Of course, trying to be authentic poses problems. As communications specialist Jeff Pooley told the NYT, “What you can’t do is be told by a social media guru to act authentic and still be authentic.” What you end up with is “calculated authenticity,” or something like stage management.

Consistent with its most common usage, the word authentic means “not false” or “not an imitation.” It also carries the meaning of “conforming to fact” or “same as the original.” These latter definitions offer some insight into the term’s rising popularity among secular and Christian audiences. Americans are tired of being manipulated and lied to. Among politicians who purport to represent the people, and Christians who claim to represent Christ, authenticity is increasingly rare and therefore increasingly precious.

Authenticity should not be dismissed as a passing trend or cliche. Though it never appears explicitly in Scripture, authenticity is a thoroughly biblical idea. 1 Peter 1:7 tells us that genuine faith brings glory to God; Ephesians 4:25 instructs Christians to “put off falsehood;” Paul regularly condemned false prophets, false teachers, and those engaging in “false humility.” Authentic faith and authentic fellowship are valuable aims for the believer. I’d like to propose two perspectives for maintaining a Christian notion of it.

First, authenticity is a discipline that requires time. It cannot be flipped on like a light switch, and it is not maintained without work. I say this as one who struggles to write and teach from my true self, despite my greatest efforts. Both my speaking and my writing tend to mimic the styles of teachers and authors I admire. Finding my own voice, or even figuring out who I really am, has been a challenge.

In fact, my entire life has been a struggle to get out from behind the faces I put on: I want to be perceived as having it all together, as being the perfect wife, as being an intelligent Christian woman, as being compassionate, kind, and inspirational. I have justified my slavery to these goals because they are mostly noble, but the method is entirely wrong. When rooted in a desire to be liked rather than in the spirit of Christ, each one of these “fruits” is an illusion, a fake.

This leads me to my second point about authenticity: It can only be had in Christ. C. S. Lewis wrote, “Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. . . . The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. You real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. . . . Christ will indeed give you a real personality.”

Lewis makes this statement as one who understands the deceptiveness and destructiveness of sin. Only God knows who we really are — that is, who he created each one of us to be. Sin leads us to construct alternative versions of ourselves, selves we prefer, selves that are more comfortable, selves that bring us the most glory. We may try to construct selves that will honor God, but even our best intentions will be perverted when working off a manmade blueprint.

In Christ, however, we become our true selves. God opens our eyes to our sins, to the self-deception, to the things in our lives that are not of him. Then he transforms us, conforming us to the only perfect human being who ever lived. In Christ, we stop operating according to the constraints of social expectations, personal insecurities, and lies. Rather than live in ways that are subhuman, we finally live in a manner worthy of God’s vision for humanity.

That is authenticity. It is a “human being fully alive” (Irenaeus). It is not built in a day, nor is it maintained easily. Like humility, realizing we are closer to it ensures that we will lose it. Yet the nature of authenticity is also good news. Because authenticity cannot be faked, because it does not, ironically, rest in our natural selves, our only option for being truly authentic people is to lose ourselves, casting ourselves on Christ’s mercy, joyfully acknowledging that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness. The more we realize our desperate state and need of God’s grace, the more authentically human we will be.

Coming Home after Hurricane Irene

For New York City, Hurricane Irene was largely a non-event, an unnecessary nuisance with unprecedented action. For me and my extended family, Hurricane Irene was a life-changing storm. Sure, there were power outages and phone lines down and flooding and roads closed. But the impact I'm writing about was to two old summer cottages that have been in our family for nearly 100 years.

My great-grandfather bought Shohola, a rambling cottage on the point of a small beach at the end of a dirt road in Madison, Connecticut, in 1922. He had four children, three of whom are still living, and one of whom is my maternal grandmother, Frances. We call her Nana. Nana was 1 when she first spent her summer in Shohola.

Soon enough, my great-grandfather decided to build a smaller cottage on the property for his wife's sister and her family to use. And then a family bought the house next door, and the kids spent their summers together — swimming out to a raft and burning in the sunlight and scraping their knees on the rocks and playing cards on rainy days. As it turns out, that family in the house next door was the home of my paternal grandmother. My great-grandparents on both sides of the family were friends with each other, neighbors. My grandmothers grew up together. And so my parents met one summer and fell in love.

By the time I was born, my great-aunt who never married stayed in Shohola all summer long. The other families divvied it up into three parts. My parents usually brought me and my three sisters for two weeks. Two weeks of learning how to sail on a Sunfish made from a kit by my grandfather. Two weeks of walking to the Red House and getting stuck in the muck of the marsh out back and putting meat tenderizer on the jellyfish stings and competing in Sandbar Olympics and eating corn on the cob and vegetable casserole and hot dogs. Two weeks of learning how to make baskets with my aunt and playing kick-the-can with our cousins and reading book after book after book because we didn't have a television.

There was nothing fancy about the cottages. The floors were painted wood. The white wicker furniture inside had been purchased along with the house. The large wooden table in the dining room, the chairs, the sideboard, all had been fabricated by prisoners many years ago. The door to the bathroom was so swollen with humidity that it never closed all the way. The kitchen drawer held a hodgepodge of silver utensils banged and beaten with age. With no insulation, you could hear everything everyone else was doing. It was my favorite place in all the world.

In another unexpected twist of fate, I met my husband there. We were in boarding school, and I arranged with my grandparents to use the house as a retreat spot for a Christian fellowship group from school. Peter decided to come on the retreat at the last minute, even though he wasn't particularly interested in Christian stuff. He just thought it would be nice to get a weekend at the beach. Five years later, he proposed to me in the same spot where we first met, near the concrete ramp leading down into the murky water of the Long Island Sound.

The house weathered the 1938 Hurricane, though other houses nearby fell into the sea. Shohola was built on stilts made of cedar, designed to let the water pour through. And pour through it did a few weeks back, when Irene's storm surge pummeled Connecticut's shore.

Three days after the storm, my sisters and I went to see it in person. Gone were the three sailboats, two sets of stairs, a canoe, three kayaks, three bathhouses, six trash cans. Gone were the croquet balls that we had used for years to play a game my grandfather taught us, "one to the right, one to the left." Gone were the walls to the house's only shower. Gone were a smattering of the cedar posts and most of the shingles and windows and much of the cement floor. The porch of the smaller house had been swept away, and then the sleeping porch above it, with nothing to rest upon, collapsed. The water rushed so forcefully under the house that the floorboards gave way.

We aren't sure what comes next. The little house may be gone forever. We assume Shohola can be rebuilt, though the insurance will not pay much and many questions remain.

A friend said to me, "It's just a house."

At first I nodded. Of course. No one died. Two of my 90-year-old great-aunts, along with my mother’s cousins, left the house hours before the storm. It is just a house. Kind of. Because these places are the repositories of memory, of family, of my marriage. These are the places that have held our family together by offering a place to be, year in and year out, with traditions and rituals that take us past our differences.

The Bible contains numerous warnings not to overvalue material possessions. Houses, boats, cars, stuff will rot and decay. Only God's Word, we are told, will remain. Don't store up treasures on earth. Keep them in heaven. And I believe these words. Only that which is from God, only that which is good and right and true, will remain. Only these things matter.

And yet the Bible also explains that we are physical beings and that the physical world matters. Far from a portrait of an ethereal heaven in the clouds awaiting us at death, the Bible offers a picture of a redeemed and restored earth, an earth where cities and beauty, physical beauty, remain. Where we still have bodies, even if those bodies are different from the ones we inhabit now.

So which is it? The physical doesn't matter at all in light of the spiritual reality? The physical matters all the more because it has been created and will be redeemed by God's Spirit? Yes.

I have suffered far less than millions of others, and I share news of a loss borne of privilege. Yet when I hear of the fires in Texas and the floods in Vermont, when I think back to that day 10 years ago when the towers fell or that day 6 years ago when New Orleans went under water, I know that it is right to grieve the loss, for these were places that held more than earthly treasures.

Our treasure as Christians lies in heaven. And yet heaven will come to earth at the end of time, and I suspect that my great-grandfather’s cottage will remain. Sometimes our earthly treasures are the same as our heavenly ones.

Chaz Bono Brings Transgender Issues to TV

After ABC announced the newest lineup for Dancing with the Stars(DWTS), many were taken aback by the backlash of comments about contestant Chaz Bono.

Formerly Chastity Bono, Chaz is the first transgender competitor on the show, which is also what he is best known for (the documentary Becoming Chaz was nominated for three Emmys yesterday). Within days, the Internet was clogged with complaints, debates, and defenses (including from Bono’s famous mom Cher) about Bono’s participation in the reality TV dance show. One widely circulated comment on ABC’s board states: “I am not about to risk the potential for on screen dialogue about sex changes and gender confusion while my 7 and 9 year old are watching.”

Others believe Bono’s appearance is inappropriate for young viewers. The American Family Association's OneMillionMoms.com, which also protests contestant Carson Kressley, formerly of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, says, “Email ABC Network and let them know that we will not tolerate these subjects being forced into our homes. DWTS airs 8/7 central when children are awake and Christian families will not enhance the ratings by watching the show when it returns September 19 unless this issue is taken care of and these cast members are replaced.”

Similarly, psychiatrist Keith Ablow of Fox News urged families not to watch, as he believes Bono’s situation will glorify gender confusion and lead impressionable children to think it’s okay to choose a gender. Meanwhile, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins dubbed DTWS's new season "ABC's Too Left Feat."

Many others rushed to Bono’s defense, including dance partner Lacey Schwimmer, who said, “I think it’s just showing that people need to be OK with this. We need to evolve. It’s 2011. I personally feel that we need to get over it.”

Yet it’s not something to “get over.” Nor is it something the Christian community can ignore or minimize. Transgender people make up a small portion of the population — estimates have it as less than 1 percent — but it doesn’t make their situation any less real or painful. According to a 2007 study cited by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, of transgender youth ages 15 to 21 participating in the study, 45 percent had thought seriously of killing themselves, and half of these said their thoughts were related to their transgender status. Further, people with gender identity disorder (GID) (the psychological terminology for transgender identity) often have poor self-image, social isolation, emotional distress, and depression and anxiety, which affects one’s day-to-day life and interactions.

And this isn’t limited to adults. As much as I personally disliked Ablow’s article and his approach to the DWTS situation, it is becoming more widely acknowledged that children do experience GID, and they are allowed to act like or become the opposite sex.

The tricky part is that what some believe to be a psychological condition, such as GID, becomes a sin. And as Christians, we need to be able to recognize these issues and be prepared to address them — beyond the “hate the sin, love the sinner” message. In 2008, Christianity Today contributing editor John W. Kennedy wrote about the evangelical response to the rise of transgender issues. He concluded that "the challenge before conservative evangelicals is persuading transgendered people, their families, and faith-based advocates that gender identity disorder is not beyond the reach of God’s grace, compassionate church-based care, and professional help.”

It’s not an easy task. Those with gender dysphoria — the feeling of being trapped in the wrong gender's body — causes confusion for those suffering from it, as well as people who don’t have it and don’t understand it. Bystanders can handle their confusion by dismissing cross-dressers as weird, to believing those seeking gender-reassignment surgery are mentally sick (the opposite ends of the gender disorientation spectrum according to the Harry Benjamin scale). Why would a person undergo costly and painful treatments to switch genders? We can say God doesn’t make mistakes, but people with GID feel overwhelmingly different about it.

Russell D. Moore, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, offers a good starting point using an ethical dilemma he posed to his students: a hypothetical situation of a transgender person (“Joan/John”) within the church who wants to repent and follow Jesus. And the first thing to remember, Moore says, is that Jesus came to save sinners. He says: “The pastor should abandon any sense of revulsion because Joan’s situation is “weird” or “perverted.” All sin is weird and perverted. The fact that any of it (especially our own) seems “normal” to us is part of what we need the gospel for.”

Like other Christians who have written about transgender issues, I don’t understand it. But while I don’t understand what drives people to undertake these extensive treatments and surgeries, I certainly sympathize with why they do it. The inner turmoil of feeling this shouldn’t be happening to you is one thing; the cruelty coming from others only solidifies this anguish.

In my 26 years of life, I have undergone roughly 30 elective surgeries to eradicate the birthmark (or port wine stain) on the right side of my face. This red patch has evoked rude and downright painful remarks and stares from strangers throughout my life. I could cover it up with make-up, but I’ve always felt more self-conscious and anxious wearing make-up. What if the foundation smeared, exposing the offensive skin and opening myself to further ridicule?

In addition to the outward appearance, having this concentration of blood creates a pressure in my right eye, which can cause irrevocable damage to my vision. Without eye drops twice every day for the rest of my life and laser surgery on my birthmark, this superficial problem can lead to permanent blindness. With my talents and interests, I have a hard time believing that blindness is what God intends for my life.

As I read about those with GID choosing to take hormones on a daily basis and considering gender reassignment surgery, I was reminded yet again how minor my condition is compared with the problems other people face and the lengths they go to solve them. Most importantly, I am reminded, like Kennedy recommends, to never make anyone feel like they are undeserving of God’s grace and love.

This fall, if I need some background noise on Monday nights, I’ll put on DWTS. When Chaz comes up, I won’t change the channel — unless he’s a really horrific dancer. What will you do? What are your thoughts about the Christian response to gender identity disorder? Does having Chaz Bono on DWTS encourage the prevalence of transgender issues in culture? And is that a bad thing?

Welcoming Doubt to Christian Education

I started school at age 5 and never left once. My formal education was entirely secular: public schools, then a private college, followed by graduate school at a state university. My teaching career began in Sunday school, continued in a business school, then two Catholic colleges, a state university, a Christian secondary school, a women’s college, and an evangelical university. I even served a six-year sentence as a high-school principal. I am no mercenary: in matters of education, I don’t believe one size fits all. Still, ideas have consequences, and the ideas that undergird a philosophy of education will bear their fruit.

So the results of the Cardus Education Survey, published in August, intrigued me, to say the least. The survey is touted as the largest known representative study in North America examining education’s long-term effects on students now aged 23-40 who represent various kinds of schooling: Catholic, non-religious private, religious home school, conservative Protestant, and public. The findings are fascinating and surprising.

One major finding is that the students from conservative Protestant schools were least likely to be involved in politics. Another is that the students from religious homeschools were the most likely to get divorced. Given that a primary focus of conservative Christianity over the past several decades has been political activism and family values, these findings are striking.

Because I’ve spent the past 20 years teaching in institutions aligned with these interests, the results hit home. Yet long before this survey, I was troubled by similar trends among some of my own students: More often than not, the students who’ve expressed to me the deepest doubts about the tenets of conservative Christianity, its social and political positions, and even the faith itself, had once been among the most committed.

Beyond this personal experience, I see no shortage of well-publicized poster children for the findings that show where Christian education is failing to fulfill some (not all) aspects of its mission. The natural family planner who kissed dating goodbye is now divorced and contracepting. The one-time creationist has evolved. A missionary kid is flirting with atheism. And one raised right has turned left. I don’t begrudge any of these young people their soul-searching, truth-seeking journeys. To the contrary, I heartily applaud such growth.

But while I understand slow, steady progress toward solidified beliefs and views that naturally change over time, swings from one extreme to another give me pause. I’m reminded of the truism, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

At first glance, it might seem ironic that one-time cheerleaders for conservative Christian views land so far afield. Yet, if the unexpected happens often enough, perhaps it’s not so unexpected after all.

My own conversations with Christian students who have undergone such revolutions in thinking suggest that their earlier stands — despite appearances — were built not on foundations strong enough to withstand the inevitable rattling from opposing views. Their beliefs rested on weak scaffolds gradually dismantled by each successive encounter with a previously unconsidered idea, fact, or phenomenon.

Human history is a series of pendulum swings from one extreme to another. This can be as true of individual growth as it is of culture, and some swings should not be prevented. But in the faith journey, perhaps such severe swings point to a systemic problem more than a personal one. Perhaps the deepest systemic weakness in conservative Christian education is the failure to distinguish between education and indoctrination.

To educate means to bring out or lead forth. Education opens up. It frees as only truth can.

To indoctrinate means to imbue with an idea or opinion. Indoctrination closes in. It debilitates like a sweet poison drunk deeply.

In the pursuit of truth, education leaves no stone unturned. It sallies forth bravely, unafraid to encounter or examine notions, politics, facts, and beliefs that might challenge previous learning. Education is a gentleman who recognizes that all truth is God’s truth, and that truth is to be held dear no matter what stone it might be found under or what star might illuminate it.

Indoctrination — which need not be intentional in order to be indoctrination; in fact, indoctrination might be most nefarious when it goes unrecognized — pursues dogma not truth. Indoctrination is a bully who cowers or bristles before contradiction, pummeling it when possible, fleeing when it proves too great to fling off easily.

Several educational “blind spots” identified in a recent article in a homeschooling magazine illustrate powerfully the differences between education and indoctrination. These include emphasizing outward form, depending on authority and control, relying on formulas, and sheltering students. Such an approach to education, among its other dangers, discourages young people from healthy exploration of doubt.

And it appears that doubt is a key to lasting faith. According to a fascinating study by Fuller Theological Seminary, young people who are allowed to express and explore doubt are more likely to keep the faith as adults It seems like a no-brainer (although apparently, it’s not), but, as one of the study’s authors explained, “If all we’re doing is preaching at them and telling them what to believe, their faith doesn’t become their own.

The students I know who have been disillusioned by their once unblinking faith represent an array of faith backgrounds and experiences. But they all feel that doubt was an aspect of faith that dare not speak its name.

But if it's true, as "Jesusy" Anne Lamott has observed, that the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty, then perhaps it’s certainty, not doubt, that’s the real enemy of both faith and Christ-centered education.

Education embraces doubt in an awkward dance that grows ever more graceful with each step in time; indoctrination, a shrinking wallflower, shuns doubt until the ball is over and goes home unkissed.

Christianity Today magazine covered the Cardus Education Survey this month.

Inviting Christ to the Dinner Table

While eating for optimal health and weight loss has been an American obsession for at least 100 years, the past decade has seen growth of a different kind of awareness; a food movement comprising culinary, agricultural, ethical, and environmental concerns. Writers such as Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, and Barbara Kingsolver have shown us that the choices we make about what to eat touch more than just us. Americans have long been able to spend a lower percentage of income on food than any other industrialized country, but cheap food comes at a price, including environmental degradation, diet-related diseases (like Type II diabetes), and egregious suffering on the part of people and animals.

In Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating, Duke theologian Norman Wirzba (author of Living the Sabbath) adds a distinctly Christian voice to the ongoing dialogues of the food movement. His approach begins with recognizing food as a gift from God. I interviewed Wirzba recently to ask him about his approach to eating, weight loss, and dealing with “less than ideal” meals.

What differentiates your perspective from others within the ‘food movement’?

Lots of writers have helpful things to say about our food system. But not many are saying why eating matters to God, or that food is God’s love made delectable. Eating well does help heal our world. And eating well brings pleasure to God and witnesses to God’s kingdom. Growing and sharing food is a vital, daily part of our ministry as ambassadors of God’s love.

How is food “God’s love made delectable”?

Eating is one of the most pleasurable things we can do, and it is something we must do frequently, which means it practically invites us to think about what we are doing and how we can do it better. It is incredibly rich in the way it touches so many domains of life (with ecological, agricultural, social, ethnic, political, economic, and religious implications). When we pay attention to eating, we start paying attention to a lot else. I think the heart of a Christian theology of eating is about receiving, and then sharing, food as the sensory expression of God’s love.

What are some practical steps that churches, families, and communities might take to practice good eating?

The first thing is to slow down. Become intentional about what you eat, who you eat with, and how you eat. Think about the context: when you are in the kitchen, be aware of how God’s love is made evident in the food you’re preparing. When you’re around the table, think about how you can together be more grateful for the many gifts of God. List the needs of your community so you can then use God’s love, made evident in the food and fellowship, to address those needs.

How do we properly think about and act toward food that is raised in ways that don't allow it to speak of God's grace? Do we not eat Grandma's canned soup casserole, for example?

I make it a rule not to stand in judgment of the food people serve me. So many factors determine why each of us eats the way we do. If we can help each other see what is going on in our food industry and in our eating habits, maybe we can together make incremental changes toward better eating. I am certainly not the perfect eater; I need friends to help me become better. And I need Grandma to make sure I don’t get too big for my britches.

What does a Christian theology of eating have to do with a theology of the body? In other words, how might we better think about issues like weight loss in light of a theology of eating?

The question of the body is so important. But not just human bodies. If we think carefully about our bodily health we must also think about the health of all the bodies with which we live and eat. I think about health much more than weight; God created a great diversity of bodies and body types. Eating in a healthy way should take priority over concerns about weight. Industrial food systems provide a lot of cheap calories in the form of junk that makes us ill. If we focus on healthy food — that is, bodies of plants and animals that have been treated well — we will be much healthier as a result.

How would you advise people who want to eat in a way that glorifies God but cannot afford healthier options, such as free-range meat?

Industrial food has been especially destructive for poor people; it makes lots of unhealthy calories available cheaply. Good eating should not be elitist. I recommend that people try to grow some of their own food. You don’t need lots of land and it’s not very expensive to do, though it takes time. I also recommend that people join community gardens and that churches start to grow food on their grounds. Some interesting studies are now being done showing that the total costs associated with healthy food are actually less than the supposedly cheap food we buy. Good food does often (but not always) cost more up front, but it is more nutritious and satisfying. It also results in fewer (often very expensive) trips to the doctor.

Thank you, Dr. Wirzba!

Sister publication Books & Culture has a review of Wirzba’s Food and Faith up today. Rachel Stone blogs at Eat With Joy.

Why Singles Need Married Friends

I breathed a sigh of relief upon finding out the rumors of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's separation were false.

In Touch magazine first reported the couple’s split, after 13 years of marriage. Rumors of infidelity quickly followed, and later it seems Pinkett Smith was spotted without her wedding ring. It seems that was all it took.

Not them too! I thought, genuinely upset, when I first read the headline.

Why is that?

There’s something about a capsized marriage that bothers people who are on the outside looking in. These days, after all, it starts to seem like every marriage is just a divorce waiting to happen. We live in a culture that is in perpetual doubt about marriage. How can we not be? The national divorce rate, according to the Census Bureau, is 9.2 for men and 9.7 for women.

In response to our poor marriage rates, some have glorified divorce — ”it's not so bad, kids!” — while others have embraced the idea of avoiding marriage all together, settling instead for serial monogamy or cohabitation.

The church has not escaped these signs of doom. People doubting the possibility of the lifelong covenant that is marriage, though, are better off looking to couples in their midst rather than celebrity pairs.

I am fortunate to know a few couples whose marriages make me wonder nothing so much as, "How do they do that?" At the same time, I kind of don't want to know the day-to-day mechanics of how they pull off a happy marriage; it's enough to know that they do. I suspect that's due to our cultural conditioning: We have been taught, through movies and books, that happy endings come when someone says “I do.” After that, it’s all downhill.

I don't mean to advocate a more mundane perspective on marriage (though the romanticism of marriage hasn't done many of us much good), but isn't there something refreshing about the response of the Smiths' publicist in the face of hyped divorce rumors? Apparently, when TMZ called Pinkett Smith's spokeswoman for a response, she simply said, "I know nothing about this . . . I'm going back to bed." (The couple was later forced to respond to a public hungry for reassurance.)

Sure, celebrity gossip is a quagmire, but the cultural furor over divorce rumors, and the apparent responsibility that accompanies a healthy, high-profile marriage, indicate our society’s deeper fear about the lasting significance of marriage, and a strong need for assurance that somebody out there can make a commitment and stick with it.

From experience, I know that spending time with married couples — the kind of couples who have settled into the day-to-day reality of being married, to the point of taking marriage for granted — is reassuring.

Although pop culture might have us believe differently — a la the pox on Bridget Jones when hanging out with her married acquaintances — it is possible to fellowship with folks post-marriage vows, and I think that kind of communion can benefit both sides. That’s something we as communities of believers, groups of friends composed of singles and marrieds alike, can work to cultivate. We can't count on celebrity couples, or In Touch magazine, to do the heavy lifting for us.

True, there are plenty of arguments made by smart Christians to take care in relationships with the opposite sex. I believe this is one of the main reasons why in Christian communities, wives might be friends with single women and husbands with single men. But it still seems rare and fragile for husbands and wives to share single friends. Single friends, in fact, seem to be ”phased out” following many a marriage.

Ultimately, and probably unintentionally, the belief that the sexes need to be kept separate seems to have inspired a fear of men and women keeping company. Certainly, there are plenty of cases where cross-gender friendships led to sexual sin . . . much as marriage has typically preceded divorce. (You see where I’m going with this.)

Much like Pinkett Smith’s publicist, I don’t have a lot of patience when obstacles seem like a lot of talk. In this case, barriers created between members of the church community are made of fear and envy. Fear that a man and woman might be consumed by temptation, and envy of one another’s marital status. I don’t mean to preach condemnation, and can share only my own experience, but from that experience I know how very much I would not want to miss out on friendships with married couples because of some rumor of disaster.

I would feel the same way about marriage, by the way. Should married Christians fear divorce? Should they hold themselves accountable to a society built solely of other married couples? I am not married, so cannot answer these questions. I can only say to the married couples in my acquaintance: Your marital status doesn’t frighten me, but rumors of your divorce hurt me. I want to help avoid them.

How have the marriages of couples around you affected you?

The Sin Behind My Swearing

In my defense, it hadn't been a good afternoon.

My 6-year-old had a friend over, so I was watching five kids instead of the usual four. My 4-year-old was crying because the game he wanted to play on the computer wasn't working, my 3-month-old was crying because she wanted to nurse, and I was crying because it was Friday, my husband was late from work, and I had mastitis and a fever of 102.

Then my 2-year-old got his arm stuck in my husband's didgeridoo. The better part of an hour later, his arm was still stuck and the proverbial end of my rope was fraying fast. I was carrying him around with his arm wedged into a four-foot-long wooden cylinder, trying to reassure him that Mommy was going to find a way get him unstuck. Instead, Mommy came unstuck.

The word I yelled in the direction of the didgeridoo is one I won't bother to repeat. Suffice it to say that it did not pass the Philippians 4:8 test. As soon as the word passed my lips, I looked at my wide-eyed 2-year-old and knew I was going to hear that word again.

Eventually my daughter's friend went home, my son decided to play a different game, the baby got to nurse, and the didgeridoo parted ways from my toddler. But I couldn't take back what I said (although I did pray, really hard, that my son would just forget it). A few days later when we were back-to-school shopping, I was navigating my laden cart and four children to the checkout line when I heard my 2-year-old stop singing Vacation Bible School songs and suddenly yell, in full toddler glory, “%#*& didgeridoo!”

Boy, did that stop the back-to-school traffic.

I thought of my son, my slip, and my resulting embarrassment when I came across an outtake of Semi-Homemade's Sandra Lee swearing. After uttering another non-CT-appropriate word and grabbing her breasts, Sandra said, “All these outtakes, I want them. Here's her real personality, just splice together all the curse words!”

Thanks to the Internet, Sandra got her wish. The clip went viral, the Huffington Post called her a potty mouth, and Google now suggests “swearing” as the next word when you type in “Sandra Lee.” Because what could be more fun than watching someone who presents such a nauseatingly perfect image turn out to be a real person, swears and all? “This actually made Sandra Lee seem human for the first time ever,” a reader commented on Food Network Humor. “If that’s the 'real' Sandra, she should show a little more of that on her shows instead of the fake plastic [bleep] she dishes out every day.”

The Back to Church video currently making its rounds on the Internet emphasizes that the church — and, to a larger extent, the body of Christ — is a place where “imperfect people [are] welcome,” and you can “come as you are.” “Please come to my church,” the video concludes, “where nobody's perfect . . . and where it's okay to not be okay. Really.”

I wonder what would happen if I suddenly yelled “%#*& didgeridoo” while escorting my offspring to Sunday school. I'm not so curious that I'm going to try it, although at some point I will likely find out what happens when my 2-year-old says it. I'm dreading the day. It seems to be taken for granted that people (perhaps especially women, and perhaps especially Christian women) are concerned with what others think about them, but I wonder why that concern persists so strongly. Would it be the end of the world if my church family knew I lost it and swore in front of my children? Obviously it wouldn't. But still, I'd prefer them not to know.

Nobody is suffering under the delusion that I'm perfect. I know that. Yet after my slip of the tongue, my first thought was that someone was going to hear my son repeat what I'd said. I wasn't upset that I had sinned by letting unwholesome talk come out of my mouth, I was upset that somebody, someday, would find out about it. Clearly, another sin was in progress. I think it goes by the name of pride.

Is there a middle ground between fake-perfect and cussing out the didgeridoo? How can we be “real” and "authentic" while still striving for godliness? I don't have a cure-all answer, but I trust and pray that there is grace in searching for that place.

Are Evangelical Women Primarily Interested in Parenthood?

Rachel Held Evans is soon to complete her “year of Biblical womanhood,” which has included stunts like sleeping outside in a tent during her period and following her “Biblical Woman’s Ten Commandments,” which include “thou shalt submit to thy husband’s will in all things,” and “thou shalt not cut thy hair.” As part of the project, Evans has also interviewed women who incorporate literal practices from Scripture into their daily lives: conservative Mennonites, a Quiverfull mom, and an orthodox Jewish woman. Evans, who has no children and has even confessed to being afraid of motherhood, noted that while she would not have a child as a part of the experiment, she would be looking for creative ways to mother--which included a weekend spent with “Chip”--a RealCare Baby “infant simulator.”

Evans, who has, in recent months, taken on Mark Driscoll and Donald Miller, is embarking on the project for “egalitarian reasons,” says a recent Slate article by Ruth Graham. Evans herself says that the project is aimed at exploring “biblical womanhood” because “while many hail [it] as the ideal, few seem to agree on exactly what it means, so women like me receive mixed messages about how to honor God with our decisions.” As one believing the Bible to be “inspired by God,” her project aims not to belittle the Bible or poke fun at earnest believers, but, in her words, to “creatively investigate our application of [the Bible].” Overall, it looks to be an amusing and interesting project with an important point: no one really applies ALL of the Bible literally.

Graham’s profile, however, seems to frame Evans as particularly daring within “the insular world of conservative Christianity”: she’s an egalitarian, Graham writes, “within a world where there’s an ongoing debate over whether husbands are the masters of their wives” (really?); she’s one of the “rare prominent evangelical women who isn't primarily interested in parenthood” but who instead “tackles thorny theological questions, gender issues, and the future of the church.” Graham, who in a Twitter exchange noted that she went to Wheaton, reads this blog regularly, and goes to church, seems to paint Evans as a renegade in an “insular world” of evangelical moms.

It’s a generalization, Graham admits, but she suggests that it’s a “fair generalization.” Here at Her.meneutics, we don’t feel this is so. It didn’t take us long to think of numerous prominent  evangelical women--living and dead--who’ve wielded (and continue to wield) influence far beyond the walls of their homes and quite apart from the role of “mother”: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henrietta Mears, Joni Eareckson Tada, Joyce Meyers, and Beth Moore, to name just a few. (We had a much harder time coming up with prominent evangelical women who were primarily concerned with parenthood.) One of my own heroines, Dr. Catherine Hamlin, helped develop the surgery to repair obstetric fistula and has been honored with some of the world's most important humanitarian awards.  (In her memoir, The Hospital By The River, she tells some hilariously self-deprecating stories about her feeble housekeeping skills.)

As one of my fellow contributors noted, a generalization of this magnitude about say, Jews or New Yorkers (I happen to be both by birth) appearing in Slate would never fly. Graham needn’t have looked far beyond these pages for confirmation that plenty of evangelical women are concerned with many, many things beyond domestic life. Our most read posts have little or nothing to do with parenting. (Much, much more to do with sex and orgasms. Figure that out!) One of our contributors has even written an entire book about about how evangelical mothers need identity and purpose beyond the role of mother (Mama's Got a Fake ID.) Another, Karen Swallow Prior, has a full career as a university professor but has never had children. Still others (like me) are married with children; others are married without children, others are single. We are as different as can be, representing numerous denominations, political convictions, interests, and dispositions.

I, for one, grew up the homeschooled daughter of a conservative Baptist minister, and I am now an evangelical Christian homeschooling stay at home mom who sews quilts, bakes bread, knits sweaters, and cooks from scratch pretty much every night.

(I wonder if you’re picturing me in a floor-length denim dress, no makeup, and a bun? Try nerd-girl glasses, a pierced nose, ripped denim capris and a Dorothy Day t-shirt.)

I'm also, as I said, a Jewish New Yorker with a master's degree from a Jesuit university who has the chutzpah to say "vagina" from the pulpit of my conservative, small town Baptist church. (It was in the context of talking about obstetric fistula and the aforementioned Catherine Hamlin, if you're wondering. And, if you're wondering, yes, it did raise eyebrows.)

And you know what else? I dare to believe that equality for women means that if I choose to write about parenting--as I and my colleagues here do from time to time--this is a choice that I’m free to make. In fact, a movement for “radical homemaking” in recent years has seen many women—and men!—make the choice to stay at home and make their own yogurt or whatever. It’s a movement that embraces the creative (and not merely consumptive) potential in people that I believe God intends. It’s not that I believe God only wants this from me (or from anyone) but I believe that’s a choice we’re free to embrace without being classified as people who care only about the domestic.

There’s always a grain of truth to stereotypes; if there weren’t, they’d never gain traction. The danger, though, is always this: that they will teach us to regard people as a member of a group they’ve never joined.  But if we look beyond stereotypes, we may just find we have more in common than the stereotype would have us believe.

MIA: Men Who Don't Use Pornography

I don’t remember much about sex education in 10th grade, other than anxiety about what topics I might have to discuss with peers. But I do remember a woman who came to our private, secular school to talk about “chastity.” She kept me enthralled as she explained we had been deceived by adults to believe that sex was an inevitable part of adolescence. She said, “You have power over your own desires. You are not a victim of your own urges but can make responsible choices.” Her message was old-fashioned even 20 years ago, and the sex-ed teachers didn’t approve. But as a girl trying to make sense of both the desire for sexual intimacy and the desire to wait for sex until marriage, her message of self-control was liberating.

I thought of her words upon reading a recent study about men who purchase sex. In the study, clinical psychologist Melissa Farley and a team of researchers interviewed 201 men in the Boston area about their sex-buying habits and their attitudes toward women. One hundred of the men were “non-sex buyers,” and 101 were “sex-buyers.” Farley’s study is unusual because it deals exclusively with men’s attitudes about buying sex, whereas most research within the field has focused on selling sex (i.e., prostitutes). And, while most studies of “johns” only identify behaviors among men who buy sex, this study involves a control group of “non-sex buyers” who correlate to the sex buyers in age, education, and income level. This study (overview here) distinguishes between men who buy sex and those who do not. Yet it also underscores the prevalence of men seeking sexual stimulation outside of intercourse with a willing partner.

The report concludes that men who buy sex are different from those who do not: “The common myth that any man might buy sex (i.e., that a sex buyer is a random everyman, an anonymous male who deserves the common name, john) was not supported. Sex buyers shared certain attitudes, life experiences, and behavioral tendencies that distinguish them from their non-buying peers in socially and statistically significant ways.”

Farley wants to abolish the sex trade, and her findings support the conclusions that buying sex is linked to criminal behavior, violence against women, and objectification of women. Furthermore, her study shows that buying sex is harmful to the men themselves, who self-report “ambivalence, guilt and negative thinking about buying sex. They felt just as many negative feelings after buying sex as they did before.” The men who bought sex reported difficulty achieving intimacy with women in other relationships (61% of the men who bought sex had a wife or girlfriend).

The study demonstrates a qualitative difference between the two groups of men. But an article about this study in Newsweek complicates the picture. Newsweek reported that “buying sex is so pervasive that Farley’s team had a shockingly difficult time locating men who really don’t do it.” In Farley’s words, “We had big, big trouble finding nonusers.” Eventually, Farley and her team loosened their definition of “sex buyers.” In the study, she writes, “We defined non-sex buyers as men who have not purchased phone sex or the services of a sex worker, escort, massage sex worker, or prostitute, have not been to a strip club more than one time in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, and have not used pornography more than one time in the past week.” Virtually all men use porn, in other words, on a regular basis. Seventy percent of the “non-usuers” were married or had a girlfriend.

Farley advocates graver criminal and monetary punishment for men who purchase sex, and her recommendations may well draw positive attention to the problem of sex trafficking and the possibilities for changing the acceptability of prostitution, an industry that has been tolerated in the past despite being illegal.

The men in this study who bought sex felt shame, guilt, and loneliness. Their emotions reflect the reality that sex is intended for intimacy between two mutually consenting and self-giving partners. The Christian message of lifelong, monogamous marriage as God’s design for sexual intimacy may come across as quaint and outdated, or as hopelessly naïve, in the face of Internet porn, the sexual revolution, and a hyper-sexualized culture. Yet the message I heard nearly two decades ago about chastity still offers liberation from the bondage of insatiable desire. In fact, this countercultural message is more important than ever.

When it comes to sex, the gospel offers a twofold hope. First, it offers forgiveness from sexual sin and freedom from guilt and shame. Second, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it offers healing so that men and women can give to and receive from one another as those created in God’s image. Christians support Farley’s desire to abolish the sex industry. We can and should speak out against the buying of sex in general — in the form of pornography, prostitution, and everything in between. Like Farley, we oppose turning women’s and men’s bodies into commodities, and the ensuing dehumanization that happens to both men and women alike in the sex industry.

For pragmatic purposes, both legal and programmatic, it is helpful to delineate between men who buy sex and those who do not. For Christian purposes, however, this study reinforces what we already knew: We are all the same — sinners in need of redemption, glorious beings with the desire for intimacy and the propensity to shortcut intimacy for instant gratification. Farley’s study is bad news in that it identifies how prevalent it is for men to buy sex. But the Christian message is good news because we not only articulate the problems that happen when sex is bought and sold but also the beauty that exists when, in the context of a lifelong covenant, it is given and received.

Inside the Heart of an Animal Hoarder

Cruelty, like love, takes many forms.

Perhaps the most sinister form of cruelty comes in the guise of love. One need not look far within the human family to find this kind of brokenness. But such brokenness extends to the animal kingdom, too.

Consider the animal hoarders.

According to experts, animal hoarders:

·         keep more animals than they have ability or resources with which to provide proper care and attention

·         deny this inability as well as the severity of the situation

·          obsessively maintain or increase the number of animals despite deteriorating conditions that range from cramped and unsanitary living spaces to neglect, starvation, and even death.

Seemingly inexplicably, animal hoarders usually express love for their animals and exhibit severe anxiety at the prospect of the animals being removed.

But this confuses love and attachment. Even highly emotional attachment is not the same as love, as any abused child or spouse might tell us, and as hoarded animals show us, even without the ability to speak.

A recent case is an extreme, yet somewhat typical, example.  In June, the Humane Society of the United States seized 700 cats from a purported feline “sanctuary” in Florida, run by a husband and wife who, some believe, started out with good intentions that went horribly awry.

Ashley Mauceri, deputy manager of Animal Cruelty Investigations for the HSUS, told me in a phone interview that the vilest aspect of this case was a room in the couple’s home that the couple called the “infirmary.” It contained one of the most troubling scenes of animal neglect Mauceri has seen in countless investigations across the nation. Back on the site last weekend to help facilitate 258 adoptions of the 550 cats that were rescued from the site, Mauceri referred to it as the “room of death.”

Animal hoarding is a significant problem in terms of sheer numbers: approximately 250,000 animals are reported hoarded each year. Mauceri says television shows on the topic, like those on Animal Planet, are raising awareness and thus helping animals, particularly since hoarders aren’t always easily identifiable to outsiders. They seem not to be linked to any particular demographic, are just as likely to be male as female, rich as poor, young as old. The behavior is clearly a manifestation of underlying problems, and it is not within the scope of my expertise or intent to delve deeply into the various, serious psychological issues that are likely the root of many of these cases. (According to this report, the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, the Bible of modern psychiatrists, will be the first to include hoarding as a disorder.)

Nevertheless, it’s fair to observe that the line between health and sickness can be mighty fine. So, too, other lines, like those that divide an “infirmary” from a “room of death,” storing from hoarding, dominion from domination, and stewardship from control.

It is perhaps in the precision of definitions where we can start to discern where good crosses over into evil.

The word hoard comes from the Old English term which means "treasure, valuable stock or store." In current use, hoard is defined as “a hidden fund or supply stored for future use.” Both of these definitions reveal something helpful in trying to understand where the line from good crosses to ill. Hidden (as opposed to private) stores of things suggest an element of shame or illicitness; not surprisingly, one trait nearly all animal hoarders share, according to Mauceri, is the denial of access by other people into their homes and lives.  Shutting out people, in turn, creates in the hoarder a greater dependency on animals for companionship and validation.

Because most animal hoarders claim to love their animals, properly defining love is helpful, too. Love should not be mistaken for attachment. We all have attachments apart from love, and one Christian counselor says the first step to understanding and helping the hoarder is to recognize it in ourselves.  At the root of hoarding might be fear, greed, covetousness, or pride—or a combination of these. These sins are not unique to the hoarder but have merely grown to unmanageable magnitude. And as the Bible states, where our treasure is, there our hearts will be, too. To place one’s heart in the hidden treasures of material goods, illicit relationships, or animal companionship is to disorder our affections and, as a result, our lives.

In On Christian Doctrine, St. Augustine defines justice as loving things in proper measure. In Book One of that work, Augustine writes,

Now he is a man of just and holy life who forms an unprejudiced estimate of things, and keeps his affections also under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not to love, nor fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less, nor loves that equally which ought to be loved either less or more, nor loves that less or more which ought to be loved equally.

The disordered life that arises from hoarding of any kind, beyond whatever psychological or spiritual issues might be factors, arises from the kind of disordered loves that Augustine describes.

Surely, we should not love animals more than people. But nor should we love animals less than we allow fear, greed, covetousness, or pride to rule our lives. The challenge to love all things as much as they ought to be loved is a challenge for all of us, not just the animal hoarders. We ought to love in proper measure the animals God has placed under our care, and we ought to love our neighbors by helping them to do the same.

My Husband's Affair - with the Church

We wait for grief to loosen its stranglehold on our hearts. We wait for signs of hope in the Horn of Africa. News that the economy is recovering. The kids to go back to school. The workday to come to a close. To get to the front of the line at the grocery store.

In Oh the Places You'll Go!, Dr. Seuss called life’s waiting places “most useless.” Eileen Button, author most recently of The Waiting Place, says it's in the "wobbly," in-between times where she finds the love of God. She issues a vital reminder to those who wait that “now – even the most difficult now – isn’t forever.” And, as a woman whose husband is the senior pastor of a growing congregation, many of Button's “difficult nows” are related to the church.

Button, a newspaper columnist, college professor, and mother of three, is the kind of writer who conspiratorially grabs readers by the arm and leads them into the realities of life behind closed doors and polite smiles. In this book, we stumble into the house with her family after a burglary. Later she paints a vivid picture of both women as she measures the awkward space that exists between her mother and herself. Her “pastor’s wife” confessions are most striking as they reveal the challenges of fulfilling that role.

“She is loving and life changing; she is malicious and overbearing. She is beautiful; she is ugly. She is as light as day, capable of astonishing kindness and generosity; she is as dark as night, capable of unspeakable evil. I love her; I hate her. She is the Church," Button writes.

As must be true for many women who find themselves answerable to “the pastor’s wife,” Button never expected to be one. When she married him, Brad Button was a banker with no plans to enter ministry. For the past 17 years, however, he’s served as a pastor in the Methodist Free Church. Like many in her cohort, Button has found that being married to a minister takes a significant toll on their family life. Perhaps those sacrifices make it all the more difficult for Button to accept being referred to as, simply, “my pastor’s wife.”

“After all, no one introduces a new friend with the words ‘This is my gynecologist’s husband.’ It’s hard to believe that both the pastor’s wife title and the corresponding expectations remain. I don’t sing, and no one wants to hear me play my clarinet,” Button said. “I’m a little terrified of youth groups, and when I volunteer in the nursery, parishioners giggle or poke their heads through the doorway to make sure the kids are still alive. You might say I have a bit of a reputation.”

Throughout The Waiting Place, Button refers to the church as “the other woman.” She says her husband “gets it” when she does so. “Brad is the most remarkable man. A man of integrity,” she said. “Calling the church ‘the other woman’ was a splash of cold water on his tired face, creating a word picture that he fully grasped. It may be a tough way to view the Church, but personifying her like that helps us keep ministry in perspective."

Her husband hasn’t always been able to do so. In one chapter titled “Stepping into Darkness,” Button describes a time in their lives when her husband battled depression. “Ministry,” she says, “had gotten the best of him.”

“His mistress’s voice was no longer a daytime whisper, but a 24/7 cry; he no longer knew how to escape her, and I no longer knew how to help. It felt like a dangerous time since there were many days when Brad not only wanted out of ministry, he wanted out of life,” Button said.

Brad then spent three weeks at a retreat center where he found “sleep and a dose of peace again.” In his book The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson writes that using the term “busy” to describe a pastor should not be considered a compliment, but is akin to using the word “adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront,” Peterson writes.

Peterson confesses that “busy-ness” is an occupational hazard for a pastor – one with which every minister he knows wrangles. He attempts, instead, to be “drenched” in Scripture, to spend time in solitude, and to be a listener whose frame of mind is that of “unhurried leisure.” And he knows these things are much more easily written about than practiced.

During Pastor Button’s stay at the retreat center, his wife says she had to “tread water.” When people asked how she was faring, she says she “basically answered them with, ‘Listen, I can’t really talk about this right now.’ No one who’s treading water wants to be hugged.”

Perhaps readers will view “pastors’ wives” through new lenses after reading Button’s book. Instead of barricading them behind stereotypes, maybe we’ll be able to see the wives of our clergy as the fallible, wonderfully imperfect, and unique people they are and will be more compassionate about the particular strain they are under.

“My identity is found in Christ,” Button said. “Not in my husband’s occupation. God has graciously gifted us both, and we both want to use those gifts in unique, creative ways.”

Maggie Goes on a Diet: A Story for Children?

With a title like Maggie Goes on a Diet, it’s hard to believe author and publisher Paul Kramer did not anticipate the criticism he and his publishing house would receive when the book recently appeared on Amazon for pre-order. Not even in print yet, this book has been hurtled into the middle of the ongoing debate regarding childhood obesity, eating disorders, and how exactly to teach young children about healthy eating habits.

If the title doesn’t make you cringe, maybe the product description will: “This book is about a 14-year-old girl who goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image.” Add to that the book’s reading level — ages 4 to 8 — and the cover image of an overweight girl imagining a thinner self in the mirror, and the result seems more likely to cause psychological damage than a desire to eat better and exercise.

The public’s reaction is split. Some believe the book at least provides a healthy alternative to poor eating and no exercise; others say it could spark eating disorders. Time quotes psychologist Carolyn Becker, who sides against the title: “They are trying to promote healthier behavior, but at the same time they're likely promoting weight stigma. . . . For some people, getting healthier may or may not lead to significant weight loss. It's also quite possible to lose weight on an unhealthy diet.” Yet many believe Maggie’s approach to weight loss is healthy and applaud her efforts. As the Los Angeles Times wrote, “The key — as Maggie discovered — is not only to eat healthier foods but to exercise.”

As reasonable as the Times sounds, something that stems from years of images of perfect bodies thrust in our faces has many women in an uproar about Maggie’s experience.

Despite my strong feelings, I do not believe Kramer has malicious intent. I believe what he told Good Morning America: “My intentions were just to write a story to entice and to have children feel better about themselves, discover a new way of eating, learn to do exercise, try to emulate Maggie and learn from Maggie's experience." I believe that was your intent, Kramer. I also believe you don’t have a clue. Not a clue what it feels like to be an overweight 14-year-old girl, not a clue why girls turn to food, or refuse food, in order to cope with their crumbling surroundings, and especially not a clue how to teach children where true happiness lies.

The moral of his story is that people will stop making fun of you when you finally conform to their expectations, and when people stop making fun of you, you can feel good about yourself. A moral that blatantly grates against the Christian values of God judging our hearts, of being not of this world, and of finding confidence and identity in Christ and only Christ. But this discrepancy is obvious to the evangelical, and a message not unique to Maggie Goes on a Diet.

The root of my frustration with this book runs deeper, into the way it simplifies the female relationship with food, reducing deep issues with it to nothing more than a series of unhealthy choices easily rectified with healthy ones. Unbeknownst to Kramer, he has made a serious situation petty. In a way, though, so has the church.

When discussing dieting and health foods, how often does biblical counsel come up? The Bible says a lot about food and exercise (Prov. 23:20, Phil. 4:5, and 1 Tim. 4:8, to name a few), but that’s easy to forget. And in that forgetfulness, the relationship gets complicated, dependencies form, and food becomes an enemy or your best friend—neither of which are roles nonliving objects should play.

G. K. Chesterton understood this complexity, noting, “The trouble about always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind. Health is the most unhealthy of topics.” Will something always have to give?

The truth is, I wish life were as simple as Maggie Goes on a Diet, that when a teenage girl over or under eats, there is no history of trauma or abuse causing her to do so; she just is, and therefore, changing her habits is as simple as changing her mind. I wish we as women would not complicate food into something God never made it to be: a source of guilt, comfort, good or bad, right or wrong. But many of us have and now must reverse years of skewed thoughts on what healthy means.

In attempt to prevent this skewed thinking in future generations, I’m currently working on Maggie Goes to College: The Sequel to Maggie Goes on a Diet. The Amazon product description will go something like this: “Maggie went to college, and there she met girls that were prettier, skinnier, and better soccer players than she was. She began to lose her confidence and grew anxious. She had already lost weight and become popular. Now did she have to lose more weight and somehow become more popular? That seemed so impossible and very exhausting. She began to wonder if she was looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. Could it be that God intended more for her life? She began to think so.”